This picture is on the New York Times e-page of this article. This is NOT the Florida Keys. Vilano Beach is just south of Jacksonville. It was within the northeast quadrant of Irma. The estimates of the damage of Irma will be a nightmare scenario.
It is long overdue for Americans to address the climate crisis. These are the lives of fellow Americans. Whether the country wants their lives returned fully or not, it will never be the same. It isn't possible to return Florida to past integrity. It just isn't. Flooding has to be taken seriously when it costs lives. Continuing in the same way as the past is pure foolishness.
The skyscrapers have to be assessed for structural integrity. They received forces of wind AND water that pushed them around and attempted to twist their integrity.
Wind is a singular force that carries brevity in insulting structural integrity. Add to that force the WEIGHT of water and wind turns into a far worse destructive force. The weight of water per square inch/mm^2 of Irma's wind was structurally higher than hurricanes of the past. When people use the words "pummeling winds" it is because it feels like rocks pelting them. The rocks Irma threw at structures were more numerous than hurricanes of the past.
September 12, 20170813
(Live Updates)
A home destroyed by Hurricane Irma on Vilano Beach, Fla.
...In the Florida Keys, (click here) an estimated 25 percent of homes were destroyed when Irma hit there as a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday, while another 65 percent suffered “major damage,” the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brock Long, said at a news conference on Tuesday morning.
“Basically every house in the Keys was impacted in some way or another,” he said.
An aircraft carrier and other Navy ships were headed to the Keys, and parts of the chain were being reopened to residents from 7 a.m....
