Following Hurricane Ian, Florida must remodel the way we rebuild, says former emergency-management chief | Florida News | Tampa

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As Florida seems to rebuild alongside the coast and in different areas hit by Hurricane Ian, a former state and nationwide emergency-management chief stated it wants a extra superior mindset.

“The thing I know is building it back the way that it was will just result in the next disaster,” Craig Fugate, now chief resilience officer for One Concern, a California-based resilience firm, stated Monday on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal.”

Fugate was director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management underneath former Gov. Jeb Bush and administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency underneath former President Barack Obama.

After Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast U.S. in 2012, Fugate stated some communities determined to purchase out properties that have been alongside the waterfront, creating buffers that have been elevated and used as parks, whereas additionally growing constructing codes for development behind the buffers.

“It means looking at how you take advantage of both natural, defensive types of spaces, and then the construction that allows the storms to come in and come out,” Fugate stated. “It will cause damages but not as catastrophic as we’re seeing from these images (of Ian).”

During an look Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., stated “these places are places where people want to live” and careworn the want to enhance constructing codes.

“After (Hurricane) Andrew in 1992, the state completely changed its building codes, which dramatically reduced the risk of damage,” stated Scott, who was elected to the Senate in 2018 after two phrases as governor. “While I was governor, we improved our building codes. And I think after this, we’re going to learn that we’re going to, you know, have to continue to improve our building codes.”

Also on “Face the Nation,” present Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell stated individuals want to know the dangers as they begin to take into account subsequent steps.

“Florida has done an amazing job of putting in place stricter and stronger building codes to make sure that as we rebuild, we rebuild more resilient,” Criswell stated. “That’s the key. We need to make sure that we have strong building codes because we have risks all over. We’ve seen damage inland in the state, and we need to have building codes that can make sure that our properties can withstand the impacts that we’re seeing from these severe weather events.”

President Joe Biden took an aerial tour Wednesday to see the injury from Ian. After the tour, he stated that with the energy of Ian, together with fires and droughts in the western U.S., “one thing this has finally ended is a discussion about whether or not there’s climate change. We should do something about it.”