This very large hurricane has made its way up Florida. It has also hit Antigua, Barbuda, St. Thomas, Anguilla, St. Barthelemy, Turks and Caicos, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and St. Kitts & Nevis.

As Hurricane Irma came closer to Florida, it grew. It became a Category 5 hurricane, but by the time it hit Florida it was a Category 4. When Irma reached Florida, its was bigger than the whole state. Eventually, the whole state of Florida was covered by this storm.

Irma destroyed almost everything in its path. Almost five million people across Florida were left without power, and as the storm got smaller, it left the other places it passed without power and with heavy winds.

Two places in Florida that were heavily impacted with floods, loss of power, and loss of businesses and homes were Naples and Marco Island. Marco Island is right off the coast of Naples; it is as easy as taking a bridge to get there.

Marco Island and Naples are almost at sea level, and people living there were very worried about the storm surge and how it will affect their homes.

“Our immediate worries were the predicted velocity of the winds, the amount of rainfall, and the storm surge. The biggest worry for us, however, was the storm surge because our condo is only about four feet above sea level, and the predicted storm surge was 10 to 15 feet, which would have completely flooded our condo and ruined everything in it. Fortunately, the storm surge did not occur in our area,” said Lesley Loon.

Although Loon got lucky, many people only a few miles away from her experienced much more damage. In Marco Island, there are many small businesses that were not as lucky. Most people living in the places like Marco Island that got badly hit do not know when they can finally go back home.

“What usually happens in this kind of storm is that electricity is out for an undetermined amount of time. This means that people will be unable to return to their homes even if they were not badly damaged. This increases the risks of things like mold which can be expensive to treat,” Loon said.

Hurricanes are not unusual, especially in Florida. The homes in Florida are not able to keep out water. However, many houses there are built to be able to withstand the wind from hurricanes.

“Since Hurricane Andrew in 1992 the state of Florida brought in new codes for construction to make sure that the materials used could withstand hurricane force winds, therefore we were not too worried about the condo withstanding strong winds,” Loon said.