{"id":85629,"date":"2025-12-16T19:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T19:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/85629\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T19:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T19:08:07","slug":"what-hurricane-ian-taught-us-about-the-realities-of-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/85629\/","title":{"rendered":"What Hurricane Ian taught us about the realities of resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Hurricane Ian<\/a> swept across Southwest Florida on Sept. 28, 2022 it brought with it devastation this region hadn\u2019t seen for a very long time. Hurricane Irma<\/a> in 2017 was severe, and in 2004 and 2005 we experienced a string of storms: Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, and Wilma \u2014 Hurricane Charley<\/a> being by far the most damaging.<\/p>\n

But even Charley didn\u2019t compare to what Hurricane Ian left in its wake. It was a devastating Category 4 storm and Southwest Florida took a direct hit, with record storm surges up to 18 ft, catastrophic flooding, and immense damage exceeding $100 billion dollars.<\/p>\n

WGCU\u2019s Documentary unit produced a film earlier this year called Rising: Surviving the Surge<\/a>. It\u2019s a gripping exploration of Hurricane Ian\u2019s impact and what followed as survivors worked to rise from the wreckage. It includes dramatic storm footage, powerful stories of resilience, and insights from scientists, first responders, and community leaders. “Rising” is meant to be a wake-up call to the new reality of storm surge.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 13 we screened the film at Florida Gulf Coast University\u2019s Water School<\/a> and brought together a panel of experts from the university who had different areas of expertise to get their take on the film and have a conversation about what Ian showed us, and whether we could learn any lessons and even put them into action going forward to make Southwest Florida more resilient in the face of major hurricanes.<\/p>\n

Panelists:
Dr. Jeannine Richards<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Ecology & Environmental Studies at FGCU
Dr. Johane Dikgang<\/a>, Associate Professor of Environmental Economics at FGCU
Dr. Shelton Weeks<\/a>, Lucas Professor of Real Estate and Economics & Finance at FGCU
Dr. Tom Felke<\/a>, Professor of Social Works and Executive Director of the Shady Rest Institute on Positive Aging at FGCU<\/p>\n

WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and\u00a0donate now<\/a>. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Hurricane Ian swept across Southwest Florida on Sept. 28, 2022 it brought with it devastation this region…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":{"0":"post-85629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}