HOUSING RESILIENCE

CHALLENGES AND BEST PRACTICES

Florida’s Gulf Coast has been battered by multiple hurricanes. Babcock Ranch, in Charlotte and Lee Counties near Fort Myers, was designed to be a sustainable, environmentally friendly planned community hardened against crushing windstorms and floods.

Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm with wind gusts up to 150 mph, made a direct hit on Babcock’s 5,000 residents in September 2022.

It was the supreme test of a 27-square-mile community with a huge nature preserve, nature-based stormwater controls, buried electrical lines and solar electricity.

By the time Ian left Southwest Florida, 149 lives were lost and $112 billion in property damage was done.

Babcock Ranch, surrounded by disaster, was virtually unscathed.