Hurricane Milton AFTERMATH (Sarasota): Will People Leave Florida Now?

It's the second major storm to hit Florida in less than two weeks. Lately Florida has been hit with so many different hurricanes and tropical storms. This year has been very active in Florida. We've been hit with two hurricanes and one tropical storm. What I'm going to do in this video as somebody that actually lives in Florida and Sarasota is to recap especially what happened during Hurricane Milton, kind of the aftermath, and really give you a boots on the ground type of perspective because there are so many different videos that are around there and I wanted to make sure that you also got to hear my own perspective especially as somebody who's gone through all these major storms in 2024. Let's go back to beginning of the year and scientists have really been able to do a very good job at predicting not just the path of a hurricane but how active a hurricane season is going to be. In terms of the 2024 hurricane season, I'm sure since you're here that you've heard of course of the forecasts moving forward and yeah this is forecast to be a very very active season. In this season we had Tropical Storm Debbie, we had Hurricane Helene and then Milton which just came in. It's now been almost a week. Let's go back to Tropical Storm Debbie which hit in August and it brought a lot a lot of rainwater. When it comes to the intensity of the storm I would say that most of us here weren't too worried but we had no idea how much water would actually dump on our region and so certain areas actually flooded that were not really supposed to flood when it comes to the chances of flooding in that area. They were in what we consider a preferred flood zone, flood zone A. As the fresh water starts to accumulate from the rainfall that will increase the opportunity for flooding as a result of poor drainage areas and some of our rivers as well. But those areas flooded and unfortunately a lot of those people who now had a flooded home didn't have flood insurance and so the very first learning experience here is for all of you can flood anywhere in Florida. Even in an X zone, can flood in Ocala, in Orlando, further away from the coast, closer to the coast. So if you're somebody that lives here and you don't have flood insurance yet or if you're looking to move here you don't want to just think about getting homeowner's insurance when it comes to figuring out your budget but you're also going to want to add in flood insurance at the very least if it's just for peace of mind. Just no directionally speaking unless the home is right on the coast in a flood zone area typically the flood insurance is going to be far lower than the homeowner's insurance. So after Tropical Storm Debbie and all the rain left behind we're now getting hit with Hurricane Helene. Helene came approximately two weeks prior to Hurricane Milton and what's really interesting about Helene when it comes to the damage that it's done on Sarasota and we have to yet quantify this in dollars if that's even possible but if you ask people that live in Sarasota is that they will say that Helene was more damaging than Hurricane Milton and I'm going to explain why that is. So Hurricane Helene actually went up into the panhandle so it didn't hit Sarasota. It had an impact throughout many different states Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and at this point we know how damaging especially it was in North Carolina because it essentially wiped out an entire entire city Asheville because of the amount of rain it brought. This is an unprecedented storm and it's causing us to have an unprecedented response. This is the city of Asheville in the western mountains of North Carolina two thousand feet above sea level and hundreds of miles away from the nearest coastline. Here in Sarasota what was destructive for us was the surge water which was anywhere from four to six feet. I would say 50% of the keys especially Siesta key and St. Amand Circulator key got flooded. Single family homes probably 50% if not more got flooded. Condos first floors got flooded and once you have flood water in your home you gotta take everything out that it essentially touched. Debris outside of people's houses. Then come Hurricane Milton so just two weeks afterwards major hurricane that is coming our way and according to a lot of newscasters weather people they're calling this a one in a 100 year type of hurricane. Milton a catastrophic category three hurricane has just made landfall near Siesta Key Florida. And then in Sarasota County we've actually done a really good job sending out evacuation notices keeping us informed. You got to remember we didn't really know exactly where the hurricane was going to hit and my opinion is better to over prepare and then be happy later that it didn't turn out so bad. The prediction models most of them going back in time now they were actually focused on Sarasota. Some of them hinted on Tampa others further south and at one point it shifted a little bit from Sarasota to Tampa and then back to Sarasota. If it had hit in Tampa just based on how a hurricane rotates counterclockwise so the winds on the southern side are going to be pushing surge water onto the coast. So in other words if the hurricane had hit Tampa then surge waters would have been really high towards the southern side so those cities towards the southern side would have gotten a lot of surge water. If it's to the north then actually the reverse happens which is where water gets pulled out of the bay and then eventually it comes back in and that's actually what happened during Hurricane Milton in Tampa and also back during Hurricane Ian where you could literally see people walking onto the bay in Tampa because there was no water. The opposite of storm surge is what we're seeing now in our area here where the water is being pulled out. It's I mean notably here along Bay Shore which is where yeah Tentiphase Malik Rankin is right now. Malik unreal to see that. Yeah conditions here have changed in this area. We were out here on Bay Shore Boulevard just a few hours ago and you can take a look and see just how much the waters have receded. But it hit Siesta Key so for the very first time since they've kept the records for the weather a hurricane hit Sarasota. So we were in the eye of a hurricane. How wide the eye was I don't know. They say approximately it typically is 20 to 40 miles so let's go with 30 miles and it's fair enough to say that the majority of Sarasota was in the eye of a hurricane and that's usually where you don't want to be because that's from a wind level the most destructive. So I evacuated from a level B to a D home and we knew we were in the eye because everything quiets down for about an hour. There was almost no wind maybe 50 miles per hour winds but imagine going from over 100 miles to now all of a sudden the leaves are barely moving. There's no wind right now. It's really calm. We stepped outside to walk the dogs and neighbors are outside as well just taking in the moment. Down there down the street people were out as well. We're heading back inside. It is very surreal. You can see how still the palm trees are. Hardly any any wind. It feels very peaceful to be honest but we know that we're going to get the back wind any moment. The house I was staying at didn't have any damage. If anything just debris on the ground that needed to be picked up the next day. Now if you've evacuated you're going to have to go home and now check on your house and you just don't know what that home is going to look like so there's a certain aspect of fear here not knowing what you're going to see and I'm happy to report and I feel very lucky and grateful that my house is completely fine. There was just one broken tile on the roof and a whole bunch of branches that fell off trees especially oak trees. Those don't seem to do very well with a lot of wind. That type of luck the Keys didn't have. So anybody on Siesta Key, Lido Key, Longboat Key, Anna Maria Island they didn't have this luck because now they were dealing with another surge. Granted apparently this surge wasn't as high as with Hurricane Helene but yet again the Keys got hit twice and all the debris that was on the roads because of the cleanup that was happening after Hurricane Helene was still there in most cases during Hurricane Milton. And what's really unfortunate about all of this is that a lot of the homes that are older that probably didn't have insurance those are the ones that did not do very well during the wind damage and during the flooding. It's the newer ones that have been built to code that have a solid construction maybe made out of block those have done really well. And this was especially apparent on Anna Maria Island where you do find a lot of older homes a lot of older types of stores from a construction perspective maybe even made out of wood and those just didn't hold up very well and I'd be surprised if they can be rescued. I think those are probably going to get demolished. Then you have to rebuild to the Florida building codes to withstand hurricane winds to withstand flooding the severe weather that you typically get right on the coast. There's the FEMA 50% rule that basically says that if you're fixing a home that was flooded okay and you have to add in more than 50% of the fair value of the house before the got flooded before the hurricane damage then it has to be brought up to code and that means it's going to cost so much money that a lot of people won't be able to afford and their insurance isn't going to cover especially given the fact that it's very likely that labor costs are going to go through the roof because construction workers they were already in high demand and now with all this damage that the hurricanes have done not just in Florida but other parts of the United States, North Carolina, South Carolina, these construction workers they'll go where the money is so what does that mean if you want repair work to be done you're going to have to pay for it. So I foresee a lot of coastal homeowners probably just selling off land because their home just can't be salvaged anymore. Make sure you're not taken advantage of by investors. Now what's going to happen to the real estate market? There's been other hurricanes in Florida and guess what people are still moving here. I would say that when it comes to the long term even midterm people are going to continue to move here. They're just going to be a lot smarter in terms of where they're going to move to. Maybe they're not going to want to be right by the coast but I do think that those that have the money that can afford purchasing a home that's to the latest standards code wise they're probably still going to want to have their second home on the coast. They're probably still going to want to be in an area that's considered maybe higher risk because they can afford it. Punta Gorda was hit in 2004 and over a few years it started rebuilding according to many people in a much better way. More solid construction and the city downtown really became alive which according to a lot of people who've lived there prior wasn't the case. We've had really bad hurricane years and look it hasn't really done much to people wanting to live here. There's still more people coming in versus leaving. Disasters can happen anywhere in the U.S. Florida's not the only place where natural disasters can happen. North Carolina unfortunately just saw what happened in Asheville, flooding in New Jersey, California wildfire, possible earthquakes, tornadoes throughout the U.S. Now looking at this U.S. news article this is from 2021 so it's of course going to have to get updated. The America's most disaster prone states and Florida is not number one. It's actually Texas, then California, Oklahoma, Washington, Florida is number five, Oregon is six, and then New York. And some of these places are doing pretty well when it comes to demand for real estate and real estate prices. So I believe that natural disasters don't necessarily have as much impact when it comes to overall demand for state and real estate prices. But of course when it comes to Sarasota for example I do believe that prices on the keys are going to go down in the short term because it comes back down to supply and demand. Once these homes get fixed up they'll more likely than not be put on the market. Those that have been able to get fixed up and because they were damaged during the hurricane it's very likely that the fair value of these prices is going to be far lower than what they would have been if the flooding never happened. So prices will come down especially if there is a lot of stock on the market. But I do believe when years go by it's very likely that the real estate market right on the keys here in Sarasota is going to stabilize and then prices are going to start increasing yet again. I've done a few hurricane videos and lately I'm seeing a lot of posts that talk about geoengineering and that must have been the reason why we've had two hurricanes this season. It's being done by the government. This is not a political statement at all but I'm also very data minded and I've worked for scientific companies and so for me unless an opinion has been scientifically proven in this case it's just an opinion it's not a fact. And so I don't believe that right now we have enough evidence that says that these storms are being created via geoengineering techniques such as HARP. I guess that's what you call it right? H-A-R-P. There's more evidence that the waters are warming up in the gulf for example due to global warming. Now you can argue that but I'm saying there's more research done in that direction and then of course there's always the chance that these hurricanes are strictly just due to bad luck and a natural cause of some kind. Now a lot of you think that people can afford a home on the coast on the keys are super wealthy and yes we have a lot of wealthy people on the keys but we also have those people that live in a modest home that maybe they've had for decades perhaps they're retired and they're living on a tight budget. A disaster such as these two hurricanes is really really really hard on them. It's hard on anybody even if you're so wealthy money doesn't matter because of what you've now lost inside of the home. Yeah money can buy new items but they can't buy the memories. The suffering shouldn't be minimized depending on what income level you're in. It really shouldn't matter but who will need the most help are those people who aren't working anymore who have been on a fixed income who were never high earners. That's one reason why I'm doing this video actually is to hopefully get a few of you to donate whether it's a dollar five dollars twenty dollars thirty dollars all of that money is going to go towards one two or three GoFundMe people that I'm going to seek out myself. The more of you donate the better and if you've gotten any values out of any of my videos this one maybe so I would really appreciate your donation. Thank you so much for watching today tuning in. I always appreciate when you guys do. Have a great day and take care.