2017 hurricane season devastates Florida, Caribbean islands

Jim Waymer
Florida Today

The brutality of the 2017 hurricane season, which ended Thursday, will long be remembered for its power and sweep. This year's storms drowned Houston, decimated Puerto Rico and uprooted countless trees, waterlines, livelihoods and possibly even the political landscape of Florida.

Tens of thousands of people faced lengthy spells without water, power or hope. The season proved among the most destructive in years, with hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria among the heaviest hitters — three Category 4 hurricanes to make landfall within a month in the United States — a first.

Maria devastated Puerto Rico, sending thousands of displaced families to Florida, introducing potential political shifts in the nation's largest swing state.

Scenes from the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

As waters receded, lights flickered back on and lives were gradually pieced back together. Florida, Texas and the Caribbean are only beginning to grasp the long-term implications of the 2017 hurricane season.

"Every home was totally flooded out," Jerry Pope, said of his subdivision, Ocean Park, just north of Indialantic, where years of encroaching development and poor ditch maintenance came to head during Irma.

On Thursday, Ocean Park residents were among about 30 people gathered in the district office of Brevard County Commissioner Kristine Isnardi in Palm Bay to discuss drainage issues from this year's hurricane season. Some wondered why past government officials failed to fix flooding issues that could have prevented some of the damage from Hurricane Irma and other storms.

More:Hurricane Irma debris still litters some Brevard roadsides

But the hurricane season that forecasters thought would be tempered by an El Niño that never developed blindsided many at all levels of government. 

Throughout Florida, Hurricane Irma revealed long-known vulnerabilities of the water and sewer infrastructures, inflicting billions of dollars in property losses throughout the state.

In Brevard, the storm left about 280,000 people without running water for a few days, then boiling water for several days after that. Tens of millions of gallons of sewage poured into coastal waters statewide, including 20 million gallons of untreated but heavily diluted sewage into the Indian River Lagoon.

More:Hurricane Irma: Brevard racks up $157M worth of structural damage

Irma's rains lifted Lake Okeechobee's water level by three feet, threatening a repeat of last year's toxic algae blooms in the St. Lucie area.

The storm also exposed Florida's lack of preparedness for what can happen as climate change sets a higher stage for storms that ride in on higher seas, and how much more catastrophic that can be to property and public infrastructure. 

Livi Daniels, 3, was doing her part to clean the park.  Kids and adults teamed up to clean up Hurricane Irma branch and leaves debris carpeting the playground area of Taylor Park in Cocoa Village. Cori Daniels of Merritt Island was there with her kids, when they decided to clear some of the play equipment of debris. The next thing they knew, more and more people enjoying  the park began to help out in a spontaneous act of community service.

Seasonal predictions miss the mark

Experts predicted 14 named storms, six of them hurricanes, and two of those Category 3 or higher storms. In the end, the Atlantic basin saw 17 named storms, 10 of them hurricanes, and six of those Category 3 or stronger.

Forecasters say this year's seasonal hurricane predictions failed because the El Niño they thought would form never did. The pattern of warmer water in the Pacific Ocean near the equator tends to create more shearing winds that clip the tops off tropical cyclones before they can strengthen to hurricanes. 

"The El Niño forecast this year was really, really bad, and that led to a bad hurricane season forecast," said Phil Klotzbach, who authors CSU's seasonal hurricane predictions. "I think we need to do some re-looking at what happened to this year's El Niño forecast."

Harvey

Hurricane Harvey, for one, seemed to lose steam over the Yucatán peninsula. But as many hurricanes do, the storm strengthened over the Gulf of Mexico.

Harvey smashed the Corpus Christi region of Texas as a Category 4 storm in late August. The storm then slowed and dropped 60 inches of rain in some spots around Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city. It inflicted almost $200 billion in damages, according to estimates by researchers at Ball State University and the University of Tennessee.

Irma

Within two weeks of Harvey, Irma already was on Florida residents' radar. Forecasters originally thought the storm would make landfall near Miami, then shifted their predictions to the Tampa area. But the storm steered to Marco Island in Collier County, just south of Naples, as a Category 4 hurricane, before moving up the middle of the peninsula. Some damage estimates topped $65 billion.

Irma spawned at least seven tornadoes in Brevard, and dumped about three times as much water on the county than Hurricane Matthew last year. But in Brevard County, sustained winds were mostly below Category 1 strength. Gusts reached 117 mph at Cape Canaveral, and rainfall in Brevard ranged from 10 to 15 inches, in less than 48 hours. Some parts of the county remained under water for a week after Irma passed. Subsequent rain swelled the St. Johns River, threatening homes near the Lake Poinsett area west of Cocoa. 

Beach erosion was less than expected. The potential cost of restoring the Space Coast beaches affected by Irma is $10.8 million to $15.8 million, compared with almost $27 million in Hurricane Matthew last year. 

Drinking water was among the most significant impacts in Brevard. Cocoa — the county's largest water supplier — suffered a record 42 water main breaks. Key among them was the main waterline underneath the Indian River Lagoon that feeds water to the barrier islands. That pipe, which runs along State Road 520, decoupled at the joints early on Sept. 11. The failure left more than a quarter-million people without running water for 2½ days and boiling water for days afterward.

The mass water outage prompted Cocoa to review how it inspects and maintains the underwater pipe, especially after severe storms.

Cape Canaveral officials feared another main water line might be in jeopardy along the Sykes Creek Bridge on Sea Ray Drive. Irma's damages to the bridge will cost an estimated $2.6 million and more than a year to fix.

Maria

Although the storm did not hit mainland Florida, Hurricane Maria may wind up having significant social and political impacts in the Sunshine State. Since Oct. 3, Maria's devastation sent more than 199,000 people from Puerto Rico to Florida airports in Miami, Orlando and Port Everglades, according to Gov. Rick Scott's office.

More:What it's like to live in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria | Guest column

Maria hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20 as a Category 4 hurricane, annihilating the power grid and other key infrastructure.

We're still paying

In Irma, winds uprooted old oak trees, accounting for many of the water main breaks that Cocoa and other Florida cities experienced during Irma. Power lines paid a price, too. 

Florida Power & Light wants to recoup an estimated $1.3 billion from customers to cover the costs of restoring electricity after Irma barreled through the state.

The Florida landscape changed in other ways. Irma's "wind burn" blasted large swaths of trees and plants in Brevard County and elsewhere in Florida into a crispy "brown-scape" of dying trees and other vegetation. 

Green leaves and other growth have since returned, although horticulturists say some trees can die months or years later from the internal injuries they suffer during storms.

Other communal wounds — the damaged homes and lives — from this year's hurricane season also will take years to heal. 

"On a very positive note, it's over," Klotzbach said Thursday. "Hallelujah."

Contact Waymer at 321-242-3663 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JWayEnviro and on Facebook at facebook.com/jim.waymer.