Tornadoes spawned in an outer band of Hurricane Milton in October 2024 destroyed homes in Martin County’s Port Salerno community.
Hurricane Milton — more than any storm since Hurricane Andrew — raised existential questions about our future in Florida.
Milton was stronger, wetter, and more destructive because of human-caused climate change. If not for warming temperatures, the hurricane would have hit as a Category 2, not a Cat 3, according to the international scientific group World Weather Attribution. This increase in wind speed led to an exponential increase in damage.
Milton’s rains were heavier, too, consistent with rainfall extremes that have increased with global warming, Yale Climate Connections reported.
If Milton felt different to you, like it did to me, this is why. It was a harbinger of what’s to come in our new climate era.
All of Florida’s environmental challenges are more urgent now: overdevelopment; toxic algae and the water pollution that fuels it; saltwater intrusion; flooding.
How can we safeguard the Everglades in the face of these threats? Inevitably, we need more public land south of Lake Okeechobee to store and clean water so the historic River of Grass can be saved. And we need to keep the onslaught of irresponsible new development in check across the Greater Everglades.
For the last several years, Friends of the Everglades has worked with allies to stop a huge industrial park from being approved in a “coastal high hazard area” in south Miami-Dade County. It’s one battle among many, and Milton underscored why it would be absurd to allow dense development on this farmland near Biscayne Bay (on land needed for Everglades restoration, no less).
The near-term impacts of Hurricane Milton are coming into focus this week. In addition to the heart-wrenching loss of life and property, Lake Okeechobee has surged more than half a foot, and the Army Corps of Engineers projects it could rise another foot as rain from the Kissimmee River floodplain flows south. That raises the possibility of harmful discharges to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, where water quality is already poor from heavy storm runoff. We should also be on alert for red tide on the west coast, where polluted water from Mosaic’s phosphate plant spilled into Tampa Bay during Milton.
If we want a future in Florida — and I still do — we must heed Milton’s reality check. That means stopping polluting industries like Big Phosphate and Big Sugar from running roughshod over environmental policy, as they have for too long.
I’m an optimist by nature, a realist by necessity. There’s still so much worth saving in Florida, but our time is running short.
The other night, as I was walking my dog, I spotted the first tufts of muhly grass blooming — my favorite sign of fall in Florida. Normally, peak hurricane season would be behind us. This year, we have a ways to go.
Two more tropical disturbances are taunting us, one in the Atlantic Ocean and another in the Caribbean Sea. Friends of the Everglades will be watching these storms as we keep a close eye on the fallout from Milton. Stay safe, and stay vigilant.
