Photo: Carlos Osorio for NPR
“Babcock Ranch, in Florida, runs on solar power and was built to weather the worst storms. After Hurricane Ian, the community didn’t lose power or water, and it experienced minimal damage.
Like many others in Southwest Florida, Mark Wilkerson seemingly gambled his life by choosing to shelter at home rather than evacuate when Hurricane Ian crashed ashore last week as a Category 4 storm.
But it wasn’t just luck that saved Wilkerson and his wife, Rhonda, or prevented damage to their well-appointed one-story house. You might say that it was all by design.
In 2018, Wilkerson became one of the first 100 residents of Babcock Ranch — an innovative community north of Fort Myers where homes are built to withstand the worst that Mother Nature can throw at them without being flooded out or losing electricity, water or the internet.
The community is located 30 miles inland to avoid coastal storm surges. Power lines to homes are all run underground, where they are shielded from high winds. Giant retaining ponds surround the development to protect houses from flooding. As a backup, streets are designed to absorb floodwaters and spare the houses…
So when the storm hit, Wilkerson and his wife stayed put, as did most other residents here. Although the community didn’t experience the hurricane at its most intense, Wilkerson says they felt 100-mph winds. At one point, the lights in his house flickered but ‘lo and behold, we never lost power.’
In fact, his house didn’t even lose a shingle. That’s the basic story of Babcock Ranch, post-Ian: Aside from a traffic light at the development’s main entrance that’s no longer there, a few street signs lying on the ground and some knocked-over palm trees, you’d hardly know that a hurricane came through.
Unfortunately, not so for many of the surrounding communities, where damaged structures and power outages have not been uncommon…
Their good fortune pays dividends for others in need Admittedly, Babcock Ranch has a slightly insular feel to it. But partly because residents were spared the full wrath of the hurricane, they have been able to reach out and help those in need.
A community center here was designed to double as a reinforced storm shelter. Everyone staying there right now has come in from other hard-hit communities. Babcock Ranch residents have been fielding requests on social media and shuttling in supplies…
Hurricane Ian was a big test for this community, where houses start at around $250,000. Languell says the storm provided ‘proof of concept’ for the community’s design. The developers of Babcock Ranch welcome imitators, she adds. Communities elsewhere in the U.S. might benefit from what has been learned here.
But there’s still more to learn, Languell says.
‘We don’t want to brag by any stretch of the imagination, because you do that, and the next thing you know, you get hit by a Category 5 and something doesn’t work as well,’ she says.”
— Carlos Osorio for NPR with Scott Neuman, On All Things Considered