Yesterday’s LOTRW post is reproduced here verbatim, but in its original form — before the ChatGPT transformation of certain sections into unrhymed iambic pentameter. I’m doing this because some readers might be interested in just what was retained and what was lost by ChatGPT’s treatment – and because I want to use the thoughts and links here as a springboard to further consideration of the Florida challenge.
The great English poet John Milton (1608-1674) is most famous for his epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained[1].
To help you recall your high-school English literature: Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) recounts the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The poem comprises over 10,000 lines of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter – think Shakespeare) in multiple volumes. Paradise Regained (1671), shorter, at only 2000 lines, focuses on Christ’s success in resisting Satan’s temptation.
Now to the present day. Hurricane Milton – carrying its attendant storm surge, high winds, flooding and tornadoes – has come and gone. It was the second-strongest hurricane ever so-far recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. It made Florida landfall on October 10, where it rapidly weakened in intensity, then losing its definition as it passed over the Bahamas on October 11.
But the hurricane’s impacts linger. Fact is, many are only beginning to be felt. In effect, the storm is writing three narratives – and with a bit of help from ChatGTP – in iambic pentameter.
Hurricane Milton’s Paradise Cost. To start, some two-dozen Floridians died. Some context: This is comparable to the Florida death toll from Hurricane Helene. (The total national fatalities resulting from Helene were some ten times higher.) In turn, these losses pale relative to the number of fatalities resulting from the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, which killed over 2500 (mostly in Florida). Property damages show a different profile over the past century. Estimates put the Okeechobee hurricane losses at half a billion dollars in today’s currency. Hurricane Milton’s property damage appears to be 100 times greater – perhaps as high as $50B. The multi-state total of Helene losses are also in the $50B range.
Hurricane Milton’s Paradise Lost. But that’s only the beginning. Experience and recent science predict that the losses will continue to mount with time. Property loss is distinct from the additive costs of business disruption, which in the modern era are often comparable. At its peak, Milton was responsible for power outages affecting millions of homes. Some six million people were ordered to evacuate. Many businesses have yet to reopen. Workers are slow to return to their jobs. And recent studies of the excess deaths resulting from natural disasters, when teased out from long-term data, show total death rates tenfold greater than those occurring in the immediate event. These are the consequence of loss of home, spend-down of retirement savings to cover uninsured losses, corrosion of community and deterioration of community health- and safety services, the spend-down of retirement savings to cover uninsured losses, increased substance abuse, and more. The toxic political season, fake news, and conspiracy theories about the cause of the hurricane, government relief efforts, and even weather forecasts themselves have added to the misery. All in all, the 2024 hurricane season has changed the view of many Floridians. They may have moved to the state seeing it as a tropical retirement paradise, with hurricanes only a minor (and even unlikely) bother. The succession of events in the 2024 hurricane season paint a picture of Florida not as paradise but as a hotbed of hurricane risk, disruption, and tragedy as the Florida way of life. Some residents are therefore leaving paradise, moving inland or returning northward.
Hurricane Milton’s Paradise Regained. Bad enough, but global warming and sea-level rise suggest worse to come. By 2100, if no action is taken, Florida might be one-third its present size. A recent New York Times article sums up the options in three self-explanatory phrases: fight the water (build sea walls, convert Florida into Holland, or, more likely, its less-successful analog, Venice); live with it (put Florida homes on stilts); pack your bags (retreat; easier said than done; residents tend not to like this one). Florida will not be attempting to meet the challenge on its own. It will seek national help. Its problem is not just a statewide dilemma – it’s national. A recent British experience with giving the land back to the sea offers reason for hope – not through slavish imitation but rather in the sense of expanding the range of possibilities. It’s tempting to reimagine Florida as a paradise – not one where a few people live, but rather an open site where an entire nation can visit, for restoration and renewal.
Bottom line? Hurricane Milton was – but, still evolving and developing, will remain – a tragedy. Out of respect to those who died, and those survivors who live, but are living the nightmare of trying make their lives worth living while awash in a sea of government red tape and public oblivion to their plight (because the nation is moving on to focus on politics), we need to think through recovery. We need to do better than rebuild-as-before. That only condemns those who follow to even greater pain and loss. If we are to retain or regain the natural paradise that is Florida and at the same time minimize future suffering, we need to build a new social contract with each other and with the generous but sometimes dangerous and sometimes fragile real world we live on.
[1]Two interesting facets of Milton’s life: First, he wrote these poems while blind (!). Second, federal-employee-readers of LOTRW might take note; Milton’s career included a stint as a civil servant. His job? He was responsible for Latin correspondence for the so-called Commonwealth of England – the name Britons gave themselves during that particularly tumultuous period between the execution of Charles I and the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II. Milton’s circumstances following Charles II’s return to the throne were awkward. Given the parallels to today’s politics, personalities, and great uncertainties, Milton’s experiences and how he survived them might contain instructive lessons.
