The system brewing near South Florida is an area of low pressure that already has brought a flooding threat to the state with a flood watch up the coast from Miami to Volusia County as well as inland portions of Brevard and Volusia counties.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Marathon, Big Pine Key and Key Colony Beach through 7 a.m. Wednesday as bands moved across the state.

The heavy rains that have already dropped as much as 5 inches through Tuesday in some places could combine with king tides along the state’s southeast coast to further the flood threat. The National Weather Service in Miami said some areas of South Florida could see well over 10 inches of rain through Thursday.

For Central Florida, the NWS in Melbourne said the region could see 20-25 mph winds with gusts up to 40 mph along the coast and inland to about Interstate 95 and 15-20 mph winds with 30 mph gusts across the rest of east Central Florida. A wind advisory is in place through at least Thursday afternoon.

Coastal erosion is expected to continue as well with 6- to 9-foot large breaking waves, rough surf and wave runup to the dune line at high tide. Coastal Volusia is still recovering from severe erosion from hurricanes Ian and Nicole in 2022.

“During yesterday morning`s high tide, many beaches were completely covered by surf to the seawall and dunes, and waves were running up into access roads and walkways,” NWS forecasters said.

11/15 7AM Heavy Rainfall Threat Update: Confidence continues to increase regarding the potential for heavy rain beginning later this morning and continuing into Thursday.
Here are the latest probabilities in terms of rainfall amounts across the area. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/f3kXwXuIIm

— NWS Miami (@NWSMiami) November 15, 2023

It’s forecast to move to the northeast near the Bahamas and offshore of the U.S. East Coast into the weekend.

“Although development into a tropical cyclone appears unlikely, this system is expected to produce gusty winds and heavy rains across portions of southern Florida, the Florida Keys and the Bahamas during the next couple of days,” forecasters said.

The NHC gives it a 10% chance to develop in the next two to seven days.

In the southwestern Caribbean, the NHC has dialed back slightly the prediction of development of a large area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms from a broad trough of low pressure.

“Environmental conditions appear marginally conducive for development of this system, and a tropical depression could form late this week while the system begins moving northeastward across the western and central portions of the Caribbean Sea,” forecasters said.

It could threaten Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands in the coming days, the NHC warned.

“Regardless of development, this system has the potential to produce heavy rains over portions of the Caribbean coast of Central America and the Greater Antilles through the end of this week,” forecasters said.

The NHC gives it a 40% chance to develop in the next two days and 50% chance in the next seven.

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through Nov. 30, has already produced 21 official systems and 19 named storms. The final available names from the year’s initial 21-name list are Vince and Whitney.

In its tropical outlook on Tuesday, the NHC said a broad trough of low pressure in the southwestern Caribbean Sea is producing a large area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms.

“Environmental conditions appear conducive for development of this system, and a tropical depression is likely to form during the latter part of the week while moving northeastward across the western and central portions of the Caribbean Sea,” forecasters said.

The system could bring rough weather to Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, the NHC warned.

“Regardless of development, this system has the potential to produce heavy rains over portions of the Caribbean, coast of Central America and the Greater Antilles through the end of this week,” forecasters said.

The NHC gives the system a 20% chance to develop in the next two days and 70% in the next seven.

1 pm EST Nov. 14: A broad area of low pressure is expected to form over the SW Caribbean by Thursday and has a high chance of becoming a tropical depression late this week. Interests in the Greater Antilles should monitor this system's progress.https://t.co/DboWSR4Ct1 pic.twitter.com/9OnyMENUPx

— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) November 14, 2023

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season has had 21 official systems, including an unnamed subtropical storm in January and 20 more since the official start of the six-monthlong season that began on June 1.

Of those, 19 have gained at least tropical storm status and taken names from the 21-letter list provided by the World Meteorological Organization, which skips the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z. The next name on the list is Vince.

The end of hurricane season is Nov. 30, but any system that develops in December would also be included in the 2023 tally.

The $416 million bill that emerged contains a hodgepodge of tax breaks, refunds, reimbursements, grants and loans for the agriculture, timber and shellfishing industries in a mostly rural, sparsely populated 17-county stretch of North Florida.

“This makes a huge difference in fiscally constrained counties that can’t tax their way or fund their way out of things that come in the normal course of a year,” said bill sponsor Rep. Jason Shoaf, R-Port St. Joe.

But Democrats and environmentalists raised concerns about part of the bill that extends a ban on county and city governments from adopting moratoriums or restrictions on development for two years.

“This is a great bill,” said Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, but she added the ban ties the hands of city and county officials trying to prevent building in areas vulnerable to flooding and wind damage from hurricanes.

Shoaf and Senate sponsor Corey Simon, R-Quincy, said the ban allows people to rebuild and get back to normal life faster without government interference.

Orange County officials supported the legislation because it reversed the original ban on restrictive development and zoning rules approved by the Legislature in regular session last spring. It pre-empted a much larger number of counties and cities located within 100 miles of landfall of hurricanes Ian and Hurricane Nicole in 2022 from proposing changes to their comprehensive plan or land development regulations before Oct. 1, 2024.

The new ban is limited to 10 southwest Florida counties affected only by Ian: Charlotte, Collier, Desoto, Glades, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, Lee, Manatee, and Sarasota counties.

The law could put residents of those counties in danger, environmentalists said.

“This one section helps developers in Southwest Florida,” said David Cullen of the Sierra Club.  “Given recent events and rapid increase in hurricanes, I would be inclined to let counties and municipalities adopt stricter development rules. People died.”

Paul Owens of 1000 Friends of Florida said his organization also supports robust local planning. While he recognized the need for relief, he opposed the extension of the ban as “short-sighted.”

The state will suffer more frequent hurricanes with higher intensities, and local governments need to be able to pass measures to prevent development in the most vulnerable areas, he said.

Hurricane Idalia made landfall near Keaton Beach on Aug. 30 as a Category 3 hurricane with 125-mph winds and a 7- to 12-foot storm surge along 33 miles of coastline.

It caused an estimated $9.6 billion in insured losses as it tore through several counties before crossing into Georgia.

Agricultural losses in Florida from Hurricane Idalia will likely be between $78.8 million and $370.9 million, according to the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Initial estimates put clamming industry losses at $34 million but business owners said it’s fast approaching $50 million.

The Legislature had already approved $1.4 billion in this year’s budget for hurricane preparation and recovery efforts. The Legislature added $416 million to those efforts in the special session.

The biggest piece of the new money – $181 million – targets measures to harden homes against future hurricanes is designed to clear a waiting list of 17,000 applicants for the My Safe Florida Home program. Applicants can get up to $10,000 for door, window and roofing upgrades.

As of October, the state had already approved $209 million for nearly 21,000 homeowners, with only about 12.9% of that disbursed, according to a Senate staff analysis of the bill.

The agricultural assistance approved comes out to $162.5 million for farms, timber growers and shellfishing operations.

About $75 million will create the Agriculture and Aquaculture Producers Natural Disaster Recovery Loan Program to provide long-term interest-free loans of up to $500,000 to repair or replace essential physical property and remove debris.

Another $37.5 million in grants of up to $250,000 will pay for up to 75% of the cost of site preparation and tree replanting. The bill also allocates $30 million to meet FEMA’s local match requirements for public assistance. And it provides $25 million in housing recovery loans to eligible counties.

Fifth-generation farmer Rob Land of Lafayette County said it would cost him a minimum of $200,000 to get back what he lost in the hurricane, including a $125,000 feed barn.

“It destroyed our cotton crops,” Land said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Timothy Solano, a board member of the Cedar Key Aquaculture Association, said the two weeks his clamming operation was out of commission cost his company $2 million, which will make it tough to fill his orders to suppliers.

The industry is on track to lose $50 million, he said, and federal funds won’t be available until March.

“This legislation is a good effort to provide the relief that we need,” Solano said.

The My Safe Florida Home program, which offers up to $10,000 to help Floridians harden their homes, is intended to strengthen buildings against hurricanes and help reduce sky-high homeowners insurance premiums.

But the state doesn’t know how effective the program is at curtailing insurance costs, and isn’t poised to find out. Florida lawmakers approved the funding without requesting any data collection or studies.

To longtime observers, the decision was another sign of the Legislature’s apparent unwillingness to study the state’s insurance crisis, which lawmakers in both parties say has become their top constituent issue. Lawmakers have not produced any studies about it. Their primary response has been to make it harder to sue insurance companies, but they produced no proof that lawsuits are the main driver behind rising premiums and failing companies.

In September, Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Hollywood, told the state’s insurance commissioner that more information has been released on UFOs than Florida’s insurance industry. On Wednesday, Pizzo asked how the state was evaluating the My Safe Florida Home program.

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“How are we collecting data to gauge its efficacy?” Sen. Pizzo asked on the Senate floor on Wednesday.

“To be perfectly honest with you Sen. Pizzo, I’m not aware at the moment,” the bill sponsor, Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, responded.

Some homeowners see meaningful savings

Since launching last year, the My Safe Florida Home program has been popular. It pays for free home inspections and, if eligible, the state will pay $2 for every $1 the homeowner spends on upgrades, up to $10,000. Applicants who are deemed low-income can receive funds without having to make matching payments.

Insurers are required by state law to issue discounts for completed upgrades. The discounts take effect when the policy renews.

As of Oct. 6, the state had approved 79,119 inspections and 20,890 grants. The money allocated this week was for people who applied before Oct. 15 and had not yet gotten funding.

Early indications are that some recipients are saving money on their premiums. Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, who oversees the program, told lawmakers that the average homeowners insurance savings was just over $1,000, a figure that was repeated by some lawmakers this week.

That would be meaningful relief for many Floridians, where the statewide average annual premium is around $6,000, the highest in the nation, according to the industry-backed Insurance Information Institute.

But the $1,000 figure does not accurately reflect the average recipient’s experience.

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The figure is based on about 1,600 recipients who self-reported their savings to Patronis’ office, according to data given to the Times/Herald by the office. Their reported savings ranged from 7 cents to $31,644, for an average of $1,001.17 per year.

The median average — which neutralizes the effect of outliers in the data — shows a much more modest discount of $577.

Even $577 is not an accurate reflection of the homeowner’s experience, because it does not capture homeowners who saw no savings or saw their premiums go up.

In a briefing to a Senate committee last month, a Department of Financial Services official said that while 1,325 recipients saw their premiums go down, 644 saw no difference and 341 saw their rates go up. Another 101 recipients didn’t report any information.

“This doesn’t mean the program wasn’t helpful,” the department’s chief business officer, Steven Fielder, told senators. Premiums that went up might not have gone up as much without the program’s discounts, he said. The department doesn’t currently track that information.

The program is valuable in another crucial way, however: Homeowners could save thousands of dollars in repairs when a storm hits, said Mark Friedlander, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute.

It might not be the solution to reducing rates, which rose 42% on average this year, he said.

“A discount is good. That’s valuable to the homeowner,” he said. “But it does not make up for an average 102% cumulative premium increase over the last three years.”

Other states study programs

Several other coastal states have similar home-hardening programs and perform studies on the programs’ effects.

North Carolina launched a program in 2019 offering homeowners $6,000 to fortify their roofs. The state is partnering with multiple universities to analyze data the state is collecting on the program.

Since 2016, Alabama has offered homeowners $10,000 to fortify their homes, and the program has been studied by the University of Alabama.

Florida in 2009 hired consultants to study the effectiveness of a previous version of the My Safe Florida Home program. The study found that for every $1 invested in home-hardening, $1.50 in hurricane risk was reduced.

State lawmakers have not committed to continuing the program beyond this year, but leaders have voiced support.

“I believe in the program, I believe we should look at ways to expand it,” said House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast.

When asked why the state wasn’t collecting more data about the program, he said lawmakers could look for that in the regular legislative session, which begins in January.

Former state Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, has been frustrated by the lack of data and ideas to fix the property insurance crisis. He launched the Florida Policy Project, a think tank, this year to come up with best practice solutions to insurance and issues including housing and criminal justice reform.

The lack of good data on the home hardening program is emblematic of the larger problem with the Legislature’s approach to the crisis, he said.

“It highlights: What work was done over the summer on property insurance? And it seems to me, nothing,” he said.

Brandes questioned how useful the My Safe Florida Home program could really be, in part because the state could never afford to harden the millions of eligible homes in the state.

“There’s been no deep dive into whether it works or not,” Brandes said. “They don’t care. It’s just good politics.”

Miami Herald staff writer Alex Harris contributed to this report.

When Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle five years ago, it left boats, cars and trucks piled up to the windows of Bonny Paulson’s home in the tiny coastal community of Mexico Beach, Florida, even though the house rests on pillars 14 feet above the ground. But Paulson’s home, with a rounded shape that looks something like a ship, shrugged off Category 5 winds that might otherwise have collapsed it.

“I wasn’t nervous at all,” Paulson said, recalling the warning to evacuate. Her house lost only a few shingles, with photos taken after the storm showing it standing whole amid the wreckage of almost all the surrounding homes.

Some developers are building homes like Paulson’s with an eye toward making them more resilient to the extreme weather that’s increasing with climate change, and friendlier to the environment at the same time. Solar panels, for example, installed so snugly that high winds can’t get underneath them, mean clean power that can survive a storm. Preserved wetlands and native vegetation that trap carbon in the ground and reduce flooding vulnerability, too. Recycled or advanced construction materials that reduce energy use as well as the need to make new material.

A person’s home is one of the biggest ways they can reduce their individual carbon footprint. Buildings release about 38% of all energy-related greenhouse gas emissions each year. Some of the carbon pollution comes from powering things like lights and air conditioners and some of it from making the construction materials, like concrete and steel.

Deltec, the company that built Paulson’s home, says that only one of the nearly 1,400 homes it’s built over the last three decades has suffered structural damage from hurricane-force winds. But the company puts as much emphasis on building green, with higher-quality insulation that reduces the need for air conditioning, heat pumps for more efficient heating and cooling, energy-efficient appliances, and of course solar.

“The real magic here is that we’re doing both,” chief executive Steve Linton. “I think a lot of times resilience is sort of the afterthought when you talk about sustainable construction, where it’s just kind of this is a feature on a list … we believe that resilience is really a fundamental part of sustainability.”

Other companies are developing entire neighborhoods that are both resistant to hurricanes and contribute less than average to climate change.

Pearl Homes’ Hunters Point community in Cortez, Florida, consists of 160 houses that are all LEED-certified platinum, the highest level of one of the most-used green building rating systems.

To reduce vulnerability to flooding, home sites are raised 16 feet (4.8 meters) above code. Roads are raised, too, and designed to direct accumulating rainfall away and onto ground where it may be absorbed. Steel roofs with seams allow solar panels to be attached so closely it’s difficult for high winds to get under them, and the homes have batteries that kick in when power is knocked out.

Pearl Homes CEO Marshall Gobuty said his team approached the University of Central Florida with a plan to build a community that doesn’t contribute to climate change. “I wanted them to be not just sustainable, but resilient, I wanted them to be so unlike everything else that goes on in Florida,” Gobuty said. “I see homes that are newly built, half a mile away, that are underwater … we are in a crisis with how the weather is changing.”

That resonates with Paulson, in Mexico Beach, who said she didn’t want to “live day to day worried about tracking something in the Atlantic.” Besides greater peace of mind, she says, she’s now enjoying energy costs of about $32 per month, far below the roughly $250 she said she paid in a previous home.

“I don’t really feel that the population is taking into effect the environmental catastrophes, and adjusting for it,” she said. “We’re building the same old stuff that got blown away.”

Babcock Ranch is another sustainable, hurricane-resilient community in South Florida. It calls itself the first solar-powered town in the U.S., generating 150 megawatts of electricity with 680,000 panels on 870 acres (350 hectares). The community was also one of the first in the country to have large batteries on site to store extra solar power to use at night or when the power is out.

Syd Kitson founded Babcock Ranch in 2006. The homes are better able to withstand hurricane winds because the roofs are strapped to a system that connects down to the foundation. Power lines are buried underground so they can’t blow over. The doors swing outward in some homes so when pressure builds up from the wind, they don’t blast open, and vents help balance the pressure in garages.

In 2022, Hurricane Ian churned over Babcock Ranch as a Category 4 storm. It left little to no damage, Kitson said.

“We set out to prove that a new town and the environment can work hand-in-hand, and I think we’ve proven that,” said Kitson. “Unless you build in a very resilient way, you’re just going to constantly be repairing or demolishing the home.”

The development sold some 73,000 acres (29,500 hectares) of its site to the state for wetland preservation, and on the land where it built, a team studied how water naturally flows through the local environment and incorporated it into its water management system.

“That water is going to go where it wants to go, if you’re going to try and challenge Mother Nature, you’re going to lose every single time,” said Kitson. The wetlands, retention ponds, and native vegetation are better able to manage water during extreme rainfall, reducing the risk of flooded homes.

In the Florida Keys, Natalia Padalino and her husband, Alan Klingler, plan to finish building a Deltec home by December. The couple was concerned about the future impacts global warming and hurricanes would have on the Florida Keys and researched homes that were both sustainable and designed to withstand these storms.

“We believe we’re building something that’s going to be a phenomenal investment and reduce our risk of any major catastrophic situation,” Klingler said.

“People have been really open and receptive. They tell us if a hurricane comes, they’re going to be staying in our place,” Padalino said.

___

The location of the Padalinos’ home has been corrected to the Florida Keys, not the Panhandle. This story also corrects the name of the Pearl Homes development Hunters Point, its location and site elevation, based on updated information from the company.

___

Associated Press video journalist Laura Bargfeld, in Mexico Beach, and photographer Gerald Herbert, in New Orleans, contributed.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The broad area of low pressure has disorganized showers and thunderstorms spanning the the central and western Caribbean Sea.

“Development, if any, of this system is expected to be slow to occur before it moves inland over Central America on Saturday,” forecasters said.

It’s expected to bring heavy rains to portions of Jamaica through tonight and across Central America on Friday and into the weekend.

The NHC gives it a 20% chance of development in the next two to seven days.

The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season has had 21 official systems including an unnamed subtropical storm in January and 20 systems since the start of hurricane season on June 1, 19 of which were named. The next name on the list is Vince followed by Whitney.

Hurricane season runs through Nov. 30.

The trough of low pressure now in the central Caribbean and headed west toward Central America features disorganized showers and thunderstorms.

“Environmental conditions could become a little more conducive for some development over the next couple of days before the system moves inland over Central America by this weekend,” forecasters said.

The system will still potentially bring heavy rains to portions of Central America late this week.

The NHC gives it a 20% chance to form in the next two days and 30% chance in the next seven.

If it were to gain enough strength, it could become Tropical Storm Vince.

The first five months of the Atlantic #hurricane season are in the books. So far, June, August and September were above average, while July and October were near average based on Accumulated Cyclone Energy. The full season has met NOAA's definition of an above-normal season. pic.twitter.com/Wp5lpCIRna

— Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) October 31, 2023

The already above-average Atlantic hurricane season as defined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has had 21 tracked systems with at least tropical depression strength. While 20 of those came after the official start of the season on June 1, there was one unnamed subtropical storm in January.

Nineteen of the 20 storms after June 1 became tropical storms taking a name from the 21-letter list given by the World Meteorological Organization.

Seven of those became hurricanes, and three of those formed into major hurricanes including Hurricane Idalia that struck Florida in August.

Hurricane season ends on Nov. 30.

The trough of low pressure in the eastern Caribbean Sea has a large area of showers and thunderstorms that has diminished on Tuesday so the NHC dialed back its estimation the system could develop.

“Although environmental conditions appear marginally conducive for further development during the next several days while the system moves westward over the central and southwestern Caribbean Sea, a tropical depression could form by the latter part of this week,” forecasters said.

No matter if it develops or not, it’s expected to bring heavy rains to portions of Central America by the end of the week.

The NHC gives it a 20% chance to develop in the next two days and 60% chance in the next seven, down from a 70% chance prediction issued earlier Tuesday.

If it develops enough strength, it could become Tropical Storm Vince.

It would become the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season’s 22nd official system, which includes an unnamed subtropical storm that formed in January and 20 systems since the official start of the season on June 1.

Nineteen of those 20 grew to be named storms from the 21-letter list provided by the World Meteorological Organization, with only Vince and Whitney left before it would be necessary to spill over into a supplemental list that starts with the name Adria.

Only the years 2005 and 2020 had the need for more than 21 names from the initial list, which skips over the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z.

The end of the official hurricane season is on Nov. 30, although storms that form after that before the end of the calendar year would be included in the year’s official tally.

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Estela Sandoval Díaz was huddled in her tiny concrete bathroom, sure these were the final moments of her life, when Hurricane Otis ripped off her tin roof.

With it went clothing, savings, furniture, photos and 33 years of the life Sandoval built piece-by-piece on the forgotten fringes of Acapulco, Mexico.

Sandoval was among hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were torn apart when the fastest intensifying hurricane on record in the Eastern Pacific shredded the coastal city of 1 million, leaving at least 45 dead. The Category 5 hurricane damaged nearly all of Acapulco’s homes, left bodies bobbing along the coastline and much of the city foraging for food.

While authorities were hard at work restoring order in Acapulco’s tourist center — cutting through trees in front of high-rise hotels and restoring power — the city’s poorest, like Sandova,l said they felt abandoned. She and hundreds of thousands others lived two hours of terror last week, and now face years of work to repair their already precarious lives.

“The government doesn’t even know we exist,” Sandoval said. “They’ve only ever taken care of the resort areas, the pretty places of Acapulco. They’ve always forgotten us.”

It’s a sentiment that has long simmered in the city, but has grown in the aftermath of Otis as many accuse the government of leaving them to fend for themselves.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has deployed more than 10,000 troops to deal with the hurricane’s aftermath along with 1,000 government workers to determine needs. He said 10,000 “packages” of appliances and other necessities — refrigerators, stoves, mattresses — had been collected and were ready to distribute to families in need.

“Everyone will be supported, count on us,” he pledged last week.

But few of the dozens of people The Associated Press spoke to said they’d received aid from the government, nor were they expecting much.

—

Sandoval and her family have spent decades living a stone’s throw away from the beachside high-rises and luxury stores lining Acapulco’s chicest district, the Diamond Zone.

Living in a two-room concrete house with no potable water and unpaved roads, that glamor never reached their doorstep. Referred to by locals as the “sunken neighborhood,” Viverista is always hit hardest by natural disasters.

Three years ago, Sandoval beamed with pride when, after 25 years of saving, she put a foot of concrete on the floor and a new metal roof on her house so it wouldn’t flood every time it rained. But that seemed a lifetime away Friday as Sandoval and her children picked through their soggy belongings.

“I was so happy because finally I had a sturdy roof, and my house was finally beautiful. But now — this is the first time I’ve been able to cry — I don’t know what we’re going to do,” the 59-year-old said. “I don’t think I’ll live another 20 years to fix it.”

Their home was surrounded by ankle-deep putrid water. Sandoval, her husband and two neighbors were sleeping under a sheet of metal propped against the house. She picked through scraps in her bedroom, taking note of what was ruined and planning how to ration water and gas for cooking.

Mexico’s government has tallied at least 220,000 homes damaged and says 47 people remain missing. Most residents expect the death toll to rise, based on the slow government response and overall devastation, with one city business leader estimating it will exceed 100.

Military, public security and forensics officials told the AP they were not permitted to provide details on the death toll or the search for bodies. Meanwhile, thousands of panicked family members desperately hunted for missing loved ones.

On Saturday, López Obrador blasted critics of his hurricane response, saying journalists and the political opposition had exaggerated casualties. He said Mexico’s security minister would provide an update on the human toll “without lying.”

“They don’t care about people’s pain, they want to hurt us. What they want is for there to be a lot of death so they can blame us,” López Obrador said.

—

Otis intensified within hours from a tropical storm into the strongest hurricane to hit the Eastern Pacific coast, taking many by surprise. Many experts attributed the unanticipated burst of force to the effects of climate change, with warming seas acting as fuel for storms like Otis.

“We’re seeing so many more cases of these just astonishing rapid intensification events,” said climate scientist Jim Kossin. “This is exactly the kind of thing we would expect to find as the climate warms.”

The aftermath of the storm has once again underscored the disproportionate effect the climate crisis is having on poor communities and countries.

Sandoval and her husband slept until the 165-mph (266-kph) winds and crash of trees falling woke them at midnight. They sprinted out of the house to a set of square-meter (yard) concrete bathrooms, clinging to the plastic doors the hurricane threatened to tear off.

When she emerged around 2 a.m., peering through a steady drizzle, Sandoval saw her furniture soaked and her fridge, stove and other possessions destroyed. She said she could “smell the sadness in the air.”

With sparse food, water and gasoline, and no cellphone service, Sandoval and her family could do little more than scavenge for supplies in bare supermarkets. Avid supporters of López Obrador, they crossed their fingers he would follow through on his promise. They spent days waiting, but the only signs of government presence were navy helicopters circling overhead.

“When you’re completely enveloped by something like this — so fragile, so violent — you ask yourself, when are they going to come?” she said.

Many others faced the same question.

Following the storm, the city descended into a state of lawlessness. Trees and rubble blocked the main road for a day, and no cellphone signal left its 1 million people effectively cut off from the world.

Without options, Sandoval and many others took basic goods like food and toilet paper from ransacked stores and funneled gasoline out of tubes from broken-down gas stations. Those with chronic illnesses scrambled to find medicine they needed to survive.

Residents foraging for food in warehouses Saturday said they waited hours in the beating sun for food and water from a government aid truck only to find there wasn’t enough for them.

Children stood on roadsides waving empty water bottles and families screamed, “Help us! We’re desperate!” at cars with shattered windshields and military trucks passing by.

Residents like Natividad Reynoso, whose business selling plants to hotels was wiped out by the storm, worried it would mean the long-term destruction of Acapulco’s main economic engine.

“We’re an Acapulco that lives off tourism,” the 41-year-old said.

By the weekend, cellphone signal was being restored, aid was being distributed and the military cleared trees and rubble from the city center, a stark contrast with poor areas where chaos still reigned.

Fisherman Eleazar García Ramirez, 52, was still wrapping his mind around the devastation as he tinkered inside a boat with a cracked mast on the beach surrounded by the remains of boats and broken trees.

He has spent recent days diving into the ocean to pull out bloated bodies bobbing next to sunken boats, he said.

He weathered the storm on a fishing boat his boss asked him to watch over, fearing that to refuse would cost him his job.

“This is what we survive off of, and there’s not a lot of work in Acapulco,” he said.

The majority of the dead he and others found were fishermen fearful of losing their livelihoods or yacht captains told by owners to stay with the boats, he said. Authorities said most of the bodies found in recent days had drowned.

García Ramirez and other fishermen pulled the boats onto the city’s Manzanilla Beach when Otis was still a Category 2 storm. A friend was watching over a boat 20 meters (yards) up the beach.

The boat García Ramirez was in was pulled into the waves, when he heard screams of “help me!” as he clung to the boat’s metal poles.

When he finally peered out into the dark night he saw his friend’s boat floating alone at sea. His friend never appeared.

“It’s sad because there are many people that didn’t need to be on these boats, but their bosses decided that we’re worth nothing,” he said. “They’re not interested in the well-being of their workers, all they care about is their own economic well-being.”

——

Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Washington and photographer Félix Márquez in Acapulco, Mexico, contributed to this report.

“We are seeing many people doing this,” said Sunem Hernandez, of Hernandez Insurance, an independent insurance agent in Miami Lakes. “I have five clients that have already done it.”

Florida leads the rest of the nation homeowners shedding coverage. According to the Insurance Information Institute, 15% to 20% of Florida homeowners are forgoing coverage, more than the 12% national average.

And the trend is being fueled by the fast increase of insurance costs in the state, the nation’s highest. Florida’s insurance policies — including windstorm coverage, but not flood protection — averaged around $6,000, 42% higher than in 2022, according to the institute.

Agents consulted by the Miami Herald said rates are even higher in South Florida, where the market is said to be in a state of crisis.

After insurance ‘reform,’ Floridians still face high bills, 100% rate hikes, go ‘naked’ | Commentary

The $6,000 per year amount is really at the bottom of prices being quoted, with homeowners finding few choices given the reluctance of insurance companies to offer coverage in the area.

“I have never seen something like this in the market, not even … Andrew,” said Hernández, referring to the 1992 hurricane that destroyed parts of South Miami-Dade and setting off record-high damage.

Who is going bare?

People ditching their coverage are mostly homeowners who don’t have a mortgage, which requires insurance coverage. Those going bare include homeowners who have paid off their loans in full, including retirees.

But insurance agents say they are now seeing clients acquiring separate loans that do not list the property as collateral, and they use the money to pay off the mortgage to free themselves from the requirement to obtain coverage. For the most part, wealthier people are in a position to borrow large amounts using other types of assets as collateral, such as businesses, stocks and bonds, land, or large bank accounts.

Why do property owners drop their coverage?

Besides the high cost of policies, which is the most obvious reason, surveys by the industry point to cases in which homeowners who don’t have a mortgage cancel policies just because they can.

But the insurance industry’s reputation also plays a role in the decision.

“The insurance industry doesn’t have the most stellar reputation when it comes to pleasing every customer,” Patrick Wraight, director of Insurance Journal’s Academy of Insurance, wrote in a column for Insurance Journal. “This goes back to the complexities of insurance and how sometimes people think a loss should be covered and it just isn’t. It isn’t helpful either that sometimes, insurance people act poorly, incorrectly, and sometimes illegally.”

What to know if you consider dropping insurance coverage

No one is exempt from unforeseen circumstances that can damage or destroy your home. And you’ll be on your own to repair or replace.

gents say that the replacement cost of a home destroyed in a hurricane can surpass $300,000, and even if the dwelling is only partially damaged, you can be left with repairs costing several thousand dollars.

But standard insurance usually protect you from more than damage caused by wind and flooding during a storm, a fire, or other disasters. They also provide liability protection that help you cover the expenses of lawsuits or injuries on the property. Depending on the policy, this type of protection will cover your legal costs and any payments awarded against you in court.

While most of those considering dropping their coverage are thinking of saving money, doing so could mean financial ruin if tragedy strikes — unless they have the money accessible.

Added to the costs of clearing the land of debris, rebuilding the house and finding another place to live in the meantime, a hurricane victim lacking insurance coverage in Florida can easily face expenses surpassing the value of the property.