Hard History in the Hurricane Zone

Professors can't say that climate change is real, only a theory. 1 But on the mornings that I draft this essay, I can walk to my office at the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg campus (USFSP) to see some of climate change's very real results: warming waters = more powerful hurricanes = stronger winds + higher storm surges.In late September 2024, Hurricane Helene intensified over a record-hot Gulf of Mexico before cutting a swath of devastation from Florida's Big Bend region to western North Carolina's mountain towns.A few weeks later, a late season Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida.In downtown St. Petersburg, the tattered strips of what used to be the roof of Tropicana Field (home to the Tampa Bay Rays) flutter in the breeze.The side of the building that houses the Tampa Bay Times, destroyed by a wind-whipped construction crane, looks like bashed-in zombie brains. 2 The front yards of homes in the low-lying areas south and west of downtown are lined with wet, brown mounds of fallen trees, furniture, carpeting, clothing, toys, and family memories.The air smells like putrid mulch with hints of sewer and unidentifiable chemicals that make the eyes water and the throat itch.My spouse and I, with only a shattered fence and three Volkswagen Beetle-sized piles of yard debris, are lucky.Because a USFSP dorm took in water, hundreds of students were displaced, with dozens of them sleeping on air mattresses in the university ballroom, now a makeshift shelter. 3 One colleague lost