Editorial: Hurricane Matthew returns reality to Florida
For more than a decade, Floridians were able to keep the threat of a hurricane striking us in the back of the mind, but this year our good fortune ran out.
Hurricane Wilma, which made landfall near Marco Island in October 2005, had been the state’s last hurricane making landfall until this season. A month ago, Hurricane Hermine hit the Big Bend area of the state with up to 9 feet of rising rivers and lingering power outages. Also this hurricane season, Tropical Storms Colin and Julia each created localized flooding concerns where they affected Florida.