Anyone that’s not wealthy is re-evaluating their dream home.
Those rich enough to build storm proofed retreats will be taking over.
This change might be happening a lot sooner than planners and leaders realize, with far reaching consequences, as yet unmapped.
In the wake of Hurricane Milton, more than 3 million people in Florida lost power. But in a recently built neighborhood in the small town of Cortez, as soon as the storm took out the grid, batteries switched on to power lights, fridges, and other essentials.
The same thing happened two weeks ago, when flooding from Hurricane Helene took out the grid. Though the development, called Hunters Point, is only two years old, it’s already been through four major hurricanes.
Its homes were designed to survive hurricanes, with an elevation high enough to avoid severe flooding, and construction choices that make them as sturdy as possible in high winds. And when the power goes out, each home turns to its own solar panels and battery system.
In an outage, the batteries disconnect from the grid and form a “nanogrid” at the house. “That all happens in about a third of a second,” says Geoff Ferrell, vice president at Sonnen, the company that makes the battery systems used at Hunters Point. “From the customer’s experience, they might see the lights flicker. Generally speaking, you don’t have to go reset the clock on your oven. It’s that fast.”
When an extended outage is likely, residents conserve power to make their battery last as long as possible. The first night, says resident William Fulford, “We were running the refrigerator and a couple of fans. We turned the AC off and everything like that—the bare minimum to keep the power going.”
In the morning, the battery system pinged the solar panels on the roof to see if power was available. While the system is off-grid, it runs directly on solar power when it’s sunny. If there’s extra solar power, the batteries recharge. Fulford says that his battery had drained to 38% through the night. But by midday, it had already recharged to around 80%.
It’s not yet clear how long the power could be out in Cortez. “There are trees down everywhere, and a lot of power lines down,” says Fulford. Even with thousands of utility workers racing to restore power in Florida, the process will take time. After Hurricane Ian, the power was out for days for many customers, and weeks for some. But homes with the solar power and battery system can keep going indefinitely, with limited power, as long as there’s some sunshine. (Even if it’s cloudy, the batteries could power some essentials for multiple days.)
“They have their own individualized power plant, essentially, between the solar and the battery,” says Ferrell.
Leaving aside that (most of ’em) did look a lot better as beer cans, Meatball ‘Mickey’ DeSantis is opening Central Florida up to unlimited, unregulated redevelopment. All those uninsurable trailers will be replaced with profitably insurable Crapsman style McMansions