Babcock Ranch (United States) (AFP) – Mary Frisbie’s house was in the path of Hurricane Ian last year, in southwest Florida, USA. But even though it caused devastation and left four million people in the dark, she was watching TV and surfing the Internet, like any other day.
First Amendment: Last update:
4 minutes
Two years ago, the retiree and her husband settled in Babcock Ranch, a town that was planned with two things in mind: to be sustainable and able to withstand hurricanes, a frequent threat in this state.
The first test came in September 2022 with Ian, category 4 out of 5, and was successful. No residents suffered serious damage, there were no power outages and only a few trees fell, despite winds reaching speeds of 241 km/h.
How was it achieved? The short answer would be: taking nature into account.
To avoid flooding from storms, the Babcock Ranch, located near the Gulf of Mexico, was built about thirty feet above sea level.
The design also preserved the area’s numerous wetlands, which act as sponges for excess water. The local lakes are connected to each other and to the swamps by pumps that prevent their overflow.
In its suburbs, there are 680,000 solar panels, making it the first city in the United States to operate entirely on this type of energy. Power lines are buried between these facilities and homes to protect them from the wind and prevent power outages during storms.
This resilient infrastructure approach extends to home construction, which follows Florida standards, among the nation’s most stringent for wind resistance, since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
– From theory to application –
Babcock Ranch looks like a photoshopped city. There are lakefront homes, idyllic lawns, bike paths and forest trails. In parks, some children ride bicycles or ride swings under the watchful eye of their parents or grandparents.
The city, which opened in 2018, has a population of 7,200 and is expected to reach about 50,000 when completed.
Sid Kitson, a former professional American football player, is the project’s promoter. In 2005, his company paid $700 million to buy a farm of about 372 square kilometers, and quickly sold most of it to the state of Florida, which wanted to establish a nature reserve there.
On the land he preserved, about 72 square kilometers, Kitson envisioned the city of his dreams: a place with homes, businesses and schools that would attract young professionals and those who choose the Florida sun for retirement.
On paper, everything was going as planned. But the night before the hurricane, Kitson couldn’t sleep.
Many people trusted him, like Mary Frisbie or Donald Bishop, a 78-year-old neighbor who had already lost a house in Mississippi to a tornado.
“We hadn’t been tested, so we didn’t know,” he recalls. “At that time there were about 5,000 people living here, neighbors to whom I said, ‘You can take refuge in your house.’ I felt a huge responsibility.” .
The relief was enormous when he discovered that Ian, who had destroyed nearby Fort Myers and left nearly 150 people dead and millions of dollars in damage in Florida, had barely damaged his home city.
– An option for the future? –
Kitson admits that he had the advantage of being able to create a city from a “blank slate.” But he’s convinced Babcock Ranch can provide useful ideas for traditional cities with infrastructure problems.
An opinion shared by Yucca Arditi Rocha, Executive Director of the NGO Clio Environmental Institute, who believes that the biggest lesson from this project is that “we have to build our cities and societies with climate change in mind.”
This reality is particularly urgent in Florida, the state with the greatest population growth, despite being one of the states most vulnerable to disasters such as rising sea levels or hurricanes.
However, Arditi Rocha rules out such projects as a solution to the climate crisis, because, according to her, the average cost of housing in planned cities is only affordable for a few people.
The impression that Kitsune fights against. He explains that in his city there are houses and apartments for rent for $1,500 and real estate for sale for $300,000. “You have to have a variety of homes and prices. That’s very important. It’s not a real city unless you can do that,” he says.
© 2023 Agence France-Presse
