Story at a glance
- A community in southwest Florida that relies completely on solar power did not lose power during Hurricane Ian.
- Babcock Ranch was sustainably designed to withstand major storms like Hurricane Ian.
- The town is located 30 miles from the coast to escape storm surges and all utility lines are underground, protecting them from the wind.
As Hurricane Ian made its way to southwestern Florida on Sept. 28, Mark Wilkerson put up his metal hurricane shutters, locked his door and hunkered down to wait out the Category 4 storm.
Wilkerson’s home, in the center of the entirely solar-powered town of Babcock Ranch, was made for this. But he still feared the worst.
As Ian’s 150-mile-per-hour winds swept through the neighborhood, Wilkerson’s home creaked so loudly he wasn’t sure if the house would make it through the 10 hours of whipping winds in one piece.
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“I thought the roof was going to lift right off,” said Wilkerson. But the next day, when the 64-year-old walked outside to check out the damage, his house looked virtually untouched, except for one missing shingle swept up in the storm.
Shannon Treece, 45, the executive director of Babcock Schools, was one of the first 100 residents to move into the community along with her family in 2018. Originally from Kentucky, Treece lived briefly in Cape Coral, Fla., before moving to Babcock.
Initially, she wasn’t worried about Hurricane Ian, since early forecasts of the storm predicted it would remain north of Babcock. But after classes were canceled for children and staff was asked to help prepare the community’s combined elementary, middle and high school, Treece was struck with a case of pre-storm jitters.
“I think we all realized that this sucker is coming more towards us than away from us,” said Treece who lives in Babcock with her husband, two daughters, family friend, and a foreign exchange student. “It kind of hit me, like, I have a lot of people here in this house, is it safe?”
She thought about taking her household to a nearby shelter but eventually decided, like many of her neighbors, to just wait out the storm at home. Her home never lost power or internet, like Wilkerson, and when she went outside the next day saw a few shingles missing from her roof.
Matthew Shapton, 50, also sat out the storm at home with his wife and two daughters. Having moved to Florida from Michigan, the family had never experienced a hurricane before and weren’t quite sure what to expect.
What struck Shapton the most was how long Ian lasted.
“It almost felt like it was never going to stop,” he said. Intense winds from Hurricane Ian hit the house the entire night at one point loosening the corners of a few of the house’s hurricane shutters. “There was a little fear because if those would have come off, we would have had a major problem.”
But they didn’t come off, and the next day the damage to the house was minimal. Two trees on the property had fallen over, a bit of flashing from the roof’s fascia was missing and a ceiling fan from the front porch ended up on a neighbor’s lawn.
Storm safety and resilience have been factored into every element of design and engineering of Babcock Ranch.
The community lies 30 miles from the coast, and homes have been elevated at least 25 feet off the ground and designed to withstand winds of up to 145 miles per hour.
All home utility lines in the community have been placed underground to protect them from wind, and the modern transmission lines sending power to the Babcock Ranch substation have been built to withstand Category 5 hurricane winds, according to a spokesperson.
Even the landscape plays a role in storm mitigation. Trees and shrubs line the community to help absorb water from storms and protect property.
And United States “first sustainable solar-powered town” proved its worth during Hurricane Ian.
Not only is Babcock’s design beneficial for its residents, but it also helps neighbors, as well.
A lack of damage from the storm gave residents time and resources to help other Floridians who were not so lucky after Hurricane Ian. After the storm, Treece worked tirelessly to figure out how to help fellow school staff and teachers whose homes had been damaged.
Shapton, a Lutheran pastor in Babcock, also got to work. The next he drove around nearby neighborhoods to see if people were OK, as we as putting up or taking down shutters and cleaning up debris.
“When you fair a storm like that and you do well that means that there is something for you to do to help other people,” he said.
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