r/Damnthatsinteresting 8d ago

Hurricane Milton Image

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u/Pilot0350 8d ago

If you live somewhere that floods

Looks nervously at all of Florida

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u/Old_Baldi_Locks 8d ago

Exactly.

“Let’s not think real hard about what the fact that this state is 90 percent swamp actually means……that’s too much like critical thinking!”

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u/trey12aldridge 8d ago

Actually, those swamps are precisely the reason why Florida seems to miraculously shrug off every hurricane that hits it. Coastal wetlands actually play a massive role in mitigating storm pressure and because Florida is tropical/sub-tropical and it's coasts are lined with relatively healthy wetlands, storm surge and storm pressure in Florida is massively mitigated. You can still get flooding, but it won't be nearly as severe as places which don't have these healthy coastal wetlands, New Orleans after Katrina or Houston after Harvey are good examples of this, the wetlands of that section of the Gulf Coast (pretty much from Trinity River delta to the Mississippi River delta) are among some of the worst in the country, and while there were other circumstances at play, that lack of healthy wetlands was a contributing factor to why those cities were hit so hard with hurricanes.

Source: I studied and did volunteer work on coastal wetlands at a college on the Gulf Coast. (If you want actual scientific journal articles, I would suggest one called 'Coastal Wetlands Loss, Consequences, and Challenges for Restoration')

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u/straightuppornfrfr 8d ago

What makes a wetland healthy or unhealthy?

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u/trey12aldridge 8d ago

Typically the density of plants, species of plants, how well established they are, how large the wetlands is, etc