Hurricane experts and others meeting this week near Orlando delivered more dire warnings Wednesday about the urgent, short-term need to harden existing homes and build stronger structures, while planning for the long-term loss of coastal buffer zones that will make Florida and other states even more vulnerable to big storms.
Leaving aside the political debate over global warming, the evidence is clear that financial losses to catastrophic storms have been soaring worldwide, sea levels are rising, ocean temperatures are going up and warmer waters fuel more powerful storms, said Amanda Staudt, a scientist with the National Wildlife Federation.
"Small increases in storm intensity mean big increases in damage," said Staudt, a panel moderator during the opening day of the Hurricane Science for Safety Leadership Forum in the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotel conference center.
More than 160 professionals, planners and policy makers are ...