"Most people just accept hurricanes as part of the price of living in Florida, along with the heat, humidity, mosquitoes and alligators."
- Stanley Smith, director of UF's Bureau of Economic and Business Research
After the devastating 2004 hurricane season, newscasts were filled with anecdotes of storm-weary residents packing up and leaving Florida. But while the storms had significant impacts in the counties where they hit, overall they had little or no effect on Florida's 2005 population growth, according to the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research.
"Florida's population grew by more than 400,000 last year," says Stanley Smith, director of the bureau, which estimates population using building permit, utility and Census data. "This is one of the largest increases in Florida's history."
For its 2004-05 population report, the bureau supplemented its research with 11,560 telephone interviews in the 13 counties most heavily impacted by the hurricanes. The storms damaged 32% of homes statewide but 74% of those in the 13-county area. About 21% of the residents in those counties were forced to move, at least temporarily. But by the time the bureau completed its interviews last June, 82% of them had returned.
Some counties did in fact experience losses in population. The 2005 population estimates show one-year declines of 3,603 in Escambia; 2,955 in Charlotte; 1,499 in De Soto; 454 in Hardee; and 239 in Okeechobee. "Since (these counties) had been growing in previous years and the state as a whole grew rapidly last year, these declines were clearly caused by the hurricanes," says Smith.
But overall, hurricanes have had little effect on the rapid pace of development either in Florida or elsewhere in the coastal U.S. over the past 50 years. While population growth in Miami-Dade slowed the first year after Andrew, it later rebounded to even higher levels. "Most people just accept hurricanes as part of the price of living in Florida, along with heat, humidity, mosquitoes and alligators," says Smith. "Some people will certainly move away, but they will be replaced by others moving in."