Hurricane Ian

Florida has begun taking applications for repairing coastal erosion from Tropical Storms Ian and Nicole in areas including Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties.

Visit Florida is spending $1 million on a campaign to show the state was not “completely destroyed” by the storm and is open for enjoyment.

Sen. Jennifer Bradley has filed a bill that would require home sellers to disclose whether a property was ever damaged by flooding — a particular problem after Hurricane Ian.

Out of all 50 states, Florida ranked first in damages with $116 billion attributed to the Sunshine State alone. It’s also the most expensive year for Florida in the 42-year history of the billion-dollar disaster report.

With more than 35,000 homes damaged or destroyed in Lee County, residents are concerned about housing affordability — and changes to their communities — as developers become involved.

Critics said the bill mainly helped insurance companies, not Floridians struggling with rising premiums.

Florida has an exploding population on the coast, while climate change raises the risk of hurricanes with deadly coastal flooding. That combination may one day force the conversation on retreating from these dangerous places, but for now, the focus remains on how we will rebuild.

Hurricane Ian dealt a major blow to Florida’s already crippled property insurance market. The Category 4 storm is expected to go down as one of the costliest in U.S. history, and that’s expected to drive more of the state’s private insurers out of business.

FEMA has extended the deadline to apply for federal disaster assistance in Putnam and St. Johns counties.

The back-to-back storms took 1.2 million cubic yards of sand — more than Hurricane Matthew.