Photo From NASA Shows The Water From Hurricane Ian Draining Back Into The Gulf

This is an absolutely amazing post-Hurricane Ian view of Florida taken by astronaut Bob Hines who is on board the International Space Station. Hurricane Ian dumped and pushed so much water onto Florida that you can see the runoff from space. As explained by John Hurley PHD, "This is a great perspective on the hydrologic cycle. Water gets evaporated into the atmosphere, water gets caught up in a hurricane, water precipitates onto land, and water runs over land draining to the sea, water moving sediment."

For the techies, the photo was taken on October 3rd with a NIKON D5 S/N: 3503270 at an altitude of  225 nautical miles. More details of the photo here.

To further explain the photo, The dark parts are the water running back from Florida into the Gulf Of Mexico. The light area is resuspension of sediments in the Gulf. So think about pouring more water into a bucket of water. Any dirt or other sediment from the bottom of the bucket is now floating in the water. That's happening with the Gulf Of Mexico.

And now the next part about the Hurricane Ian water....

So while we continue to deal with the mess, we can probably expect red tide to show up as well. Please help in the recovery effort in Southwest Florida if you can. Donate to the Southwest Florida Emergency Relief Fund.

The entire Bonita Beach area of Bonita Springs area is absolutely destroyed. Our entire Southwest Florida area is reeling from Hurricane Ian. Most of us are without power and internet. We have limited cell and text messaging available. Many of you reading this are from outside of our area, so if can help:

How To Help Those Impacted By Hurricane Ian

Hurricane Ian made landfall near Cayo Costa, an island off the coast of Fort Myers, just after 3 p.m. on Wednesday. With Ian, came 150 mph winds, the fifth-strongest hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. According to ABC News, “Ian then made a second landfall 90 minutes later, still as a Category 4 storm with 145 mph winds, just south of Punta Gorda, near Pirate Harbor.”

While the efforts to restore Southwest Florida's beaches will be a years long recovery, our whole area is suffering greatly. The causeway to Sanibel collapsed and the docks sustained heavy damage, making the island only accessible by helicopter. There’s some areas where we don’t even know yet the extent of the damage. As you'll see in the pictures, law enforcement is limiting access to certain areas.

Bonita Springs will rebuild. But this is going to take a long time.