As Hurricane Irma, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, bears down on South Florida, the state is bracing for the worst. “We can rebuild your home, but we cannot rebuild your life,” Republican Gov. Rick Scott said Wednesday. Mandatory evacuations are in place in a number of Florida communities. The state is preparing for extraordinary damage at the hands of the 400-mile-wide hurricane. Scott, however, took action six years ago that means preparation for the storm must be all the more intense: The Republican governor prioritized development over ecological restoration of wetlands. Scott cut funding for the state’s water management districts in 2011, leading to staff reductions and less funding for ecosystem restoration projects. Around the same time, Scott signed the state legislature’s repeal of the state’s 1985 growth management law, leading to a spike in development. Scott would tell the Palm Beach Post in 2016 that the economic benefits from more building meant Florida was “on a roll.” As Hurricane Harvey demonstrated in Houston, however, development from depleted wetlands can exacerbate the effects of storms: Water from rain and storm surges will have fewer places to go when the storm makes landfall, creating a greater potential for catastrophic flooding. “Our wetlands help absorb and hold water,” said Angelique Bochnak, past president of the South Atlantic Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists and a former scientist with the St. Johns River Water Management District in northeast Florida. “The more developed the landscape is, the more runoff from rain. And there’s nowhere else to go but flooding without wetlands.” The changes to state priorities around development over wetlands came during a period of few major hurricanes in Florida. During Scott’s time in office, Florida has been spared the ravages of a large and powerful storm. And, in that time, the state has seen an increase in commercial and real estate development that is leaving its southeastern coast exposed to danger from Hurricane Irma, which could travel along the coast as a powerful Category 4 storm. “If it stays on its current forecast track, Irma’s path is about as bad a track as a major hurricane can take through Florida,” said meteorologist Dennis Mersereau. “Instead of hitting the coast head-on and focusing its wind and surge on one spot, the eyewall is forecast to scrape the entire length of the state’s east coast up into Georgia and maybe South Carolina. If that forecast plays out, the extent of flooding from storm surge will be widespread and ugly.” Irma’s storm surge could reach almost 10 miles inland in Miami on Sunday. Mersereau said that the surge could be as high as 10 feet, though that prediction could and will change as the storm gets closer to the panhandle state. The surge, combined with the rain from the storm, presents a major flooding challenge for Florida.

The governor’s office did not provide comment for this story, instead referring The Intercept to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, which stressed its commitment to protecting the state’s beaches and shorelines. “DEP has an entire division dedicated to managing and protecting Florida’s coastal ecosystems,” said department press officer Dee Ann Miller in an email. The department’s Coastal Office, Miller said, cooperates with a variety of allies to maintain the integrity of the state’s coastline. “They work with local stakeholders and federal agencies to implement the statewide coastal management program,” she said, “as well as conduct important coastal research to inform resiliency planning for coastal communities.”

An overhead view of the Florida Everglades on April 4, 2006. Scientists face the daunting task of managing more water from frequent storms to keep developed areas from flooding and to cleanse agricultural runoff of fertilizers and pesticides before it bleeds into surrounding wetlands. Photo: Alan Diaz/AP