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By Isabella O鈥橫alley
The Associated Press

When Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle five years ago, it left boats, cars and trucks piled up to the windows of Bonny Paulson鈥檚 home in the tiny coastal community of Mexico Beach, even though the house rests on pillars 14 feet above the ground. But Paulson鈥檚 home, with a rounded shape that looks something like a ship, shrugged off Category 5 winds that might otherwise have destroyed it.

鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 nervous at all,鈥� Paulson said, recalling the warning to evacuate.

Her house lost only a few shingles, with photos taken after the storm showing it standing whole amid the wreckage of almost all surrounding homes.

Some developers are building homes like Paulson鈥檚 with an eye toward making them more resilient to the聽, and friendlier to the environment at the same time. For example, solar panels are installed so snugly that high winds can鈥檛 get underneath them, so clean power can survive a storm. Meanwhile, preserved wetlands and native vegetation trap carbon in the ground and reduce flooding vulnerability. And recycled or advanced construction materials reduce energy consumption.

A home is one of the biggest opportunities for someone to reduce an individual carbon footprint. Buildings release about 38 percent of all energy-related greenhouse gas emissions each year. Some of the聽carbon pollution聽comes from powering things like lights and air conditioners and some of it comes from making construction materials, like concrete and steel.

Deltec, the company that built Paulson鈥檚 home, says that only one of the nearly 1,400 homes it鈥檚 built over the past three decades has suffered structural damage from hurricane-force winds. But the company puts as much emphasis on building green, with higher-quality insulation that reduces the need for air conditioning, heat pumps for more efficient heating and cooling, energy-efficient appliances, and of course solar panels.

鈥淭he real magic here is that we鈥檙e doing both,鈥� chief executive Steve Linton. 鈥淚 think a lot of times resilience is sort of the afterthought when you talk about sustainable construction, where it鈥檚 just kind of this is a feature on a list 鈥� we believe that resilience is really a fundamental part of sustainability.鈥�

Other companies are developing entire neighborhoods that are both resistant to hurricanes and less impactful than average to climate change.

Pearl Homes鈥� Hunters Point community in Cortez, Florida, consists of 26 completed houses and 30 more to be built by the end of 2024 that are all Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum.

To reduce vulnerability to flooding, home sites are raised 16 feet above code. Roads are raised, too, and designed to direct accumulating rainfall away and onto ground where it may be absorbed. Steel roofs with seams allow solar panels to be attached so closely it鈥檚 difficult for high winds to get under them, and the homes have batteries that kick in when power is knocked out.

Pearl Homes CEO Marshall Gobuty said his team approached the University of Central Florida with a plan to build a community that doesn鈥檛 contribute to climate change.

鈥淚 wanted them to be not just sustainable, but resilient; I wanted them to be so unlike everything else that goes on in Florida,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 see homes that are newly built, half a mile away, that are underwater 鈥� we are in a crisis with how the weather is changing.鈥�

That resonates with Paulson, in Mexico Beach, who said she didn鈥檛 want to 鈥渓ive day to day worried about tracking something in the Atlantic.鈥� Besides greater peace of mind, she says, she鈥檚 now enjoying energy costs of about $32 per month 鈥� far less than the roughly $250 she said she paid for a previous home.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 really feel that the population is taking into effect the environmental catastrophes, and adjusting for it,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e building the same old stuff that got blown away.鈥�

Babcock Ranch is another sustainable, hurricane-resilient community in South Florida. It calls itself the first solar-powered town in the U.S., generating 150 megawatts of electricity with 680,000 panels on 870 acres. The community was also one of the first in the country to have large batteries on site to store extra solar power to use at night or when the power is out.

Syd Kitson founded Babcock Ranch in 2006. The homes are better able to withstand hurricane winds because the roofs are strapped to a system that connects down to the foundation. Power lines are buried underground so they can鈥檛 blow over. The doors swing outward in some homes so when pressure builds up from wind, they don鈥檛 blast open, and vents help balance the pressure in garages.

In 2022, Hurricane Ian churned over Babcock Ranch as a Category 4 storm. It left little to no damage, Kitson said.

鈥淲e set out to prove that a new town and the environment can work hand in hand, and I think we鈥檝e proven that,鈥� he said. 鈥淯nless you build in a very resilient way, you鈥檙e just going to constantly be repairing or demolishing the home.鈥�

The development team sold some 73,000 acres of its site to the state for wetland preservation, and on the land where it built, a team studied how water naturally flows through the local environment and incorporated it into its water management system.

鈥淭hat water is going to go where it wants to go; if you鈥檙e going to try and challenge Mother Nature, you鈥檙e going to lose every single time,鈥� Kitson said.

The wetlands, retention ponds, and native vegetation are better able to manage water during extreme rainfall, reducing the risk of flooded homes.

In the Florida Keys, Natalia Padalino and her husband, Alan Klingler, plan to finish building a Deltec home by December. They were concerned about the on the Florida Keys and researched homes that were both sustainable and designed to withstand these storms.

鈥淲e believe we鈥檙e building something that鈥檚 going to be a phenomenal investment and reduce our risk of any major catastrophic situation,鈥� Klingler said.

鈥淧eople have been really open and receptive,鈥� Padalino said. 鈥淭hey tell us if a hurricane comes, they鈥檙e going to be staying in our place.鈥�

Editor鈥檚 note: Associated Press video journalist Laura Bargfeld, in Mexico Beach, and photographer Gerald Herbert, in New Orleans, contributed to this story.