Before and after each major hurricane, scientists and researchers at the Naples Botanical Garden conduct surveillance at more than a dozen locations throughout the 90-acre preserve in East Naples. The area was flooded with about a foot of water and saw some damage from high winds during the height of Hurricane Milton.
"When we built the garden, we conserved 90 acres of land along the coastal side of the gardens. That 90 acres of land, we estimate took on about one foot deep of flooding. That's approximately 30 million gallons of water that that natural area stored, that prevented about 45 Olympic swimming pools worth of water getting out into the community and doing damage," said Chad Washburn, the vice president of conservation for the Naples Botanical Garden.
Garden staff uses a refractometer to gauge salinity levels, which gives an idea of whether the area was flooded with storm surge, runoff, or simply rainwater. Certain levels of salt content can be disastrous for specific species of plants.
"We collect water samples across our site. Then we go out after the storm, right away, and we collect water samples again, and then we measure the salinity of those, and we can better understand if we do get flooding. Is it from storm surge? Is it from freshwater flooding? From the landscape? Where is that water coming from? When you're dealing with plants, that's really important because saltwater can do a lot of damage," Washburn said.
These test results can determine the placement of specific plants in the future, especially those that are considered protected or threatened.
"We only know of a few of these (the "Summer Farewell" flower) on our site, and because they don't occur anywhere else, they're already in an imperiled habitat. These scrub lands, have had a lot of development on them because they're higher and drier. These plants are very rare for that reason, so it would be a shame to lose them to saltwater flooding when really by collecting seeds, you can kind of ensure their long-term survival," said Eric Foht, the Director of Natural Resources at the Garden.
Staff at the Naples Botanical Garden tell NBC2 they plan on continuing this research for storms in the future.