Shark Appears In Flooded Florida Neighborhood During Hurricane Ian

The image of a shark swimming through areas flooded by a hurricane is something that everyone can picture, but pretty much all well-known images of this phenomenon are actually falsified.

In the wake of other Hurricanes including Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Katrina, plenty of doctored images of sharks made the rounds online and on the news. It’s an immediately attention-grabbing situation, seeing sea creatures on a regular town block or in your backyard, but not as common as it might seem.

In the days following Hurricane Ian in Florida, one viral video clip showed this situation actually happening. The video was recorded in Fort Myers, Florida, an area that was hit hard by floodwaters.

The University of Miami study published to Science Daily which surveyed tag data from nurse sharks, tiger sharks, bull sharks, and great hammerheads before, during, and after Hurricane Matthew in 2016, and Hurricane Irma in 2017. Their results apparently found that most sharks migrated to shallower waters ahead of a hurricane, but certain species wouldn’t do that including large tiger sharks in the Bahamas.

The storm surge is so powerful from #HurricaneIan that it has brought a shark into the city streets of Fort Myers.

🎥@BradHabuda pic.twitter.com/RHY0kK5RHR

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) September 28, 2022