Hurricane!

All eyes have been on Hurricane Ian in Florida this week. Many people across the country – myself included – have friends and family in the Sunshine State and are concerned about their safety. Plus, Marcum has about 350 people and five offices in Florida, including in Tampa, which got hit hard. In the interest of everyone’s well-being, we closed our Tampa office effective Monday night to let our people prepare as best they could. At the time of this writing, authorities reported that entire neighborhoods had been destroyed as the Category 4 storm made landfall in Fort Myers, and there had already been 19 fatalities reported.

Ian made a dash across the state of Florida, passing over Orlando on its way out to the Atlantic before heading north thru Georgia and onto the Carolinas, picking up momentum as it moved. There will no doubt be more death and destruction in its path, and we won’t know the human and financial toll for days to come.

Many of us in New York who were watching the Ian news had flashbacks to Hurricane Sandy nine years ago. Anyone who lived in New York City or on Long Island at the time knows it was no picnic, with a 14-foot storm surge, millions of gallons of water pouring into the subway and railroad system, and a massive cleanup that stretched on for months. The re-building effort took years.

That said, there was sunshine on the other side, and hopefully, the aftermath of Ian will not be as severe for those on the West Coast of Florida, which took the initial brunt of the storm.

It’s hard to believe that almost a decade has passed since Sandy. The world has been a tough place for the past 10 years, and it’s been a wild ride at times, as we’ve lurched from one crisis to another. And as we all learned the hard way over almost three years, not all of them were weather-related.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by Ian.

Wednesday is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for Jews around the world. Many of us take part in the traditional fast, from sundown Tuesday to sundown Wednesday, as part of the process of repenting for our sins and asking forgiveness. For those of you who observe, may you have an easy fast.