Hurricane Irma was one of the strongest storms ever seen in the Atlantic Ocean, and the Florida Keys were among the hardest-hit regions.
To capture the damage along the Florida coast, photographer Cameron Davidson photographed the Keys from a helicopter.
“With ground [photography] it’s intimate,” he said in an interview with National Geographic. “You’ll see how a storm impacted a family. With aerials, you can see how a storm impacted an entire community.”
In addition to vacation homes, about 73,000 people live year-round in Monroe county, the largest county covering the Florida Keys. Known for their independence, these residents colloquially refer to themselves as the Conch Republic, a reference to both the popular local shellfish and Key West’s mock “secession” from the United
