I'm reading "Florida wakes up to Milton’s devastation; 3 million lose power" (WaPo)(free access link) and "Live Updates: Hurricane Milton Carves Destructive Path Across Florida/As the storm moved offshore into the Atlantic, Gulf Coast residents were beginning to assess damage from heavy winds, rain and storm surges. More than 3.3 million customers were without power" (NYT).
Is this getting politicized? Of course it is, but let's listen to 2 key players, President Biden...
... and Ron DeSantis:Here is Joe Biden throwing Kamala under the bus when he’s asked directly today if DeSantis should take her call. He hates her. This is two days in a row of insulting her. He never takes questions. He was waiting for this one. Again. pic.twitter.com/skCx8HASH8
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 9, 2024
Attempt humor at your own risk:🚨JUST IN: Ron DeSantis shut down CNBC host that accused him of politicizing Hurricane Milton!
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) October 10, 2024
THIS is how you handle the Fake News!
DeSantis: “I didn't even know she was trying to reach me, but she has no role in this process… and I've been dealing with these storms in… pic.twitter.com/uHoaJYnmIN
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111 comments:
“Extreme weather events.” Et tu Community Notes?
DeSantis: “I didn't even know she was trying to reach me, but she has no role in this process…
I agree Harris, as VP, has no role in the process, but I'm pretty sure DeSantis is lying when he claims he "didn't even know she was trying to reach" him.
Say what you will about DeSantis, but he has always struck me as a truly competent Governor.
Kamala-lala-ding-dong does not even know how to spell the word "competence".
"... I'm pretty sure DeSantis is lying when he claims he "didn't even know she was trying to reach" him..."
Did you at all think about whether she might have been lying when she asserted that she'd been trying to reach him?
I tend to think they all lie (and puff).
I have a small condo down there, close to The Villages. My next door neighbor reports some trees down and a few shingles missing, but nothing that won't be cleaned up by next week. Power is up. We lost internet for a few hours last night, but it's back up. Pretty much a nothing burger.
Another overnight hurricane. Damn I hate those. I'm on the Atlantic side and this are just now settling down here. Rain is over, wind is still blustery and noisy but no longer threatening damage. I have some wind damage to house and vehicle but nothing like what has happened in Tampa/Sarasota area. We did not evacuate (live just west of I-95). Never lost power overnight, which is a first. Very lucky this time. Gotta start the clean up.
She's the one with the political interest in inserting herself where she has no role, the one facing the immediate political consequences, and the one who spoke first.
And *Biden* is not supporting Kamala's effort here.
Florida isn't a swing state either.
My aunt decided to tough it out near Port Charlotte. Her house was in the "red" evacuation zone and it took two days of haranguing to get her to go to her rental property in the yellow evacuation zone. She can't get back home because the roads are still flooded, but one of her neighbors stayed and said that the sea water only made it onto the lawn and into the pool.
Yes, I'd say that's accurate. 'Often wrong, but never uncertain'
And your evidence is . . . ?
The TX tweet is maybe too soon, but Goldberg, before Trump broke him, used to be funny enough to outwit that kind of stuff.
Well, as long as you are "pretty sure", that would count as definitive in a Soviet court room
Had a tornado go by, and a gator in the yard. I’m dubbing it Gator-nado.
Hurricanes are ratings events to a fixed script. What does the news claim to know that you don't? They claim to know what is important. If you're not in Florida, it wasn't. They need your eyeballs nevertheless. They sell them to advertisers.
"but let's listen to 2 key players"
There is only 1 key player, Ron DeSantis. Biden is a Non Playing Character.
I've a friend on the east coast, north of Daytona. Lots of rain and wind, tree branches down, etc., but no power losses for her (although neighbors lost power), but no internet. Haven't heard from a friend in Tampa -- he's on a hill though so probably not flooded, but I'm sure he lost power.
The whole thing might have been a skit on the Milton Berle show, I mean news broadcaster wise.
Two white crackers who want a strong woman of color to remember her place.
I bet Trump would have taken her call. They'd probably have a tee time later this morning.
Just another reminder of the eternal question: How could a sentient human being compare Trump and DeSantis in terms of character, competence, leadership, and judgement and decide that Trump is the guy?
Voters have made a lot of idiotic decisions over time but picking the Big Buffoon has got to be the most idiotic decision of all.
And what a take-down of Harris by Gov DeSantis! Yowza. That'll leave a mark.
A new movie!
Helene to Milton. What happened to Hurricane Kamala?
Trump is the guy because he has the momentum. And he's the one housing at no charge the post-hurricane electrical linemen in his hotel. And bringing the potable water to western North Carolina. I like De Santis, great governor, likely has a great political future in 2028 if he still wants it. Harris is a twat.
Three million without power....due to downed power lines and blown service transformers. Now imagine if there had been solar panel farms or windmills in the high wind path. The latter would take months or even years to restore. A bit more than cutting up some trees and running some transmission grade wire rope.
"It's all disinformation!"
"Pay NO attention to the man behind the curtain!"
Joe Biden hates Kamala Harris with intensity of the Dresden firebombing. Thus is about the third time he has stepped on her toes in the last week.
If Biden does have Alzheimer’s he has the Irish variant - forgotten everything but the grudges.
"Harris as VP, has no role in the process"
I would agree with that, and yet, "They" (Do we know who "They" is yet?) keep recruiting her to make some kind of statement, or offering of which----I've have no idea what she could possibly offer, given her (non)actions during Helene. -----Which is a pretty good predictor of how a Harris Presidency would work: President Kamala floating around in any given situation not knowing quite what's expected, but handlers scrambling to find something for her to do.
True. He and the FEMA director both talked with DeSantis. So it's not that hard to get ahold of him.
"Helene to Milton. What happened to Hurricane Kamala?"
The storms between Helene and Milton were Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, and Leslie. We hardly knew these timid characters.
It will be at least a hundred years, I'm guessing, before they'll use the name Kamala. The next few K storms are Karen, Kyle, Kate, Karl, and Katia.
It's the natural next step. For years people have argued that foreign leaders are willing to wreck their own countries based on US political party calculations. Why wouldn't mother nature want to get in on the fun?
Live a little bit north of Orlando. The more easterly path of the storm (instead of the north/easterly path projected earlier in the week) made a huge difference in my "outcome". Backyard flooded and the water came within 1.5in of running into the kitchen but stayed outside. So luckily just a big scare instead of a full on disaster. Power intermittently went out all night but never stayed off more than a minute at a time, also very grateful for that. The prior storm matched up with a water main break and we were without water for a few days. DeSantis did a pretty good job as overall manager of this thing and there were plenty of area shelters (that many took advantage of). All in all I have zero to complain about.
I have 3 Facebook friends posting that the recent hurricanes were targeted on their paths by weather modification done by 3 letter agencies. Don't know their politics. But they all have one thing in common I know of. All 3 are big time druggies and marijuana advocates.
Truth be told, you won’t find anything large enough to wrap around Fatty McHairplugz Goldberg.
I share a first-floor beach condo on the tip of the barrier island of Clearwater. (Yeah, I know, but I love the walk-out.) Early reports sound like the dynamics of the storm tracking south saved us from any storm surge and across the Tampa area. May have never lost power.
Helene may have been worse, even though it hit land much farther away, because of the same surge dynamic in the opposite direction. Units closest to the water were hit by waves. Our highest waterline, maybe 50-100 feet away, topped just below floor level. May have been pooled fresh rain water not sea water.
We've dodged more bullets than Trump!
She's the one who needed a hurricane response do-over, not DeSantis.
You might take a moment to ponder why the question is eternal to you, all by yourself.
It is ironic that Florida may have become uninsurable just after its population has surged, bolstered by wealthy refugees who wanted warm weather as well as low taxes, limited regulation and a high-growth economy.
They also want someone else to pay for all the externalities exposed by living in a state with low taxes and limited regulation.
Making the state’s infrastructure robust would be a huge benefit — but cost taxpayers. That’s why Florida and Texas’ power grid falls over every time they get extreme weather.
Well said, resident!
Hah! Good one, and probably not far from the truth.
His people gave him plausible deniability. They've straight up said they won't put her calls through to him.
Iowa quit being a "swing state" a few elections back..
Since that time.. WE haven't had ANY hurricanes, either!
Did we have hurricanes back when we WERE a "swing state"?
i'm not sure how THAT is relevant.. It'd be like asking if TEXAS ever had an hurricanes. The past is ancient history..
what I came to say..,
"Now imagine if there had been solar panel farms or windmills in the high wind path. The latter would take months or even years to restore."
Yep. The future our "leaders" have in store for us is dysfunctional. They're either too stupid to understand this or they don't give a damn cuz they're making much money off of it.
She's not lying, she's desperate.
“Kamala was trying to reach out, and we didn’t answer,” the DeSantis aide told NBC News.
The Sarasota people at my house watched TWC in front if their family’s empty boat slip last night. They’re out and about here in SC today. I haven’t heard how their apartment building or the boats fared…
Lord, DeSantis is a good speaker. He sounds so .... normal.
Robert Cook isn't Just "pretty sure" that DeSantis is lying..
DeSantis is to the right of Robert Cook (as are.. ALL OTHER LIFE FORMS ON EARTH).
According to Cook; Everyone to the right of him is a "lying fascist"..
I think i've got that right? Robert? Care to tell us someone that (TO YOU) is not on the right?
Stalin? Mao? Pol Pot? Harris? Anyone? Any one at all?
i'll wait for your response
I assume that both the VP and the Florida Governor log all of their official calls and someone can prove the other is lying. I just wonder why no one has done actual journalism on this
I always wonder what happened to the guy who wrote Liberal Fascism
All it did was blow.
Both men are were cooperating and trying to deal with a hurricane, not Kamala's campaign. Big deal. They both know 1) Kamala has no role in this and hasn't in the past, and 2) she's a dingbat that will just waste everyone's time.
It is a bit delicious to sense Biden's disdain for Kamala.
Original Mike said..
The future our "leaders" have in store for us is dysfunctional. They're either too stupid to understand this or they don't give a damn
consider The Power, of the word AND..
and then, consider the possible possibility; that that dysfunctional future is EXACTLY what they want (for US)
“Bad Genes” said...
It is ironic that Florida may have become uninsurable...
"Tell those spineless assholes we'll self-insure if they don't write it."
The answer to your question is in your question.
It's also on the wall above the sink in your bathroom.
Nothing burger in the Villages (as long as you call 12 inches of rain and 75 mph gusts a nothing burger,) but a CAT 2 with 105 mph winds at it's CPA when it passed 80 miles to the south. I was in the Villages at the time and it seemed to me to be more of a quarter pounder than a nothing burger.
Like him or not - there is absolutely no doubt that DeSantis is a leader and will fight to support the citizens of Florida - sort of like the greatest Gov of the State of WI - Tommy Thompson. Since I live in WI I usually only notice DeSantis when there there are major news events. IMO he is an excellent spokesperson when talking to the camera about the situation - he knows what he is talking about. (I know he has been through this a few times). But I can not imagine Harris being able to do much of anything about any critical situation because she doesn't have a clue about much of anything. She is absolutely unqualified and as a woman I find it embarrassing. I can't really believe the number of women that support Harris, while she looks the part - when she opens her mouth - nothing comes out, unless she is reading words from a teleprompter or has answers memorized. Are these people so out of touch with what a leader needs to be - and not just a leader of a small company - the leader of The United States of America that they will vote for her because of her sex.
Uncle Milty attacked Florida because they banned transsexualism.
He’s the closest thing to Ann’s ‘boring’ candidate but I donmt think he moves the needle for her.
Bich is an expert on utilities. Just ask him her.
Orlando area got very lucky.
What a great SNL skit this will make! I can’t wait to see it!
California: high taxes, regulations coming out of our a$$, not enough electricity, and uninsurable. We’ve had two insurance companies cancel our homeowners (that we pay for unsubsidized) in the last eight years. We are most likely going to lose our current homeowners at our next renewal.
Hmmm. What was being said about Texas and Florida?
The reaction of every leftie politician to every and any form of criticism is the same display of contempt for voters. It’s disturbing…
The rumor is that they named storm Milton [Berle] because it had "big dick energy."
In their defense, it seems like every couple of years during hurricane season somebody revives the history of NOAA and the DOD attempting to do that (actually, to get a hurricane eye to expand in size and thus weaken in intensity) by cloud seeding (Here's this year's contribution by The History Guy) Eventually NOAA figured out that there's usually too little supercooled water in a hurricane for seeding to work, and it would be prohibitively costly (and dangerous) to attempt any other kind of modification to the number of storms needed to establish that changes in the storms weren't just the usual variations as a storm progresses.
I like DeSantis, but he got played by the anti-Trumpers in the Republican Party. A "true leader" would have maybe stood his ground instead of caving to GOPe insiders instead of going with his first instincts, for instance, on Ukraine, which have proven to have been a correct reading of the American people, rather than a reading of the donor class, which is what he went with after walking back his true feelings. Doesn't sound like a "leader" to me.
One of those windmill blades flying through the sky would do as much damage as the hurricane.
Hurricane Carol was Cat 3 when it passed over our family home in 1954, power was out for two weeks. We had a propane/kerosene stove, so cooking was not a problem. There was a pond out back, I was charged with carrying up buckets of water to flush the toilets. There was a shallow well in the basement with an electric pump, but we attached a handle to the big pulley and pumped the water by hand. And of course my parents had grown up with kerosene lamps. I doubt that modern homes are anywhere as near as resilient, everything requires electricity.
If I’m a Florida resident I don’t care if he’s lying. I would be much more upset if he was wasting valuable time helping Kamala turn a natural disaster into a campaign ad.
You know Rich, Dale Carnegie had some wise words, "If you want to be persuasive, you have to at least appear to be persuadable." That's where you fall down, we know your take on almost any issue in advance. You are like one of those dolls with a string in its back.
Why should he know? She wasn't important.
I like Florida, but large landowners in Florida run the state, and they don't always take the best interests of Floridians into account. West of West Palm Beach, six private landowners got together, signed some documents, and created the town of Westlake without so much as a "by your leave" to any larger government with better visibility of the wider impact of the new town.
Kamala phoned into the Weather Channel broadcast yesterday afternoon and offered a huge plate of word salad but nothing else. If DeSantis consciously avoided her call that would be another indication of his competence.
Kamalama-ding-dog did some live Zoom/Teams broadcast about the hurricane yesterday. Not long. Right in the middle of it you see her cover her mouth, and tell the staffer feeding her questions "this is a live broadcast." She's a ding-bat, as are here campaign staffers.
I'd bet money those earrings she wore in the debate were earphones and she was being fed answers. She's nothing more than an actress.
Harris lying that she tried to reach him.
They elevate pretty women and promise them the fame and the trappings of office, and keep the power for themselves. We voters are human, and fall for it. Look at how the n3ocons ('3' is for WW3) played Finland right out of of prosperous neutrality, and put nuclear targets on their cities, they put a beautiful bimbo in charge, and she did what they wanted, against the best interests of her country, but in the interests of the US empire.
https://justthenews.com/government/local/desantis-says-there-have-been-over-600000-power-restorations-hurricane-milton
"600K customers have already had their power restored. It's amazing what can be accomplished when you elect/appoint/hire competent people. Meanwhile, FEMA's top priority was stated to be diversity hiring.
"I always wonder what happened to the guy who wrote Liberal Fascism"
Trump's main superpower has been in making people take off the masks they wear. It has been a truly amazing thing to watch over the last 9 years as one "conservative" after another reveals that they were always pretending to be something they are not.
After listening to DeSantis describe his role in Hurricane prep and response, I am now placing the blame for the Helene response in NC at the feet of Gov Cooper. DeSantis is right - FEMA is a tool in the Governor’s toolbox, so their job is to do what they train to do at the direction of the State’s Governor.
Why would would DeSantis want to talk to the monkey when he is already talking to the organ grinder? To paraphrase and old expression.
If I said that about a black vice-president, or other black person, it might sound racist. I would get accused of calling her a racial slur. She is not black so I am safe here.
As several others have pointed out, DeSantis is absolutely correct. As Vice-President, she has no role and no power here. All she can do is act as a go between with Brandon and Desantis. And 1 step more removed from FEMA.
She needs to do her job and not try to do the president's.
John Henry
Lots of Florida is uninsurable because it really isn't insurance if the probability a property is going to be severely damaged is close to 100% on a quarter century timescale. It isn't a question of mismanagement- it is simply a fact that too many people have built homes in areas guaranteed to get hit by a cat 3+ hurricane on average every 25 years or less. Of course, Bich doesn't understand this. California has the same problem but actually caused by mismangement- California's main problem with insurance is fire damage which can be greatly minimized by proper forest management- something that used to be done properly before the state became a 1-party state.
Here is what a 40 Acre, 40MW (nominal) solar farm looked like after Hurricane Maria in 2027 https://darkislandpr.blogspot.com/2018/05/22m-prepa-customers-without-light-mws.html
Also a 17MW (nominal) windfarm. Solar is in Humacao PR about 20 miles from my house, windmills are about 10 miles.
Both completely destroyed.
John Henry
The lack of an insurance option is the correct market reaction and, if allowed to perform its purpose, will provide the necessary correction by forcing future homeowners to build in better locations with better, albeit more expensive, methods.
why not she talk to D candidates in FL and stay abreast of political denial of service by governor
By "infrastructure" you seem to mean electricity. Yet you seem to think taxpayers should pay for improvements.
Nope, let the ratepayers pay.
And let 3rd party generators sell power into the grid at market rates.
In PR the govt owned (until recently) power generating company charges 20-25c/kwh to the govt owned (until recently) power distribution company for juice from oil fired plants.
AES has a 450mw coal fired plant in Guayama. They are happy to sell power at 4-5 cents. Eco-Electrica, privately owned, has a 500mw combined cycle plant in Penuelas they sell for 8-10 cents. Solar and wind farms get 18-20 cents.
I'd love to have AES build another coal plant at Roosevelt Roads, a mile from my house.
So yeah, Rich, explain why taxpayers should fund this. Seems like a really expensive way to go.
John Henry
While I'd be happy to have a coal plant at Roosey Roads, I'd be even happier to have a nuke.
And for those who appreciate that 3rd party, non-utility generation was legalized in the 90s, you are welcome. That came out of a dispute between Alcon and O'Brien Energy vs PR Power Co.
All I was trying to do, as Alcon's Manager of Facility Operations was assure a reliable supply of juice. I had no idea it would turn into such a snake's honeymoon. Or be so world changing once it was unraveled.
Details here https://darkislandpr.blogspot.com/2017/12/alcon-v-prepa.html
John Henry
They should’ve used a different name. I hear or read “Milton” and it only brings to mind Milton in “Office Space”…
[talking on the phone] “And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...“
I find it surprising how many continued to have power. Normal practice here in PR, which I fully support, is to shut down the grid just before the winds hit. A dead powerline that gets blown down is no danger to anyone and will not short transformers and cause other damage.
Normally, as soon as the winds pass, they start powering up and we have power back in 2-3 hours. Or 2-3 months in the case of Hugo, Georges or Maria.
Good on y'all.
John Henry
And DeSantis is trying to avoid the AIDS variant. Its call "Hearing AIDS" you get it from listening to assholes.
John Henry
The Florida windstorm insurance crises will eventually ease as new construction replaces the old construction. Other than storm surge and or flood destruction, older homes can be upgraded to withstand storms. As for flooding, they are ugly but flood panels can be installed. In the keys a lot of homes are built on stilts. Eventually insurance companies won't write policies for non-compliant properties. New construction in Fl requires homes to be above street level by eight feet. Most new developments have underground utilities. Flooding has been and still is a problem since most cities never had adequate drainage from inception. However a lot of communities are spending funds for better drainage. As for bad genes, bad neurons is a more appropriate moniker. FL has a larger population than NY and has have NY's budget with better services without having to have a state income tax and capped property taxes for primary residences.
That was exactly my thought: why is she involved, or becoming involved if not for political reasons? To be fair, though, she is still VP (isn't she?)
or maybe it's a joke. jeez
Texas has had bad hurricanes, like Galveston in 1900.
I agree. He should know better in 2028.
It wasn't named after Milton Hershey?
California was better run before the trial lawyers took over. My older son is one and switched a few years ago to the plaintiff side, which is better paid.
I don’t understand the tweet about Texas, considering we had a Cat1 Hurricane hit the Houston/Galveston area, and while it wasn’t so bad for Galveston due to smaller, and within seawall capability, storm surge; the wind damage was worse than any Cat1 I’ve seen and power was out for much of the Houston area for a week and Internet outages even longer. We still don’t have the quality Internet service as available before the storm.
The point about Kamala is that she doesn't seem aware that in a crisis leaders are very busy. That's how little she knows about what her job as President would be like. She probably thinks Dr Santis's staff is doing everything. And another point is that she's not at Biden's side helping him. So much for the idea that she was doing anything as VP.
I dislike Obama intensely but I used to feel a pang when I saw his hair turning gray and his face aging. The job takes it out of you
Old Goldberg, when he was a conservative pundit, would have roasted the multitudes of prominent Democrats blaming this hurricane on the climate crisis. New Goldberg, the leftist pundit, now finds some conservative, nobody has heard of and makes fun of their belief that Democrats control the weather.
Trump broke Jonah's brain.
"the climate crisis"
Uhh. Pretty sure the tweet was a joke. I guess some people need the emojis.
@AMDG: Voters have made a lot of idiotic decisions over time but picking the Big Buffoon has got to be the most idiotic decision of all.
DeSantis was my choice for two and a half years leading up to the election, but what pushed me over the edge was the absolutely despicable Stalinist persecution inflicted on Trump by the Deep State elites in both parties. The enemy traitors had to be taught a harsh lesson. I hope the harm they suffer from Trump's re-election is so devastating that it will be taught in history books written a thousand years from now. I want Trump to declare total war on the scum and use his Presidency to destroy them.
If they had treated him like any other former President, I suspect I would have voted for DeSantis instead.
I suspect that what happened with Harris is that her people did try and contact DeSantis but didn't have the right contact information. (You can't just pick up a phone and call up a governor.) Her people could have reached out to the Biden people to get the correct contact information, but didn't want to do that because of the current Biden/Harris feud. (Plus, they're getting a lot of mileage out of claiming that DeSantis is snubbing them.)
Seems like at least some parts of FLA got hit pretty hard. Check out the famed Rod & Reel Pier on the northern tip of Anna Marie Island (southern tip of the mouth of Tampa Bay). It was a 650-foot pier with a two-story restaurant at the end, surrounded by a fishing platform, and was built in 1947. The whole thing is GONE. Completely destroyed, nothing remains except some of the pilings.
"I tend to think they all lie"
That's one thing that drives me nuts about the effect that politics has on people. They intentionally turn off their bullshit detectors when it comes to their candidates. (And both sides do it.)
You know Biden is lying when his lips are moving.
We still have no confirmed reports that Harris did call, or that if she did call, aides refused to take it, or that if aides refused to put the call through to DeSantis, that DeSantis had ordered that or even knew at the time that it had happened.
Here's the relevant part of the article, note the anonymous sources angle:
"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not taking calls from Vice President Kamala Harris about storm recovery just over a week after Hurricane Helene hammered parts of his state.
A source familiar with the situation said he was dodging the Democratic presidential nominee’s calls because they “seemed political,” according to a DeSantis aide.
“Kamala was trying to reach out, and we didn’t answer,” the DeSantis aide told NBC News. ]]]]
Milton's revenge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq4N4bgqUMI
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