Trump with hurricane victims — today, in North Carolina.

Are you living through Milton?

Tell us about it.

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...

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

... and Ron DeSantis:

🚨JUST IN: Ron DeSantis shut down CNBC host that accused him of politicizing Hurricane Milton!

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

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) October 10, 2024

Attempt humor at your own risk:

"FEMA called me and told me they wanted to inspect my house then called me back to say they couldn’t drive around the ‘road closed’ sign. They weren’t allowed."

Said Chelsea Atkins, 38, of Bat Cave, North Carolina, quoted in "FEMA abandons devastated NC town residents because they can’t drive around ‘road closed’ sign: ‘Nobody’s been bringing in supplies except civilians'" (NY Post).

Atkins said FEMA called her to arrange an inspection of her house on the Broad River rendered uninhabitable by the storm, but that they never showed up because the road was closed — the very same road The Post successfully traversed on its way to Bat Cave.

The road is treacherous, but navigable. It’s littered with downed power lines, and whole sections have collapsed. One portion of Highway 9 is entirely washed away, forcing traffic to navigate a huge chasm through someone’s front yard....

Well, then, it wasn't just misplaced rectitude about a "road closed" sign. It's more important to avoid new accidents that require emergency services than to move forward with the inspection of damage that has already occurred. The Post headline is needlessly inflammatory.

How political is hurricane coverage?

5 days after Hurricane Katrina The New York Times front page was wall-to-wall Hurricane coverage.

5 days after Hurricane Helene The New York Times has moved on to January 6th. pic.twitter.com/Mh7Sdv4jl7

— Alberto E. Martinez (@albertemartinez) October 4, 2024

The audience for the theater of hurricane empathy is vast, observant, and ready to put its critique in writing.

This is the most VEEP-like photo ever -- pretending to be on a phone call but forgetting to plug in the antiquated earphones while pretending to write on a blank piece of paper instead of actually doing anything. https://t.co/tkzHPplKhe

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 30, 2024

"The river that has flooded this street is normally 20 feet below it...."

One of many alarming, compelling videos to be found on TikTok right now, so use the hashtags to go in and see:

Starlink in Asheville.

Asheville is relying on @elonmusk for communication. Thank God for Starlink or we may have no information from the storm affected area at all. https://t.co/E13IcJwgKW

— Emily Zanotti 🦝 (@emzanotti) September 29, 2024

"The damage is so severe, we are telling drivers that unless it is an emergency, all roads in Western North Carolina should be considered closed."

Said a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, quoted in "More Than 400 Roads Closed in North Carolina After Damage From Helene/The closures, including on two interstates, left motorists scrambling for options" (NYT).

Why isn't the hurricane damage the top story right now? That story isn't linked on the NYT home page.

I can't help feeling that the NYT is trying to protect the Biden/Harris administration from suffering political damage (like what happened to George W. Bush over Katrina).

The top of the home page is dominated by Israel's wars: "Why the World’s Biggest Powers Can’t Stop a Middle East War/The United States’ ability to influence events in the Middle East has waned, and other major nations have essentially been onlookers," "Israel Keeps Up Strikes Against Hezbollah in Lebanon/The Israeli military said it had hit dozens of Hezbollah targets, a day after deadly strikes near Beirut. Israel killed the group’s leader on Friday," "Having ignored allies and defied critics, Benjamin Netanyahu is basking in a rare triumph. Having ignored allies and defied critics, Benjamin Netanyahu is basking in a rare triumph," "Iran projected caution after Israel’s killing of Hassan Nasrallah and bombings in Beirut," "Despair, Celebration and Shock Follows News of Nasrallah’s Death in Beirut," and "A Decimated Hezbollah Is a Serious Blow to Iran." 

Six stories! Important, though, and there's a lot of depth to those stories, including very new material.

But the next set of stories is the old 2024 presidential campaign:

"The powerful Category 4 hurricane came ashore on Florida’s Gulf Coast and quickly moved into Georgia, where it dumped record amounts of rain."

The NYT reports.

Did anyone here experience Helene? Perhaps you wouldn't be on line if you did. 

"Early indications from Florida’s Big Bend coast were of catastrophic damage to small, marshy villages like Cedar Key, which sits on a series of islands jutting into the Gulf of Mexico. 'It looks like a nuclear bomb went off,' said Michael Bobbitt, a novelist and playwright who lives in the heart of the island community."

Anyone waiting, right now, in her path?

"Flooding and tornadoes were forecast across much of the Southeast, and 'significant landslides' were predicted across the southern Appalachians through Friday. In Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., nearly 400 miles from Florida’s Gulf Coast, forecasters warned that the storm could be one of the region’s 'most significant weather events' in modern history."

Otis.

Wow...seeing #HurricaneOtis rapidly strengthen from a Tropical Storm yesterday at noon to a Category 5 Hurricane at midnight is astounding...almost mind boggling. #Acapulco #Hurricane pic.twitter.com/9jgOu1F8Bg

— Meteorologist Zach Maloch (@ZachMalochWX) October 25, 2023

Visualizing Idalia.

Hurricane #Idalia made landfall on Florida's Big Bend this morning. This view via #GOESEast IR imagery. Rapid intensification was reminiscent of Hurricane Ian one year ago, and in fact, maximum sustained winds were near 125 mph (205 km/h) just below Category 4 at landfall. #FLwx pic.twitter.com/OFYhQpeULy

— UW-Madison CIMSS (@UWCIMSS) August 30, 2023

"They lost every possession to their name. They showed up here in the same clothes they left in. And they’re all here."

"Quite a few players on our football team, members of the [junior ROTC], the band, the people here making this event what it is, they’re living on couches and in RVs or wherever they can find a place." 

Said Naples athletic director Cassie Barone, quoted in an OutKick article reporting about the Naples High football team playing its Friday night game, at home, 10 days after Hurricane Ian brought a 10 foot storm surge nor far from the school.

Ron DeSantis showed up for the game and called it "a testament to the resiliency of our Southwest Florida communities." By the way, there doesn't seem to be much of an effort to "Katrina" Ron DeSantis.

My favorite part of the article is one of the section headings: "Football Can Lift The Community."

Nancy Sinatra is trending on Twitter, but don't worry, she didn't die. It's trending because of this:

Hey, Ron DeSantis, looks like you're cosplaying Nancy Sinatra, because...
Those boots are made for walking,
And that's just what you'll do,
When Charlie Crist and voters
Sweep you out in a wave of blue. pic.twitter.com/npkl5M9WJw

— Marc Goldstein (@marc92gold) October 4, 2022

 

Meanwhile, in other viral DeSantis-and-the-hurricane tweets, there's this:

🚨Lol. The bullshit media is going to lose their marbles over this video 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/4e2Ryqosrp

— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) October 3, 2022

ADDED: Surely, there is some reason for choosing white boots. I see that white boots for men are an easily available product, and I don't think DeSantis would have chosen them without a good reason, so I'm surprised the reason isn't being used to push back those who are mocking him.

Poking around for a minute, I got the impression that there are 2 reasons why white boots are used around the water in Florida: 1. They are less hot than dark-colored boots, and 2. They don't make marks on the deck of your boat.

By the way, mocking a man for doing something that you associate with women reflects sexism and homophobia.

"In its natural state, most of Florida was such a soggy mush of low-lying marshes that mapmakers couldn’t decide whether to draw it as land or water."

"The Spaniards who arrived in the 16th century told their king the peninsula was 'liable to overflow, and of no use,' and white people mostly stayed away until the U.S. Army chased the Seminole Indians into the Everglades in the 19th century. The soldiers forced to slog through its mosquito-infested bogs described it as a 'hideous,' 'diabolical,''repulsive,' 'pestilential,' 'God-abandoned' hellhole. The story of Florida in the 20th century is about dreamers and schemers trying to get rid of all that water and drain the swamp. Eventually, they mostly succeeded, transforming a remote wilderness into a sprawling megalopolis, replacing millions of acres of wetlands with strip malls and golf courses and sprawling subdivisions, building the Palmetto and Sawgrass Expressways where palmettos and sawgrass used to be.... Cape Coral is Florida on steroids, a comically artificial landscape featuring seven perfectly rectangular man-made islands and eight perfectly square man-made lakes. It was built by two shady brothers who made their fortunes selling scammy anti-baldness tonics, then used their talent for flimflam to sell inaccessible swampland to suckers.... 'You can even get stucco,' the land-swindler played by Groucho Marx quipped in Cocoanuts. 'Oh, how you can get stuck-oh!'"

Writes Michael Grunwald in "Why the Florida Fantasy Withstands Reality/Cape Coral is a microcosm of Florida’s worst impulse: selling dream homes in a hurricane-prone flood zone. But people still want them" (The Atlantic).

Will the U.S. help Cuba after Hurricane Ian? Cuba is asking.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

“If Cuba asks for humanitarian aid and the U.S. gives it to them, that would be a real breakthrough,” says William LeoGrande, an expert on Cuba at American University in Washington. 

On other occasions when Cuba has suffered from hurricanes, the U.S. has offered humanitarian aid, but Cuba has turned it down.

"Hurricane Ian is on the cusp of Category 5 strength with maximum sustained winds of almost 155 mph..."

"... ahead of an expected Wednesday afternoon landfall. The National Hurricane Center warned that 'catastrophic storm surge, winds, and flooding' are imminent in the Florida Peninsula — the center said in its noon advisory that the ring of destructive winds, or eyewall, around Ian’s calm center is moving onshore at Sanibel and Captiva Islands in Southwest Florida. More than 300,000 customers are without power midday Wednesday as conditions continue to deteriorate.... 'This is going to be a nasty, nasty day,' Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said in a news conference early Wednesday. In neighborhoods from Tampa to Key West, locals were seeing water at their doorsteps — some making last minute efforts to evacuate...."

WaPo reports.

Biden dances 30,000 feet above the hurricane.

The goofy Politico headline caught my eye: "Biden's delicate midterm dance." 

I clicked, wondering what kind of absurd credit is he getting now, but I see it's pre-boosting him as the hurricane approaches:

The storm bearing down on Florida forced President Joe Biden to scrap plans to deliver a politically-charged speech in the state. But he campaigned anyway, from behind a podium* in the Rose Garden.... 

"For months, the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season was notable for one reason: a complete lack of hurricanes."

"That finally changed on Friday, when Danielle strengthened into the Atlantic's first hurricane since last October.... [I]it's been a quiet summer: 60 days elapsed from Tropical Storm Colin's demise on July 3 and Danielle's arrival on Sept. 1."

NPR reported 2 days ago. 

Now, there's a second hurricane, Earl, forming out in the Atlantic, USA Today reports, and headed away from us. 

"Those leaders, from President Biden down to New York’s Democratic nominee for mayor, Eric Adams, expressed a similar sentiment in their reactions to the storm: Climate change is here."

From "Storm heightens a sense of vulnerability to climate change" (NYT). 

The storm was Ida, as it hit the New York metropolitan area, killing 23 in New Jersey (mostly people trapped in cars) and 13 in New York City (many in "ground-level" (below ground level?) apartments).  

It's disturbing to hear political leaders reacting to one storm by declaring it climate change. We're supposed to believe the science and, simultaneously, accept prodding to believe that's not done scientifically but emotionally and politically. 

"Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday as a Category 4 storm.... The storm’s maximum sustained winds on Sunday morning reached 150 miles an hour, closing in on the 157 m.p.h. winds of a Category 5 storm...."

"The storm has New Orleans directly in its path.... The storm could also wreak serious havoc farther inland, in places like greater Baton Rouge, where a number of areas have been devastated by inland flooding in recent years from much less powerful storms. Hurricane Ida will bring 'extremely threatening storm surge inundation of 9 feet or higher' between Burns Point, La., and Ocean Springs, Miss., the Hurricane Center warned. In some places the surge could be as high as 16 feet....  Governor Edwards [said] 'We can sum it up by saying this will be one of the strongest hurricanes to hit anywhere in Louisiana since at least the 1850s'....  The storm made landfall on the 16th anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina....  The trajectory and strength of Ida will present a high-stakes test of the levees, flood walls, pumps and gates that were reinforced around New Orleans after Katrina.... ... Mr. Edwards said that the pandemic had thwarted plans to evacuate hospitals. 'Evacuating these large hospitals is not an option because there are not any other hospitals with the capacity to take them'...."

The NYT reports.