NOAA
How natural disasters could affect the U.S. presidential election
The bookish intellectuals of Florida, as well as the entire East Coast of the United States, would do well to remember the ancient Roman proverb, «The abyss calls to the abyss» — an equivalent of the Russian proverb, «When it rains, it pours».
How else to interpret the series of natural disasters? After Hurricane «Helene» tore through six states — Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Florida — her relative «Milton» appeared. This unwelcome guest carried an even more ominous destructive force, as if borrowed from pagan gods.
The hardest hit was the «Orange State» of Florida, where Republican Governor Ron DeSantis preemptively sent evacuation notices to 5.5 million residents.
The destructive potential of this natural aggressor was comparable to the historic Tampa Bay Hurricane of 1848. The landscape left in Milton’s wake is equally devastating. Not surprisingly, climatologists and meteorologists unofficially classified it as a Category 6 hurricane (the Saffir-Simpson scale only goes up to five), based on its forward speed of about 300 km/h.
Americans are still recovering from the psychological shock caused by Hurricane Helene, which was less violent but still aggressive compared to Milton. In the town of Asheville, North Carolina, with a population of about 90,000, the most pressing issue beyond the disaster itself, which left many homeless, was the water supply. Patients in hospitals and residents in shelters, where many of the injured and homeless have taken refuge, are suffering from chronic water shortages.
«We need a portable water system…no one can flush the toilets, no one can take showers, no one can do laundry. We have no water, and the infrastructure that provides it is completely destroyed», Dr. Carly Brown, a family physician, told an Epoch Times reporter.
The problems didn’t end there. Looters appeared out of nowhere, rummaging through damaged or abandoned property for valuables. A local schoolteacher named Feinberg told a newspaper reporter, «I have a gun. It’s loaded and it’s on my bed, and I also have a butcher knife and a can of wasp spray. I’m afraid at night».
Fake websites have also proliferated online. These have been created by phone and email scammers who demand payment for services supposedly provided by emergency relief organizations. Many people, especially those unfortunate enough to have lost their homes, cars, and other possessions overnight, fall for these traps.
The rampage of natural disasters has collided in the most inconvenient way with the Democrats’ election campaign. As the ruling party, they bear direct responsibility for the lives, health and well-being of the U.S. citizens under their care.
«Milton» and «Helene» severely strained the organizational and administrative structures set up to deal with emergencies. They exposed that strain and revealed a systemic failure.
As it turned out, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted to journalists that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) does not have enough funding to carry out the full range of rescue operations during the traditional hurricane season in the southwestern regions of the country.
The issue quickly went viral and became a point of contention between the Trump and Harris campaign teams. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, posted the following on social media platform X:
«Mayorkas and FEMA — immediately stop spending money to resettle illegal aliens and redirect those funds to hurricane affected areas. Put Americans first».
The Democrats will have a hard time countering this blow. FEMA promises no more than «tens of thousands of dollars» for home repairs and temporary hotel stays for those left homeless. In response, Trump supporters have pointed out that FEMA somehow found $1.4 billion in its budget that had already been spent on… programs to help illegal immigrants adjust.
Currently, according to Moody’s Analytics, it could cost up to $34 billion to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Helene. As Zoë Schlanger, a columnist for The Atlantic, writes, «The federal budget is not prepared for such expenditures, and local governments are even less so». It’s no surprise that the Democratic Party-loyal press and federal officials are trying to downplay the scale of the disaster.
It’s hard to keep this under wraps. The truth is breaking through the veil of silence. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis openly accused the Democratic presidential candidate of hypocrisy, saying she was slow to show concern for the victims of the disaster. At a briefing on the methods and timeline for dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane «Helene», Kamala Harris, still a strong contender to become the 47th president of the United States, announced the distribution of «helicopter money» from FEMA funds, amounting to $750 for each victim.
It’s unlikely that this meager handout will comfort Sharon Parton, an Asheville motel owner who has had several relatives move in with her involuntarily. «My son and his wife lost everything. My mother-in-law lost everything», Parton said. Dr. Carly Brown, mentioned earlier, was equally pessimistic about the future: «This is our Hurricane Katrina. We will never fully recover».
It’s worth remembering that Hurricane Katrina, the most devastating natural disaster of its kind in U.S. history, occurred in August 2005. It destroyed or damaged approximately 240,000 structures and flooded four-fifths of New Orleans in the state of Louisiana.
The final assessment of Milton’s impact, including the death toll, has yet to be made, but it is expected to be as grim as Helene’s. Since Florida, a stronghold of staunch Trump supporters, was the target of the hurricane duo, a conspiracy theory has entered the public discourse. This theory, of course, lacks any scientific basis and suggests that the hurricanes were man-made, allegedly summoned by malevolent Democrats to interfere with the free will of Republican supporters.
In response, the Obama-Clinton-Biden-Harris camp blamed Donald Trump for the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. They implied that this ignorant individual had done nothing during his presidency to slow global climate change, and now this is the consequence — nature’s retribution.
Of course, none of the clever political strategists in the White House went so far as to accuse Trump of provoking the Tampa Bay hurricane of 1848 or Hurricane Katrina of 2005.
«Milton» and «Helene», that villainous duo, materialized in the final stretch of the election marathon. Was it a coincidence? Or was nature itself outraged by the most scandalous and contentious presidential election?