Thursday, October 10, 2024
PMT: The Politics of storms
Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida's West Coast yesterday, close on the heels of Hurricane Helene passing nearby. It's going to be a tragic and expensive mess for a while.
The Trump campaign is doing everything it can to make the federal government's response sound like a failure, though the reviews on the ground from Helene have been fair to good. Still, there are longstanding political issues raised by the destruction-- and they are not new.
First, of course, is the issue of climate change, which has made these storms more dangerous because of the warming of the Gulf of Mexico; the warmer waters are fuel for this kind of storm, apparently (via science I don't understand). That isn't something we can change soon, and alone, but the effects will only get worse if not addressed.
The second and more immediate concern is about flood insurance. After taking huge losses, some insurers stopped offering homeowners insurance to flood-prone areas-- mostly expensive neighborhoods on the shoreline in states like Florida. So, the federal government stepped in and offered subsidized insurance that is going to lose about $5 billion in initial funding and have to start tapping into credit to pay claims (which is all funded by taxpayers). It is, of course, mostly a form of welfare for wealthy people, where all of us pay taxes to insure their million-dollar homes close to the beach.
Proponents, of course, argue that it is important to continue the program or there will be real negative impacts on communities in these areas.
What should happen next?
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Just put a huge CLOSED sign up at the Florida border. My non-flood zone friends in St Pete on the west coast and Flagler Beach on the east coast were terrified. Then the people in certain areas of FL spent 5 and 6 hours huddled in bathrooms because of very active tornados being spawned by the advancing storm.
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