As the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene becomes clearer, the estimates of loss are growing. In the last In Brief, I noted that AccuWeather anticipated damages of $95-110 billion, but the firm has now increased that estimate to $225-250 billion according to Grist. This is more damage than that caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 or Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The heartbreaking adjunct to this estimate is that insured losses are only expected to be $6.4 billion. Most of the damage was caused by flooding, and very few people in southern Appalachia carry flood insurance. In Asheville, for example, less than 1% of residents are covered for floods.

The Guardian describes some of the damage, including large sections of Interstate 40 washed out in eastern Tennessee, and the complete obliteration of Chimney Rock, North Carolina. Interstate 26 is also impassable, and it will be months before these roads are reopened. The Washington Post notes: “In [the North Carolina] mountains, Helene will forever mark a dividing line. A before and an after. The end of one era, and the beginning of another that, for now, is full of uncertainty and angst.” At the time of this writing, over 225 people are dead due to the storm, and many remain missing.

After many days of waiting, I received a short message from my former college roommate who lives in the mountains north of Asheville. “All roads and bridges destroyed. House and dogs and us okay. Comms very spotty and troublesome. Loggers got our roads passable a day or two ago. Able to get to town which has groceries/gas/relief aid but long lines. Internet/cell very spotty.” He told me they received 26 inches of rain in 48 hours, and he took cold showers for two weeks before getting fuel for his generator to run his water heater. Sagging power lines and washouts are keeping many roads impassable. This is going to be a very painful and protracted recovery for these communities.

The Washington Post describes the physical factors that resulted in Hurricane Helene causing so much destruction in the mountains of western North Carolina. These include the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico, the speed of the storm, wet soil from previous rains and the local topography. The New York Times notes the role that climate change is playing in major storms: “Storms are expected to cause more coastal flooding because of sea-level rise. They can deliver larger downpours because warmer air can carry more moisture. And they’re becoming more likely to intensify rapidly because they form over warmer seawater.”

The Guardian points out that Asheville, North Carolina, “was touted as a climate ‘haven’ from extreme weather. Now the historic city has been devastated and cut off by Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic floodwaters, in a stunning display of the climate crisis’s unlimited reach in the United States.” Asheville is home to a major facility that is one of our National Centers for Environmental Information. It lost its water supply and had to shut down.

Meanwhile, Salon describes how Donald Trump and many Republicans are spreading absurd and dangerous lies that FEMA is out of money to help storm victims because it has been given to undocumented immigrants or lithium developers. FEMA has had to spend valuable time debunking claims (some anti-semitic) on social media that the agency is confiscating storm victims’ property, while Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote that Democrats are controlling the weather to guide hurricanes toward Republican voters. The Atlantic quotes an X user who described a meteorologist as “nothing but a trained subversive liar programmed to spew stupid shit to support the global warming bullshit.” The Guardian describes how meteorologists are trying to cope with death threats. Katie Nickolaou, a Michigan-based meteorologist, noted: “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes. I can’t believe I just had to type that.”

An op-ed in The New York Times notes that “Trump has successfully trained millions of Americans to think of the truth as an obstacle to winning power.” Dr. Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, stated: “I have been doing disaster work for nearly 20 years, and I cannot think of another acute disaster where there has been this much misinformation.” An op-ed in The Washington Post observes that “Trump’s baseless attacks on professional public servants are a sign of his contempt for fact-based, functional government.” The Atlantic describes how misinformation is generating threats against FEMA personnel and making their relief work dangerous. I agree with Sheriff Aaron Ellenburg of Rutherford County, North Carolina, who stated, “I’m sick and tired of this crap.”

Florida was fortunate that Hurricane Helene struck a relatively undeveloped part of the coast but, even as the damage was being assessed, Hurricane Milton formed in the Gulf of Mexico. As of October 7, Milton became a major hurricane taking aim at the Tampa Bay region (the storm intensified quickly from Category 1 to 5, taking energy from the incredibly warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico). Great focus was placed upon understanding where Milton would make landfall, as the damage could be enormous due to the particular vulnerability of the Tampa/St. Petersburg region to storm surge as described by The Washington Post. The National Hurricane Center warned that Milton would be the most powerful hurricane to hit Tampa Bay in over 100 years. “No one in the area has ever experienced a hurricane this strong before.”

An added danger from Milton was the likelihood that its winds will be turning portions of the debris left by Hurricane Helene into high-speed projectiles or floating battering rams. The Washington Post examines the intense debris-hauling effort in preparation for Milton’s approach. Mayor Ken Welch of St. Petersburg warned residents of another threat: construction cranes that were not able to be dismantled. This is an ironic impact of the town’s condo building boom. Video on Monday, October 7, documented that (thankfully) many people were heeding the evacuation order, although 24 hours later 17% of Florida’s gas stations had run out of fuel (Tampa Bay Mayor, Jane Castor, stated: “I can say without any dramatization whatsoever, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die.”). A National Weather Service video used a long ruler on the side of its building to graphically illustrate the height of the forecasted storm surge. The Post reported that “Milton is the strongest Gulf of Mexico hurricane this late in the year on record and among the three strongest at any time.”

As predicted, wind shear weakened (but widened) Milton, and it made landfall in Siesta Key, just south of Sarasota, as a Category 3 storm. The Washington Post reports that “Milton’s quadruple-whammy of deadly tornadoes, heavy rain, hurricane-force wind and storm surge left damage from coast to coast, but the Tampa Bay area escaped the monster inundation meteorologists had feared.” The storm “tossed around boats and cars, toppled trees, yanked down power lines and shredded a big chunk of the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where the Tampa Bay Rays play. More than 3 million people lost electricity across the state.” Grist reports that the rainfall was a one-in-1,000-year event, and also that EV batteries posed a new threat — as, when exposed to salt water, they can catch fire. A construction crane in St. Petersburg did collapse in the storm, damaging the building that houses the Tampa Bay Times office. The New York Times summarizes the damage noting that, in many instances, previous experience with hurricanes and extensive evacuations helped reduce damage and loss of life.

As with Helene, the lack of insurance for those impacted by Milton is going to be a problem. The Guardian notes that in Sarasota County, Florida, only 23% of the residents have flood insurance. Due to rising prices (home-insurance premiums in the U.S. have gone up 52% since 2020, while in parts of Florida increases have been 80%), many residents have had to forgo buying any type of insurance. To make matters worse, Rolling Stone reports that Trump’s lies about FEMA continued while Hurricane Milton was devastating Florida.

An op-ed in The New York Times notes that, in the American South, “the tolls of extreme heat, storms and sea level rise are quickly adding up.” Millions of Americans have already moved out of flood zones in many states, and this trend is going to accelerate in coming decades. However, this requires resources, and it is projected that older and poorer Americans will be unable to move as their neighborhoods deteriorate. This deterioration will accelerate as the tax base diminishes. The article summarizes the results from a recent report by First Street Foundation, which identified “818,000 U.S. census blocks as having passed tipping points for abandonment ⎯ areas with a combined population of more than 16 million people.” An interview published at Inside Climate News notes that many coastal communities in the American South can’t even recover from one disaster before facing the costs of another. The Washington Post visits Casey Key, Florida, which was hit by both Helene and Milton, and talks with residents who are wondering if they can or should rebuild.

Media Matters points out an example of the emergent anti-science crusade in the U.S. by noting the recent quote from Candace Owens, who is an employee of the radical organization Turning Point USA and a host for the Daily Wire. Ms. Owens said, “I’m not a flat-earther. I’m not a round-earther. Actually, what I am is I am somebody who has left the cult of science. I have left the megachurch of science because what I have now realized is that science, what it is actually, if you think about it, is a pagan faith.” So we have come full circle from the Catholic Church prosecuting Galileo for challenging religious belief to science being called a religion. Religion requires belief, while science is true whether you believe it or not.

At a recent event hosted by The New York Times, Kevin D. Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, dismissed climate change as “a hot year.” Heather Cox Richardson notes that a new Florida law “prohibited cities and counties from approving restrictions on energy policy, relaxed regulations on natural gas pipelines, and state and local governments from taking environmental concerns into consideration in their investing policies. DeSantis also rejected more than $350 million in federal funding for initiatives to promote energy efficiency, and $320 million for reducing vehicle emissions.” Anthropocene Magazine reports on a recent multi-country survey documenting that people “greatly underestimated the scientific consensus about the existence and cause of climate change,” and this leads to less support for immediate action. Meanwhile, Rolling Stone describes how an AI-generated image of a distressed young girl seemingly neglected in a rescue boat is causing outrage in the right-wing media about FEMA (the fake image was even reposted by Utah Senator Mike Lee).

At the Vice-Presidential debate, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) continued the Republican party’s ludicrous denial of climate science. Salon has the response of several climate scientists. Dr. Peter Kalmus noted that Vance “clearly doesn’t understand science and he’s being willfully ignorant. Idiots like Vance and Trump, thinking they know more than an entire scientific community, dangerously contribute to the tragedy of irreversible global heating. Carbon dioxide and methane are driving global overheating, this is basic physics.” The Guardian describes how an effort to educate judges and lawyers about climate science is under attack from a right-wing group funded by the fossil-fuel industry and with ties to Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society. A Guardian editorial states that recent major storm events should galvanize global action to reduce emissions, not the unfortunate doubling-down on the denial of climate science.

The New York Times reports on prairie strips, a new farming innovation that is designed to enhance soil health and reduce runoff. Farmers dedicate a small strip of land that is re-seeded with native grasses and other plants, which in turn attract native birds, insects and wildlife. These changes not only reduce nutrient runoff, they also result in less production of nitrous oxide (a powerful greenhouse gas). Most interestingly, many of the farmers participating in this program enjoy the re-wilding of their land. They and their family members visit these areas for fun and renewal.

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