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Hurricane Ian is blowing away all other news.
That commission hearing on January 6, scheduled for yesterday? Canceled.
Other political news? Barely a blip on the radar.
Hard partisanship? Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis talked for a while about how best to help Florida, this after a day in which the president appeared to reject the governor and called his attention.
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This GOES-East GeoCcolor satellite image taken at 12:41 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, September 28, 2022, and provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), shows Hurricane Ian over the Gulf of Mexico.
(NOAA via AP)
Some life-threatening events are so severe that normal maneuvers and play must be suspended.
Hurricane Ian is just such a threat.
The Category 4 storm made landfall at 3:05 pm Eastern yesterday in the town of Punta Gorda, about 100 miles south of Tampa. Winds of 150 miles per hour caused a furious assault on palm trees, and as it neared the state’s western coast, some cars in Naples could already be seen almost completely submerged.
Earlier, the Democratic-controlled committee played nice by leaking Roger Stone’s video, first to CNN and then to other networks, on Tuesday to generate interest for yesterday’s scheduled hearing. I’ve never understood why the panel offers its primes in advance, but when the hearing takes place, Stone’s video that’s been all over the airwaves will really seem like old news.
This is the video right before the 2020 election where Donald Trump’s friend and GOP operative says “fuck the vote, let’s go straight to violence… Shoot to kill, see antifa, shoot to kill ” and says the president. should use armed guards to turn voters away from the Electoral College. Stone had collaborated on the project by two Danish filmmakers, but absurdly calls the video a deep fake.
When it comes to hurricanes, the greatest danger comes not from the impact itself, but from the flooding and storm surges that follow.
Eight months after Katrina, I went to New Orleans and was amazed by endless miles of abandoned houses, sprawling into the suburbs, children’s toys and household goods still strewn across the lawn, so great was subsequent flood damage. The media had mostly moved on, but the area was forever changed by the devastation.
Neighborhoods are flooded with oil and water two weeks after Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans on September 12, 2005.
(REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
George W. Bush had a major political success when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, stayed on vacation and then flew over the devastated city in Air Force One, with some people still stranded on rooftops. “I realized that I had made a grave mistake,” he wrote in his memoirs. “The photo of me floating above the damage suggested I was detached from the suffering on the ground.”
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His reputation was further tarnished by his “heckuva job, Brownie” remarks when FEMA was screwing up storm management.
It is inevitable that both Biden and DeSantis will be judged for their response to Hurricane Ian. This is a testing time for political leaders, just as mayors fell in popularity for not clearing the roads after a snowstorm.
FILE – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis listens to a question during a press conference on September 7, 2022 in Miami, Florida.
(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
At the same time, DeSantis will certainly avoid Chris Christie’s political mistake of embracing Barack Obama when he came to New Jersey to see the damage from Superstorm Sandy.
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This reminds us how these once-in-a-hundred-year hurricanes are becoming more common and the role of climate change in increasing more extreme weather. Television loves the drama of extreme weather, and some storms make it to the public before they sell out, but that’s not the case here.
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There are times when the incredible power of Mother Nature just overwhelms all human efforts, and every political battle we’ve been obsessing over suddenly seems small. What is happening now in Florida is one of those moments.
