Hello, and welcome back to state of emergency. We’re Jake Bittle and Ayurella Horn-Muller, two reporters here at Grist, and we’ve been traveling up and down Florida’s Gulf Coast this past week reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Helenewhich has destroyed a large part of the southeast and killed more than 100 people—probably a significant undercount.
As we drove around, stopping at seven rural towns devastated by the storm, we ran into one man over and over: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who in the following days arrived with a full-court press of disaster response. the storm.
Helene was the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the Big Bend region. It destroyed numerous homes in Horseshoe Beach, a rural town along Florida’s northwest coast.
Jake Bittle / Grist
Helene is by no means the first hurricane DeSantis has had to weather in his second and final term as governor. But the Category 4 storm is the first major hurricane DeSantis has faced since his short-lived — and failed — bid for president. It is also the strongest hurricane on record to ever hit the Big Bend region. With just two years left in his term and likely another presidential run in the future, how DeSantis responds to Helene could make a big difference in whether he can support the Republican nomination for 2028.
Which may explain why, during one of the governor’s first public appearances after the storm, he dodged questions about the role of climate change in driving more frequent and intense hurricanes to the region. This approach is clearly at odds with his messages to date on the subject. Earlier this summer, he didn’t just pass legislation which deletes most references to climate change from state legislation, removes emissions reduction goals from energy policy and prohibits local governments from limiting the use of natural gas, among other counter-mitigation measures, he repeatedly denied that human-caused warming makes hurricanes stronger. In fact, after 2023’s Hurricane Idalia, he told Fox News that “they’re acting like it’s somehow unprecedented. And it isn’t.”
“I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to why the storms have been coming here for the last year and a half or so.”
– Ron DeSantis, when asked about the connection between climate change and hurricanes in his state
“I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to why the storms, you know, have been coming here for the last year and a half or so,” DeSantis said Saturday at a news conference at Dekle Beach. “Nobody asked to be put in this situation. You know, I have no explanation as to why we would have storms tracking over a year and a half period in this particular part of Florida. But what I do know is that there is work to be done. And so we’re going to go back into business to do that.”
The next day, DeSantis reappeared in the nearby town of Suwanee, where he met with local officials at a Baptist church. Afterward, he helped volunteers distribute barbecue to local residents, first saying a prayer that Florida wouldn’t be hit by another storm. As DeSantis dished out portions of pulled pork, he occasionally threw in a plea for support for his efforts to defeat Amendment 4, a ballot measure that would enshrine a right to abortion. Most of those who took food greeted him warmly, saying, “Thank you for all you do for us,” and “We love you.”
But not everyone was entirely satisfied with the governor’s response. As DeSantis prepared to leave, a Suwanee resident named Billy Mincks approached him and pleaded with him to pay more attention to the region’s poorest residents. He had just come from the spillage of his flooded home, he said, and he needed help. DeSantis responded by assuring him the state would offer help with home repairs.
“I like the man, I’m glad he’s our governor, but I’m tired of the little man being looked over,” Mincks told Jake afterwards. “I hope he heard us.”
By then, the governor’s motorcade was already rumbling down the road to the highway, raising a cloud of dust.
Helene’s aftermath in North Carolina
As of Monday, flooding and mudslides caused by Helene have killed people at least 47 people in North Carolina and caused catastrophic damage that is still being counted. Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, is no stranger to storms — he’s dealt with two 500-year flood events and a 1,000-year flood in the past two years alone. At an event last week at the New York Times building in New York City, Cooper spoke casually about the coming storm.
“We have one coming up in the Gulf right now, Helene, which I will go back and declare a state of emergency in North Carolina,” he said last Wednesday, a day before Helene made landfall. “We will get a lot of rain in our mountains, and we will have to deal with it.”
About 6 feet of debris piled up on a bridge in Lake Lure, North Carolina, in the wake of heavy rain caused by Hurricane Helene.
Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images
It is becoming clear that Hurricane Helene will go down in North Carolina history as one of the worst storms the state has ever seen, far eclipsing anything Cooper has faced in his seven-year term as governor, and one of the costliest storms in US history.
“I think people along the east coast of North Carolina are listening to the issues around climate change and how we should respond to these storms,” Cooper told the Times. Whether the western part of the state, the part hardest hit by the hurricane-driven flooding, undergoes a similar political transformation remains to be seen.
— Zoya Teirstein
What we read
Florida’s Flood Capital: Jake reported on the ground from Shore Acres, a low-lying neighborhood in St. Petersburg that has flooded dozens of times in recent years. Helene delivered a historic storm surge to the neighborhood, likely driving the real estate market there even further and forcing a sale of homes. 
Read more
The Forgotten Towns of the Big Bend: Jake and Ayurella joined a fire chief in the rural town of Inglis as she surveyed Helene’s damage. The small towns of the Big Bend have struggled through three storms in 13 months, and they often lack the ability to rebuild after major disasters. Read more
Congress pinches pennies for FEMA: The bill Congress passed last week to avoid a government shutdown did not include a planned $10 billion infusion of cash for FEMA, E&E News reports. The agency has already suspended all non-emergency programs as its main aid fund is running low and could run out of money by the end of the year. Read more
The Climate Battlefield says: Enacting climate policy is one thing; protecting them from Republican-led opposition is another. As climate change has been dragged into the climate culture wars, a shift in the political winds could jeopardize established efforts to reduce emissions. Our colleague Kate Yoder wrote about the key states where the upcoming election could make or break critical climate policy.Read more
Disaster relief reform: Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz, who are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, have teamed up on a bill that would reform how FEMA distributes disaster aid. Perhaps most importantly, it would allow communities to qualify for aid based on the cumulative damage they suffer from multiple small disasters. Currently, these communities often do not receive assistance from FEMA to rehouse displaced people or to rebuild public infrastructure.Read more
