Milton’s October surprise – Grist

Hello, and welcome back to state of emergency. I’m Jake Bittle, and today we’re talking about the political impact of Hurricane Milton, the second major storm to hit the United States in the last few weeks.

I grew up in Tampa, Florida, less than 20 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes were never more than an abstraction to me and my family, despite the storm-preparedness PSAs televised every June. When my family moved there from New England in 2007, it had been nearly a century since a major hurricane hit the stretch of coastline around Tampa.

This postponement came to an end this year. First, Hurricane Helene brought a catastrophic storm surge to the barrier islands of St. Petersburg and Clearwater delivered, and then Milton brought another dose of surge and wind, plus inland flooding in neighborhoods just miles from where I grew up. The second storm didn’t wipe out the city of Tampa as some had feared — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the day after that “it wasn’t the worst-case scenario” — but even this look was enough to do billions of dollars worth of damage to the region.

Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican who represents many of the hardest-hit areas, won her seat in 2022 on an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. Luna, an election denier and member of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, has taken a combative approach to the Biden administration on disaster issues since taking office. Not only did she vote against additional last month funding for FEMA’s disaster relief fundshe also fought the US Army Corps of Engineers to enforce its rules for restoring the ever-changing sand on St. untying Petersburg beaches; at one point Luna suggested that the corps should be “defunded.”

But that was before the storm, when the federal government was just an ogre in the distance, and catastrophic hurricane damage was as abstract to Luna as it was to me and my family when we lived in Florida. With Milton closing in, Luna changed her tune: She found her district in desperate need of financial assistance and resources from the Biden administration, which has far more money for disaster response than the state of Florida or any local government. As the storm made landfall, she tweeted a plea to the Biden administration, saying, “We need FEMA DOLLARS FREE’D UP,” and earlier this week she praised the administration’s response to the hurricane and told Fox News said that Biden called her directly. and met her in person.

“I’ve obviously been very critical of President Biden in the past, but I will say that for him to step in and take control of the situation to help the right reasons was quite frankly shocking to me,” Luna told Fox Newsadding that “as far as I can see, FEMA has been very helpful … and they’re absolutely going to help because President Biden told them to.”

For many politicians, especially conservatives, criticism of the federal government is as obligatory a daily routine as brushing teeth, and sometimes major disasters can exacerbate that criticism. We have seen this happen with the onslaught of the right conspiracy theories surrounding Hurricane Helene.

The aftermath of Milton shows another side of the story: for all its bureaucratic inertia and complexity, FEMA is the only entity large enough to serve as a financial fallback for the worst disasters, and as climate change worsens, local and state governments only rely more on it. Luna seems to have had that realization, however late. When you look at debris-strewn beaches and flooded apartment complexes, you strike a different tone when talking about the people who can cut you a check.

There’s another possible reason for Luna’s obscurity: She won her seat in 2022 with just 53 percent of the vote, and she faces a tough race this fall against a Democrat focused on kitchen-table issues like insurance and housing costs. Last week, Luna’s challenger joined dozens of other Democrats in calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson to reconvene Congress and pass additional disaster relief funding, criticizing Luna for voting against FEMA money in September have. Just hours later, Luna joined the calls for Congress to reconvene, defying the leadership of her own party.

“It has to happen,” she tweeted. “Speaker Johnson, call us back.”

Can Hurricanes Affect Voter Turnout?

In the past few weeks, millions of people across the Southeast have been affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton. My colleague Zoya spoke with disaster researchers and political scientists to find out whether the hurricanes will suppress voter turnout and ultimately change the course of the presidential election. Here’s what they said:

“We are all wrestling with and trying to predict how it will play out in the next few weeks. I think many voters have already made up their minds who they are going to vote for; there are not a large number of swing voters left. Much of western North Carolina is heavily Republican. The concern is that if the people who cannot make their voices heard in the election are different from the rest of the electorate, then they can the election results are skewed. The reverse is true in Tampa and St. Petersburg, which are perhaps a little bluer than the rest of Florida.

Kevin Morris

Senior Research Associate and Voting Policy Scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program

“The hurricane will probably have two opposite effects at the same time. Previous research has shown that major hurricanes and other large-scale natural hazards voter turnout decreases because people are busy repairing homes, struggling to deal with insurance companies, filing paperwork with FEMA or the Small Business Administration, and generally trying to get themselves back on track. On the other hand, for many people who believe they should have received more help from the government, and for those who believe they have received useful help, they may more likely to vote to show their feelings.”

Daniel Aldrich

Political science professor and disaster researcher at Northeastern University

“The spread of FEMA disaster relief in the wake of a hurricane tends to help the president’s party in the upcoming elections. Receiving FEMA disaster aid will generally improve turnout among voters affiliated with the president’s party — that is, registered Democrats in this year’s elections. All else being equal, an area receiving more FEMA disaster aid is likely to show a slightly higher Democratic vote share in next month’s elections.

Jowei Chen

Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan

What we read

FEMA faces threats: FEMA relocated some of its response personnel to North Carolina over the weekend after receiving reports that armed militias were planning to target federal relief workers, according to The Washington Post’s Brianna Sacks. Local law enforcement agencies could not substantiate those rumors, but they did arrest one local man for threatening FEMA and other agencies.
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Hurricanes and EVs don’t mix: The storm surge from Hurricanes Helene and Milton exposed a growing risk in states like Florida: electric vehicles that can catch fire and explode when saltwater floods their lithium-ion batteries. My colleague Tik Root reports on how firefighters and emergency managers are dealing with this new threat from a symbol of the climate culture wars.
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Helene’s impact on the roster: Hurricane Helene knocked out power infrastructure across a wide swath of Appalachia, forcing utilities like Duke Energy to face a difficult rebuilding effort. My Grist colleague Gautama Mehta reported on how utilities can adapt their aging wires and transformers for increasing wind and flood risk.
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Restoring Voting Access in North Carolina: North Carolina election officials are racing to rebuild election infrastructure in the state’s storm-ravaged western counties. Government has reviewed the notable changes passed by the state legislature, including one adjustment that allows more flexibility in where voters can return absentee ballots, and the remaining challenges, which include finding generators that can power battery-powered voting machines.
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Brazil’s post-disaster election: Brazil held a nationwide round of local elections last week after a year marked by historic floods, droughts and wildfires. But Foreign Policy reports that despite the cascade of disasters the country has faced this year, climate change has been largely absent from candidates’ speeches and policy platforms.
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With reporting and research contributed by Zoya Teirstein.