Jacksonville local report – Florida’s taxpayer funded “Insurer of Last Resort”, Citizens, denied a huge number of claims from Hurricane Debby, which hit in August.
Debby, rated as “only” a category 1, nevertheless caused more than a billion dollars in damages. The rub for policy holders is that the company pays for wind, not flood, damages.
And, don’t look for FEMA to pick up the slack.
Harsh series of wake up calls for Floridians this season.
Unseasonably warm and dry weather is fueling fire risk in the US Northeast.
Foresters have warned of the vulnerability of eastern forests as climate change takes hold – a thirsty atmosphere pulls more moisture from plants and soils and drought conditions can take hold faster.
This NBC report, thankfully, goes beyond the “fun at the beach” take on climate warming and brings in climate context.
Eastern US primed for fires.
This is a postcard from the future.
The fires we have seen in the west in recent decades, could well be coming to Eastern North America, as climate change makes for favorable conditions. The implications are serious, considering much higher population densities.
When forest fire researcher Mike Flannigan looks ahead at what climate change means for wildfires in Canada, he doesn’t beat around the bush: “in a word, the future is smoky.”
Flannigan has been studying fire for over thirty years. He’s researched the key ingredients of destructive wildfires – fuel, ignition, and weather – all over the world. His work, and the work of hundreds of other researchers, shows that climate change is predicted to worsen all three ingredients across most of Canada, making global warming a triple threat to our forests.
When he considers what’s in store for Canada, Flannigan says simply that “There is a lot more fire in the future, and we better get used to it.” More and more Canadians are living, working, and playing in Canada’s forests. That means more people are likely to be affected by larger and larger fires – even catastrophic ones. “Was Fort McMurray a one-off?” Flannigan muses: “Heavens, no.”
Well done video explains a crucial piece to watch as hurricanes close in (still weeks of hurricane season to come).
The “Dirty Side” of hurricanes explained.
In some neighborhoods, water still rising.
Homeowners who can’t get to their homes. Mobile home communities in particular are affected. These are largely low income residents, and their living situation is becoming more precarious and unsustainable.
Roots of a coming climate migration.
By the time the murky brown water in the house reached his chest, Joe Rogers realized it was too late to leave safely. Then, in an instant, his mobile home shifted violently, creating a wave that swept up furniture and trapped his wife, Sandra, in their bedroom.
Mr. Rogers pleaded with his wife to leave, but she was stuck. He said he would break the bedroom window from the outside. He went to his front door, grabbed a rope thrown by a neighbor, and pulled himself to the nearest perch, pausing to catch his breath.
Before he could return to the trailer, it broke loose from its foundation and was pulled into the adjacent Pigeon River, churning with rain from the remnants of Hurricane Helene. He watched his home smash into a bridge, his wife still inside.
Her body was recovered days later, 16 miles from where they had lived in Clyde, N.C.
Continue reading “Milton Flooding Still Mires Mobile Home Communities”’bout as good as it gets.
Above, young activist points out the hardship of storm evacuations on low income residents, as there are many in the southeastern US.
Below, PBS Newshour report on economic ripple effects on the broader US economy, even a measurable hit on the US GDP, according to Barron’s reporter Megan Leonhardt.
Hurricane Milton could wreak short-term havoc on U.S. economic data, even as it inflicts more lasting pain on Florida’s Big Bend region. The storm—classified as a Category 3 as of Wednesday afternoon—is forecast to hit Tampa and environs late Wednesday night, just two weeks after Hurricane Helene battered the region before traveling north to North Carolina and Tennessee.
The twin storms could distort October’s labor-market data, clip consumer spending and economic growth in the regions affected, and send food prices higher.
Continue reading “Extreme Storms Obvious, and Not-so-Obvious Economic Impacts”The Meidas Touch channel is a bit strident for me usually, but here he does a good job of highlighting the cognitive decline of Donald Trump, as well as showing how integral fossil fuel messaging is to the steadily deteriorating candidate, who has now taken to reminiscing about Arnold Palmer’s penis.
(see above at 5:25)
