Ron DeSantis Not Taking Kamala Harris's Hurricane Milton Calls Just Because She Claims To Be 'Vice President'

If you're reading this from Milton's projected path, no you're not.

Just two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated parts of six southern states, leaving more than 200 people dead and thousands homeless, a potentially more powerful hurricane is on its way to hit Florida, parts of which are still cleaning up from Helene. Hurricane Milton is projected to come ashore late Wednesday or Thursday somewhere along Florida’s west coast near Tampa, bringing what forecasters warn will be life-threatening winds and storm surge. Dangerous weather in Florida is expected to arrive ahead of the storm, likely Wednesday, so state and local officials began urging people in the path of the storm to evacuate yesterday.

The one bit of good-ish news about Milton is that unlike Helene, it’s currently projected to head out into the Atlantic after crossing the Florida peninsula instead of going on to hit other states.

Feds Already On This

President Joe Biden on Monday approved an emergency declaration requested by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is a climate-denying asshole and also a regular asshole. More on Governor Asshole shortly.

The federal government is already sending supplies and staff to advance “incident staging bases” to be ready to reach the affected areas as soon as the storm passes. The AP reports that US Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Florida) “said 7,000 federal workers were called on to help in one of the largest mobilizations of federal personnel in history.”

It’s probably worth calling attention to that before Donald Trump begins complaining that the feds wouldn’t take DeSantis’s calls, because you just know he will. He requested aid, Biden signed off on it, and the federal response is already underway.

Goddamn Right It’s Climate Change

Milton is a pretty strange storm, having roared from tropical storm to hurricane status over the Gulf of Mexico in near-record time. It’s also approaching Tampa from the west, which no hurricane on record has ever done. Its wind speeds increased by 92 miles per hour in 24 hours, a freakishly rapid growth in intensity made possible by extremely warm waters in the Gulf, the result of human-caused climate change. You know it’s a bad storm when a TV meteorologist chokes up in astonishment and anguish while reading the details, as NBC South Florida’s John Morales did yesterday.

An additional worry for Milton is that many parts of the state are still cleaning up debris from Helene, and additional state and county vehicles have been out collecting piles of debris to get it to landfills so wreckage from the last hurricane doesn’t become projectiles being driven by the new hurricane’s winds.

Milton is expected to weaken to a a Category 3 storm by the time it reaches land, but that’s still extremely dangerous. Here’s the current outlook for Milton’s arrival, from NBC News:

West coast of Florida: Hurricane conditions expected in the warning area as early as tomorrow afternoon. Tropical storm conditions are expected in the tropical storm warning areas in Florida beginning early tomorrow and will spread northward through the day. 

East coast of Florida: Hurricane conditions forecast in the warning areas tomorrow night, with tropical storm conditions possible beginning late tomorrow afternoon.

Storm surge, the rapid rise of seawater pushed ashore by high winds, is likely to be 10 to 15 feet:

As of this morning, Tampa Bay, Sarasota, Bradenton and Venice are most at risk for highest storm surge depending on exact track. The Anclote River to Englewood is forecast to see 10 to 15 feet of storm surge, an area that includes Tampa Bay.

Milton will also bring heavy rains and flash flooding, and is likely to spin off tornadoes across the Florida peninsula.

To our readers in Florida: If you’re in any of the areas under evacuation orders, we assume you are reading this in a few days or are already far away and reading it from somewhere safe, because you had the good sense to get the hell out. If by chance you haven’t, stop reading immediately and check the information from local authorities. Outside evacuation areas, you still want to get your news from reliable up-to-date sources but you already know that!

Political Shitstorm Also Intensifies

As we noted above, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has already requested and received a federal emergency declaration, and federal aid is on the way to the state before the storm, exactly as disaster response normally works.

During a press conference yesterday, DeSantis acknowledged that “Everything we have asked for from President Biden for disaster relief he has approved, and we do think we’ll get more approvals for some of the individual assistance and the debris removal after landfall.”

Just wanted to get that out of the way, because just as state and federal agencies are prepping for the storm ahead of its arrival, DeSantis yesterday deployed some tactical political trolling ahead of Milton, too, refusing to take calls from Vice President Kamala Harris, as NBC News reports:

A source familiar with the situation said he was dodging the Democratic presidential nominee’s calls because they “seemed political,” according to a DeSantis aide. 

“Kamala was trying to reach out, and we didn’t answer,” the DeSantis aide told NBC News. 

DeSantis, in his presser yesterday, denied anything of the sort happened, because he’s a very busy man, what with having to stuff an unnamed aide into a closet until sometime after the hurricane passes. The congenital liar insisted it was all FAKE NEWS.

“I didn't know that she had called,” he said. “I'm not sure who they called. They didn't call me. Their characterization of it was something that they did. It wasn't anything that anybody in my office did, in terms of saying it was political.”

DeSantis last week refused to appear with President Biden during the president’s visit to view damage in northern Florida from Helene; DeSantis’s excuse at the time was that he was flying when Biden called him, and that once Biden arrived DeSantis was already giving a press conference.

In response to DeSantis’s refusal to take her calls or whatever his excuse is, Harris said yesterday,

“Moments of crisis, if nothing else, should really be the moment that anyone who calls themselves a leader says they're going to put politics aside and put the people first. People are in desperate need of support right now and playing political games with this moment in these crisis situations, these are the height of emergency situations, it's just utterly irresponsible and it is selfish."

This morning, DeSantis took time out from disaster preparations to go on Fox and Friends to excoriate Harris for being a monster and playing politics during a disaster, so there.

He has been very engaged and focused on the crisis and shame on Harris, explaining very not-pissily,

“It’s not about you, Kamala. It’s about the people of Florida. My focus is exactly where it should be. And I can tell you this. I’ve worked on these hurricanes under both President Trump and President Biden. Neither of them ever tried to politicize it. She has never called on any of the storms we’ve had since she’s been vice president until apparently now.”

DeSantis continued to not play politics with the situation well beyond that, but we aren’t going to waste any space transcribing it.

It is not yet known which of several library books about climate change DeSantis will ultimately blame for the hurricane.

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[AP / White House / NBC News / Joe.My.God]

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