‘It is hurricane season’: DeSantis schools reporter who tries to blame Hurricane Milton tornadoes on global warming
During a Thursday press briefing, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) came prepared with the facts on hurricane history, schooling a reporter who tried to blame tornadoes caused by Hurricane Milton on global warming.
Two hurricanes and dozens of tornadoes have hit Florida in the last couple of weeks.
‘People should put this in perspective.’
When asked by a reporter whether he thinks the increase in tornadoes could be linked to climate change, DeSantis responded, “I think you can go back and find tornadoes for all of human history for sure.”
When Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida late Wednesday, it had a barometric pressure of roughly 950 millibars, the governor stated.
“I think, if you go back to 1851, there’s probably been 27 hurricanes that have had lower [barometric pressure] — so the lower the barometric pressure, the stronger it is,” he continued. “I think there have been about 27 hurricanes that have had lower barometric pressure on landfall than Milton did, and of those, 17 occurred, I think, prior to 1960.”
The most powerful hurricane to hit Florida since the 1850s was the Labor Day Hurricane in the 1930s, which had a barometric pressure of 892 millibars, according to DeSantis.
“It totally wiped out the Keys. We’ve never seen anything like it, and that remains head and shoulders above any powerful hurricane that we’ve ever had in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.
He noted that the state’s most deadly storm was the Okeechobee hurricane in 1928, which killed more than 4,000 people.
DeSantis added that Hurricane Ian, which killed 149 people in Florida two years ago, “wasn’t even close to that.”
“I just think people should put this in perspective. They try to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it’s something; there’s nothing new under the sun. This is something that the state has dealt with for its entire history, and it’s something that we’ll continue to deal with,” he said.
DeSantis argued that what has changed is Florida’s population.
“We’ve got 23 million people. A storm that hits is likely to hit more people and property than it would have a hundred years ago. And so the potential for that damage has grown,” he continued, adding that the state’s prevention ability has also significantly improved.
“We never did the pre-staging of power assets until I became governor. Now, people, like, expect that, but that wasn’t what was done in the past. That’s why people would be out with power for three weeks when we’d have hurricanes,” DeSantis stated. “Now we have to pay to get these guys to come in, but my view is, the quicker you get everyone hooked up, the better off the economy is going to be anyway.”
Another reporter asked DeSantis if he would denounce “misinformation” about “some entity controlling the weather.”
The governor replied, “This is on both sides. Some people think government can do this, then others think it’s all because of fossil fuels.”
“There’s precedent for all of this in history,” he said. “It is hurricane season. You are going to have tropical weather.”
“These are natural occurrences,” DeSantis added.
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