45 people confirmed dead in FL from Hurricane Ian…

Combination of red state politics, the acceptance of fantasy thinking as reality among certain segments of the American public, storm surge, and poverty preventing evacuations.

“at least 45 people in Florida”

Sounds like they expect more

DeSantis will dispute the death count and say they all died from old age.

Because Florida.

This is worse than Katrina

The death count is unusually high and totally unnecessary given the warnings to evacuate but the issue here is that most of these people think I will be fine I made through other storms just fine and this will be no different.

I’m on Twitter some woman was looking for her mother who rode out the storm in her house who felt safe doing so because the home had impact resistant windows and storm shutters that had protected the home for over 20 years but didn’t account for the unprecedented storm surge.

Because Florida.

Because denial.

Because evacuation can be expensive and difficult.

Because we now have a class of US citizens who reject any and all warnings from authorities as fake news.

Thousands died because of Katrina.

Not to mention climate change has led to bigger, stronger, and more powerful storms. This ole, "I've never evacuated before" nonsense doesn't account for the growth of these storms exponentially. Stay home of you want to, these storms will show you otherwise.

It veered south at the last minute. Was headed toward Tampa.

The number has doubled every time I hear it. 5, 10, 20, 40.

I thought evacs were mandatory in the most dangerous areas. I’m guessing the libertarian government in Tallahassee just let everyone die. They probably didn’t mandate it.

R10 it wasn’t the last minute. Ft Myers was on the very first original cone, if a bit to the side but it was in there.

It seems like the FL government dropped the ball big time.

Well this *is* Florida we're talking about, R12.

Because you shouldn’t ride it out in a house made of sticks or hang in your mobile home especially if you live on the equivalent of a sandbar aka barrier island.

Republicans nowadays think that any warning from the government is a means to scare and control them. It's been this way ever since Covid started. The people who refused to evacuate are the same people who refused to get a Covid vaccine or wear a mask.

I’m sure Tallahassee is actively trying to cover this up.

A LOT of the whites in Fl will not go to any shelter because BLACKS! I’ve been there and heard what they say. Seriously.

Stop saying "because (noun)." You sound retarded.

Every county in Florida has evacuation plans (for people in flood zones) that have existed forever, long before Ron D. You cannot force people to leave, but you do have to provide them transportation and shelters. That's it.

Like I said in the other thread, if you live in Florida you know what's at stake. I've lived everywhere in the state. If you notice flooding during a common thunderstorm then you know you will be up a creek when a hurricane comes through. If you live on the coast you know your home will be sticks after a direct hit.

The problem is Florida takes in huge amounts of people from all over the world. Every year there are new people who've never been through it before, who don't think it's possible for it to happen to them.

R20 the people I’ve seen interviewed and who rode out the storm don’t seem to be the newbies. They seem to be the long term Floridians who thought because they rode out other storms they could ride out this.

The average of of the people who died is probably around 78, so the high death toll is probably related to the extraordinary number of seniors living there.

If you are old and living alone you probably won’t evacuate. If you are poor you probably won’t evacuate. There are many people who simply can’t evacuate.

It's a start.

Every death is a tragedy, I don't mean to make light of the dire news that families will be dealing with — but I'm surprised it's "only" 45 people.

People stayed on those barrier islands. They almost deserved to die - Darwin Awards. Then people also stayed on BOATS. Also, they didn't force people out of trailer parks. The mind boggles.

45 is a low number. It would be 450 in Latin American and 4,500 in shithole countries.

R22 do I have a link for that? I’m thinking it was families that had the hardest time evacuating with their kids and pets. So sad.

The state should have prepared better. They had a week of lead time at least.

Florida is number on for pollution in all 50 states. This hurricane will dredge up all that toxic run off. FL is fucked.

It would be funny if Death Santis lost by 44 votes.

This is such a shame and did not have to happen. People need to stop voting for fascist/republican state governments just because they use all the right buzz words.

This is what you get. A government that doesn’t give a crap about heir state citizens.

How do people die in hurricanes? Drown? Get hit by something flying or crashing?

Drowning, I'd assume. Especially if they're obese, elderly, and have limited mobility... Like most Floridans.

Sadly not one of them with the last name Trump .

I have a friend who lived through Katrina and now is dealing with this. He lives in Cape Coral. They were under a mandatory evacuation order but some people didn’t leave. He left skid marks when he evacuated.

Sharts will do that, r34.

Lee County didn't issue an evacuation order until 24 hours after the other coastal counties, and people didn't have time to leave. The NYT has an article about it today.

[quote]FORT MYERS, Fla. — As Hurricane Ian charged toward the western coast of Florida this week, the warnings from forecasters were growing more urgent. Life-threatening storm surge threatened to deluge the region from Tampa all the way to Fort Myers. But while officials along much of that coastline responded with orders to evacuate on Monday, emergency managers in Lee County held off, pondering during the day whether to tell people to flee, but then deciding to see how the forecast evolved overnight.

[quote]The delay, an apparent violation of the meticulous evacuation strategy the county had crafted for just such an emergency, may have contributed to catastrophic consequences that are still coming into focus as the death toll continues to climb. Dozens have died overall in the state, officials said, as Ian, downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, moved through North Carolina and Virginia on Saturday, at one point leaving nearly 400,000 electricity customers in those states without power. About 35 of Florida’s storm-related deaths have been identified in Lee County, the highest toll anywhere in the state, as survivors describe the sudden surge of water — predicted as a possibility by the National Hurricane Service in the days before the storm hit — that sent some of them scrambling for safety in attics and on rooftops.

45 less republican voters. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[quote]Lee County, which includes the hard-hit seaside community of Fort Myers Beach, as well as the towns of Fort Myers, Sanibel and Cape Coral, did not issue a mandatory evacuation order for the areas likely to be hardest hit until Tuesday morning, a day after several neighboring counties had ordered their most vulnerable residents to flee. By then, some residents recalled that they had little time to evacuate. Dana Ferguson, 33, a medical assistant in Fort Myers, said she had been at work when the first text message appeared on her phone Tuesday morning. By the time she arrived home, it was too late to find anywhere to go, so she hunkered down with her husband and three children to wait as a wall of water began surging through areas of Fort Myers, including some that were well away from the coastline. “I felt there wasn’t enough time,” she said. Ms. Ferguson said she and her family fled to the second floor, lugging a generator and dry food, as the water rose through their living room. The 6-year-old was in tears.

[quote]Kevin Ruane, a Lee County commissioner and a former mayor of Sanibel, said the county had postponed ordering an extensive evacuation because the earlier hurricane modeling had shown the storm heading farther north. “I think we responded as quickly as we humanly could have,” he said. Gov. Ron DeSantis and his state emergency management director also said the earlier forecasts had predicted the brunt of the storm’s fury would strike farther north.

[quote]“There is a difference between a storm that’s going to hit north Florida that will have peripheral effects on your region, versus one that’s making a direct impact,” Mr. DeSantis said at a news conference on Friday in Lee County. “And so what I saw in southwest Florida is, as the data changed, they sprung into action.” But while the track of Hurricane Ian did shift closer to Lee County in the days before it made landfall, the surge risks the county faced — even with the more northerly track — were becoming apparent as early as Sunday night.

[quote]At that point, the National Hurricane Center produced modeling showing a chance of a storm surge covering much of Cape Coral and Fort Myers. Parts of Fort Myers Beach, even in that case, had a 40 percent chance of a six-foot-high storm surge, according to the surge forecasts. Lee County’s emergency planning documents had set out a time-is-of-the-essence strategy, noting that the region’s large population and limited road system make it difficult to evacuate the county swiftly. Over years of work, the county has created a phased approach that expands the scope of evacuations in proportion to the certainty of risk. “Severe events may require decisions with little solid information,” the documents say. The county’s plan proposes an initial evacuation if there is even a 10 percent chance that a storm surge will go six feet above ground level; based on a sliding scale, the plan also calls for an evacuation if there is a 60 percent chance of a three-foot storm surge.

[quote]Along with the forecasts on Sunday night, updated forecasts on Monday warned that many areas of Cape Coral and Fort Myers had between a 10 and a 40 percent chance of a storm surge above six feet, with some areas possibly seeing a surge of more than nine feet. Over those Monday hours, neighboring Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties issued evacuation orders, while Sarasota County announced that it expected evacuation orders to be in effect for the following morning. In Lee County, however, officials said they were waiting to make a more up-to-date assessment the following morning.

[quote]“Once we have a better grasp on all of that dynamic, we will have a better understanding about what areas we may call for evacuation, and, at the same time, a determination of what shelters will be open,” the Lee County Manager, Roger Desjarlais, said on Monday afternoon. But forecasters with the National Hurricane Center were growing more explicit in their warnings for the region. In a 5 p.m. update on Monday, they wrote that the highest risk for “life-threatening storm surge” was in the area from Fort Myers to Tampa Bay. “Residents in these areas should listen to advice given by local officials,” the hurricane center wrote. New modeling showed that some areas along Fort Myers Beach were more likely than not to see a six-foot surge.

[quote]Mr. Ruane, the county commissioner, said that one challenge the county faced was that the local schools had been designed to be shelters and that the school board had made the decision to keep them open on Monday. By the following morning, at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Mr. Desjarlais announced a partial evacuation order but emphasized that “the areas being evacuated are small” compared with a previous hurricane evacuation. The county held off on further evacuations, despite a forecast that showed potential surge into areas not covered by the order. Officials expanded their evacuation order later in the morning. By the middle of the afternoon, Lee County officials were more urgent in their recommendation: “The time to evacuate is now, and the window is closing,” they wrote in a message on Facebook.

[quote]Katherine Morong, 32, said she had been prepared earlier in the week to hunker down and ride out the storm based on the guidance from local officials. The sudden evacuation order on Tuesday morning left her scrambling, she said, as she set out in her car in the rain. “The county could have been more proactive and could have given us more time to evacuate,” she said. On the road toward the east side of the state, she said, she was driving through torrents of rain, with tornadoes nearby.

[quote]Joe Brosseau, 65, said he did not receive any evacuation notice. As the storm surge began pouring in on Wednesday morning, he said, he considered evacuating but realized it was too late. He climbed up a ladder with his 70-year-old wife and dog to reach a crawl space in his garage. He brought tools in case he needed to break through the roof to escape. “It was terrifying,” Mr. Brosseau said. “It was the absolute scariest thing. Trying to get that dog and my wife up a ladder to the crawl space. And then to spend six hours there.”

[quote] Some residents said they had seen the forecasts but decided to remain at home anyway — veterans of many past storms with dire predictions that had not come to pass. “People were made aware, they were told about the dangers and some people just made the decision that they did not want to leave,” Mr. DeSantis said on Friday.

[quote]Joe Santini, a retired physician’s assistant, said he would not have fled his home even if there had been an evacuation order issued well before the storm. He said that he had lived in the Fort Myers area most of his life, and that he would not know where else to go. “I’ve stuck around for every other one,” he said. The water rushed into his home around dusk on Wednesday night, and on Friday, there was still a high-water mark about a foot above the floor — leaving Mr. Santini a little stunned. “I don’t think it’s ever surged as high as it did,” he said.

[quote]Lee County is now an epicenter of devastation, with mass destruction at Fort Myers Beach, the partial collapse of the Sanibel Causeway and entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. With water mains broken, the county utilities agency has advised residents to boil their water. President Biden said on Friday that the destruction from the storm was likely to be among the worst in U.S. history. “It’s going to take months, years to rebuild,” he said.

END

Is Lee county a heavily red county? If so, then womp womp...

Those not evacuating probably also fought masking because Covid was fake news.

As a side note, Governor DeSatan is not ready for prime time. He seems like a frat president who is in damage control after someone dies from a hazing.

40% Democrat, 60% Republican, so more purple than red, I'd say.

Why does he yell at everybody? He has such a pouty, grumpy demeanor. Everything DeSantis says is a lie anyway. Why does the press bother asking him questions. Ask the head of public safety or something. The Governor is worthless.

DeSantis will find a way to blame this on Biden

Does this mean God hates Florida or what that only for Katrina and New Orleans and Sandy and NYC?

It’s hard to keep those preacher accusations straight

He whine-yells. I hate his voice.

Because of people like this:

Does Clearwater = Scientologist?

Now he’s doing the stupid trump hand movements. Nobody else does that. He’s such a copy-cat loser. And immature.

Thank-you to whoever is posting those excerpts. I hold my position that people know their homes and they know if they live in flood zone or areas prone to flooding. It does not require an evacuation order to know you need to leave during major rain/flooding events.

It’s very unusual for 50 people to die in a hurricane. That never happens.

I wouldn't go near property on the Florida coast in this age of global warming. But if I DID, and there was even a 1% chance I could drown from storm surge, I'd GTFO.

Yup, r54…I wouldn’t need someone to tell me to evacuate if I lived in one of those shitty houses on one of the barrier Islands. I’d leave for the mainland.

There will also probably be a report later of missing people who were swept away.

People need to face reality and if they want to live on the Florida cost it needs to be in WELL CONSTRUCTED buildings designed to survive storm surges and wind. This can be done of course but America is so into cheap everything.

[quote]They had plenty of notice and warnings. How did that many people die?

They did their own research.

That’s the thing, r59…after Sandy people along the coast were forced to raise their homes. Florida is horribly lax with their building code. It’s like they don’t want to piss people off by telling them to upgrade their homes to something survivable while hoping these homes get destroyed so insurance picks up the tab on a new build.

DeSantis blew it.

You could see this thing coming for weeks. This is an outrage.

You know that right this minute they are frantically calling all the morgues and demanding they scrub the info. “Say they died from old age”

Ironically they will bring back the Covid death number reports and blame all the deaths in Covid.

I’m guessing there is a lot more than 50. Try adding a zero or two and that would be more like it.

Gentle r61: Are you fucking nuts?

[quote]On the opposite end of the preparedness spectrum is Florida, which ranks number one for building code safety in our report. Learning from the stark lessons of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Florida now boasts the most robust loss-prevention standards in the country. The state’s strong performance through Hurricane Charley in 2004 reinforced its commitment to a strong statewide code.

[quote]The state’s strong performance through Hurricane Charley in 2004 reinforced its commitment to a strong statewide code.

Go to 17:45...

FL republcians have a long history of killing elderly people in the state.

R66…if you saw the houses that were obliterated in Ian you’d know there was no fucking way they were up to code. You can see the houses that survived were better built than some of these shacks.

Naples, FL: There are plenty of houses made of wood with a metal roof. They were built more than 50 years ago and are still standing after Ian and all the other storms.

Ian just ran parallel to the coast from Naples to north of Ft Myers sending in 5 to 8 ft waves. Whatever was in it's way got nailed: Houses, boats, cars, etc.

Oh, yeah, and r66… the Florida building code is so rigorously enforced that a condo collapsed.

Good article and photo on what survives hurricanes

My brother says that nobody should believe false flag fake news from that shit box.

Tale as old as time. I bet there was some asshole in Pompeii who said "I aint going nowhere,Nobody tells me what to do "!

I’m seeing these pictures of boats piled up like toys, which I don’t understand. I thought your supposed to ride out your boat into open ocean at the oncoming storm to escape it?

The condo collapse is very interesting to me. It was too expensive to correct the structural problems. Offering condo owners an opportunity to sell and move and a demolition of the building was the only option. The property was right on a beautiful beach and is still valuable to developers.

Yeah and a word of caution, most infrastructure in the US is way past due for replacement. So until those federal programs manifest we are all the mercy of extreme weather. Climate change means most people will have stuff like this closer and closer to their doorstep. It may not be a hurricane but extreme weather will strike.

South Florida has been rotten with corruption since its founding. They can have all the codes they want,but some inspector will sign off on it if the money is right. They shouldnt even allow mobile homes to be sold here. Even with hurricane straps they disintegrate in high winds.

I blame Disney!

Since 2002 Florida actually has a quite stringent building code for properties along Atlantic coast shoreline. OTOH rules are less so for Panhandle area where historically hits by hurricanes are less common.

CNN reporting about looting in some neighborhoods, residents forming groups to patrol the areas because the cops aren’t able to. People still trapped in apartment buildings days later, still finding bodies every day. No power, no water, people lining up for hours to get gas.

Many more will have died, as happens when one of the strongest storms to ever hit the continent plows into a heavily populated area

More people died in Louisiana after the hurricane from generators, don't put them under your house or in the garage please.

Nobody asked you *or* your brother, R73.

It is best to gtfo before the storm hits. How can you live without running water or electricity? BTW, no electricity = no Wi-Fi signal!

A Twitter account tweeted 75 confirmed dead but I won't link because I don't see this confirmed elsewhere

Kindness during storm.....

Biden states it plainly.

DeSantis stutters and stumbles worse than Biden. He can’t get his word straight. He’s playing catch up instead of being out front.

He meanders.

During DeSantis's first year in office, Florida's average annual homeowner's insurance premiums were $1,988. Now they're $4,231. That's a 113% increase.

It's a complicated situation with the insurance. Florida is a fraudulent claim epicenter. Any reasonably led insurance company would not bother with houses in Florida. And the housing codes are fairly strong in Miami-Dade after Andrew, but this did not apply retroactively, only new builds. But who knows what corners were cut on the west coast - as it has been alluded to here, many people had a blase attitude to hurricanes and figured it would not affect them to such an extent.

People should be banned from building houses anywhere near the water.

DeSantis is probably itching to get back to his culture wars.

1949

Rescue Crews in Florida Find Fully Submerged House With Human Remains Inside

Sanibel island is very pretty. Or was. I assume all the lovely low vegetation and middle class homes have been washed away.

Awful.

I personally think mobile homes should be outlawed, Floridas intense weather is no place for a tin shack.

twitter is reporting people are stuck in the emergency shelters, everything is closed including the roads. Gas shortages and grocery stores closed

I really don't care, do u?

What a nightmare. People emptying all their shit out of these flooded homes, mountains of trash piling up everywhere. Awful.

All you have to do is look at a map of Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel island etc to see that this was inevitable sooner or later. Plus these little strips of land are so overbuilt, hundreds of flimsy little houses packed in like sardines.

Everything comes down to this one thing: too. many. people.

DeSatanis is demonstrating his impressive leadership skills one month before the election!

he could have done just this r104 but he was too busy trolling.

Florida hospital without running water faces a sanitation crisis in the wake of Hurricane Ian

117 people were killed in Sandy, almost all in New York and New Jersey. What's your point, OP?

R106 Are they going to start murdering people like that New Orleans hospital? Did any national compassionate euthanasia legislation get passed in the wake of that incident ever get passed, I never finished the TV series to find out?

God saved The Queen... but not her garish home.

Didn't 117 people die in the tri-state area during Hurricane Sandy? De Sanris and Graham and all those other insane Christian nationalists believe that God delivers payback... well, there they are.

There are worse things OP

[quote]The problem is Florida takes in huge amounts of people from all over the world.

Well, we have room for at 45 more.

[Quote]That is an unusually large body count.

Deaths from Katrina were over 1,800

Rhonda Santis better not piss off the old folks.

R62 you have zero idea what you’re even saying. You moron!

Here, from the NYT: So they did fuck up. And right now at least 35 confirmed deaths in Lee County.

"As Hurricane Ian charged toward the western coast of Florida this week, the warnings from forecasters were growing more urgent. Life-threatening storm surge threatened to deluge the region from Tampa all the way to Fort Myers.

But while officials along much of that coastline responded with orders to evacuate Monday, emergency managers in Lee County held off, pondering during the day whether to tell people to flee, but then deciding to see how the forecast evolved overnight.

The delay, an apparent violation of the meticulous evacuation strategy the county had crafted for just such an emergency, may have contributed to catastrophic consequences that are still coming into focus as the death toll continues to climb."

(article cont'd) NYT: "About 35 of Florida’s storm-related deaths have been identified in Lee County, the highest toll anywhere in the state, as survivors describe the sudden surge of water — predicted as a possibility by the National Hurricane Service in the days before the storm hit — that sent some of them scrambling for safety in attics and on rooftops.

Lee County, which includes the hard-hit seaside community of Fort Myers Beach, as well as the towns of Fort Myers, Sanibel and Cape Coral, did not issue a mandatory evacuation order for the areas likely to be hardest hit until Tuesday morning, a day after several neighboring counties had ordered their most vulnerable residents to flee.

By then, some residents recalled that they had little time to evacuate. "

Even in Orlando, we have significant flooding and power outages. Schools are closed Monday; they’re hoping to have power, dry out the school and roads cleared, by Tuesday.

R118 IT COULD HAPPEN!

Keep dreaming.

I read that many if not most homes in the hardest hit areas lacked flood insurance, so it is likely many owners cannot not rebuild, and will likely leave Florida..."so this is turning out very well for them."

Last I heard it was 66 & counting.

Oops 76

Dear America: DO NOT send money to a Ron DeSantis controlled hurricane “relief” fund.

Ron doesn’t just play favorites. He uses every component of government resources to harm anyone he perceives as a foe.

Send money to family, the Red Cross, or @WCKitchen

The death toll from the storm, one of the strongest hurricanes by wind speed to ever hit the U.S., grew to 77, with deaths reported from Cuba, Florida and North Carolina. The storm weakened Saturday as it rolled into the mid-Atlantic, but not before it washed out bridges and piers, hurdled massive boats into buildings onshore and sheared roofs off homes, leaving hundreds of thousands without power.

b/c Ian was a bad-ass himmicane

play stoopid games, win stoopid prizes

Nobody should be allowed to build homes on barrier islands. Make them parks and camping sites--you can stay a few days, but you can't live there.

Of course, every death is one too many, but 45 is not a high number. Katrina had a death toll of about 1800. It seems to me they have done a pretty good job, overall.

R127 So we’re decamping from Fire Island and letting it return to nature for camping only?

I’d be more concerned about parts of Jersey, r129. Climate change hasn’t worsened to the point where devastating major hurricanes make it as far north as Fire Island. It also looks like Fire Island has better built houses. But, if and when Mother Nature comes a knocking with some frequency…then, yes, it’s time to pack.

I’m on the east coast. Why is it that when a hurricane scores a hit on us, it’s here and gone within hours. The sun is shining the next day. When a hurricane goes up into the fucking interior of the country, we get fucking wind and rain for days?

[quote] Drowning, I'd assume. Especially if they're obese, elderly, and have limited mobility... Like most Floridans.

Electrocution. Blunt force trauma.

talked to my sister last night who lives near Orlando, she told me Desantis and his wife are on TV every day over and over telling people don’t send food and water donate money directly to the state instead. The person who’s in charge of the state donation fund is his wife.

Who’s got oversight of that fund?🤦‍♂️. Why would you tell people not to donate food, water and clothing?

Even with this going on the guy has to be defiant.

There have been Blue states NJ being one that has offered their National Guard and Desantis told them we don’t need your help

Why is the Floridian governor and his wife asking for money?

Why is the press not asking those people why they're asking for money?

Facing a Dire Storm Forecast in Florida, Officials Delayed Evacuation

What kind of a complete asshole declines help from other states???

What a fucking asshole.

If this isn’t enough to get him the hell out of office, I don’t know what will. Floridians will be seen as fools the world over if they vote this shithead back into office.

We live on the beach in Naples, Florida. We stayed through the Hurricane Ian. Thought I'd share a rather notable photo from the experience.

They’re not even going to have collected all the corpses by Tuesday.

*

I want to know what kind of windows Dixie in R137’s post has.

Seems like Dixie is very smart when it comes to choosing windows, not so smart when it comes to hurricane safety.

What else do you expect from a state hosting Republican science deniers? I expect it will go past a 100, tbh.

I wonder if Dixie had a higher safe place to retreat when she calmly took that photo.

Is Dixie Whatley related to Dixie Wetsworth?

We live in Punta Gorda. We went to SE Florida Monday. Today’s Thursday and we’ve been told our neighborhood won’t have water pressure for 10 more days and no telling about the power. We’re facing about 2 weeks in hotels, total. $1200 won’t be enough!

The state should have set up a program to help people evacuate but Tallahassee is to busy lining it’s own pockets.

Death toll now at 74

On cnn now: residents claiming hundreds of bodies are being pulled from the wreckage. Also claiming that officials are not updating the numbers.

Notice to all Florida state employees:

We have Culture War battles to wage and conduct. Trannies taking over local school boards here in Florida is still very much a grave threat and is far more important than saving peoples' lives and providing them with food and water.

This other shit can wait. We must keep our eyes on the prize.

Lee Country is claiming that they were not in the cone. This is false. They were in the very first cone.

The state is doing a masterful job of putting county against county instead of taking responsibility for hurricane prep as a whole. It’s the state apparatus that has the ability to coordinate and execute.

It’s all fun and games owning the libs but this is what you get with republican government which is negligent at best and antagonist at worst.

r146 again the counties all have their set evacuation plans which are reported to the state. All counties know their evacuation zones. The scrutiny will be the timing at which they set the plans into place. That involves way more people than Ron Desantis who is essentially useless in that capacity, amongst others.

I mentioned in another thread that most counties in Florida did not close public schools until late Tuesday, which was much too late. Here in South Florida we already had advisories going out on Friday afternoon. People blew it off because the storm track over last weekend had it going north to the panhandle and not east. Out of an abundance of caution, schools on the Gulf coast should've been closed all last week so people could start making their way there for shelter.

I also saw the FEMA administrator on TV today talking about the need to update flood maps. Florida has tons of urban sprawl as well so people in new homes have no idea if they are in a susceptible area. All that water running off new developments doesn't have anywhere to go.

"owning the libs"= reducing the United States to permanent shithole status

Lee County, Florida waited to issue mandatory evacuation for Zones A and B -- which include the hard-hit coastal areas -- until Tuesday at 5:20 p.m. ET. 42 residents have been reported dead so far. DeSantis supports decision to delay evacuation.

Just in case anyone wondered, RJ Portales weeding happened on schedule. Lance Bass was in attendance!

How does DeSantis support the decision to delay evacuation? Yes hindsight is 20/20 but it’s also for examining actions and realizing where mistakes were made. The decision was a YUGE mistake.

Hundreds of dead bodies found in Lee County, Florida. DeSantis stands by decision to wait until day before landfall to order evacuations in Lee County

Gurl! Hundreds of bodies!

Wow. @r157

Governor DeSantis, no more Republican climate change. It’s back to GLOBAL WARMING!

The world is cooking!

THE WORLD IS ON 🔥 FIRE 🔥

[Quote]You could see this thing coming for weeks.

Ian hit Puerto Rico 5 days ago! Your point is weak R62

Florida is low hanging fruit.

Well, there going be good eatin’ for the gators this week!

The governor has demonstrated poor leadership in this circumstance and with his response to covid.

The governor deliberately allowed covid tests to expire to keep the number of positive covid results artificially low.

Don't take my word for it, use Google to confirm.

Damn DeathSantis just put his foot in it at a press conference. Like I said people blew it off because the storm track had it going to the panhandle until last Monday! And sure enough he blames it on the storm track. I guess everyone will blame the meteorologists next.

I agree the death toll is small.

People can build whatever the fuck they want on barrier islands or on the coasts, so long as the don't expect me (or my tax dollars) to pay for rebuilding when a storms washes them out to sea.

Look at our country.

Sweetie @ [161] Ian didn't hit Puerto Rico. Perhaps you're confusing Fiona with Ian.

SHITHOLE STATUS

Houses are destroyed and some are floating away as Ian's eyewall hammers southwest Florida. This is video from Fort Myers Beach, Florida off Estero Blvd by Loni Architects

[Quote] You could see this thing coming for weeks.

No, you couldn't R62

R168 Confused Cuba with PR. Ian hit Cuba Sept. 27

dead people and people who are hospitalized with injuries cannot vote, Ron

It seems mother nature hit the right spot!

Do you pay for auto, homeowner, renter or business insurance R166? If so, you'll see the cost of recovery reflected in your insurance premiums.

Moron Lardo would've been the right spot R173.

R166, Louisiana is still recovering from hurricanes Laura and Delta from 2020, not to mention Ida from last year…millionaires with a second home might be able to rebuild without a lot of help but if you change policies to remove help it’s not really them that are most affected…

@ R174

Auto -- no. I don't live in a coastal area.

Homeowner -- no. Ibid.

Business -- no. Don't own one.

Insurance isn't one size fits all. It's more granular. That's why they ask you so fucken many questions.

Insurance premia are not one size fits all. That's why they ask you so damn many questions.

^ I don't know how that last line got in there

I haven’t seen “hundreds of bodies!” confirmed anywhere.

You left out Renters, R177. You'll see it. Have a nice day.

Sorry, R180. I own my home.

Latest from AP:

"The death toll from the storm, one of the strongest hurricanes by wind speed to ever hit the U.S., grew to more than four dozen, with 47 deaths confirmed in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba. "

R181, you own a home and have no insurance? Do you have an umbrella policy? Even if the home is a tear a down I would think you would have some kind of policy in case your mail carrier slips on ice or wet leaves. I guess if it’s a small-ish condo unit with a run down interior and you never have guests it might make sense. Or if you are so rich it doesn’t make financial sense to pay premiums when the expected payout is less than the expected total of the premiums. But most people can’t take that kind of risk.

Don’t worry, Floridians. I’m coming soon!

Florida Senators Request More Federal Aid Despite Not Voting For Hurricane Relief

[quote]I’m on the east coast. Why is it that when a hurricane scores a hit on us, it’s here and gone within hours. The sun is shining the next day. When a hurricane goes up into the fucking interior of the country, we get fucking wind and rain for days?

Because warmer air helps a storm retain more moisture and strength , r131. And in the summertime, land is usually warmer than water, particularly in the North East.

The confirmed death toll is 87.

R131

It may be sunny or whatever day after a hurricane makes landfall somewhere along east coast, but things follow a predicable pattern. That storm has move up and or inward affecting other areas inland going north including Canada.

Katrina actually caused much damage in parts of PA, NY, NJ, MA, and Québec

The great 1938 New England hurricane left a huge swath of damage where it made landfall, but kept on going leaving a path of destruction inland far north as Canada.

Today, WCK’s Relief Kitchen in South Florida made thousands of portions of “chili” pasta with beef, broccoli, corn & peas, topped with cheddar & bacon bits! Along with meals from dozens of restaurant partners, these plates were served to families across the area

Bottom line answer to your query 131 is that the hurricane itself will die slowly as it goes over land (inland), that does not mean storm itself goes away. As with any other rain storm all that moisture and wind can continue as storm makes it's way about.

Don't send the Governor a nickel of your money, something is wrong with that guy.

R183: The point is moot since R181 doesn't know what day it is, let alone what kind of insurance they have.

Sanibel residents want to return to their homes, and I can certainly understand that. However, the island is without power and water . One resident claimed to be ready to “rough it”, but I wondered if they really understood what that would entail.

No water, no sewage.

We had a major snowstorm in January and I had no power or water for close to 3 days. I almost had a nervous breakdown.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

They're always crowing about having no state tax in Florida, so shouldn't they all have decent insurance and a healthy amount of savings?

Look folks, Florida elected DeathSantis, Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott and elected and re-elected that shit head Marco Rubio. They are now enjoying the government of their choosing. I'm honestly not a bit concerned for them, as I assume they and their expert politicians will surely make them all whole again soon!

r194, the predictable refusal of "the authorities" to allow people who've evacuated to return (via private boat, helicopter, or even parking near the first collapsed section of causeway & swimming and walking the last mile or two) is PRECISELY why so many residents refuse to leave... especially if they've built their house like a mini-skyscraper.

There's "up to code", and then there's "rich prepper structural engineer". Sanibel/Captiva has more than a few of the latter. The problem is, there's a few dozen houses built by rich prepper engineers, but several hundred more of their neighbors who act like THEIR house was built to the same level... even though it wasn't. Then, when THEIR house loses its roof (because RPSE spent $300k on a cast in place reinforced-concrete roof, but 2 dozen neighbors have houses with wood roofs that superficially look the same), they're caught with their pants down.

Ditto, when RPSE builds his pilings 4-8 feet higher than they're required to be, and uses ICF with Jersey-Barrier/Bank-Vault high-PSI concrete, while his neighbors' houses use "normal" concrete. They're still strong, and 20 steps above the norm for American residential construction... but when Armageddon hits, RPSE's house will emerge mostly unscathed, but his neighbors' houses won't.

It's kind of like how teen pregnancies soared for 20 years after birth control pills became available. Teen girls ACTED like they were "on the pill", but until the 1990s or so, very few of them actually WERE. A few people build beachfront bunkers, then everyone acts like their normal house is one of them.

Incidentally, cities kind of hate rich prepper structural engineers, because they know that someday, the guy will be dead & gone, and nobody will EVER be able to demolish the house & redevelop the site. High-PSI concrete is prohibitively expensive to demolish. Someone will buy it intending to redevelop, send in someone with a bulldozer, and... end up with a very, very expensively-damaged bulldozer if they plow into the house thinking it's normal concrete, then discover it's built like a nuclear-hardened bunker.

So blessed to quickly mobilize in Tampa and prepare 3,000+ meals daily through my Tampa Restaurant @eatatmrbs powered by @WCKitchen @chefjoseandres today we are preparing 1,000’s of meals to be distributed in Southern Florida @LauraHayesDC @nozofro #ChefsForFlorida

One news organization reported over 250 people have been evacuated on Sanibel Island since the hurricane struck. This is an intelligent and affluent community. I visited the Island about ten years ago, and I saw it was flat as a pancake. There is only one link to the mainland, connected by a bridge which would be destroyed by a hurricane.

What were these 250+ people thinking? They knew the hurricane was wobbling as it approached the coast. There was a cone of uncertainty which included the Fort Myers area. If I’m on an island with no terrain barriers to the full force of a hurricane, and there’s only one way in or out, I’d say “See ya!” and get the hell away. When there’s a will, there’s a way.

Initially Joe and other officials announced at a press briefing that they expected hundreds dead so 50 sounds pretty good in comparison.

On the bright side, no one is saying Gay.

As people across Florida struggled Thursday morning to understand the scale of the damage from Hurricane Ian, the sheriff of Lee County, Carmine Marceno, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that hundreds of people might have died in his county — an estimate that was quickly shared on social media and in some news reports.

“While I don’t have the confirmed numbers, I definitely know the fatalities are in the hundreds,” the sheriff said. “There are thousands of people that are waiting to be rescued and, again, cannot give a true assessment until we’re actually on the scene, assessing each scene, and we can’t access people, that’s the problem.”

The official death toll has passed 80 and is expected to rise as floodwaters continue to recede and authorities access places that had been flooded.

Why are we relying on British news sources for verification?

Because currently the Guardian provides better coverage of US national news than our "paper of record," the NYT, which is btw behind paywalls, so fuck it.

r206 because our politicians lie.

A woman who was watching them remove hundreds of bodies said that DeSantis was not releasing the true number of the dead.

This would be a great time to disappear or assume a false identity if you were a fugitive. I may do a story on the hunt for a serial killer . Yeah. A screenplay. Liam Neeson, Gerard Butler, Mel Gibson will track him and detect him...... Who shall the killer be?

This is a dilemma for residents of areas hit hard. Because there are naturally, health and safety concerns. But to recover those areas, first the main debris from collapsed buildings, glass, metal, etc, and electrical wires, gas leaks, etc. Then t he residents have to go into the locations to collect salvageable personal belongings. In some cases whole neighborhoods will have to be raised and cleared. I'd declare certain areas permanently off limits. Florida has to make hard decisions, unpopular ones, where people will not be allowed to build or reside in certain areas.

R206, just trying to find recent sources- the numbers keep going up; first it was 21, then 45, then 66, then 74, and yesterday NBC was saying 87 total for the storm and that the process of finding people was still ongoing. If you look at people’s houses washed away that’s probably going to involve confirming whether or not the houses were occupied.

[quote]A woman who was watching them remove hundreds of bodies said that DeSantis was not releasing the true number of the dead.

Well THAT'S both convincing and well sourced!

I am inclined to believe the numbers of fatalities are suppressed because the governor suppressed positive covid infection numbers.

R212 you are right, but as r213 said, we know also to not trust DeSantis. He’s a cruel, soulless leader who will not reveal data so that he can get elected/re-elected.

R213 I agree. Now I seriously doubt a woman saw "hundreds of bodies" being removed because that would require too many people and it would be difficult to hide. But I am sure De Santis will fudge these numbers. It will take family and friends and neighbors and possibly co-workers to make noise about the missing.

Isn’t FEMA on site with verifiable federal government statistics?

While Ron poses for pitiful photo ops serving waffles and enduring the excruciating pain of trying to seem human, Florida’s victims of Ian are in panic mode begging for assistance.

In one Fort Myers neighborhood, Black residents feel forsaken in Ian's aftermath

DeSantis is such a dummy.

Providing excellent leadership during a natural disaster would signal to his constituents and the rest of the country that he has leadership skills we need....

But he is busy grifting and trolling.

I don't understand why he's asking for donations and appointed his wife as the head of this project.

No one is supposed to think this is fishy?

The death toll rise and there is no escaping that sad fact.

I wonder how this will impact the upcoming election in November.

R216, I’m not sure what it means exactly if an individual person was confirmed dead. Does it mean that the cause of death was officially confirmed and the person was identified legally as being who they are? If so, that would explain the gap between various reports of numbers of deaths vs. individual people with known identities confirmed dead.

The casualties of hurricane Maria were 46 times higher than the number first published.

Maybe if Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott spent more time actually governing their states instead of running for president and producing costly taxpayer-funded political stunts, Florida and Texas would be better prepared for emergencies when they hit.

One problem with 'death toll' is deciding who to count.

If a pedestrian far from an evacuation zone gets hit & killed by someone who's fleeing, do they count?

How about someone who cuts their leg off 3 days after the storm while using a chainsaw to remove debris & bleeds to death because the cell network is down & they couldn't call 911?

How about someone who survived just fine in their bunker home, but has a heart attack & dies 4 days later because their house is surrounded by a temporary moat & the ambulance couldn't reach them in time?

How about someone who misses a chemo or dialysis appointment or two, dies 6 weeks later, and nobody can say for sure whether it was an aggravating factor?

If some unstable person decides to kill themself because they've lost everything, does it count? How about if another, differently-unstable person gets pushed over the edge and kills someone in rage on a night when they would have otherwise just played poker with their friends?

How about a family that dies after running a generator in their garage, or a gas grill in their kitchen?

The line is a lot blurrier than you'd initially think, especially when/if you start counting 'indirect' casualties and "people who were fragile & had one foot in the grave & stepped on a skateboard or banana peel".

Honestly, I think the Lee death toll will be much higher from black little old ladies missing dialysis appointments, drowning in first-floor apartments, or little kids stepping on live power lines than from Sanibel residents getting "washed away". The fact is, Fort Myers Beach & Sanibel got hit almost as hard by Charley. The beach houses that were going to wash away, washed away 18 years ago. What DIDN'T happen 18 years ago was "large-scale flooding in inland poor black neighborhoods where the houses WEREN'T sitting 10+ feet higher on dirt scooped out of adjacent finger canals".

I hate Florida politics...putting that aside, it's very sad that so many people there are too stubborn, or are uable to make the evacuations...and have lost their lives. The devastation by the storm...unbelievable. I feel for the people down there. That is hell. If only Floridians would wake up to who they're voting in to represent them. Matt Gaetz voted down for Federal aid for the hurricane, because of politics. Other repubs did the same. The reasoning be....it would make Democrats look good. So...it's always politics and party before anyone....even their own constituents, who are in the greatest need of help, in one of the worst...if not the worst, storm in history. These people have no homes...lives totally turned upside down. It makes me sick.

Death toll in Florida is up to 76...per CNN, reported 16 hours ago, per google. It could be higher now.

They still haven’t released the statistics of how many people were killed in the Iraq-Afghanistan debacle. All we’ve ever heard is how many died in the WTC attack (which seems to have shrunk to about half of originally reported) and how many US troops died (supposedly about 4000.)

Hurricanes are unpredictable and the exact landfall site is nearly impossible.

Is it legal for DeSantis to wear a jacket with his campaign logo when he’s on government business?

Jill and I are headed to Ponce, Puerto Rico.

I remain committed to the people of Puerto Rico and to helping rebuild their communities stronger and more resilient after Hurricane Fiona.

R224 You are making a great point that some deaths are not necessarily due immediately to the storm but happen as a result of the storms aftermath. The big question is will the state correctly count these deaths or will they be swept under the rug by Desantis who we know has a history of doing this.

Ian DeSantis. It's his fault. All of it.

It's very difficult to pry Klan Grannies out of their doublewides. No way in hell do they want to go to some socialist shelter and hang with a bunch of coloreds.

The hearings have been postponed because of Hurricane Ian.

But I remember being teary-eyed listening to Ben Thompson explain what government is and why it exists.

Aiding states when a natural disaster strikes was the specific example Ben Thompson gave.

The other example he gave was the enforcement of CIVIL RIGHTS.

This is not about blaming anyone. This is about the fundamental differences between maga and everyone else. Maga is a grift.

Why is the leadership of Florida voting against Federal aid and setting up their own donation hotlines?

Columbia/HCA's Ex-CEO Gets Severance of Nearly $10 Million

The death toll will be higher and it'll be suppressed. And the draw for Florida is supposed to be no state income tax but the home insurance is the tax, imo. It will only go higher if the company doesn't leave the state altogether.

Senator Rick Scott wants to "sunset" Social Security and Medicare

[quote]While Ron poses for pitiful photo ops serving waffles and enduring the excruciating pain of trying to seem human.

While Ron poses for pitiful photo ops serving waffles and enduring the excruciating pain of not eating them all himself.

Orlando still with a water advisory too. Grim stuff.

According to the Department of Justice, Columbia/HCA was ordered to pay $840 million in fines and penalties for its deceit. "Healthcare providers and professionals hold a public trust, and when that trust is violated by fraud and abuse of program funds, and by the payment of kickbacks to the physicians...healthcare for all Americans suffers," stated Robert McCallum, Assistant Attorney General.

A billion dollars in Medicare fraud. Not only is it not incarcerated, it is in the Senate advocating for the end of a federal program it robbed blindly.

Thou shall not steal.

Orlando, Florida and Jackson, Mississippi are large municipalities in a first world nation WITHOUT CLEAN RUNNING WATER.

Think about this when you cast your vote in five weeks.

[quote]Why is the leadership of Florida voting against Federal aid and setting up their own donation hotlines?

That is so fucking sketchy I cannot even properly describe it. He's looking to skim off the top for his upcoming presidential run, of course.

CNN is now reporting 100 deaths from Ian in Florida.

He has received 27 million in donations. Who are the assholes donating money?

Rich Repugs who know what the donations are really for, r245.

Florida receives $1.24 in federal spending for every dollar it contributes to the federal government. How much of that extra quarter on the dollar comes from bailing them out of their irresponsible building and infrastructure practices? How about a little hard-headed fiscal discipline here?

They need to tax Disney more heavily.

They’re finding bodies that have been dead for 5 days. Yuck.

No, Disney should be taxing Florida more heavily.

I haven’t heard from any reputable source what the death count is at this point. And while I hope it doesn’t continue to climb, it’s hard to believe that there aren’t many more people to find in the rubble.

[quote]They still haven’t released the statistics of how many people were killed in the Iraq-Afghanistan debacle. All we’ve ever heard is how many died in the WTC attack (which seems to have shrunk to about half of originally reported) and how many US troops died (supposedly about 4000.)

That’s not true. It was about 500,000 civilians and 6951 military deaths.

And the news programs are featuring interviews in which the citizens are begging for federal assistance. Hypocritical.

It's a natural catastrophe, gurls. People die in them.

Maga doesn't understand the concept of preventable death or illness and conservation of resources.

Former Kentucky state legislator Robert Goforth was sentenced Monday to 25 months in prison, following his guilty plea in May to federal charges of health care fraud and money laundering at the pharmacy he owned.

A spokesperson for U.S. prosecutors in Kentucky's Eastern District indicated the former Republican legislator's sentence includes two years of supervised release as well, in addition to orders to pay a $10,000 fine and $2.7 million in restitution.

In his guilty plea, Goforth admitted to improperly billing insurance programs in excess of $2.7 million for prescriptions that customers never picked up, then multiplying profits by putting those medications back on the shelf and selling them again.

Goforth pleaded guilty in May 2022, admitting that a pharmacy he owned in Clay County billed insurance programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, for prescriptions that customers didn’t pick up, according to court records.

The medication could then be put back on the shelf and sold again.

It will be over 1,000 after they have gotten to all the areas that have been cut off or are still underwater….

They should create a Hurricane Adventureland at Disney World with all kinds of exciting hurricane related rides. It could be like they’re version of California Adventure at Disneyland.

DeSantis will lie about the death count.

The Red Cross won't lie about the numbers.

This flood has been pretty catastrophic,” said Deriso, adding that officials hope to open one of the area’s main highways by Tuesday.

Ian washed away bridges and roads to several barrier islands. About 130 Florida Department of Transportation trucks started work on building a temporary bridge to Pine Island and by the end of the week should be finished on a structure drivers can carefully traverse at slow speeds, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference Monday afternoon.

The governor said a similar temporary bridge is planned for nearby Sanibel, but it will take a little more time.

“They were talking about running ferries and stuff,” DeSantis said. “And honestly, you may be able to do that, but I think this is an easier thing, and I think people need their vehicles anyways.”

The first two days without power at his Punta Gorda home weren’t bad because he, his wife and 4-year-old daughter like to camp, Joe Gunn said.

But then they ran out of gas, Gunn said as he waited for an hour for $20 worth of premium fuel from a Bonita Springs station, one of the few open in the area. The family then drove to get supplies and a hot meal.

Gunn was preparing for another stressful night, worried someone might try to steal his supplies. “I am constantly listening to the generator. It’s pitch black outside of the house,” he said.

Some fraus on a Facebook thread were gushing like schoolgirls over DeSatan. Claimed the recovery efforts by the state were running like a “well oiled machine”.

These people who stayed behind should read the book "Issac's Storm". It's about the hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas in the year 1900. The storm surge was immense and the author writes about it chillingly. Between 6,000 and 12,000 people died.

Next time you will know: GTFO and quick

Has anyone hear from Tony Goodfellow yet, do we know if he safe???

Go-go Boots

Watch for yourself, good samaritans who were voluntarily delivering hurricane relief supplies were forced to pause operations for a @RonDeSantisFL photo-op.

clown shoe wearing grifters

Those boots are so pristine...white.

His and hers clown 🤡 shoes

I really try not to use this word, but those boots look retarded.

These boots were made for walkin'....that's just what they'll do...one of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you...

Strange. Usually those PVC boots are in black. China must have had a special discount on white.

Did all Florida porn stars survive? Should we tip more on their OF and Chaturbate accounts to make up for the devastation?

r274 John Bronco seems to be fine

Somebody should have called Ms. Sutphin, r273.

R274

OF star RJ Portales survived and his wedding went off without a hitch last Saturday

Lance Bass attended IIRC, one assumes some of the OF or Instahoes of Florida or elsewhere that are within RJ Portales's orbit made the event as well.

Florida death toll from Hurricane Ian is now officially at least 101, and counting...

Wait, I take that back, RJ Portales doesn't have an OF IIRC, just Instagram, YT and maybe something else.

Last week I voted yes for $18.8 billion for the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund to support our state. The Florida GOP voted no.

"I was in a trailer. You know where the shrimp boats are piled up? We were holding onto the ceiling fan, treading water for hours. In a trailer! I had him up floating on a sofa cushion. I dove under the water through the back door to get to my roof.”

[quote]But why?

Some are to be expected. But I venture that one factor is the increased idiocy of people: everyone knows better than experts, advisors, officials, public safety people. And gun culture: there is more talk now of people defending themselves and defending their property. The people who thought masks and vaccines are 100% attempts to curb rights and suppress individual freedoms and 0% health/science based don't seem the likeliest candidates to flee at the earliest indication of severity.

I understand that, in some cases, roadways are reversed to allow more outflow during a hurricane. What I don't understand is waiting to be TOLD to leave at the same time as others!

This reminds me of major snowstorms in northern NJ. The 4 big employers (Nabisco, Novartis, Warner-Lambert, and Honeywell, all within 5 miles of each other and employing hundreds) would call each other and then decide to all close at 2 or 3 pm. I'm 18 miles away from home. If I didn't make the decision to (a) not even try to get to work or, (b) leave at lunch time, it would take me 2 or more hours to get home.

As they uncover bodies in Lee County, including at the juvenile detention center, I want to remind people that Foster children who have not committed crimes end up in Juvie simply because there are no foster homes available to house them.

Fort Myers Jail Inmate Recounts Harrowing Hurricane Ordeal

So the FL gov spent $$$ to bus and fly migrants to another state as a political stunt, but FL youth were left to drown in a hurricane that was predicted to hit SW FL for a week.

Do the locals know Republicans are voting against disaster relief for them? Do they get news?

Think about why Rhonda DeSantis could not find resources to move people to higher ground and save their lives including foster children incarcerated in juvenile detention.

[quote]Rhonda DeSantis

I’m hoping this is typo…because calling him a woman’s name as a slur reflects badly on you. It’s highly misogynistic.

Facts, inflammatory opinions, and outright falsehoods are all components of a successful disinformation playbook.

In their typology of IRA Twitter accounts, Linvill and Warren (2018) separate political users on the left and right from so-called “Fearmongers” whose main purpose is to spread fabricated news stories.

Our results reveal that political IRA users also trafficked in falsehoods alongside factual content and extreme opinions.

While previous research has noted this tendency (Howard et al., 2018), we find false content among the ranks of the most widely-discussed tweets, especially on the right. The IRA’s strategy of posting about nonexistent events can only be successful if authentic users engage with and spread such content at scale.

Photoshop fun

Hurricane Ian’s death toll rises as crews in Florida go door to door in search for survivors in decimated neighborhoods

Stacy Verdream told CNN she and her brother found out Monday their uncle, Mike Verdream, died in the storm. Mike Verdream decided to ride out Hurricane Ian in Matlacha, Florida, and planned to go to his boss’ two-story home if things got too bad.

Stacy Verdream said she spoke with her uncle briefly on Wednesday. Her cousin spoke with him later that day and he said the water was 4 feet deep before telling her he had to go.

“It was a very brief call because he said he was very scared and she’d never heard him like that, because he wasn’t that type of person. He’s always put on a brave face,” Stacy Verdream said. “But she said he sounded absolutely terrified.”

The family was unable to reach Mike Verdream because his phone was wet, his niece said.

A detective told Stacy Verdream on Tuesday that her uncle was found in a canal on Friday. The condition of his body was consistent with other victims that had been recovered, Verdream said. Authorities used medical records to identify her uncle because his face was not recognizable, Verdream said.

Gov. DeSantis let these insurance companies double Floridians' rates and they're still going belly up when homeowners need them most," Crist told reporters. "You pay and pay and pay, and the insurance company isn't there for you in the end anyway

The remnants of this fucking hurricane have been sitting on top of us for 5 days. It’s trapped by high pressure.

There’s a marathon thunderstorm that took out my cabletv:WiFi. I’m able to use ATT on my old-ass phone to get online in limited capacity.

Fuck this fucking storm

President Biden and FLOTUS visited Fort Meyers today. They met with the Governor for a tour of the damage. POTUS is the old school reach across the aisle type.

POTUS did not meet with the next governor of Florida, Charlie Crist.

The networks that decided to not air POTUS speech are complicit in undermining our democratic values.

“Nobody fucks with Joe Biden”

Ritchie Torres in on the case. Well far as PR is concerned anyway.

Local ME office is giving details on how some died.

Nobody cares.

There's a storm starting some counterclockwise rotation on the coast of Venezuela right now. But forecasters are strangely downplaying it. PTSD? Wishful thinking?

Because it’s likely to only impact central and South America before landfall diminishes it, r301. Not everything that forms is destined to hit the US.

Thanks for posting that link R299.

The last moments of the victims are grim, but it's important to know what happened and that they were not just faceless numbers.

From R299’s article: “The decedent was outside her residence smoking a cigarette when a gust of wind from the hurricane blew her off the porch and she subsequently struck her head on a concrete step,” was the description of how a 71-year-old Manatee County woman died Thursday. ”

Is this death attributed to the hurricane or smoking?

Migrants Are Leading Clean-up Efforts in Florida, Despite DeSantis’ Crusade Against Them

Placida, FL was severely damaged from Ian.

This was in the northern side of the eyewall about 40 miles NW of Ft. Myers Beachm