Tag: hurricane
Hurricane Matt: Right-Wing Website Trolled Storm Warning, Pushing ‘Conspiracy’

Hurricane Matt: Right-Wing Website Trolled Storm Warning, Pushing ‘Conspiracy’

As millions evacuate the west coast of Florida in preparation for Hurricane Matthew, which has already been responsible for 113 deaths across the Caribbean, the curator of the most widely read conservative website, Matt Drudge, irresponsibly peddled a conspiracy theory that federal officials have exaggerated the danger posed by Hurricane Matthew “to make exaggerated point on climate.”

On October 6, Drudge claimed “the deplorables” were wondering if the government was lying about the intensity of the deadly hurricane and also questioned the legitimacy of the National Hurricane Center’s data:

[Twitter, 10/6/16]


[Twitter, 10/6/16]

Drudge also used his website, one of the most widely read sites on the Internet, DrudgeReport.com, to put Florida residents in danger and push the conspiracy theory with a banner titled “STORM FIZZLE? MATTHEW LOOKS RAGGED!,” alongside links titled “IT’S A 4?” and “RESIDENTS NOT TAKING SERIOUSLY…”.

In direct contrast to Drudge, Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott warned those in the hurricane’s path that “this storm will kill you,” while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) described the storm as “dangerous.” Fox News host Shepard Smith warned Floridians that if they did not evacuate “you and everyone you know is dead,” and that “you can’t survive it,” while The National Weather Service for Melbourne, Florida warned residents that the storm was “LIFE-THREATENING,” and “more impacting than Hurricane David and 2004 hurricanes!”:

5 am | Matthew LIFE-THREATENING as it moves up the EAST CENTRAL FLORIDA coast. More impacting than Hurricane David & 2004 hurricanes!

Drudge joined Rush Limbaugh in peddling baseless conspiracy theories about the hurricane, placing their audience in danger. Earlier, Limbaugh downplayed the storm by ranting about “politics in the forecasting of hurricanes because there are votes,” and previously claimed the National Hurricane Center is “playing games” with “hurricane forecasting” to convince viewers of climate change.

UPDATE: Conspiracy theorist and Trump ally Alex Jones retweeted Matt Drudge, expressing support and agreement with his dangerous hurricane conspiracy while adding the white supremacist “altright” hashtag:

 

IMAGE: A man walks among trees damaged by Hurricane Matthew in Les Cayes, Haiti. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

Audit: FEMA Mishandled Florida Hurricane Payments

Audit: FEMA Mishandled Florida Hurricane Payments

By Chris Adams, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — Some ten years after the winds died down, federal officials are still cleaning up after a flurry of hurricanes hit Florida in 2004 and 2005, with a new federal audit saying the Federal Emergency Management Agency might have paid cities for damages that insurance should have covered.

The audit by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, found that the quality of FEMA’s insurance reviews in Florida was so lacking the agency can’t ensure it didn’t pay for damages that a private insurer should have covered.

FEMA also improperly waived the need for communities to buy insurance to protect against future disasters. That means FEMA and federal taxpayers might be on the hook to cover damages from the next hurricanes. According to the audit, FEMA stands to lose up to $1 billion in future Florida disasters because of these improper insurance waivers.

While the payments in question revolve around damages incurred by cities and other government entities, the issue isn’t with them or with the Florida insurance company that handled the claims. The issue is with FEMA.

“FEMA needs to be checking that the communities are allowing the insurance companies to pay for the portion they should be covering,” John Kelly, an inspector general official who oversaw the report on FEMA’s Florida payments, said in an interview. “It is FEMA’s responsibility to make sure tax dollars are being spent properly. It’s critical that FEMA start applying its regulations correctly and consistently.”

That’s doubly important, he said, since some of the FEMA employees involved in Florida reviews have moved on to other disasters, such as the superstorm Sandy that hit New York and New Jersey.

“We need to make sure the same problems don’t perpetuate themselves,” Kelly said.

While up to $177 million in payments are at issue, Kelly said, Florida cities “are not going to lose a penny.” The private insurer, however, could be found to be liable for additional payments, he said.

The 2004-2005 hurricanes — Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Katrina, Wilma — ravaged the state, resulting in $4.4 billion in what is known as “public assistance funding” to help local governments recover. It covers activities such as debris removal as well as the repair, replacement or restoration of disaster-damaged facilities.

In some cases, FEMA’s insurance specialists determined that insurance was not available to cover specific damages. Some of those cases involved disagreements over what a policy should or shouldn’t cover: If a ball field was damaged, for example, does the insurance cover only damage to the ground — or also to the fences, scoreboard and bleachers? Those are some of the kinds of issues at play in the insurance reviews, Kelly said.

In most cases, however, the inspector general found that FEMA reviewers could not support their “no insurance” decisions. They either incorrectly arrived at the decisions or had no support to justify them — often because paperwork was incomplete or missing.

The inspector general reviewed only a sample of the 2,088 projects at issue; those projects received a total of $177 million from FEMA. But in its review of the projects, the inspector general “concluded that FEMA could not have completed a valid insurance assessment with the documentation available. We conclude that FEMA has little assurance that its insurance specialists properly” handled the $177 million in FEMA-approved damages.

The inspector general is calling on FEMA to conduct a review of all projects — large and small — associated with the insurance company and recover any additional money the insurance company should have covered.

In a statement, FEMA press secretary Susan Hendrick said the agency “is on track to respond to the report’s findings and recommendations in late March of 2015.”

The insurance company was not named in the inspector general’s report, since the report was about FEMA’s actions, not the insurer’s or the cities’. But the company was the Florida Municipal Insurance Trust, which provides insurance services for more than 600 public entities in the state and is part of the Florida League of Cities.

Eric Hartwell, deputy general counsel for the Florida League of Cities, said that federal officials approached them around 2010 to review claims from the 2004-05 hurricanes and that they worked with cities, the state and FEMA to do so.

“When we found something that should have been paid, we paid it,” he said. “But there were cases in which there was no coverage.”

At one time, the trust earmarked $25 million to handle claims stemming from the FEMA review, but that earmark no longer exists, as the trust believes that all legitimate claims against it have been paid, Hartwell said.

“We have reviewed everything that has been identified,” he said. “For everything that has been identified and everything they brought forward — yes, we did a fair review.”

Photo: “orangejack” via Flickr

Iselle Weakens To Tropical Storm As It Hits Hawaii’s Big Island

Iselle Weakens To Tropical Storm As It Hits Hawaii’s Big Island

By Maya Srikrishnan, Los Angeles Times

Tropical Storm Iselle reached Hawaii’s Big Island and Maui early Friday morning, bringing heavy rain, strong winds, downed trees, and scattered power outages as the state also braced for a second storm on Sunday morning, a rare one-two punch for the islands.

Iselle, which has weakened from a Category 4 hurricane since Monday, is expected to continue traveling northwest to Oahu and Kauai on Friday and is expected to dump 5 to 8 inches of rain or more on Hawaii. Local meteorologists warned residents to stay vigilant as the slow-moving storm has the potential to bring damaging flash floods and road closures.

“Iselle so far has kind of parked itself over the Big Island,” said Lt. Col. Charles Anthony of the Hawaii National Guard. As of 3 a.m. local time, Iselle was 40 miles southeast of Hilo, moving at 11 mph, according to the National Weather Service. It sustained maximum winds of 60 mph.

So far, the damage has been minor, Anthony said. There have only been a few reports of downed power-lines and trees and some minor flooding. No injuries have been reported. Heeding storm warnings, more than 1,200 people gathered at an evacuation shelter on the Big Island, according to County of Hawaii Civil Defense.

“Seems like everyone listened and hunkered down and we’ve been able to withstand the main effects of the storm,” he said.

The storm was weakening because of several factors, including wind shear chopping at the system and the Big Island’s terrain above the water, said Chris Brenchley, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Honolulu.

But the winds and rain are strong enough that nearly all flights in and out of the island have been canceled. Public schools, universities, beach parks, and national parks in the entire state have been closed until the storm passes. All state offices are closed and will reopen on Monday.

Bruce Kim, executive director for the state Office of Consumer Protection, announced there is a price freeze on all commodities and any reports of price gouging will be investigated and, if substantiated, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

Hawaii Tourism Authority President Mike McCarthy said that hotels are prepared to implement their emergency plans and guests are advised to remain at their accommodations.

Attorney General David Louie announced that state elections will proceed on Saturday as planned, although some polling places may change. Current weather forecasts do not indicate that voting will be adversely affected, but officials are watching the storm closely.

Hawaii Electric Light Co. said it had about 5,000 customers without power. Maui County said that due to a power outage at the Olinda Water Treatment plant, around 700 customers were advised to conserve water.

Hurricane Julio, which has been traveling close behind Iselle, is now a Category 3 hurricane, sustaining maximum winds of 120 mph. Julio is expected to veer north of the Big Island, bringing rain and strong winds to the island, according to the National Weather Service.

Julio was last reported to be 970 miles southeast of Hilo and is moving northwest at 16 mph.

AFP Photo

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People Less Prepared For Hurricanes With Feminine Names, Study Shows

People Less Prepared For Hurricanes With Feminine Names, Study Shows

By Joan Cary, Chicago Tribune

Bertha, Dolly, Fay and Hanna could be on the way now that the Atlantic hurricane season started Sunday. And recent research suggests it’s time to give the Atlantic storms with feminine names a bit more respect.

According to a study released Monday by University of Illinois researchers, hurricanes with women’s names are likely to cause significantly more deaths than those with masculine names — not because the feminine-named storms are stronger, but because they are perceived as less threatening and so people are less prepared.

People in the path of severe storms with a feminine name may take fewer protective measures, leaving them more vulnerable to harm, according to the article published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” It was written by Kiju Jung, a doctoral student in marketing at the university, and marketing professor Sharon Shavitt.

Atlantic hurricane names alternate between male and female, starting with Arthur this year, followed by Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly and 17 others. The list is recycled every six years with the exception of 78 names from severe storms such as Katrina and Camille that have been retired, according Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The researchers examined human fatality numbers for 92 storms that made landfall in the U.S. between 1950 and 2012, excluding Katrina from 2005 and Audrey from 1957 because together, Shavitt said, they account for 50 percent of all deaths from hurricanes in the U.S. since 1950.

They found that the more feminine the storm’s name in highly damaging storms, the more people it killed.

Shavitt said their numerous experiments included university students as well as volunteers age 18 to 81 who took part in an online nationwide study. They reported that when people imagined being in a male-named storm, they predicted it would be more severe than it was for a female-named storm.

“We don’t think people are aware that the name of the storm may affect how seriously they respond to storm warnings,” Shavitt said. “But the name assigned actually means nothing.”

At the Hurricane Center, Feltgen said “Whether the name is Sam or Samantha, the deadly impacts of the hurricane — wind, storm surge and inland flooding — must be taken seriously by everyone in the path of the storm in order to protect lives. This includes heeding evacuation orders.”

When asked about the report, Tom Skilling, chief meteorologist at WGN-TV in Chicago, said he found the results interesting.

“If that’s the case, then people better get over it. They are putting themselves and their families at risk if that’s the basis by which they are deciding on whether or not to flee a storm and to take the warning seriously.

“It only takes one storm hitting the wrong area to create havoc and mayhem, no matter what the name is.”

 NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center