Milton was not the storm people feared

I’ve spent the day driving north along Florida’s west coast from Fort Myers.

The coastline from Fort Myers to Tampa and a little beyond was all part of an evacuation zone as the authorities warned of a once-in-a-generation storm and the meteorologists tried to determine where it would hit.

Milton was, meteorologists said, behaving very unusually. That worried them. It also wobbled north and south as it approached the coastline overnight, compounding the concern.

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The only encouraging news overnight was that it reduced in intensity from a category 5 down to a category 3. That lessened the impact from wind but not the concerns over a storm surge of water engulfing low-lying areas.

We stopped first at Punta Gorda where boats were overturned in the marina but there was no major structural damage. They dodged the bullet here.

Further north, the coastal highway passes Venice. There we found the streets littered with foliage from the palm trees, tiles ripped from roofs and billboards down but again, no major damage.

Casey Key lies just north of Venice, reachable via bridges from the mainland. When we arrived it was closed to traffic.

On foot we joined the National Guard and the local sheriff as they went house-to-house checking for anyone who may have tried to sit it out.

The storm surge here entered the houses but locals we spoke to guessed that it was only a foot or two high. Much lower than they had feared, about the same as the surge from Hurricane Helene two weeks ago and a huge relief for them.

Checking the major bridges for structural damage is important but the authorities had opened the Sunshine Skyway Bridge leading north to St Petersburg by the time I arrived.

The focus in St Petersburg itself is the Tropicana Field stadium. Home to Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays, it was being used to house emergency workers but the soft roof was ripped off in the storm.

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All in all, the west coast of Florida has been very lucky. This is in part because so many followed the advice and evacuated.

Of course, the danger is that people may feel the warnings were overblown. The mayor of Tampa warned people that they would die if they stayed. Over the top? People did stay and they didn’t die. We spoke to people who said it was all exaggerated – politicians and media to blame as usual.

I do wonder if the massive pre-storm warnings this time are in part an over-correction by the Biden administration following the remarkable disinformation campaign from Donald Trump and his cohort.

He has spent the past few weeks since Hurricane Helene claiming that the federal authority has been hindering rescue and recovery efforts, contrary to fact.

And his surrogate, Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, wrote on social media: “Yes they can control the weather,” adding “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” It is not clear quite who “they” is.

The FEMA Administrator said the conspiracies were “absolutely the worst I have ever seen”.

Hurricane Milton could have been huge, yes, and given this barrage of conspiracy theories, especially about the authorities failing during Helene, they absolutely had to be prepared (over-prepared?) for this.

The hurricane was not the storm people feared. But the storm of American politics is just getting going. Less than a month until the election.