Front Burner - A terrifying hurricane is headed toward Florida

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Floridians are packing up and evacuating their homes as Hurricane Milton, one of the biggest hurricanes ever recorded, bears down on Tampa Bay. A major hurricane hasn't hit the region in more than 100 years, during which time the city has grown massively in population and built up significant residential developments along the waterfront — all as climate change has made hurricanes bigger, stronger and more frequent.Thomas Mantz, president and CEO of Feeding Tampa Bay, tells us what's happening on the ground in preparation for Wednesday night's anticipated landfall. Then, meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus explains why the Tampa area is uniquely vulnerable to a hurricane of this size, and the scale of what could happen in the days and weeks ahead.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Happy Holidays! I'm Frank Cappadocia, Dean of Continuous Professional Learning at Humber Polytechnic. I'd like you to set a goal to drive key learning for your people in 2025. I want you to connect with Humber CPL to design a custom training solution that accelerates your team's performance and engagement. Humber works with you to hone industry-specific upskilling, enhance your leadership, and drive results. Flexible learning delivery formats are tailored to your unique needs. Adapt, evolve, and excel. To learn more, go to humber.ca slash cpl. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. One of the strongest hurricanes on record, Hurricane Milton, started hurtling towards Florida's east coast on Monday.

It's expected to hit the Tampa Bay area really hard. That's bad, because Tampa is one of the most vulnerable metropolitan areas in the U.S. to storm surge. An area that was just hit by the devastating hurricane Helene. Tampa Bay's Mayor Jane Castor told residents on Monday night to, quote, hide from the wind and run from the water. And she had a dire warning for people who live in the evacuation areas. And I can say without any dramatization whatsoever, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you're going to die. Highways were already jammed up on Monday and continued this way through Tuesday,

with long lines at gas stations. Some were even running out of fuel. President Joe Biden canceled a trip overseas to monitor the response to the storm. If you're under evacuation orders, you should evacuate now, now, now. You should have already evacuated. It's a matter of life and death,

and that's not hyperbole. It's a matter of life and death. It's an incredibly anxious and emotional time for people in Florida. John Morales is a veteran meteorologist from the area and he got choked up describing the storm on air. It's just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane. It has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours. I apologize. This is just horrific.

Today, how Hurricane Milton got to this catastrophic point and what it means to get ready for what could be the strongest storm in a century. Thomas Mance lives in Tampa. He spent last night preparing his house for the storm and figuring out how his relief organization, Feeding Tampa Bay, can help with the recovery ahead. His team there provides food assistance across west central Florida. We reached him on Tuesday afternoon at his office near downtown Tampa. And I asked him what it looked like outside. It's actually, it's funny. Often before storms, the weather is not bad. You almost have a sense that everything's okay, but you know it's coming. Can you see from where you are, can you see the aftermath of Hurricane Helene? Where I'm sitting right now is 30 plus miles from the Gulf. And we had a storm surge here two to three feet over record levels.

And so all of that water inhabits houses, right? So your house, which formerly was safe and dry, is now filled with water. And so, yes, we have driven through neighborhoods where someone's possessions, life possessions, are out at the end of their driveway, which is a sobering moment, to say the least. I see experts talking about the storm like it's a once-in-a-century storm. There are experts who have gotten emotional talking about it. How worried are you about this storm? You know, I think like any other sober, rational person, we're worried. I think our experience tells us that the storm is not really known. The impact isn't known to us yet.

That all of the forecasters that do work really hard to make sure we understand what are going to happen are telling us we're going to have a significant impact in our community, which, as you know, for Tampa has not happened in a hundred years. The reality of storms like this is that they change your life in very significant ways. And we're always aware of that. And I think, you know, when you think about this happening to friends and neighbors, to yourself, these are scary moments for everybody. We don't know what's on the other side. Floridians aren't strangers to extreme weather. I mean, we just talked about how you went through a very devastating storm.

But they are worsening. Yes. And what's going through your mind when you think about the future of your community, the people you hold close, the people that you serve? of wait and anticipation to get to somewhere around November 15th where we've made it through hurricane season. All of us have it in the back of our minds as we go through this time of year. We work very hard throughout the year now to make sure that we're hurricane ready for this season. And so it is more of our lives now, Jimmy, than it ever has been. So these are things that's funny as you ask that question that you realize if they're not in your conscious thought, they're certainly in the back of your

mind. We saw in Helene how some of the most disenfranchised were the hardest to reach and get help to. And just I wonder if you could tell me about who you are the most concerned about. For the folks that are hit by the storm that have financial means, they can leave. They can rebuild their lives with a degree of capability. But if you're in a place today economically where you can't afford the gas to get out of town, or you don't have the ability to pay for a place where you want to go stay, your options are far more limited. If you're impacted by the storm and you're financially compromised, your ability to recover is much longer because it takes you that much more time to rebuild

the resources around you that you need. And so while storms are an equal opportunity offender, the degree of that offense or that trauma is far different depending upon where you sit on the economic scale. Thomas, thank you. Thank you for this and good luck with all the work that you do. Thank you for checking in on us. We appreciate it very much. Yeah, we're thinking about you. To better understand the scope of the storm and its potential impact, we got in touch with Eric Holthaus. He's a meteorologist and climate journalist and the author of the book The Future of Earth, a radical vision for what's possible in the age of warming.

And he's one of the many people tracking Hurricane Milton this week. We started out by talking about how the storm got so big. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I have been doing this for about 25 years, and I have never seen a hurricane like this in the Atlantic Basin, including the Gulf of Mexico, it is just shocking to me how quickly this storm intensified, how intense it is on the satellite images, and also the hurricane hunter measurements that flew through the storm. It feels like something different. I mean, like last night, for example, as the Hurricane Hunter plane was flying through, they recorded constant lightning strikes through the center of the eyewall, which is very unusual

for a hurricane. It just is a sign of how intense and vigorous the storm was trying to strengthen. Could you take me through how it got so big? a setup right now to where it's pretty gentle throughout the atmosphere across the Gulf of Mexico right now. So it was really in an undisturbed environment that let Milton strengthen to, I mean, almost the theoretical maximum for what a hurricane could ever achieve in the Gulf of Mexico. The diameter of the eye was only three miles wide at its most intense last night. So, I mean, if you think about a figure skater bringing their arms in and spinning more quickly, that's what happened. It's skirting along the coast of Mexico as it tracks toward the United States. And what is it looking like in Mexico right now? What are we looking at?

And what is it looking like in Mexico right now? What are we looking at? Right. So thankfully, right now, the hurricane's radius of maximum winds is small still. So usually after hurricanes, like I said earlier, you know, it has a very narrow and very intense band of winds right now. And that has kept the worst of the storm offshore, thankfully. But it's still, you know, just about 50 miles offshore. And any jog towards the south would greatly increase impact on the Yucatan in Mexico. And I mean, as vulnerable as Florida is, I would think that the Yucatan is even more so vulnerable to a storm like this. What are the projections for the course it's going to take in terms of make landfall near the Tampa Bay area in the west central part of Florida on Wednesday night. The impact of the storm will begin much sooner than that, though.

I mean, about 24 hours before we'll start to see those high tides start to increase in height. There will be at least three tide cycles that will be potentially record levels in west central Florida. At three feet above normally dry ground, water is already life threatening. It's too late to evacuate. Water this high can knock you off your feet. Unfortunately, the water is expected to rise even higher at six feet above the height of most people. Vehicles get carried away. Structures start to fail. Just look at this. Some areas could see surge values at 10 to 15 feet. So this is not something that's going to happen super quickly in the matter of a couple of hours and be over. This is an intense, you know, maybe 12 to 24 hour experience that folks in Florida

are going to have to deal with. And could you paint me a picture of what that might look like on the ground in Florida, that intense period? Right. I have honestly not really let myself think of this yet, but this is sort of one of those hurricanes that was literally drawn up as a worst case scenario by the planning administration of Florida. What would happen if a Category 5 or 4 or 3 hurricane, you know, major hurricane hit just north of Tampa Bay? So where, you know, hurricanes rotate counterclockwise, all the floodwaters would be funneled directly into Tampa Bay. It's one of the worst imaginable scenarios for hurricanes anywhere in the world. And it's kind of, you know, in this sort of scenario, the storm surge itself could be 20 feet.

And then you'd add maybe 15 to 20 foot waves on top of that in the bay. So we're talking water coming in the third or even fourth floor of buildings there. Anything below that height would just be pounded by waves for hours. And there could be stretches of the coastline where there's not much remaining. I just really, really urge anyone listening, if you have friends or family in coastal Florida, on the west coast of Florida, please tell them to leave. Right. You're talking about Tampa Bay and the coastal areas, right? Not the entirety of Florida? I just want to be clear here. Right. So the hurricane will make landfall with hurricane force winds maybe 50 to 80 miles wide at the point of landfall. So really central Florida will probably get the worst of this hurricane.

But it will, since it will be so strong and large at landfall, it will retain a lot of energy. Just as we saw with Hurricane Helene last week, there was a lot of damage further inland as well. Esther Manheimer is the mayor of Asheville, North Carolina, a city of 90,000 set in the mountains hit with catastrophic flooding. It really feels like, you know, a post-apocalyptic scene. So places like Orlando or even the east coast of Florida could receive severe damage as well. Happy holidays.

I'm Frank Cappadocia, Dean of Continuous Professional Learning at Humber Polytechnic. And I'd like you to set a goal for 2025 to sharpen your skills and get promoted. Register for a professional designation, micro-credential, or certificate with Humber's Continuous Professional Learning and ignite your career journey this new year. Our experts deliver accelerated learning from resilience-based leadership to electric vehicle fundamentals and learning options that work with your ambitious lifestyle. Adapt, evolve, and excel. Go to humber.ca slash cpl to get started. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing.

In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. People are talking about Tampa a lot. It's been a long time since Tampa was directly hit by a hurricane, right? A century. Yeah. And the only hurricane that compares to Milton that hit the Tampa area was in 1921. So it's been over 100 years since a hurricane stronger than Category 2 made landfall near Tampa Bay. So this is something that, I mean, this is one of the fastest growing metro areas in the United States. The population has increased over the last 50 years by more than 200 percent in this metro area. So there are millions of people there now that weren't there the last

time a hurricane hit of this strength. My fear is that that lack of experience may take some people by surprise. I know the main hospital is in a low-lying area, but they do have some level of flood defenses. But is that going to be enough for the amount of water that we're potentially looking at here that you're talking about here? You know, I'm not sure how tall their flood defenses are. I know that during Helene last week, there was record flooding levels in the Tampa Bay region and the hurricane made landfall over 100 miles further north. So it was not a direct hit, but they still received record flooding. Helene slamming into Florida's Big Bend late Thursday night as a powerful Category 4 storm,

still deadly as it drenches the southeast. Downtown Tampa, underwater. Vehicles unable to get to the city's Davis Island to rescue stranded residents. The hospital there deployed, I think they call it a water fence. It's a temporary levee or storm barrier constructed around the hospital. And they were able to continue operations as normal. constructed around the hospital, and they were able to continue operations as normal. But I have a great fear that if that is overtopped, that their ability to carry on providing basic services, even emergency services in the Tampa region, might not be able to continue. You talked about massive growth and development. Am I right to say that so much of

this development has happened in areas that would be considered sort of danger areas, right? Near water? Oh, absolutely. They're in Pinellas County, which is where St. Petersburg is. So this is a peninsula that sticks out into the bay. You can imagine it as sort of the opposite of the San Francisco Bay area. So this would be like the peninsula part of the Bay. And there are a string of 11 barrier islands there that have been fully developed by, you know, houses and condos. And this is all right at sea level in all around Pinellas County. I think the average point in Pinellas County is is only around 10 feet. And there's a million people that live in Pinellas County. So the risk is that this entire region could be cut off. And, you know, we're

talking like they're places that you can only access by bridge. So there is a lot of development that has happened right on the ocean over the last 50 years. Obviously, the most important thing is that people get to safety. But I think I read the figure is that this could cause over $150 billion worth of damage too, right? And there are also issues that people have with property insurance in the area as well. And I just wonder if you could tell me a bit more about that. Right. you could tell me a bit more about that. Right. So 10 years ago, there was a modeling firm that did a study about what would happen if a hurricane like Milton would hit on a trajectory that would maximize the storm surge. So just north of the of the bay. And they figured, you know, this was

twenty fifteen dollars, one hundred seventy five billion. So that would be the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. And I know that Florida is not prepared to do all that recovery and rebuilding on its own. It would be a full federal response at that point. The insurance industry in Florida has gone through massive changes in the last 30 years as, you know, sea level rise and storms become more frequent and more intense. Private insurers have pulled out of the state, have dropped policies. The state has started about 20 years ago a state run property insurance company. There's in the last 20 years, there's been lax regulation. And this company right now, the insurer of last resort in Florida, has about $5 billion of cash reserves, and they have about $500 billion of property across the state under insurance right now.

So this is not something that's going to be possible to really self-insure at this point. You mentioned earlier that this area has just been hit, right, by Hurricane Helene, which mostly hit North Carolina. But, you know, of course, this compounds the situation. You know, how does it make it even more complex and difficult? Right. Yeah. And this is one thing that climate research have been warning about for a long time as we run the risk as climate change accelerates and, you know, greenhouse gas emissions accelerate that we could have overlapping disasters such as, you know, Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, hitting both at major hurricane strength within two weeks of each other in basically the same area of Florida. So there are still, you know, household piles of debris from Helene in Pinellas County. You know, people have piled up as best they can, but there are not the dump trucks in the state of Florida to go around and pick up all of this stuff. You know, like we're

talking about thousands and thousands of tons of debris from the storm that just hit last week. And all of that would be used, you know, by floodwaters to even further damage the homes that are still standing, you know, turned into projectiles, basically, by the water. So this is really an overlapping situation where, you know, the sum of the two hurricanes together is much worse than if they would have happened on their own with months in between. Related to that, you know, how does this affect the government's ability to respond to it, right? So FEMA, I would imagine, is still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene,

including in North Carolina, right? So how well are governments equipped right now to respond to the eventual aftermath of Milton, considering what they've been doing already? Yeah, I think that, you know, the response will come. I'm not sure from who at this point, but I know that in 2017, when Hurricane Maria really overwhelmed Puerto Rico, I know that it became like a full of the U.S. military response. So I know that the Florida National Guard, surrounding National Guards, and even, you know, federal military resources will be used in Milton if necessary. I know that happened during COVID when resources were stretched thin. You know, that's what the military is there for, is national defense as well,

even if it's from a natural disaster. Another issue here has been rumors, misinformation, even outright conspiracy theories about the government and its response to, for example, during Helene, Trump saying the governor of Georgia couldn't get a hold of the White House. The governor's doing a very good job. He's having a hard time getting the president on the phone. The reality, Kemp himself said he spoke with Biden. He just said, hey, what do you need? And I told him, you know, we got what we need. We'll work through the federal process. He offered a really popular Twitter account on X, for example, talking about how the federal government is giving billions to Ukraine and nothing to hurricane aid at home, which is also not true. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has really taken this to a whole new level.

Tweeting, and I quote, yes, they control the weather. It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done. Which I think the implication there is that they are targeting Republican states in the lead up to the election. I mean, I don't know. But how is that complicating an already extremely complex and fast-moving situation. Right, yeah. I mean, it's a shame, really. You would hope that during times of national struggle and crisis that we could come together as a country and put, you know, our neighbors' lives and livelihoods above politics. But we're right in the last few weeks of a, of a presidential election. And, you know, I don't really know or understand the reasons why, why someone would say that we're

using like a space-based weather weapon to, to like, it just doesn't, it doesn't fit with reality. Um, that said, it's still distracts real resources away from, from FEMA and the state and local Yeah. with their time this last week that was, their time was used to create that. So I know that time and effort is being wasted when these kind of rumors are circling or being intentionally created in this case. Eric, before we go today, just, you know, you're somebody who spends so much time thinking about this. Like, is there anything else that you'd like to say here that we haven't covered or that I haven't thought to ask you about? Oh, I mean, I think that this is a moment when it's really a humanitarian moment. I mean, we've had so much crisis in the last five years around the world. And this is one of those moments where I can't help think.

This is one of those moments where I can't help think, but these are the effects of climate change that we maybe never really thought what they would feel like as they're happening. And I know that I've had chills. One of my colleagues, John Morales, who has been a career meteorologist in Florida, broke down crying on live TV yesterday. TV yesterday. I mean, this is something that you can feel the suffering before it hits. And I know that there will be people going through mental health crisis as the recovery drags on. It's just really, I mean, I really would hope that at some point we come together as a society and as a world to take, you know, the necessary action on climate change so that we can prevent suffering in the future like this. Okay. All right, Eric, thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you so much for inviting me. All right, that is all for today. I am Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

Thank you.