DeSantis and the hurricane

 Paul du Quenoy:

“Floridians’ lives are in danger,” tweeted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s rapid response director Christina Pushaw as Hurricane Ian bore down, “so of course CNN is rooting for the hurricane.”

Pushaw was responding to CNN reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere, who had earlier admonished DeSantis for having “put himself at odds with many local government officials” and “looking for fights with a president he may end up running against.” The governor was “playing politics,” suggested Dovere’s colleague Steve Contore, who covers Florida politics for CNN, surmising that “he is urging residents to heed advice from the same local leaders” whom DeSantis supposedly said to “ignore during COVID.”

Since DeSantis came to office, he has diligently followed state directives to streamline and improve the effectiveness of hurricane responses that were put in place after Hurricane Irma devastated parts of Florida in 2017. In the week before Ian made landfall, the governor placed all of Florida under a state of emergency. He also mobilized 7,000 National Guard troops from Florida and other states, and readied 28,000 linemen to restore expected power outages. When the hurricane increased in strength to a near-Category 5 storm, DeSantis mobilized an additional 14,000 linemen and delegated evacuation protocols to local authorities in at-risk areas.

When Ian arrived last Wednesday, DeSantis immediately did what any state governor should do: he placed calls to President Joe Biden and the Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA). He was active on the ground meeting with local officials and, dare one say, acting positively presidential as he focused on the storm rather than his political fortunes. Biden, who did not initially accept DeSantis’s call, did eventually talk to him, and DeSantis publicly thanked him for extending federal disaster relief. The president will not visit Florida until October 5, however, a week after Ian impacted the state. Nevertheless, more than two thirds of power outages were restored within 72 hours. Some 70 people, mostly those who failed to evacuate, were killed. This is a tragic figure, but far fewer than the “hundreds” eagerly predicted by hostile media as the storm came through.

Yet it wasn’t just CNN that had set its sights on the Florida governor. Two weeks after dismissing DeSantis as a “stuntman” over his airlift of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Politico’s Jack Shafer offered mock praise for the governor. Shafer sneered that DeSantis was now acting like a “normal politician” instead of an “excitable boy,” “red-toothed biter,” “political opportunist,” and “loon.” Shafer dismissed actions that have saved thousands of lives and eased the suffering of millions as merely “the latest example of [DeSantis’s] opportunism,” “a hurdle to clear on his way to reelection,” and “a tryout for the White House, a position he so clearly lusts for.” The savvy Beltway reader, he intoned, should realize that this “temporary adjustment” will “return to culture warfare once Ian’s waters recede.”

Shafer must be a lot of fun at parties. Elsewhere, Joy Behar, a paranoid hysteric who claims to be a comedian and co-hosts ABC’s wine mom-centric The View, claimed that DeSantis bears personal responsibility for the hurricane because of his skepticism of climate change. Perhaps it wouldn’t have happened if he’d recycled more. Behar further supposed that DeSantis is a hypocrite for accepting federal disaster assistance, lazily equating public funds for emergencies with the socialism she presumably favors but that DeSantis opposes. As usual, her harping in a time of crisis was tasteless and mean-spirited, but no one could call it funny.
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DeSantis has shown himself to be an able manager in good times and when the going gets tough like dealing with a major hurricane.  Florida is fortunate to have him.