Hurricane Milton was not the storm people feared - but the storm of US politics is just getting going

I’ve spent the day driving north alengthy 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 alerted of a once-in-a-generation storm and the meteorologists tried to determine where it would hit.

Milton was, meteorologists shelp, behaving very unusupartner. That worried them. It also wobbled north and south as it approached the coastline overnight, compounding the worry.

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The only encouraging novels overnight was that it reduced in intensity from a catebloody 5 down to a catebloody 3. That lessened the impact from thrived but not the worrys over a storm sadvise of water engulfing low-lying areas.

We stopped first at Punta Gorda where boats were clearurned in the marina but there was no transport inant structural injure. They dodged the bullet here.

Further north, the coastal highway passes Vekind. There we set up the streets littered with foliage from the palm trees, tiles ripped from roofs and billboards down but aachieve, no transport inant injure.

Casey Key lies fair north of Vekind, achieveable via bridges from the mainland. When we reachd it was shutd to traffic.

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

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

Checking the transport inant bridges for structural injure is transport inant but the authorities had uncovered the Sunshine Skyway Bridge directing north to St Petersburg by the time I reachd.

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

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

Of course, the danger is that people may sense the alertings were overblown. The mayor of Tampa alerted people that they would die if they stayed. Over the top? People did stay and they didn’t die. We spoke to people who shelp it was all overstated – politicians and media to accuse as common.

I do wonder if the massive pre-storm alertings this time are in part an over-accurateion by the Biden administration follothriveg the remarkworthy disinestablishation campaign from Donald Trump and his cohort.

He has spent the past scant weeks since Hurricane Helene claiming that the federal authority has been impedeing get back and recovery efforts, contrary to fact.

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

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

Hurricane Milton could have been huge, yes, and given this barrage of consillicit copying theories, especipartner about the authorities fall shorting during Helene, they absolutely had to be readyd (over-readyd?) for this.

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

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