On today’s BradCast: A multitude of terrifying threats from Hurricane Florence loom large across at least four states in the Southeast, as millions of Americans hunker down or evacuate on the final week of primary elections in the U.S. before the crucial 2018 midterm elections. [Audio link to show follows below.]
First up, after a quick warning to ignore the President of the United State’s assertion that the federal government is “totally prepared” for the damage that awaits the still-growing Hurricane Florence (while citing his Administration’s response to last year’s Hurricane Maria that killed nearly 3,000 citizens in Puerto Rico as “an incredible unsung success”), we head to New Hampshire for the penultimate federal primaries of the season. (Rhode Island voted today and New York holds state and local primaries on Thursday.)
On Tuesday, voters in the Granite State went to the polls with, happily, few problems reported so far, beyond the larger than anticipated turnout, particularly in a number of the state’s many college towns. That may signal good news for Democrats, at least until the state GOP’s new law making it much harder for college students to register to vote kicks in in 2019 (unless its blocked by courts before then). We fill you in on the noteworthy reported results today, including the single mom, Molly Kelly, who won the Democratic primary for Governor, the openly gay man, Chris Pappas, who defeated 10 other Democrats (including Bernie Sanders’ son) to win the U.S. House nomination in one of the swingiest swing districts in the country, and 27-year old refugee from Afghanistan, Safiya Wazir, who unseated a four-term incumbent Democrat and appears poised to become a NH state Representative just 9 years after leaving her war-torn country for a better life in these United States.
Then, all eyes (pun intended) on the disturbing amount of cyclonic activity churning across the globe — not just off the Eastern U.S. seaboard — at the peak of hurricane season. The “monster” storm, Hurricane Florence grew in size today, as its movement continues to slow, and as it’s trajectory appears to have taken a slight turn toward the southwest. The storm’s brutal winds, surging waters and threat of days of unforgiving rainfall, now pose a grave threat to some 10 million residents of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and, as of Wednesday’s latest predictions, Georgia.
But, while Florence may be the fiercest and most immediate threat to Americans, it’s hardly the only storm worth keep an eye on, as nine — count ’em — nine storms across the globe are now either hurricanes, typhoons, tropical storms or depressions, or otherwise threatening to become one of the above at any moment. Among the most immediate non-Florence threats are Tropical Storm Olivia, slamming into Hawaii today (just two weeks or so following Hurricane Lane’s record 50 inches of rainfall dumped on some parts of the island), Category 5 Typhoon Mangkhut, which just slammed Guam and now heads toward The Philippines and Hong Kong, and another storm currently brewing in the record warm Gulf of Mexico waters that could visit Texas and/or Louisiana by this weekend, even as Florence wreaks its own separate havoc on the East Coast. (Is Trump’s FEMA “totally prepared” for all of that also?)
According to our guest today, 30-year veteran Weather Channel meteorologist, “Climate Guy” GUY WALTON this amount of cyclonic activity is not normal, and much of it is attributable to warming waters and highly unusual weather patterns in a climate-changed world.
“As you get more heat, you’ll get more storms, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing,” says Walton who points to sub-tropical storm Joyce, which was just named today, taking its place along with Hurricanes Helene and Isaac behind Florence in the Atlantic. “That will make four in the Atlantic basin alone. And if you look at the Gulf of Mexico, there could be a potential fifth, I guess named Kirk. If we have five simultaneous named systems in the Atlantic basin, that would be a record.”
As to Florence, he warns: “Meteorologically, the greatest concern is the slowing of the storm and stalling right off the Carolina coast, right around Wilmington, and then very, very slowly moving south or southwest back towards Charleston. If that’s the case, you could have winds and waves for many, many hours, if not for two or three days, just lashing at the shore. And that could produce more damage than, say, a Category 4 Hugo,” in 1989, which killed 27 in South Carolina, left nearly 100,000 homeless and wreaked nearly $10 billion in damage.
“These things usually move northeast, they don’t move southwest or west. If it does, that would be highly unusual. And devastating,” he tells me.
Walton explains how climate change-fueled weather patterns are resulting in slower moving storms causing much more rainfall and flooding in recent years and why he believes some broadcast meteorologists — versus climatologists — are still either climate deniers or simply fail to connect the dots of increasingly extreme weather to global warming. He also discusses his upcoming children’s book on climate, with Nick Walker, The World of Thermo: Thermometer Rising.
Finally today, we bounce off of Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Daily News today with a few thoughts on talking about the rapidly increasing dangers of climate change, even while a major storm imperils millions of American citizens. As Bunch observes, many of them live in southern states with political leadership that has ill-served their residents by lying to them about climate change science over a shameful number of years, even as they now find themselves at the center of some of its most threatening and deadly effects…
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