The Long, Brutal Public Health Cost Of Hurricanes

INSIDE: Jon Tester ... Scott Perry ... Kamala Harris

A drone image shows the dome of Tropicana Field which has been torn open due to Hurricane Milton in St. Petersburg, Florida, on October 10, 2024. At least four people were confirmed killed as a result of two tornadoes triggered by Hurricane Milton on the east coast of the US state of Florida, local authorities said Thursday. (Photo by Bryan R. SMITH / AFP) (Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images)

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Hurricane Milton’s Aftermath In Florida

Hurricane Milton made landfall at 8:30 p.m. ET Wednesday near Siesta Key, Florida, just south of the Tampa area, sparing the bay from a worst-case storm surge scenario while hitting communities like Sarasota particularly hard.

The damage and impacts from Milton are extensive and widespread and will take many more hours or days to assess fully:

• While avoiding the worst of the storm surge, Tampa was deluged with more rain in one day that it had ever received in an entire October.

• Milton spawned a tornado outbreak that led to the most tornado warnings ever issued in Florida in a single day, and the second most ever issued anywhere in the United States.

• The death toll stands at four.

• More than 3.3 million Florida customers are without power this morning.

• The public water supply was turned off in St. Petersburg after a water main broke.

• A tower crane in St. Petersburg collapsed during the storm and fell into the building that houses the Tampa Bay Times. No injuries were reported. With not enough time to dismantle tower cranes before the storm arrived, warnings had been issued in advance to those near cranes, including the one that collapsed.

ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA – OCTOBER 10: A crane sits on the street after crashing down into the building housing the Tampa Bay Times offices after the arrival of Hurricane Milton on October 10, 2024 in St. Petersburg, Florida. Milton, which comes just after the recent catastrophic Hurricane Helene, landed into Florida’s Gulf Coast late Wednesday evening as a Category 3 storm causing extensive flooding and damage. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

• The defining image of Milton may be the destruction of the roof of St. Petersburg’s Tropicana Field, home of major league baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays and a planned staging area for electric utility lineman and first responders:

The Heavy Toll Of Hurricanes

Hurricane forecasting has made enormous progress in the past 50 years, greatly reducing the direct death toll from storms, even as sea levels have risen and the populations of coastal areas have exploded. But as a new study published last week found, excess deaths from hurricane strikes are much higher and longer lasting than we knew them to be empirically.

It makes sense intuitively that the many stressors of a storm – mass evacuations, power outages, infrastructure damage, economic setbacks, and new pressures on government budgets – would have health consequences, but the study’s findings exceeded all expectations. “The numbers proved so high that the researchers kept looking for mistakes or complicating factors they had missed,” according to one report.

This is a long way of saying that while national media attention will quickly wane after Helene and Milton have spun themselves out, the ongoing recovery will take years – in ways that are slow, tedious, and heartbreaking – and the public health cost will remain high for decades afterwards.

Senate Chances Looking Rougher For Dems

The Senate map this year was always exceedingly difficult for Democrats, but the boost that Kamala Harris brought when she replaced Joe Biden as the party’s nominee offered a glimmer of hope that the Senate could still be salvaged.

Some new data points this week paint a less-than-optimistic picture of Dems’ chances to hold their narrow majority:

• MT-Sen: GOP nominee Tim Sheehy is leading Sen. Jon Tester (D) 52%-44% in the latest NYT/Siena College poll.

• MI-Sen: Former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers has pulled into a 48%-48% tie with Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D) among likely voters in the latest Quinnipiac University Poll. Slotkin led 51%-46% in last month’s version of the poll.

• WI-Sen: The Cook Political Report shifted Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s race against GOP challenger Eric Hovde from “Lean Democrat” to “Toss Up.”

In Florida and Texas, where Democrats would need to unseat GOP incumbents to make up for losses elsewhere, the latest NYT/Siena College poll shows the Dem challengers still trailing:

• FL-Sen: Sen. Rick Scott (R) leads Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) 49% to 40%.

• TX-Sen: Sen. Ted Cruz (R) leads Rep. Colin Allred 48%-44%.

A reminder that with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) retiring and Democrats having no real chance of retaining that seat, Republicans need to flip just one more seat – Montana looking like the most promising for them – to regain Senate control.

On a Brighter Note …

Rep. Scott Perry, the Pennsylvania Republican whose cell phone is an integral part of the criminal investigation into the Jan. 6 coup attempt, is in real trouble in his re-election bid. “There are increasingly dire signs that six-term conservative Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) is on the verge of losing his seat, potentially a big pickup for House Democrats,” Punchbowl reports. Paul Kane has a profile of Perry challenger Janelle Stelson.

Racism Still Front And Center In Trump Campaign

• WaPo: How Trump warped and weaponized a small Pennsylvania town’s immigration story

• NYT: Trump Spreads His Politics of Grievance to Nonwhite Voters

Good Read

WSJ: The Evangelicals Calling for ‘Spiritual Warfare’ to Elect Trump

2024 Ephemera

• Kamala Harris has raised a staggering $1 billion since entering the presidential race three months ago.

• Robert Pape: I Study Political Violence. I’m Worried About the Election.

• WaPo: Republicans challenge legitimacy of overseas votes, including military

• Politico: “Lawmakers from both parties are vowing to fight back if former President Donald Trump makes good on his pledge to put a Confederate general’s name back on an Army base if he’s reelected.”

The Big Picture

WESTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA – SEPTEMBER 7: African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) are seen at the coast of Simon’s Town as the number of endangered African penguins has declined due to numerous human factors such as industrial fishing and fuel oil spills in Western Cape, South Africa on September 7, 2024. African penguins, which are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of animals threatened with extinction, have distinctive features such as black feet, the pink markings between the beak and the eye, and the black markings around the eyes that looks like a mask. (Photo by Ihsaan Haffejee/Anadolu via Getty Images)

WaPo: “Earth’s wildlife populations have fallen on average by a ‘catastrophic’ rate of 73 percent in the past half-century, according to a new analysis the World Wildlife Fund released Wednesday.”

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