Not sure it's going to make a difference but DeSantis and his administration are getting some heavy criticism over the delay in evacuating Lee County. A lot of death could have been avoided had they not waited the day before the landfall of Ian to evacuate.
Also not really anything but DeSantis has been wearing his campaign merch to tour destroyed areas and hand out food. Pretty distasteful in my opinion, not sure anybody cares though.
I disagree. The media reports that DeSantis is receiving 'heavy criticism' is almost entirely a left-wing smear campaign by left-wing members and influencers within the national media as opposed to genuine public discourse in Florida. The claim doesn't even hold up on a national level, because even an Economist National Poll of Adults indicates that a plurality of Democrats approve of DeSantis' Hurricane Ian response (43%) while 27% are not sure and 30% Disapprove. It's ridiculous to even address the claims that 'no one cares' about DeSantis' bad response , because not even Democrats believe the presupposition that DeSantis has made a mistake.
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/10/05/hurricane-ian-economist-yougov-poll-october-2022?utm_medium=organic_social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=SM-2022-10-US-B2C-WeatherI think most people are sickened by the claims by Democrats insinuating that DeSantis is responsible for more deaths cause he didn't act quickly to evacuate Fort Myers. The reality most people observed for themselves was DeSantis providing early warning to evacuate and quickly restoring services to communities despite the stronger than expected impacts. The reality for most people like me who were awake for 36-48 hours straight during Ian's approach was that the NHC and National News Programs were completely wrong when they disregarded the atmospheric trends that could shift the track way further south into Monroe, and put both Dade and Broward into Major Hurricane conditions. There was clearly some upper level dynamics depicting a shortwave trough slowly moving towards the Peninsula in concert with a Southeasternly displaced upper level ridge (200-300Mbs) shearing, shifting, shunting, speeding, and dislocating the Ian's vortex and its thunderstorms further east along two distinct transient frontal boundaries (tropical and sub-tropical) despite lower level 700-925Mb pushing the system further north.
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While watching the Weather Channel discuss how Hurricane Ian would hit Tampa Bay, they switched the feed to an ongoing press conference with Gov. Ron DeSantis. During the press conference, DeSantis made a bold statement which caught the Weather Channel off guard. He said Hurricane Ian may turn and track farther south like Charlie did in 2004.Even though the spaghetti models had Ian going farther north and south, DeSantis specifically said farther south. He no doubt said this because he had access to the European weather model output — which all along had shown forecast tracks farther south — even down to Fort Myers. Up until this time, the official forecast was farther north — closer to the statistically less accurate GFS (American) model.
Then, once the TV feed returned back to the Weather Channel studio, you could see they initially didn’t quite know how to follow up on DeSantis’ comment. Of course they knew DeSantis was right, because they also had access to the Euro model output. Weather Channel forecasters immediately acknowledged DeSantis’ comment and began discussing the Euro model output in earnest. Soon afterwards, the official Hurricane Ian forecast tracks steadily moved southward toward Fort Myers.
DeSantis helped save lives with his public forewarning of Ian’s more southerly track."
https://www.villages-news.com/2022/10/06/desantis-got-it-right-on-hurricane-ian/So DeSantis was one of the earliest and most outspoken public officials that was warning people to evacuate Fort Myers, but many people didn't listen due to the NHC-Weather Channel graphics and messaging that focused on a Pensacola to Tampa Bay Landfall.
Why did people die? . The affects of an extremely major hurricane (with extraordinary vertical shear thanks to undisturbed bath water in the W Caribbean and SE Gulf) entering a moderate horizontal shear environment accentuated the impacts on the east side of the storm, and served as a short-term mechanism that increased vorticity (circulation/spin) as well as the strength and expansiveness of the Eastern-displaced convection (Category 4-5) that hit SW Florida. The impact of mid-upper-level troughs and shortwaves (kinks in jet stream ahead of main trough, or pseudo troughs) on Major Hurricanes is a less researched phenomenon of Hurricanes that models and meteorologists cannot accurately forecast. In Northern Hemisphere, these conditions normally shift tracks and impacts further East and NE, rapidly strengthen systems and/or expand wind fields while increasing tornadic activity on the dirty sides of the storms (Think Sandy pivoting West along Negatively tilted winter trough), and increase the timing of impacts and landfalls due to upper level jets before the storm rapidly weakens when the winds blow thunderstorms (vertical Shear) away from core (vertical shear needed to intensify storms). This is impossible to forecast during October.
Check out this meteorological forum that includes meteorologists talking about the storm (and also has a very rowdy political thread that members must request moderators in order to gain access lol). We discussed landfalls anywhere from the east coast for Florida to Mississippi, and maps of the upper level environment are depicted. The warnings to evacuate were ordered, but people didn't follow them. Emergency Management in those counties didn't know whether evacuation was necessary, because their was uncertainty in the forecast. Even the Democrat politicians in some of these counties refused to organize a mandatory evacuation, but most of these politicians aren't throwing anyone under the bus like we see Democrats doing at the Federal Level. DeSantis isn't blaming anyone cause these situations are tricky.
https://southernwx.com/community/threads/2022-atlantic-hurricane-season-thread.1076/page-22This was recently discussed by one of our leftist posters in this Hurricane Ian Thread as follows:
The problem is officials are afraid to pull the trigger on warnings "to" early.....hell I remember when
Hurricane Floyd was coming and they evacuated the entire SE coast from Miami to Hatteras several days before it hit.....then took a lot of heat when it missed Florida...
With Ian they did not issue mandatory evacuation orders in Lee County until Ian was less than 24 hrs out for the Ft Myers area. The NHC had issued a surge warning for Lee County days before they took a hit....there is some indication that Lee County did not follow their own comprehensive emergency management plan.
This will of course lead the the inevitable fight about how crying wolf leads to complacency and people not heeding the warning etc....but at least they had a warning to not heed, and those that wanted to had time to leave....in the end thoughThe NHC and NWS need to look at finding better ways to convey the danger of these storms better.
https://southernwx.com/community/threads/hurricane-ian.1126/page-105Ya'll need to stop playing politics with Hurriance Ian cause you're afraid DeSantis will gain popularity. Honestly, it disgusts all the lefties on weather forums, and it's a bad look when every meteorologist from both sides of the aisle start backing Republican talking points. The discussion that are being had among the educated circles of Florida on Ian are more substantive than the BS stories from so-called journalists attempting to create controversy in the National News.
From a non-political member of the meteorology forum: "I'm wondering how high the death toll is really gonna go... I've heard some bad rumors the last couple days that I'm hoping are just the usual false exaggerations but who knows.
It sounds like some people who evacuated from Tampa went to Fort Myers though(and most of those hotels were absolutely gutted).... There was a lot of bad decisions all around with this storm."
