Ryan Nicol
Florida officials continue to assess the damage from Hurricane Helene in Florida’s Big Bend region, which has now suffered three strikes by hurricanes in just two years.
But the consensus seems to be that the damage from Helene is worse than the two previous storms — Hurricanes Debby and Idalia — combined.
Many images from the storm seem to confirm that assessment. We’ll have a fuller picture emerge in the coming days and weeks as officials continue surveying the destruction. But initial reports — even from areas that didn’t suffer a direct hit — are not good.
Mind you, this is still a state that is recovering following a spate of serious storms the past few years. Losses from Idalia, which struck in 2023, were in the hundreds of millions. And we learned more about other previous storms just this week, ahead of Helene’s impact.
Debby may have caused more than $93 million in agricultural losses, according to a preliminary University of Florida report. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also detailed the more than $10.2 billion in costs following Hurricane Ian, which devastated Southwest and Central Florida in 2022.
Those areas of the state didn’t get directly hit by Helene, but the storm surge and rain prompted dangerous flooding again nonetheless.
That’s not to mention the possible effects on the state’s god-awful home insurance market.
This state has a lot of wonderful benefits, but Helene’s impact was another reminder of some of the risks we face living this close to the ocean and this close to sea level. And we’re only starting to get a complete picture of the impact of this latest storm. Here’s hoping for a swift recovery for all of those impacted, we know it’s been a difficult few years.
Now, it’s onto our weekly game of winners and losers.
Winners
Honorable mention: Rick Scott, Jimmy Patronis. They weren’t the only ones working overtime to make sure Floridians were safe during Helene. But when you think of the model elected official during a natural disaster, each of these two come to mind.
Scott, a U.S. Senator who previously served as Governor, is well-versed in leading the state through difficult times. And during Helene, he once again put on his Navy cap and got to work, visiting various parts of the state to help brief Floridians on what was happening in the storm’s lead-up, and using media hits to do the same.
Patronis used his Cabinet position as Florida’s Fire Marshal to warn about the flammability of electric vehicles being flooded. He also helped mobilize search and rescue teams ahead of the storm, and spoke about the financial impact of the hurricane. He is a consistent leader during these types of storms, and this latest strike was no different.
We could go on. The point is, these guys were everywhere and leading by example on how to prepare for a storm like this. Other elected officials and candidates could learn a thing or two from the example people like Scott and Patronis set, but more on that later.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Linemen. More than a million customers lost power due to Helene. And it was up to the brave linemen for power companies across the state — as well as many workers who came from outside Florida to help — to help Floridians get their power back.
The Florida Power & Light Company was prepared ahead of time and quickly restored power to many within hours of Helene exiting Florida. Duke, Tampa Electric and others were also slammed with outages and went the extra mile to get the lights back on.
Thanks to thousands of lineworkers braving difficult conditions and doing the hard work to get things back online, the majority of those who were in the dark have now regained power just days after Helene’s impact.
This is grueling work for these Florida men and women, and they don’t get to just sit around whenever Florida isn’t facing a storm. Earlier this month, JEA sent workers to Louisiana to help deal with the after-effects of Tropical Storm Francine. That’s a common occurrence for Florida’s power grid workers.
We’ve all gone through the post-storm struggle of losing food or operating without phone battery juice among all of the other chaos these storms create. Thankfully we’ve got some of the best in the businesses helping get things back to normal.
The biggest winner: First responders, search and rescue teams. And as important as power is to allow us to function, it’s obviously not as precious as life itself. And once again, first responders come in clutch in helping save lives during and after this storm.
We saw examples of several dramatic scenes playing out due to Helene. A Coast Guard helicopter saved a man and his dog who were aboard a broken sailboat near Sanibel Island. In Georgia, a meteorologist stopped mid-hit to save a woman trapped in a car surrounded by flood water. And this video from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office shows the brutal flooding conditions and fires first responders have to sort through to find missing people.
Immediate reports following Helene showed more than 1,000 rescues in just the Tampa Bay area. Dozens across the U.S. were sadly killed.
That number would have been higher were it not thanks to these search and rescue teams.
While evacuation orders were plentiful in the days leading up to the storm, it can be difficult or impossible to evacuate for some people. Others simply decide to stay put in defiance of those orders, putting not only themselves at risk, but also those tasked with saving them if conditions get too harsh.
But our first responders don’t bother asking why or how those in danger got where they are before trying to rescue them. They risk everything to save as many people as possible, and we owe them our deepest gratitude.
Losers
Dishonorable mention: Gary Farmer. We thought we had heard the last of the word “controversy” surrounding Farmer after he slinked away from the Senate into a Judge position. But apparently you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, or basic decency.
Farmer managed to get himself reassigned from the Broward Circuit criminal division to its civil court over a series of lewd comments. That included making a joke about gay sex from the bench and telling a defendant who had fathered children from multiple mothers not to get his new Public Defender pregnant, among other remarks.
This is a guy who argued against his colleague, Sen. Lauren Book, becoming Senate Democratic Leader because it might be too difficult to balance the job and being a mother. He later apologized. Farmer continued jabbing at Book even after apologizing. And in a fitting twist, he saw Book succeed him as Senate Democratic Leader after Farmer was forced out of the position by his own caucus.
That infamous legacy ultimately drove him to decline a contentious Primary challenge for his final Senate term following redistricting and led him to pursue a judgeship. And really, after that type of record in the Senate, it’s questionable that he deserved even that. But it gave him a landing spot and allowed him the chance to continue in public service without any further messy public incidents, as Judges at his level are rarely under the same scrutiny as Florida’s 40 Senators.
Unless, of course, you do what Farmer did, which was lapse back into talking like a guy in a 1950s locker room while leading a courtroom.
If his goal was to keep his head down and rehabilitate his image, consider that mission failed.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Rhonda Rebman Lopez. Lopez, the Republican Party of Monroe Chair, is now being investigated by State Attorney Amira Fox over allegations she and Treasurer Sherri Hodies unlawfully sent party funds to Hodies’ campaign to become Monroe’s Supervisor of Elections.
The Monroe Republican Executive Committee (REC) voted 20-18 on April 20 to endorse Hodies over a GOP Primary opponent and donate to Hodies. But while a majority of those voting that day approved the move, a majority of the full committee did not.
“The full committee has 63 members, a majority of the full committee is 31.5 members,” REC member Patrick Foley said. “The vote to approve the motion to endorse was: 20 affirmative 18 opposed. 31.5 votes required to endorse. The motion failed.”
Lopez and Hodies approved the donation anyway, but that could violate state law if the approval was improper.
Gov. Ron DeSantis approved an investigation following a complaint from other Monroe Republicans.
Lopez has tried twice to spend big to secure a House seat, falling short in the GOP Primary each time. She landed a gig with the Monroe GOP after her first loss in 2020, moving her way up to Chair. After her second defeat in 2022, she flirted with election denialism and has courted controversy elsewhere as well.
That’s not to say she’s guilty here, as the accusations surrounding this contribution to Hodies are still fresh. Whether she did anything criminal will be up to the justice system to decide.
But her now lengthy track record is raising the question of whether she should be holding a prominent position in a local Republican Party.
The biggest loser: Candidates trying to raise money during a hurricane. We pointed out in an above entry the right way to operate as a catastrophic storm bears down on Florida.
One of the biggest things not to do: beg for campaign cash from residents on edge as the storm is bearing down.
Yet not one, not two, but at least three candidates did that very thing this week just days ahead of Helene’s landfall.
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance parachuted into the state for a Winter Park fundraising, where tickets were priced up to $100,000. Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell bolted from the state to New York to court cash for her bid to oust Scott. And Democratic House candidate Whitney Fox sent out an email blast asking for cash one day before Helene slammed into the state, causing chaos in the district she seeks to represent.
In Vance’s case, we understand these big shindigs are planned well in advance and would be a headache to cancel. But as Democrats increasingly set Florida in their sights, why give ammo to the other side to hit your over the head weeks ahead of the election? And for a ticket purportedly running looking out for the little guy, hobnobbing with wealthy donors right before one of the strongest storms ever to hit this state is just about the most out of touch move you can make.
Mucarsel-Powell certainly faced the same logistical issues Vance did. And yes, Democrats need all the money they can get to make this Senate race competitive. But leaders should be more focused on the state they are seeking to represent. It’s likely that this storm was not top of mind for these New York donors, but they aren’t completely heartless. Asking for a delay here would have been the right thing to do, even if it cost a few donors.
As for Fox, this was just a pure unforced error. Her camp simply decided to send out a plea for cash as families were scrambling to make last-minute preparations. It was a tone-deaf move in a race where Democrats have a shot, but need to be way more disciplined to knock out a Republican incumbent.
The easiest test here would have been for each of these candidates to put themselves in the place of a terrified family a day or two out from this storm. Would these be the headlines you’d want to read from your elected officials?
Get your priorities straight, people.
