UNEXPECTEDLY! The grotesque politicization of Hurricane Ian.

Hurricane Ian ravaged Florida this week and caused enormous suffering. Hundreds have possibly died, a tragic toll that will most likely continue to grow. Millions are without power. The scope and scale of property destruction are impossible to put into words. And while many are stepping up to provide aid and support charitable efforts , much of the country is descending into political squabbles and partisan combat over it all.

The grotesque politicization of Hurricane Ian has come in two primary forms.

The first is a concentrated effort to exploit the natural disaster to push a Green-New-Deal-esque climate change agenda. The most prominent example of this blatant politicization is a now-viral interview in which CNN host Don Lemon repeatedly attempts to get an expert to blame Hurricane Ian on climate change.

When the expert calmly explains that no single disaster can be directly blamed on climate change, Lemon doesn’t accept this answer and asks again. (Now, another guest will apparently be going on to provide a more politically satisfying version of the “science.”)

Time to dust off the Katrina playbook, which the DNC-MSM can easily update to the catastrophe du jour:

● Chuck Todd: Coronavirus Can Be to Trump Like Iran Hostages Were to Carter.

● ‘She’s actually smiling:’ MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace and guest discuss coronavirus that could become ‘Trump’s Katrina.’

Which dovetails nicely with this quote from Mickey Kaus in 2005: “In short, Katrina gives them a way to talk about Iraq without talking about Iraq. No wonder Gwen Ifill smiles the ‘inner smile.’”

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

WITH A HURRICANE APPROACHING FLORIDA, A FRIEND WRITES: “Hurricane prediction: Whatever happens to Florida between now and November 2024, it’ll be [treated as] the worst disaster response since Katrina and Maria. Literally Hurricane Hitler. Federal response will be reported as having been hamstrung by local ineptitude and corruption.”

ICYMI: Hurricane-force storm in Iowa flattens 10 million acres of crops. “A powerful derecho storm that swept through the Midwest on Monday has left thousands of acres of crops completely devastated, and officials say more than half a million people could be without power for quite a while. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said the storm, which had hurricane-force winds up to 112 mph, destroyed at least one-third of the entire state’s crops. More than 10 million acres were completely flattened, leading Reynolds to say she thinks the storm should qualify for federal disaster declaration. The Washington Post reports between 180 and 270 million bushels of corn were likely damaged, shortly before harvesting usually begins in September.”

We’re lucky to live in a country where news like this doesn’t presage a famine, but it’s still bad news.

TAKINGS NEWS: Court Rules Federal Government Flooding of Homes During Hurricane Harvey is a Taking. “The decision is significant in itself and has important implications for other cases where the government deliberately damages private property in the process of coping with natural disasters.”

JIM MEIGS: Living on the Edge: Just as coastal communities must learn to live with hurricanes, communities that edge up against forests are going to have to learn to live with fire. “Building and zoning codes can be changed to make towns less fire prone. Homes that are built or retrofitted with fireproof materials—and landscaped to keep shrubbery away from structures—can usually survive typical wildfires. In new developments, homes can be clustered and surrounded by fire-resistant buffer zones, such as orchards. And, no matter how well designed, communities in fire zones need realistic evacuation plans and better emergency communications. (Poor communications and inadequate evacuation planning in the face of the speed a fire could move at were among the many failures in Paradise.)”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Caused by climate change? “In the midst of this disaster, The Guardian runs this headline: ‘Victims of Hurricane Michael voted for climate deniers.’ The article’s description: ‘Elections have consequences. Denying science has consequences. And we are reaping what we sow’.”

DISASTER RELIEF: I Drove a Pickup Full of Supplies to a Town Flooded by Florence, and Here Is What I Saw.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

● Shot: As Hurricane Florence approaches, American politics is put on pause.

—Headline, NBC.com, 7:52 AM ET today.

Chaser:

● MSNBC: How Can ‘Climate Change Deniers’ Respond to Hurricane?

● Andrea Mitchell Hammered as She Tries to Politicize Disaster Relief.

—Headlines, NewsBusters, tonight.

PREPAREDNESS: Scramble for food and water as Hurricane Lane approaches Hawaii.

Governor David Ige urged residents to prepare for the worst by setting aside a 14-day supply of water, food and medicines.

“I urge our residents and visitors to take this threat seriously and prepare for a significant impact,” the governor said at a news conference in the state capital, Honolulu.

The shelves of a downtown Honolulu Walmart were stripped of items ranging from canned tuna to dog food. Shoppers jostled with one another to get the last boxes of ramen noodles.

“There’s nothing in there,” said one shopper leaving the store.

It’s much more convenient and generally cheaper to get prepared way ahead of time than it is right before disaster hits.

INSIDE THE WORST U.S. MARITIME DISASTER IN DECADES: A recording salvaged from three miles deep tells the story of the doomed El Faro, a cargo ship engulfed by a hurricane.

SO I SPOKE AT AN EVENT TONIGHT, TALKING ABOUT CIVILIAN DISASTER RELIEF AND SOCIAL COHESION, and a guy came up to me afterward saying that since Robert Putnam found that diversity is associated with decreased social trust, how did I feel about a bunch of white people going off to start their own country. (My response: Unenthused). But you see this sort of thing on the Internet enough that some people believe it, and while Putnam’s point is supported by research, I don’t think it actually supports the solution. “Diversity,” I suspect, is one of those things that actually is a social construct. If you make people hyperaware of their differences — as is done on college campuses today — you can make things much worse than they otherwise would be. (See also Tito’s Yugoslavia). If you encourage people to think about what they have in common, you can make things much better. And where it suits their interests, politicians will create ethnic cleavages. (Hutus and Tutsis are both “black” in American conception, but politicians were still able to inflame passions that led to genocide.) My prediction is that if you created some sort of racially segregated society, politicians would soon be at work finding other differences to inflame, differences that nobody’s even aware of now. The only real answer is a strong social norm that supports, for example, our common humanity and, in this country, our common Americanness. This seems to be what ordinary Americans believe, and act upon, but politicians will do whatever it takes to gain power. Keeping politicians in check is the key to getting along. Can we do more of that?

AN EASY DISASTER-RELIEF LAYUP FOR TRUMP: The law allows FEMA to help rebuild destroyed houses of worship, but the agency would rather not. Trump should fix this now.

THIS IS BAD: Virgin Islands lack supplies for second hurricane pummeling.

Still in a state of near-total destruction from Hurricane Irma this month, the U.S. Virgin Islands are now bracing for another major storm and may be woefully unprepared.

As much as 20 inches of rain could pound the islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John over the next two days, prompting President Donald Trump to declare a state of emergency on Monday. FEMA officials warn of potentially “life-threatening flash floods and mudslides” that could last through the weekend.

But the Caribbean island chain is short on crucial supplies as Hurricane Maria approaches, according to internal briefing documents obtained by POLITICO.

As of Monday morning, Virgin Islands officials had received none of the 29 generators ordered. About 15,000 sheeting covers were delivered for protecting homes, of more than 135,000 requested. And a dozen shelter kits arrived, of more than 58 ordered — with supplies like clothing, medical equipment and hygiene items.

The territory is also short about 400,000 meals, of 2 million ordered. Out of 450 cots requested, 300 are available.

Notably, the supply shortage is not an issue of cash. Congress just approved a $15 billion disaster relief package that will go toward recovery efforts in the U.S. territories, as well as several hurricane-battered states.

Not good.

KEEPING INTERIOR DOORS SHUT increases your house’s hurricane resistance. “High winds, such as those currently expected from Hurricane Irma, place homes under intense pressure. Wind entering the home through an open or broken window, can create strong upward pressure on the roof. Closing interior doors helps compartmentalize the pressure inside the home into smaller areas reducing the overall force on the roof structure, which gives the roof a better chance of staying intact.”

JUST NBC THE HYPOCRISY:

● Shot: “Former FEMA head Michael Brown remembers Hurricane Katrina ten years later, calling President George W. Bush’s decision to flyover New Orleans to view the aftermath and not land was a huge mistake.”

—Hardball with Chris Matthews, August 28, 2015.

● Chaser: “The hosts of MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ mocked President Trump on Tuesday over a video of him helping load disaster relief supplies in Houston for Hurricane Harvey victims.”

—The Hill, today.

Related:

Just think of the media as Democrat operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.

GOOD FOR HURRICANE PREP: WaterBOB Emergency Drinking Water Storage.

UPDATE: In the comments from Beldar: “Five stars for this product. I’m a Houstonian, and the peace of mind these gave me and to family — one’s in my bathtub right now, another at my ex’s, and we’re not going to drain either for another few days in case Irma heads this way — is well worth the price. This is cheap and effective disaster mitigation. . . . I first saw this product on InstaPundit in 2015, and immediately ordered four. Thanks, Prof. Reynolds!”

You’re welcome. And anybody along the huge swathe of coast that’s currently threatened by Irma, etc. may want to take this advice.

CHARLIE HEBDO MOCKS HURRICANE HARVEY VICTIMS AS NAZIS IN DESPICABLE COVER PHOTO.

Hillary Clinton’s supporters just can’t catch a break — during the 2008 Democratic primaries, Obama dismissed them as clinging to their guns and religion. This week, after a horrific natural disaster, the heartless Gallic geniuses at Charlie Hebdo smear Hillary’s supporters in Texas for having a overly toxic blend of nationalism mixed with socialism. Great timing and geopolitical knowledge, fellas.

Related: Charlie Hebdo offends Texans, but guess what — nobody will get shot over it.

GOOD QUESTION: For years, engineers have warned that Houston was a flood disaster in the making. Why didn’t somebody do something?

Harvey poured as much as 374 billion gallons of water within the city limits, exceeding the capacity of rivers, bayous, lakes and reservoirs. Experts said the result was predictable.

The storm was unprecedented, but the city has been deceiving itself for decades about its vulnerability to flooding, said Robert Bea, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and UC Berkeley emeritus civil engineering professor who has studied hurricane risks along the Gulf Coast.

The city’s flood system is supposed to protect the public from a 100-year storm, but Bea calls that “a 100-year lie” because it is based on a rainfall total of 13 inches in 24 hours.

“That has happened more than eight times in the last 27 years,” Bea said. “It is wrong on two counts. It isn’t accurate about the past risk and it doesn’t reflect what will happen in the next 100 years.”

The city chose to spend its money… poorly.

THE RISE OF “WHOLE COMMUNITY RESPONSE” TO DISASTERS: In all-hands-on-deck response to Harvey, lessons learned from earlier storms.

Ahead of the storm, there were questions about whether Texas-style self-reliance or a centralized, civil-defense-era response from the federal government should govern. But as an all-hands-on-deck response to historic floods has unfolded, the all-of-the-above support exemplifies something new, disaster experts say: a template for what the nation’s top emergency managers call “whole-community” response. It’s a dramatic shift since hurricane Katrina in how the United States prepares for natural disasters, encompassing everything from agency leadership in Washington to Mr. Sherrod and his sturdy compatriots from East Texas. . . .

During Katrina, some rescuers literally had to sneak into the city to help. In Houston, the Cajun Navy has been part of a massive volunteer response, encouraged by officials. Twelve thousand National Guardsman also are being deployed, the government announced Monday.

The Cajun Navy represents both literally and figuratively the importance of neighborhood social networks – what researchers call “social capital” – that has become increasingly part of national response to disaster.

Well, I said it was a good idea.

PREPAREDNESS: Health Care Providers Scramble to Meet New Disaster Readiness Rule. “The new rule is aimed at preventing the severe breakdown in patient care that followed disasters including Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, while also strengthening the ability to provide services during other types of emergencies, such as pandemics and terrorist attacks.”

How good will the requirements be? “At least some of those provisions were significantly modified in the final version. Chief among them was a proposal that hospitals and nursing homes test their backup power systems for a minimum of four hours every year at the full load needed in an emergency, rather than the current standard of once every three years. Generators have failed catastrophically in hospitals and nursing homes around the country during prolonged power outages, endangering patients and leading to chaotic evacuations. However, the government removed the enhanced testing proposal, stating that there was not enough evidence it ‘would ensure that generators would withstand all disasters.'”

Well, nothing will ensure that. But my generator automatically self-tests for 5 minutes every week, which adds up to just over four hours a year. Why is this so hard?

THE GREAT WHITE HOUSE VACATION HYPOCRISY, as explored by Jonah Goldberg, who notes, “Hurricane Katrina was undoubtedly a huge story, and investigating the federal response to it was squarely in the fourth estate’s wheelhouse. But there’s simply no denying that the news media used that disaster as a partisan cudgel against a Republican president it detested. Worse, the media congratulated themselves endlessly for their Katrina coverage despite the fact that they collectively did a terrible job.”

That depends on how you define their job. Just think of them as Democratic operatives with bylines, and from the MSM’s point of view, their coverage of Katrina was a spectacular success, paying huge dividends in 2006 and 2008, ultimately giving Obama one party control of the House and Senate for his first two years, and allowing him to pass Obamacare. As one of the people who issued the media’s marching orders during that period said shortly before Obama took office, “You never want a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

WELL, YEAH: Media predictably treats Bush, Obama differently on Louisiana disasters.

So why isn’t Obama visiting? And why isn’t the press crucifying him for not visiting? Well, the answer to the first question comes from Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, who I normally admire as a journalist. He explains that Obama’s just too cool and unswayed by the politics of photo-ops.

That would be a fine explanation if Bush was given the same justification during Katrina. The other problem with Cillizza’s explanation is that Obama has absolutely visited places after natural disasters for the photo-ops. He surveyed the damage of Hurricane Sandy just two weeks before the 2012 election. There’s no explaining that away as “the right thing to do” while visiting Louisiana is just politics.

Cillizza mentions that his article is about how Obama thinks of himself, not how we see him, and that he apparently sees himself above performance politics. I guess he sees himself above it all, except when it would look good right before a re-election, right?

If the mainstream media treated Obama the way it treated Bush, perhaps public trust in media wouldn’t be at an all-time low and falling. But this is how it will always be. Democrats get the benefit of the doubt and long explanations for why they did or didn’t do something. Republicans are just treated as uncaring.

Just think of reporters as Democratic operatives with bylines and you won’t go far wrong.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Katrina Lessons, Ten Years Later: Who can you trust when disaster strikes? Not the media. And definitely not the government.