How to help with Hurricane Ian relief

If you’re among the shrinking minority of Americans who pay Federal income taxes, pat yourself on the back because you’ve already helped with Hurricane Ian relief. You’re one of the folks who funds the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA; $28.7 billion budget for FY 2020). Congress already appropriated the money. Wikipedia says

The governor of the state in which the disaster occurs must declare a state of emergency and formally request from the President that FEMA and the federal government respond to the disaster.

That’s already happened. So now some of this already-paid-by-you and already-appropriated-by-Congress money will be spent to address the damage caused by Hurricane Ian.

Suppose that you want to do more. My favorite way to help a place that has suffered is to buy stuff from or in that place. After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, for example, I bought a bunch of Japanese-made products, including Shun knives. SW Florida isn’t renowned for manufacturing, but you could plan a vacation there! Marco Island is pretty awesome and the monster concrete hotels should be fine after the power is restored. Even if you visit the theme parks in Orlando you will be helping keep the state’s economy vibrant.

Don’t need to learn sexual orientation and gender identity at Disney World or be frightened to death at Universal? You can donate money. But to whom? Charlie Crist, the Democrat who says that he will deliver Floridians from fascism, and Ron DeSantis, the hated fascist himself (he and Giorgia Meloni will get together and shave each other’s heads, get scalp tattoos, and burn synagogues?), agree that the best place for donating money is the Florida Disaster Fund, run by VolunteerFlorida. This enterprise earns a 100/100 rating from Charity Navigator (compare to 89 for the American Red Cross):

The default is a modest $10. Casey DeSantis explains at about 18:30 into the video below that more than $10 million has been raised. Some of the cited big donors: Amazon, Walmart, Publix, Florida Power & Light, the PGA Tour. The credit card fees are being waived when you donate so nearly all of the money should go to work.

One caveat is that you don’t get public credit, even your name on a list of donors, if you donate a modest amount. You get a web page thank-you:

So unless you can brag on Facebook or Twitter or a personal blog, giving will have to be its own reward. If you’re a Democrat make sure to take a screen capture of this because you won’t want to keep the email acknowledgment and there is some chance that your itemized deductions will be more than the generous Trump-established standard deduction. Alternatively, you could be like Elvis Presley and not try to write off the deduction “because it takes away from the spirit of the gift.”

Why would Democrats not welcome the email acknowledgment of the gift? “Your donation plays a key role in supporting Governor DeSantis’ initiatives…”

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Let’s check in on power restoration for Florida’s west coast

From the lieutenant governor on Wednesday night:

Considering that they couldn’t start driving into the affected areas until the hurricane eye had moved well northeast, the 42,000 linemen, linewomen, and line-non-binary-people have had essentially one full day to work. How much have they accomplished? Florida started off with at least 2.7 million customers (about 5 million people when you consider household size and subtract businesses?) without power according to poweroutage.us. A state agency published a similar number:

What’s https://poweroutage.us/area/state/florida showing now?

Also, here’s Governor DeSantis’s 9 am briefing:

Can he win an Emmy for these or is he not as good as Andrew Cuomo? (I never had the privilege to see Cuomo’s Emmy-winning briefings.)

Finally, how about making a documentary film of these linemen, linewomen, and line-non-binary-people restoring Florida’s grid? So as not to delay their important work, have a 27-year-old interview them during meal breaks and ask, with outstretched palm, “Biden is going to force you to pay for most of my gender studies degree, but would you mind voluntarily kicking in for the rest?” Generally speaking, linepeople learn via a paid on-the-job apprenticeship rather than by sitting in a classroom. However, if we can find a few among the 42,000 who did complete a college degree, that would be even better for our video. A lineperson could explain how his/her/zir/their Critical Race Theory major and Gender Studies minor were invaluable prep for working on the 50 kV lines. Another could explain how the psych degree was helpful when configuring a Toshiba GRT200 transformer protection relay.

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Have the TV networks been showing Ron DeSantis?

A reader comment on What would it cost to retreat from Tampa to Orlando as Hurricane Ian appraoches?:

It’s amusing to watch the media’s approach to the hurricane and Ron DeSantis. They pretty much have to put him on TV, discussing plans to evacuate, etc. But the contrast with this young, vibrant, competent governor speaking extemporaneously versus the decrepit old fossil in Washington squinting his eyes to read what somebody else put on the teleprompter must be driving them nuts.

Assuming that DeSantis is continuing to demonstrate competence and organization, the best way for the media to support Democrats would be to ignore him. This would be the flip side of featuring Andrew Cuomo during coronapanic so much that he won an Emmy and the hearts of Americans identifying as female (see “Hot for governor! Women confess they are developing ‘MAJOR crushes’ on Andrew Cuomo” and remember that, due to his masterful management of the virus, New York State had only 367 COVID-tagged deaths per 100,000, while Sweden’s radical “give the finger to the virus” policy resulted in a horrific 1,849 deaths (per million)).

At this point it is unclear that Ron DeSantis will be doing a lot of briefings. Maybe he is going to be busy managing the statewide response instead of getting in front of cameras. But if the DeSantis twitter feed fills up with briefings that aren’t shown on CNN, can we infer that CNN has its thumb on the scale?

Here’s this morning’s briefing:

Let’s compare to a recent press conference from Joe Biden:

Who wants to compare the two for cognitive function and apparent competence to manage? No fair if you’re a passionate Democrat or Republican! Maybe we should let the European readers judge.

How about the Democrat running to liberate Floridians from the hated tyrant? Here’s his Twitter profile this morning:

Without scrolling, it is all about fascism and abortion care, neither of which is going to de-flood Fort Myers and Naples.

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Fort Myers post-hurricane update

Practicalities of evacuation from Florida’s west coast considered the possibilities open to my friend’s dad in Fort Myers. He’s in his 80s and elected to stay home. My memory of his neighborhood is that it is just across the street from a neighborhood of houses with docks (i.e., houses right at river level, which is to say sea level). Other than being on a barrier island, this is about as vulnerable to Hurricane Ian as it was possible to be.

I checked in with my friend this evening, now that the hurricane is mostly done with Fort Myers (I had previously offered to drive there and exfiltrate the dad and wanted to see if that was going to be the project for tomorrow.) It turns out that the experience was like a Hollywood movie. First the street filled with water. Then the yard filled with water. Then the garage filled with water to a depth of about 6″. The house is one step up from the garage and the water began to recede just before it reached the top of the step. The house was saved from flooding by literal inches.

The hero of our story did not have impact glass (slightly older house) and did not have the time/energy to put up the hurricane shutters. Nonetheless, none of the windows or big sliders were damaged.

That’s the good news! The bad news is that he has no power and, surprisingly, no tap water. Governor DeSantis has 42,000+ utility workers assembled to get the lights back on so we’ll see what happens on the power front.

From neighboring Alabama:

(Georgia is also in the path of wrath for Ian so it can’t be as liberal in offering assistance.)

Here’s a Sanibel photo from March 2022 when I last visited this family:

(The traffic on Sanibel is horrific and I’m hopeful that if the island gets a rebuild they will rethink the transportation infrastructure.)

Related:

  • While Ron DeSantis, the state and county workers, the 42,000 linemen, linewomen, and line-non-binary-people labor to get Naples and Fort Myers back after one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the United States, what’s President Biden doing? “Murphy will join Biden to raise money for Dem governor candidates in D.C. tonight” (NJ Globe): Gov. Phil Murphy is heading to Washington, D.C. this afternoon to join President Joe Biden at a fundraiser for the Democratic Governors Association. The event at an undisclosed private residence, will help fund key Democratic gubernatorial candidates across the U.S. [See Joe Biden’s full agenda below]
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Hurricane lies from state media (NPR)

“Some don’t evacuate, despite repeated hurricane warnings, because they can’t” (state-sponsored NPR):

Depending on a family’s financial situation, evacuating away from a storm can be costly.

“Many modest- to low-income households simply don’t have the cash or credit,” said Joshua Behr, research professor at Old Dominion University, in a 2018 interview with NPR.

Behr emphasized that the poorest may often wait until the last minute to evacuate, resulting in little to no availability for affordable hotel rooms.

The tragedy of inequality yet again and the obvious remedy is an expansion of the government that funds NPR so that enhanced transferism can be implemented.

As discussed in Practicalities of evacuation from Florida’s west coast, however, all of the quoted material from the NPR article is a lie. The county-run shelters near Fort Myers are (1) free, (2) pet-friendly, (3) equipped with backup generators, (4) stocked with free food and water, and (5) accessible via free transportation (Uber or government-run; summon via taxpayer-funded Obamaphone or wait for the flood and the knock on the door from the public safety crews). A poor person would actually save money by going to the shelter because he/her/zir/their food would be paid for. (The information regarding hotel rooms is also a lie; plenty were available starting at about $60 per night as of the day before the storm made landfall.)

Aside from lack of funds, what other obstacles could a person face in getting to safety?

And while many emergency warnings and notices are now printed in both English and Spanish, there’s still a gap when for those who speak other languages.

More than 400,000 households in Florida speak Haitian as their primary shared language, according to the Census Bureau. Tens of thousands of Floridians speak Portuguese, French, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Arabic, German, Russian, Italian or another language as their primary shared language at home.

“While looking at an evacuation map at a county in Florida, I saw they have it in both English and Spanish and thought ‘OK, that’s great.’ But also there are people there who may not speak either language,” said Cuite.

Cuite says alongside the language barrier being an issue for people, there are also different levels of literacy to account for.

Some people may not be able to read, which makes things like finding their evacuation zone a challenge,” she said.

NPR has previously informed us that low-skill immigrants make a country rich. Today, NPR informs us that a substantial number of migrants can’t speak English or Spanish, are illiterate in all languages, and live in households in which all members are illiterate in all languages. Putting these two together, we can infer that this Army of the Illiterate will boost what we are told is the world’s most advanced economy.

Our neighborhood came through the overnight thunderstorms, which Mindy the Crippler did not appreciate. The phone shrieked a couple of times with a tornado warning and the federal government’s advice to Floridians to take shelter in basements (the nearest of which is in Atlanta?). There was heavy rain at times and some branches had come down from the palm trees. The neighborhood teenagers played football on the green (I also removed my shirt and a nice young lady paid me $100 to put it back on).

There have been no power glitches so far and no wind gusts above about 30 mph.

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Practicalities of evacuation from Florida’s west coast

It’s 10 pm and Hurricane Ian is now forecast to slam straight into Fort Myers, Florida.

A friend’s dad is in one of the low-lying surge-vulnerable areas covered by a “mandatory evacuation order,” but he’s refusing to leave. Will the National Guard pull him out? “There’s evacuation orders in place… our recommendation is to heed those evacuation orders,” says Ron DeSantis (still making some last-minute efforts to redirect the hurricane to Martha’s Vineyard).

What if dad wanted to evacuate to FLL or Miami (plenty of hotels available)? Fall of Saigon situation? Not according to Google Maps. The highways are green. Google calculates 2 hours and 8 minutes right now from Fort Myers to the hotels around FLL.

What if dad wanted to stay nearby, but in a county-/state-run shelter on high ground? It looks as though the schools and recreation centers have been set up as shelters (list for Lee County). What if he wants to bring a faithful dog? “All shelters are pet-friendly” says the county’s Facebook page:

Suppose that dad #persists in staying in his flood-vulnerable house and needs to be extracted by boat? The state has a collection of redneck airboats!

The power companies have assembled what looks like an invasion force.

It seems that thousands of crews have been driving in from other states. Helping out in Florida after a September hurricane is a lot better than helping out in New England after a February Nor’easter!

Not everyone from San Antonio went to Martha’s Vineyard:

That’s what’s available from the local and state governments here in Florida. Let’s not forget the vital role of Science and the Federal government. “Preparing for a Hurricane or Tropical Storm” (CDC):

If you live in areas at risk, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) encourages you to be prepared for hurricane season. … Stay up to date on your COVID-19 vaccines.

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What would it cost to retreat from Tampa to Orlando as Hurricane Ian appraoches?

Hurricane Ian is forecast to destroy Tampa, Florida beginning tomorrow. “Hurricane Ian strengthens to Category 2 storm and could be ‘something that we haven’t seen in our lifetime,’ Tampa forecaster says” (CNN). “Hurricane Ian Targets Florida, Threatens Tampa Bay With First Direct Hit in a Century (WSJ).

To figure out how bad a risk is, I like to look at the insurance cost of protecting against the risk. In our area of the Florida Free State, annual insurance against a house being destroyed for all reasons, including hurricanes, is about 0.2% of the value of the house. In other words, if we discount the risk of fire to 0%, destruction by a hurricane is not expected more than once every 500 years.

Orlando is far enough inland that it is never seriously hammered by hurricanes, which require warm ocean water as fuel. Orlando is also 100′ above sea level, so it benefits from Obama having turned back the rising seas. The best insurance against personal risk from Hurricane Ian is a retreat to Orlando. I searched today on Orbitz, just 24 hours before Tampageddon begins in earnest, and found that a family can move into an Orlando condo or hotel room from tonight through September 30 for $100-200 per night.

What if a golden retriever intent on providing very late term abortion care to squirrels and rabbits in her jaw-shaped reproductive health care clinic needs to be included in the evacuation? Hyatt Regency time!

Prices were similar in the Miami area, expected to be almost entirely spared from this storm’s wrath.

What will you do in Orlando? It’s business as usual at Disney World, except for a couple of mini golf courses that are closed and the fake typhoon is replaced by a real typhoon:

The crowds should be thin and you can let me know if Disney has adopted my suggestion for delivering on its expressed corporate passion: Should Disney World offer a ride educating kindergartners on sexual orientation and gender identity?

Sometimes freedom-loving Californians and New Yorkers say that hurricane risk is holding them back from moving to coastal Florida. But it seems that setting aside $100 per year would be sufficient to avoid all personal risk (retreat to Orlando every 5-10 years). And, of course, one could always move to central Florida! Right next to Bok Tower Gardens would be my choice, which also happens to be convenient to Legoland.

Homeowners insurance in Florida is substantially more expensive than in other states, but it seems that lawyers are more aggressive than hurricanes. “Florida homeowners pay nearly 3x national average for homeowners insurance” (ABC):

The latest analysis from the Insurance Information Institute found Florida homeowners are paying an average premium of $4,231 for insurance, compared to the U.S. average of $1,544.

Florida as a whole had about 100,000 lawsuits against insurance companies last year, while other states combined had about 20,000. Insurance company CEOs have said these lawsuits are why so many companies are going bankrupt, raising premiums, and canceling coverage — sending more and more residents to Citizens.

There might be a minor issue with the above numbers, incidentally, because the average price of a house in Florida might not be the same as the average price of a house nationwide and the average in Florida is surely not the median due to all of the rich bastards in $20-100 million beach houses (not that I am envious).

Related:

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See Disney World before it is destroyed by Ian?

Here’s the current predicted track for Tropical Storm Ian:

Worrisome for Disney World! On the other hand, if a ride is destroyed by Ian, perhaps it could be rebuilt along the lines suggested in Should Disney World offer a ride educating kindergartners on sexual orientation and gender identity?

Wednesday morning is the most likely arrival time of tropical storm-force winds in Orlando.

(Science-deniers will falsely claim, as a matter of misinformation, that hurricanes have never previously hit Orlando and that, being 100′ above sea level, it is not going to be washed away via climate change like all of the rest of Florida. The deniers ignore the fact that we’re in a new age of super hurricanes caused by not enough laptop class members collecting subsidies from the working class to buy electric cars and rooftop solar.)

Separately, if you’re interested in why Disney having its own county is so important, read Buying Disney’s World: The Story of How Florida Swampland Became Walt Disney World. The company told the State of Florida that it was going to use the land primarily to build a city, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Therefore, it made sense for the new city to be able to issue tax-free municipal bonds to fund infrastructure. Given the high rates of federal personal income taxes at the time, Disney’s borrowing costs were thus halved at zero cost to Florida (did not then and does not now have a personal income tax (barred by the state constitution)) but with a big cost to the US Treasury. The Democrats who are passionate about Disney retaining its own county are essentially arguing for continued tax avoidance by Disney.

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A Miami Dolphins game at Hard Rock Stadium

A friend whose teenage son is a fanatical Patriots fan indulged the boy and his brother with a trip to Miami to watch the Patriots-Dolphins game on 9/11. A mutual friend texted his opinion:

Football is a barbarous gladiatorial display which sacrifices black bodies on the altar of entertainment.

We were glad that we hadn’t invited him to come down from the Northeast.

My friends rated Hard Rock Stadium, entirely privately funded (compare to what New York taxpayers are doing in Buffalo), as superior to Gillette Stadium in the Boston exurbs. It took less than one minute to get through security and ticket validation.

The stadium is set up so that the home team has an enormous advantage. The “home” sideline is on the south side of the field, shaded by the south portion of the structure. So the home team in September is on the sidelines in “only” 90-degree heat. The visitors are on the north sideline, exposed to the direct Florida sun, and able to fry eggs on their helmets.

If you’re looking for backyard flag ideas, here’s what the Dolphins did for 9/11:

If you’re sitting in your $2,000/person premium seat and seized with a California-style passion for housing the unhoused, you won’t see any in-stadium messages regarding poverty or how say-gooders can help. If you’re passionate about 2SLGBTQQIA+, Pride, and the struggle for equality, you’ll be disappointed to see that there are no rainbow flags in the stadium. Those with a passion for social justice are not entirely ignored, however. One end zone bears the message “End Racism” while the opposite end zone reminds spectators “It Takes All of Us”:

Conveniently, as with waving a rainbow flag, ending racism does not require us to spend any money (except on NFL tickets!). Let’s hope that ending racism doesn’t require perfect hearing because every part of the stadium is loud. Music is played before the game and there is a literally deafening roar from the fans during the game. Calls from the referees are amplified, but difficult to understand (much harder than when seeing a game on TV). I wouldn’t take a noise-sensitive kid to the stadium.

We are informed that the Venezuelan economy is in tough shape, but there was a huge line of people at halftime for the $8 arepas.

Speaking of Venezuela, here’s a gal from that country who was forced into following the NFL and cheering for the Patriots by her fiancé (unhappy in the background as the Dolphins maintained their lead, ultimately resulting in a 20-7 victory for the Team of Party On over the Team of Science. 2.5 years of masks and “essential” marijuana did not help the Patriots win). She even had Patriot-symbol earrings.

Tip: try to eat before the game and don’t expect to be able to get any food or drink (other than from a water fountain) during halftime.

How about seats? We were in cheap ($200, including fees, purchased as “verified resale” a few day days prior) seats in section 317 and the view seemed good. Legroom is skimpy, however, so stay home on the recliner if you want to stretch out. You can see the half-empty premium seating section below. The customers for these seats in Miami are so rich that they don’t bother going to the Ticketmaster web site to transfer their $2,000/seat tickets. There were some empty seats in the nosebleed sections, but the super expensive sections had the lowest occupancy. Maybe it is time to vote in Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren so that these folks will be forced to pay their fair share?

Transportation? My friends were latecomers to the parking party and ended up in Lot #20 (buy in advance from Ticketmaster), which would be regarded as Siberia from the perspective of VIPs and season ticket holders. This is a 15-minute walk from the stadium, but the reward is that you get in and out without sitting in any traffic. Highly recommended. Another good option would be to park between the Sonic and Walmart at the SW corner of the stadium. The risk of being stuck in traffic seems a little higher, but nothing like it would be in the close-in official lots.

Inspired by stadiums in Japan that have no parking lots at all, but are instead built near train stations, I decided to join by taking the Tri-Rail commuter train from West Palm Beach. This is just like the trains in Norway, which I recently enjoyed, in that it rides on steel rails. After that, the similarity ends. Commuter lines in Norway run every 15 minutes; Tri-Rail runs every hour on Sundays (and was 30 minutes late, which means some passengers waited 1.5 hours in stations that don’t have bathrooms (the toilet on the train was broken and overflowing)). The Norwegian trains are clean and quiet. Tri-Rail has a ventilation system that overpowers the Florida heat, but at the cost of a huge amount of noise. Tri-Rail is so bumpy that it is tough to read while in motion; the Norwegian trains are smooth.

Because it is so noisy and expensive, even though I am passionate about ending racism I am not enthusiastic about returning with the family for a Dolphins game. If we did go, however, we would drive and park in Lot #20 or similar, aiming to arrive at least one hour prior to the game so as to avoid the worst of the traffic.

Part of the post-game survey:

There is no difference between Chinese and Samoan:

Go Big or Go Home on the income:

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Palm Beach County Library Kids’ Section

I was on a call with an MIT professor who, after expressing his horror at the post-Roe age in which we somehow live, expressed the belief that the dictatorship of Ron DeSantis has prevented libraries in Florida from stocking the books that Americans should be reading now. I said “DeSantis and the state can say and do whatever they want, but ultimately it is counties that decide what books to buy. If you walk into the kids’ section of our local Palm Beach County library you would see all of the same books featured in all of the same ways as in Lexington, Massachusetts or Newton, MA. You would have to dig deep, for example, to find a book describing the achievements of a white cisgender heterosexual male.”

After voting in the primary (Ron DeSantis and affiliated thugs attempted to suppress my vote by demanding ID, but I thwarted this attempt by bringing my wallet), I took a few photos in our local library. All of these are from the kids/juvenile section.

Would a child get the impression that there was anything less than glorious about the 2SLGBTQQIA+ lifestyle? Not from reading Heather Has Two Mommies, he/she/ze/they wouldn’t.

Is there anything unusual about changing one’s gender or being “genderqueer”? No.

Is it a beautiful thing when members of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community kick a soccer ball as expertly as a 14-year-old boy? Yes.

Gender ID can change at any moment, but it turns out that nearly all engineering and scientific advances were made by people with a particular gender ID:

And gender ID of the subject turns out to be a big factor in whether a book will be featured:

The entire world is being destroyed because there are too many humans living the American high-CO2 lifestyle. At the same time, we should expand our population by 200+ million via immigration from low-CO2 countries.

Kids can prep for a lucrative career in the nonprofit sector:

One final way to guarantee being featured by the librarians:

Related:

  • “American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten admitted to sharing a false tweet claiming that certain books were banned in Florida on Sunday.” (Hate Central)
  • “Fact check: Fake list of banned Florida books circulates widely online” (USA Today): “While school districts can ban books through a process created by the new law, Florida has not banned any books at the state level, a spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis told USA TODAY. In fact, several works on the list have been recommended to school districts by the state Department of Education.” [Is it accurate to say that a book was “banned” because a school district no longer promotes it to students and the book remains available at the nearest public library?]
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