Large storms have a way of testing our state and national leaders, and of shaping their legacies.
President Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are saying the right things about working together across party lines in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
And it’s becoming more evident that this poses a huge leadership challenge for both of them.
Biden on Thursday afternoon offered a startling forecast on the potential ultimate toll of the hurricane. While the situation is in flux and official numbers aren’t available, he said, “This could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history.”
The deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history is understood to be the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, for which the official death toll is listed at more than 2,500, according to the National Weather Service. Were Ian to exceed the death toll of that hurricane, it would not only be the deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history, but it would also rank in the top three in U.S. history — higher even than Hurricane Katrina. The death toll for Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico in 2017, officially registers at 3,000, though a study of excess deaths in the aftermath suggests the number might have been higher.
It’s not clear what Biden is basing his suggestion on, and preliminary, unofficial figures can prove overzealous. The sheriff of Lee County, Fla., on Thursday morning estimated the death toll there alone was “definitely” “in the hundreds,” before tempering that. (For reference, the 10th-deadliest hurricane in U.S. history killed around 400 people.)
But photos of the destruction are unambiguous. DeSantis, for his part, called the damage “historic,” adding: “We’ve never seen a flood event like this. We’ve never seen a storm surge of this magnitude.”
And large-scale storms have a way of testing, and often coming to define, our state and national leaders.
Two prominent examples will always spring to mind. One is Katrina, in which a slow and botched response was among the reasons George W. Bush left office in 2009 as one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history.
