On September 26th, the state of Florida was hit with Hurricane Helene, a category 4 hurricane and no sign of natural disasters stopping anytime soon; Hurricane Milton emerged categorized as a category 5 hurricane bringing stronger rainfall and winds.
Florida, known for their hurricane seasons, were left in a vulnerable state with the back-to-back storms. What was deemed at first as a small storm, slowly developed and intensified, when it hit the Gulf with high ocean temperatures and moist warm air.
An IRIS storm model that was used to investigate Hurricane Milton’s shows that, “climate change was responsible for an increase of about 40% in the number of storms of this intensity.”
For the past years, human-caused climate change has impacted the Gulf waters and due to this Hurricane Milton was able to transform from a category 2 hurricane to category 3.
World Weather Attribution found, “a 1.3C increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST)” that is estimated to impact hurricanes or other natural disasters.
Based on these statistics from previous hurricanes, such as Hurricane Helene indicate a result of the past 75 years having extreme rainfalls in central Florida explained by the rapid increase of global warming. The 1.3C increase in GMST has also affected the wind speeds by 40% more frequency, making hurricanes even more deadly.
Researchers through tracking the influence of climate change concluded the high sea surface temperatures were part of the reason for Milton’s storm to intensify. This was made abundantly clear with it’s winds reaching 92 mph in roughly 24 hours, all the way to 177 mph, compared to hurricane before was 137 mph.
Karthik Balaguru, a climate scientist from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory states, “from being a tropical storm to being a Category 5 hurricane in less than two days, which is off the charts.”
As it continued to grow it became one of the most rapidly intensifying hurricanes with winds later exceeding 175 mph becoming “the strongest Gulf of Mexico hurricane since Hurricane Rita in 2005,” noted by NBC Science News writer, Evan Bush.
These drastic changes in climate change led Floridians to feel the intense damage from Hurricane Milton that led to 35 confirmed deaths and severe property damage.
All this led to a huge estimated $22 billion to $36 billion cost in damages, landing Hurricane Milton as one of the most expensive storms. Water damage also became a problem with the estimated total cost of damage, water making up $4 billion to $6 billion of that amount.
While there is still data waiting to be collected to assess the number of affected properties such as homes, business and infrastructure, the numbers are at a high shown by the Lee County Community Development.
Through the surveyed damaged area in the Lee County Community, “damage was found …about 60% of the system” and since most intersections damage was less than $5,000 they couldn’t garner assistance from the Federal Highway Administration, reported New-Press writer Mickenzie Hannon.
The amount of damage Hurricane Helene caused was a total of between $30.5 billion to $47.5 billion in wind and flood damage across states which Milton’s damages added to people struggling to recover from the disasters. The latest political turmoil over the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that gives states reimbursement for disaster recovery has not become a reliable source for aid.
As climate change continues to rise and impact the disastrous nature of Hurricanes there can only be certainty that these disasters would become more common leaving the people of Florida and other states to have a harder time recovering.
Written by Emily L., Staff writer