Hurricane Florence

I should know because this time we ignored the official fear-mongering and stuck around.

Deja vu happened just after this past Labor Day with Hurricane Florence, a massive Category 4 maelstrom crawling along at a snail's pace that's still in the news as I write.

We were squarely in its path, so much so that Governor McMaster, unfazed by striking out with Irma, issued another mandatory evacuation well in advance of the storm's arrival.

this was literally less than a day before florence too changed direction out of the blue and bypassed our region by veering up the coast toward wilmington n c where the storm brought historic flooding For those counting, this was the second official whiff in a row.

This soon gives way to horrible itching that can last a week or longer.

Sometimes the stings leave faint scars that can take months to fade.

when nettles are in play our son won't go anywhere near the water to be fair you can't exactly blame him but on the flip side nettles strike me as a convenient excuse with his teenage self continuing to sour on surfing just to spite us Hurricane Florence was a major nettles farm.

Left to our own devices, Lee and I, undeterred, averaged about three stings per hour.

Hurricane Fitzpatrick.

Hurricane Florence.

Hurricane Flojo.

Hurricane Florence.

Florence wreaks havoc in North and South Carolina.

All right, so Virginia is okay, so I got two gigs there.

Must be his drinking buddy or something like that.

Uh, so anyways, all right.

Mm-hmm.

And, and we didn't until we started this program after Hurricane Florence, and we see how they, people are living in their homes and n- need assistance.

Right.

We-

In 2012, fury over anti-Muslim film ridiculing the prophet Muhammad sparked violent clashes across the Muslim world.

In 2018, Hurricane Florence made landfall on US southern coast in the Carolinas, swamping entire communities, trapping hundreds in rising floodwaters, and leaving almost 43 people dead.

In 2024, the USS New Jersey, the first submarine especially designed to accommodate male and female soldiers, was commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

The sub had separate sleeping and bathing quarters for the coed crew.

Did you read about surfing in a hurricane and the controversy about that? No.

I guess he tweeted when Hurricane Florence was coming in that he was going to go out and surf in it with some group that was also saying they're going to.

And he got in trouble because seemingly that's irresponsible to encourage people to go and surf in a hurricane.

People do.

Yes.

No, that's why he said it.

With Hurricane Florence on the way, Jimmy Buffett decided it was a good time to hit the waves on Folly Beach in South Carolina.

He sent out this picture on Instagram with the message, I ain't afraid of dying.

You know, similar shades of the East Carolina setup that we had that was canceled kind of around that hurricane season.

I believe it was Hurricane Florence in that pre-COVID era where we had several games scheduled to go to Greenville, South Carolina.

Virginia Tech and Old Dominion mutually agreed to revise their upcoming football game schedules there.

This happened last summer in July.

When I was with FEMA, I did visit the Joint Field Office in Puerto Rico once.

But actually, my first deployment with FEMA was for Hurricane Florence, which made landfall in North Carolina and caused extensive flooding there in 2018.

And I'd been with FEMA for about a month.

And then Florence happened.

And they said, OK, go down and support recovery.

And at the time, I was pretty new to emergency management and was working with organizations that were doing aerial collection missions, so I was working in imagery.

And as some of you might remember, shortly after Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Michael made landfall and impacted many of the same areas.

We had someone on staff at the field office in North Carolina who had a house in Panama Beach.

2020 COVID, we went six and four.

2018, the NC State game was canceled due to Hurricane Florence.

2016, the last time it happened without a pandemic or a hurricane, WVU went 10 up and two down.

Causation correlation.

So people dealing with the water crisis in Jackson or go back to the water crisis in Flint because these underlying vulnerabilities compounding social, economic, geographic, because of red line, because of segregation.

you know, their impact first, worst, and the longest, right? When it comes to extreme weather event, whether it be a flood, whether it be a fire, think about Altadena, the LA fires, Altadena, right? Whether it be a hurricane, go to Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Harvey, low-income folks, communities of color, folks that have these underlying vulnerabilities, impact first, worst, worse and longer.

It takes them longer to recover.

So that's what we think about in the environment.