Giving Compass' Take:
- Rachel Treisman discusses the overlap of hurricane and election season, highlighting how hurricanes have become politicized and may impact the election.
- How might the politicization of disaster relief efforts influence public perception of government effectiveness during the election?
- Learn more about disaster relief and recovery and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on disaster philanthropy.
What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
Atlantic hurricane and election season always overlap on the calendar. And this year, they’re coming together to form quite the political storm.
First came Helene, which hit Florida as a Category 4 hurricane before drenching a deadly path across several southeastern states. The late September storm killed more than 230 people, flooded entire communities and destroyed critical infrastructure, particularly in hard-hit western North Carolina.
As the road to recovery begins, the federal government’s response has been hampered by considerable politicization and misinformation, mostly online.
The Politicization of Hurricane Season Amid Election Season
While some Republicans have praised the Biden administration’s response, many others — most notably, former President Donald Trump — are seeking to weaponize it against his presidential opponent, Vice President Harris.
On rally stages and social media platforms like X, they have accused local governments of preventing private citizens from helping people in need and alleged that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has no money for hurricane recovery because of spending on migrants and foreign wars (none of these claims are true).
“We absolutely have the funding that we need to support the ongoing response to Helene and the response that we're preparing for Hurricane Milton,” FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell told NPR’s Morning Edition on Tuesday.
She called the misinformation around the storm “absolutely the worst I have ever seen,” telling reporters on a separate call Tuesday that the conspiracy theories — which the agency has set up a webpage to debunk — are dissuading survivors from seeking help and hurting responders’ morale.
Against this backdrop, federal and state authorities are preparing for Hurricane Milton, an unusually fast-growing storm poised to bring a life-threatening storm surge and winds to Florida midweek.
That has fueled further political drama, with NBC News reporting on Monday that Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis — whose response to several major hurricanes in 2022 partially helped him win a second term that year — refused to take Harris’ calls about hurricane relief. He has spoken to President Biden.
Read the full article about hurricane and election season by Rachel Treisman at NPR.