Hurricane Dorian

Hurricane Dorian as seen from the International Space Station on September 2nd 2019. Florida is at top, Cuba to the left.

Hurricane Dorian (August 28th to September 8th 2019) was the strongest Atlantic hurricane since 1935, achieving wind speeds of up to 295 kph, tying the record. It crossed the US Virgin Islands and the Bahamas and then went up the east coast of North America all the way to Newfoundland.

• As a Category 5 hurricane, at its height, it hit the Bahamas, which bore the brunt.
• As a Category 1 strength storm it hit the US Virgin Islands (still recovering from Hurricanes Irma and Maria), the eastern tip of North Carolina, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

In the Bahamas it left at least 50 dead. That number could go much higher: hundreds are still missing! Dorian has left 70,000 homeless. Great Abaco Island in the north was hardest hit. It looks like it was hit by a huge bomb:

Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island after Dorian hit. MARCO BELLO (REUTERS)

The US, of course, chose just this moment to suddenly require a visa for those fleeing the Bahamas. Bahamians have long been able to come to the US with just a passport and a copy of their police record.

President Trump:

“We have to be very careful. Everyone needs totally proper documentation … I don’t want to allow people who weren’t supposed to be in the Bahamas to come into the United States, including some very bad people.”

Soledad O’Brien:

“Because they’re Black, right?”

Bahamians, aside from being neighbours in distress, helped to build, oh, Miami.

Sharpiegate: On Sunday afternoon, September 1st, NOAA’s forecast looked like this:

NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is the part of the US government that runs the National Weather Service (NWS). Their weather forecasts are considered to be the best that science can produce.

Despite that, Trump tweeted:

“In addition to Florida – South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!”

The hurricane was going nowhere near Alabama!

Twenty minutes later the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama tweeted this:

“Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east. #alwx”

Trump spent the following week doubling down and tripling down and quadrupling down. At one point he produced a NOAA weather map from August 29th (three days out-of-date by the time of his tweet) where someone had used a Sharpie (Trump’s favourite brand of black felt-tip pen) to add Alabama to the forecast’s warning cone:

It gets worse:

Wilbur Ross is the head of the Commerce Department to which NOAA belongs. According to the New York Times, he threatened to fire anyone who contradicted President Trump. That would account for why:

NOAA then said this:

“From Wednesday, August 28, through Monday, September 2, the information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to President Trump and the wider public demonstrated that tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama.”

So, so sad.

– Abagond, 2019.

See also:

• Orwell
  • 2 + 2 = 5 – Orwell on Nazi propaganda. Uses weather as an example.
  • 1984
• The Republican bubble
  • tribal epistemology
  • Donald Trump
    • Birtherism
    • alternative facts
    • The Trumpification of the US
• hurricane
  • Hurricane Irma
  • Hurricane Maria

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