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Trump Visits Florida After Hurricane Michael Now a Hurricane Veteran, Trump Inspects Damage From Another Deadly Storm
(about 1 hour later)
VALPARAISO, Fla. — For President Trump, it has become a recurring ritual of the fall. LYNN HAVEN, Fla. — In what has become a recurring ritual of the fall, President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, traveled here on Monday to survey the destruction of another hurricane, this one named Michael, which last week laid waste to the Florida Panhandle.
He and his wife, Melania, landed here on Monday to tour the damage from another hurricane, Michael, which tore through the Florida Panhandle last week, leaving a path of utter destruction behind it. “This was beyond any winds we’ve seen for — I guess — 50 years,” Mr. Trump said, before he and Mrs. Trump handed out plastic water bottles to storm victims at an aid distribution center in this hard-hit town. “They say that 50 years ago, there was one that had this kind of power.”
Mr. Trump was scheduled to tour the Gulf Coast of Florida, where hurricane winds of 155 m.p.h. lifted houses from their foundations in towns like Mexico Beach, leaving piles of debris for miles. “Fifty years,” he added. “It’s a long time.”
On the way back to Washington, the president is also scheduled to stop in Georgia, where the damage from winds was less devastating but the rains caused severe flooding, not unlike Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas several weeks ago. Even for a president who has now seen five hurricanes — including Harvey, which swamped Houston; Maria, which destroyed Puerto Rico; and Florence, which inundated the Carolinas — Michael left a particularly spectacular trail of wreckage along the Florida Gulf Coast.
The White House issued little information about the president’s schedule. But if it follows recent practice, Mr. Trump will be briefed on the relief and recovery efforts by federal, state and local officials, then tour some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods. Pine trees were uprooted and splintered — one lying across a Chevrolet sedan, others bisecting houses. Roofs had been torn off row after row of houses, blue tarps strung across the yawning holes. Windows were shattered, and even the wood siding was peeled off.
Mr. Trump’s experience with storms has turned him into a kind of amateur meteorologist. Last week, in the Oval Office, he drew a crisp distinction between the two storms, describing Michael as a deadly but fast-moving cyclone while Florence stalled in North Carolina, inundating the state with record-shattering rainfall and South Carolina with water runoff. Gas stations were ripped apart — their colorful awnings carried across highways and dropped in twisted shards. In a parking lot, truck trailers were scattered like a child’s toys.
A water tower lay on its side, while some roads completely disappeared beneath a jungle of fallen trees. Next to a demolished warehouse, someone had spray-painted “Live video feed. Trespassers shot.”
After witnessing so many storms, Mr. Trump has begun to sound like an amateur meteorologist. He emphasized, for example, the fine differences between Florence, which stalled in North Carolina, inundating the state with record-shattering rain, and Michael, which raced through Florida in a few hours but with deadly winds of 155 miles per hour.
“Somebody said it was like a very wide, extremely wide tornado,” Mr. Trump said, as he stood next to Gov. Rick Scott of Florida and Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who have both become familiar figures on these tours.
“These are massive trees that have been just ripped out of the earth,” Mr. Trump said, pointing to a tangle of uprooted pines. “We’ve seen mostly water. And water can be very damaging and scary, when you see water rising 14 or 15 feet. But nobody’s ever seen anything like this. This is really incredible.”
Still, for someone whose presidency has been interrupted repeatedly by these freakish storms, Mr. Trump remains stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge the threat of climate change.Still, for someone whose presidency has been interrupted repeatedly by these freakish storms, Mr. Trump remains stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge the threat of climate change.
In an interview broadcast Sunday by “60 Minutes,” Mr. Trump acknowledged there had been changes in the earth’s climate in recent years. But he cast doubt on whether human activity was a cause of it, and he suggested that climate scientists had a “political agenda.” The president said the spate of storms would not prompt him to rethink his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, repeating his contention that the agreement’s requirements would handicap the United States in its economic competition with other countries.
Last week, Mr. Trump had little reaction to a new report by the United Nations, which warned of mass wildfires, food shortages, and dying coral reefs by as soon as 2040, if the world did not act immediately to stem the rise in temperatures. Asked whether he believes the climate is changing, he acknowledged that “there is something there, man-made or not.” But he argued that the string of hurricanes did not by itself prove anything. There were strong hurricanes 50 years ago, he said, and a particularly monstrous one in the 1890s.
Mr. Trump promoted his trip on Twitter on Monday morning, praising emergency workers and law enforcement for their “maximum effort.” He said Florida had been “worst hit in 50 years!” Pointing to his own experience as a homeowner in Palm Beach, Fla., where he has the Mar-a-Lago estate, he said, “We had years where we had none, and then over the last couple of years we had more, and hopefully we’ll go back to many years where we have none.”
But the president also kept up a steady stream of political tweets, in advance of next month’s midterm elections. He claimed, with dubious evidence, that “the crowds at my Rallies are far bigger than they have ever been before, including the 2016 election. Never an empty seat in these large venues, many thousands watching screens outside.” Last week, Mr. Trump had very little reaction to an ominous new report by the United Nations, which warned of mass wildfires, food shortages and dying coral reefs as soon as 2040 if the world did not act immediately to stem the rise in temperatures.
There were, in fact, empty seats at a recent “Make America Great Again” rally in Billings, Mont. Mr. Trump plans to speak again in Montana at a rally later this week, as well as in Arizona and Nevada. Last week, he defended his decision to hold a rally in Erie, Pa., as Hurricane Michael was wreaking havoc in Florida. Asked about federal government research that says climate change is making the most powerful storms even stronger, he said: “I would certainly have to look at it. I haven’t seen it.”
“Well, I hear they have thousands of people lined up there, so we are in a little bit of a quagmire,” Mr. Trump told reporters. In Florida, Mr. Trump celebrated, as he usually does, the speed of the federal and state emergency response. Governor Scott, a Republican who is a staunch ally of the president, thanked him repeatedly for picking up the phone whenever he called to request help.
“We’re doing more than probably has ever been done,” Mr. Trump said, admitting that this was partly because the unending string of hurricanes demanded an unprecedented federal response.
Walking through a ruined neighborhood, Mr. Trump paused to greet a homeowner, Michael Rollins, who showed him where a 100-year-old pine tree had toppled in his front yard, narrowly missing his house. “Didn’t miss by much,” the president said, gazing at the uprooted stump.
Mr. Rollins, 74, said he had decided to ride out the storm to stay with his pets, two dogs and a parakeet. A veteran of numerous hurricanes, Mr. Rollins said this was easily the most terrifying.
At the aid center, Mr. Trump and his wife greeted a largely friendly crowd. One woman wearing a green Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt leaned over to thank Mrs. Trump for her anti-bullying campaign.
The first lady was wearing a white shirt, skinny pants and a pair of sturdy boots. She topped that with a white baseball cap emblazoned with USA in the front, Trump in the back, and 45 over each of her ears. Mr. Trump wore his customary hurricane uniform of khakis, brown boots, a dark-blue windbreaker and a red baseball cap.
Earlier, Mr. Trump got a tour of the devastation in Marine One, flying east along the battered coast over Panama City and Mexico Beach, the hardest hit of these Gulf Coast beach towns. On the flight back toward Panama City, the president’s helicopter flew adjacent to Tyndall Air Force Base, where several costly fighter jets were heavily damaged by the winds.
On the way back to Washington, the president stopped in central Georgia, where the damage from winds was less visibly devastating than in Florida, even though it wiped out much of the state’s pecan, peanut and cotton crop just before harvest.
Meeting with farmers, Mr. Trump heard stories like that of Clay Pirkle, a cotton farmer from Turner County, who said his crop — the best in recent memory — was completely destroyed in six hours. “So you were hurt badly?” Mr. Trump asked one farmer. “That’s a hell of a story.”
Mr. Trump reassured the farmers that they would get their crops back. And he singled out one particularly famous peanut farmer.
“Jimmy Carter, peanut farmer,” Mr. Trump said, “and a nice man.” Mr. Trump recalled several meetings with Mr. Carter, a Democrat who was governor of Georgia before he became president. “And if you think about it, that’s what he did,” Mr. Trump added. “Peanuts.”
Two Republicans — Gov. Nathan Deal and his predecessor, Sonny Perdue, who now serves as Mr. Trump’s agriculture secretary — looked on impassively.