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‘Catching some hell’: Hurricane Michael slams into Florida
PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Supercharged by abnormally warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle with terrifying winds of 155 mph Wednesday, splintering homes and submerging
Its winds shrieking, the Category 4 storm crashed ashore in the early afternoon near Mexico Beach, a tourist town about midway along the Panhandle, a lightly populated, 200-mile stretch of white-sand beach resorts, fishing towns and military bases.
Michael battered the shoreline with sideways rain, powerful gusts and crashing waves, swamping streets and docks, flattening trees, stripped away leaves, shredding awnings and peeling away shingles. It also set off transformer explosions and knocked out power to more than 190,000 homes and businesses.
“We are catching some hell,” said Timothy Thomas, who rode out the storm with his wife in their second-floor apartment in Panama City Beach.
With the hurricane still pounding the state hours after it came ashore, and conditions too dangerous in places for search-and-rescue teams to go out, there were no immediate reports of any deaths or serious injuries.
Michael was a meteorological brute that sprang quickly from a weekend tropical depression, going from a Category 2 on Tuesday to a Category 4 by the time it came ashore. It was the most powerful hurricane on record to hit the Panhandle.
“I’ve had to take antacids I’m so sick to my stomach today because of this impending catastrophe,” National Hurricane Center scientist Eric Blake tweeted as the storm — drawing energy from the unusually warm, 84-degree Gulf waters — became more menacing.
More than 375,000 people up and down the Gulf Coast were urged to evacuate as Michael closed in. But the fast-moving, fast-strengthening storm didn’t give people much time to prepare, and emergency authorities lamented that many ignored the warnings and seemed to think they could ride it out.
“While it might be their
Diane Farris, 57, and her son walked to a high school-turned-shelter near their home in Panama City to find about 1,100 people crammed into a space meant for about half as many. Neither she nor her son had any way to communicate because their lone cellphone got wet and quit working.
“I’m worried about my daughter and grandbaby. I don’t know where they are. You know, that’s hard,” she said, choking back tears.
Hurricane-force winds extended up to 45 miles (75
A water-level station in Apalachicola, close to where Michael came ashore, reported a surge of nearly 8 feet (2.5
Based on its internal barometric pressure, Michael was the third most powerful hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland, behind the unnamed Labor Day storm of 1935 and Camille in 1969. Based on wind speed, it was the fourth-strongest, behind the Labor Day storm (184 mph, or 296 kph), Camille and Andrew in 1992.
It appeared to be so powerful that it was expected to remain a hurricane as it moved into Alabama and Georgia early Thursday. Forecasters said it will unleash damaging wind and rain all the way into the Carolinas, which are still recovering from Hurricane Florence’s epic flooding.
At the White House, President Donald Trump said the government is “absolutely ready for the storm.” ”God bless everyone because it’s going to be a rough one,” he said. “A very dangerous one.”
In Mexico Beach, population 1,000, the storm shattered homes, leaving floating piles of lumber. The lead-
In Panama City, plywood and metal flew off the front of a Holiday Inn Express. Part of the awning fell and shattered the glass front door of the hotel, and the rest of the awning wound up on vehicles parked below it.
“Oh my God, what are we seeing?” said evacuee Rachel Franklin, her mouth hanging open.
The hotel swimming pool had whitecaps, and people’s ears popped because of the drop in barometric pressure. The roar from the hurricane sounded like an airplane taking off.
Meteorologists watched satellite imagery in complete awe as the storm intensified.
“We are in new territory,” National Hurricane Center Meteorologist Dennis Feltgen wrote on Facebook. “The historical record, going back to 1851, finds no Category 4 hurricane ever hitting the Florida panhandle.”
Colorado State University hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach said in an email: “I really fear for what things are going to look like there tomorrow at this time.”
The storm is likely to fire up the debate over global warming.
Scientists say global warming is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme weather, such as storms, droughts, floods and fires. But without extensive study, they cannot directly link a single weather event to the changing climate.
With Election Day less than a month away, the crisis was seen as a test of leadership for Scott, a Republican running for the Senate, and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum , the Democratic nominee for governor. Just as Northern politicians are judged on how they handle snowstorms, their Southern counterparts are watched closely for how they deal with hurricanes.
Thousands of evacuees sought shelter in Tallahassee, which is about 25 miles from the coast but is covered by live oak and pine trees that can fall and cause power outages even in smaller storms.
As winds started to topple trees in Tallahassee, one of them landed on Joe Marino’s chimney.
“It was like an earthquake. The bookshelf shook and a frame fell down,” he said. “It was weird. We went outside and you could smell the pine, and there it was, laying on the chimney.”
Marino, who lives with his girlfriend and her grandmother, said water started dripping through the chimney, and they feared the wind would send the tree crashing through the roof. They planned to stay on the first floor.
“Upstairs is a no-go zone,” he said.
Only a skeleton staff remained at Tyndall Air Force Base, situated on a peninsula just south of Panama City. Hundreds of military families were moved out, and the base’s aircraft, which include F-22 Raptors, were flown to safety hundreds of miles away.
In St. Marks, John Hargan and his family gathered up their pets and moved to a raised building constructed to withstand a Category 5 after water from the St. Marks River began surrounding their home.
Hargan’s 11-year-old son, Jayden, carried one of the family’s dogs in a laundry basket in one arm and held a skateboard in the other as he waded through calf-high water.
Hargan, a bartender at a riverfront restaurant, feared he would lose his home and his job to the storm.
“We basically just walked away from everything and said goodbye to it,” he said, tears welling up. “I’m freakin’ scared I’m going to lose everything I own, man.”
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Associated Press writers Tamara Lush in St. Petersburg, Fla.; Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Freida Frisaro in Miami; Brendan Farrington in St. Marks, Fla.; Russ Bynum in Keaton Beach, Fla.; Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Md., contributed to this story.
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For the latest on Hurricane Michael, visithttps://www.apnews.com/tag/Hurricanes
Jay Reeves And Brendan Farrington, The Associated Press
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
As the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress move aggressively to roll back the climate alarm-driven energy policies of the Biden presidency, proponents of climate change theory have ramped up their scare tactics in hopes of shifting public opinion in their favor.
But CNN’s energetic polling analyst, the irrepressible Harry Enten, says those tactics aren’t working. Indeed, Enten points out the climate alarm messaging which has permeated every nook and cranny of American society for at least 25 years now has failed to move the public opinion needle even a smidgen since 2000.
Appearing on the cable channel’s “CNN News Central” program with host John Berman Thursday, Enten cited polling data showing that just 40% of U.S. citizens are “afraid” of climate change. That is the same percentage who gave a similar answer in 2000.
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Enten’s own report is an example of this fealty. Saying the findings “kind of boggles the mind,” Enten emphasized the fact that, despite all the media hysteria that takes place in the wake of any weather disaster or wildfire, an even lower percentage of Americans are concerned such events might impact them personally.
“In 2006, it was 38%,” Enten says of the percentage who are even “sometimes worried” about being hit by a natural disaster, and adds, “Look at where we are now in 2025. It’s 32%, 38% to 32%. The number’s actually gone down.”
In terms of all adults who worry that a major disaster might hit their own hometown, Enten notes that just 17% admit to such a concern. Even among Democrats, whose party has been the major proponent of climate alarm theory in the U.S., the percentage is a paltry 27%.
While Enten and Berman both appear to be shocked by these findings, they really aren’t surprising. Enten himself notes that climate concerns have never been a driving issue in electoral politics in his conclusion, when Berman points out, “People might think it’s an issue, but clearly not a driving issue when people go to the polls.”
“That’s exactly right,” Enten says, adding, “They may worry about in the abstract, but when it comes to their own lives, they don’t worry.”
This reality of public opinion is a major reason why President Donald Trump and his key cabinet officials have felt free to mount their aggressive push to end any remaining notion that a government-subsidized ‘energy transition’ from oil, gas, and coal to renewables and electric vehicles is happening in the U.S. It is also a big reason why congressional Republicans included language in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to phase out subsidies for those alternative energy technologies.
It is key to understand that the administration’s reprioritization of energy and climate policies goes well beyond just rolling back the Biden policies. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is working on plans to revoke the 2010 endangerment finding related to greenhouse gases which served as the foundation for most of the Obama climate agenda as well.
If that plan can survive the inevitable court challenges, then Trump’s ambitions will only accelerate. Last year’s elimination of the Chevron Deference by the Supreme Court increases the chances of that happening. Ultimately, by the end of 2028, it will be almost as if the Obama and Biden presidencies never happened.
The reality here is that, with such a low percentage of voters expressing concerns about any of this, Trump and congressional Republicans will pay little or no political price for moving in this direction. Thus, unless the polls change radically, the policy direction will remain the same.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
Energy security, resilience and affordability have long been protected by a continentally integrated energy sector.
The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, offers a key platform to reassert how North American energy cooperation has made the U.S. and Canada stronger, according to a joint statement from The Heritage Foundation, the foremost American conservative think tank, and MEI, a pan-Canadian research and educational policy organization.
“Energy cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the United States is vital for the Western World’s energy security,” says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and one of America’s most prominent energy experts. “Both President Trump and Prime Minister Carney share energy as a key priority for their respective administrations.
She added, “The G7 should embrace energy abundance by cooperating and committing to a rapid expansion of energy infrastructure. Members should commit to streamlined permitting, including a one-stop shop permitting and environmental review process, to unleash the capital investment necessary to make energy abundance a reality.”
North America’s energy industry is continentally integrated, benefitting from a blend of U.S. light crude oil and Mexican and Canadian heavy crude oil that keeps the continent’s refineries running smoothly.
Each day, Canada exports 2.8 million barrels of oil to the United States.
These get refined into gasoline, diesel and other higher value-added products that furnish the U.S. market with reliable and affordable energy, as well as exported to other countries, including some 780,000 barrels per day of finished products that get exported to Canada and 1.08 million barrels per day to Mexico.
A similar situation occurs with natural gas, where Canada ships 8.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the United States through a continental network of pipelines.
This gets consumed by U.S. households, as well as transformed into liquefied natural gas products, of which the United States exports 11.5 billion cubic feet per day, mostly from ports in Louisiana, Texas and Maryland.
“The abundance and complementarity of Canada and the United States’ energy resources have made both nations more prosperous and more secure in their supply,” says Daniel Dufort, president and CEO of the MEI. “Both countries stand to reduce dependence on Chinese and Russian energy by expanding their pipeline networks – the United States to the East and Canada to the West – to supply their European and Asian allies in an increasingly turbulent world.”
Under this scenario, Europe would buy more high-value light oil from the U.S., whose domestic needs would be back-stopped by lower-priced heavy oil imports from Canada, whereas Asia would consume more LNG from Canada, diminishing China and Russia’s economic and strategic leverage over it.
* * *
The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.
As the nation’s largest, most broadly supported conservative research and educational institution, The Heritage Foundation has been leading the American conservative movement since our founding in 1973. The Heritage Foundation reaches more than 10 million members, advocates, and concerned Americans every day with information on critical issues facing America.
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