WIKI MEDIA COMMONS | Hurricanes Helene and Milton recently swept through the Southeast U.S., highlighting the challenges communities face in preparing for and recovering from stronger storms.
Georgetown University students living in the Southeast described damage to their hometowns from Hurricane Helene.
Hurricane Helene struck Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane Sept. 26 and trudged through Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky during the following two days. Less than two weeks later, Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane just south of Tampa Bay, Fla., the night of Oct. 9, causing 46 tornados, flash floods, storm surges of 5 to 6 feet of water and wind speeds up to 105 mph.
Helene caused an estimated $160 billion in damages throughout the southeastern United States, becoming one of the costliest and deadliest hurricanes in recent memory. Milton went on to destroy houses, businesses and essential roads. Many members of the Georgetown University community were affected by the natural disasters.
Catherine Hughes (SFS ’27) — a student from Calhoun, Ga., one of the towns impacted by Hurricane Helene — said the aftermath of the hurricane impacted critical infrastructure in her hometown.
“My county is very rural and there’s a lot of parts with dirt roads or just roads that just aren’t very well taken care of,” Hughes wrote to The Hoya. “So they get flooded really easily and then school buses can’t reach them, so school has to be closed, even if the weather really isn’t that bad.”
The Gulf of Mexico’s unseasonably warm temperatures allowed the hurricanes, which feed off warmer temperatures, to gain strength quickly.
According to Pete Marra, dean of the Earth Commons, Georgetown’s hub for environmental sustainability and innovation, the increased frequency and intensity of these severe hurricanes can be attributed to increasing global temperatures driven by the combustion of fossil fuels, gas-based transportation and methane release in waste management.
“All of this is caused by the amount of greenhouse gasses we’re putting into the atmosphere,” Marra told The Hoya.
In response to the hurricanes, the federal government mobilized direct, monetary aid through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief fund to facilitate debris removal and investments in utility companies in the areas. President Joe Biden announced that 250,000 Floridians registered for help from FEMA Oct. 12, a record breaking statistic. While the U.S. Congress replenished FEMA’s general fund in September prior to hurricane season, they did not reach a decision to supplement the disaster relief fund.
Evan Cornell (CAS ’27), who is from High Springs, Fla., expressed his concerns about FEMA’s ability to adequately address the scale of the natural disasters.
“It’s my thinking that we need more support for disaster relief,” Cornell wrote to The Hoya. “As climate change keeps rearing its ugly head and temperatures continue to rise, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, storms are only going to intensify.”
Marra said a lack of accessible insurance further endangers the wellbeing of people living in states impacted by hurricanes.
“One of the challenging things in the hard hit states from storms is that folks can’t get insurance anymore,” Marra wrote. “Insurance is either really expensive or just not available. That’s true for homes and businesses. Insurance companies are just pulling out of states like Louisiana and Florida. When it comes to risk and the cost of recovery, insurance adjusters get it.”
While concern for personal belongings remains pressing, Janet Mann, a professor of biology and psychology at Georgetown, emphasized the threat to wildlife and ecology after hurricanes.
“While these tragedies deeply impact human communities, we should not forget that wildlife and biodiversity are also impacted by extreme floods, storms, heatwaves and fires — often to a point where they cannot rebound or recover,” Mann wrote to The Hoya.
According to Cornell, the increase of intensity and frequency of hurricanes is cause for concern that will continue to affect everyone in years to come.
“I am increasingly becoming more anxious with each upcoming season,” Cornell wrote. “Hurricanes are only getting stronger as temperatures rise.”