On Sept. 26, tragedy struck Florida. A tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico was expected to form into Hurricane Helene. These forceful wings and heavy precipitation traveled up to Florida and grew into a category three hurricane, disastrously hitting the Gulf Coast of Florida on September 26.
Helene had winds as fast as 120 miles per hour, and traveled inland, causing disasters more than 500 miles inland from Florida. This resulted in many towns being victims to flooding and having many peoples’ houses demolished.It is estimated Hurricane Helene alone caused a total of at least 230 deaths across Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Many residents fled their homes to find salvation from the destruction.
But Helene wasn’t the only hurricane that hit Florida. Right after Hurricane Helene had made its mark, came Hurricane Milton. Unfortunately, it was [try to be specific in the details when comparing it to helene] than Helene.. Milton began as a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico, like Helene, and soon expectedly grew to a category five hurricane with wind gusts over 200 miles per hour. Fortunately, the storm mitigated to a category three by the time it hit Florida. Regardless, many people still evacuated Florida, and even seven million people received mandatory evacuation orders.
Before arriving at Florida, Milton had already caused several tornadoes to form. On Oct. 9, Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida. From the Gulf of Mexico, Milton traveled across Florida and ended up in the Atlantic Ocean. Milton mostly affected Florida unlike Helene did.
Ryan Ma has lived in Tallahassee, Florida for 12 years and has experienced Hurricane Helene. In fact, he has experienced 20 hurricanes in his residence in Tallahassee.
“Every time there is a hurricane coming towards Tallahassee, all schools get canceled, as they use school for shelters,” said Ma. “My schedule for sports also gets messed up because of the extreme weather. Now that I have gone through so many hurricanes, I usually know what to expect and I am not that worried.”
Contrary to Hurricane Milton avoiding Tallahassee, Helene made its presence known on Sept. 26 to Ma.
“Me and my family did not evacuate during Hurricane Helene and instead stayed in our home,” said Ma.“The hurricane did not cause any catastrophic damage to Tallahassee, just some fallen trees and powerlines on some roads, and my neighborhood was not affected at all.”
The Tallahassee government has done a great job cleaning up the mess of the hurricane,” said Ma. “One of the major roads in my town had multiple fallen powerlines and trees on it, but thanks to our local government, the road was usable again almost immediately.”
This has not always been the case: previous hurricanes in Florida took a long time to recover from. An example is around two years, when Miami took time to recover from Hurricane Andrew. Furthermore, hurricanes around the same size as Milton took 14 months to recover from. Around $34 billion of damage was caused by Hurricane Milton alone. And Hurricane Helene caused damage that would cost at least 20 billion dollars to repair.
According to The White House, more than 8,000 federal personnel were across the Southeast to assist with Hurricane Helene recovery efforts and to respond to the effects of Hurricane Milton. The U.S. Coast Guard had over 1,300 personnel from all over the nation prepared for search and rescue operations across Florida. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has announced $1 million in funds will be donated to Florida fisheries to help the damages from Hurricane Milton.
