Tag: Hurricane Irma

Trump on Climate Change and Hurricanes: ‘We’ve Had Bigger Storms’

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President Trump on Thursday dismissed the impact of climate change on Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the two major storms to make landfall in the United States in the last month.

“We’ve had bigger storms,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, following a trip to Florida to assess the impact of Irma.

Trump later ignored a question about his views on climate change, according to reporters traveling with him.

The president’s trip to Florida was the third he’s taken to survey damage from Harvey and Irma, both of which were unusual it their strength and severity.

Harvey broke the record for rainfall from a tropical cyclone in the United States, dropping more than 50 inches of rain on parts of Texas and Louisiana late last month, leaving Houston inundated.

Irma, at its peak, packed sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, making it one of the five strongest storms to form in the Atlantic Ocean. It was a Category 5 hurricane for three days and three hours, the second-longest for any storm on record.

Climatologists have said that while climate change didn’t cause the two monster storms, it likely exacerbated them and made them stronger.

Trump has said he doesn’t accept the scientific consensus of climate change, calling it a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese to undermine the American economy.

[The Hill]

Trump: Hurricanes are Helping the Coast Guard Improve Its ‘Brand’

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President Trump said Sunday that the major hurricanes hitting the U.S. are improving the “brand” of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Trump told a reporter that the country has “great people” responding to the massive storms and that “a group that really deserves tremendous credit is the United States Coast Guard,” according to a White House pool report.

“What they’ve done – I mean, they’ve gone right into that, and you never know. When you go in there, you don’t know if you’re going to come out. They are really – if you talk about branding, no brand has improved more than the United States Coast Guard,” Trump said.

Trump also praised FEMA as “incredible” as Hurricane Irma made landfall on Florida on Sunday.

Trump’s comments came after returning from a Cabinet meeting at Camp David, where he and other administration officials received a briefing on Hurricane Irma.

Irma is the second major hurricane to strike the U.S. in recent weeks after Hurricane Harvey devastated Texas late last month.

[The Hill]

Trump’s Social Media Director Tweets a Fake Irma Video, Is Fact-Checked by Miami Airport

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Fake images and videos of Hurricane Irma that are making the rounds on social media can fool anyone, including, apparently people who are actually working at tracking the storm. The White House’s own director of social media, Dan Scavino Jr., sent out a tweet that he thought showed massive flooding at the Miami International Airport as a way to demonstrate how President Donald Trump’s administration was keeping track of Irma’s devastation. The problem? The video was not actually of the Miami airport.

Miami International Airport quickly replied to Scavino’s tweet to inform him that the video did not depict the situation at the airport. Scavino thanked the Miami Airport for the information and said he would delete the video. Scavino deleted the tweet about 30 minutes after he posted it without ever publicly admitting that he tweeted out a fake piece of news.

Several people on Twitter were quick to point out that the video Scavino claimed showed flooding at Miami airport was actually footage of flooding at Mexico City’s airport from several weeks ago.

[Slate]