Hurricane Michael

This week on The Florida Roundup, we discuss Florida settling a COVID infection information lawsuit that it fought for two years, new laws that may change how you cast your ballot in the 2024 election, and the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Michael's impact on parts of the panhandle.

Five years ago Hurricane Michael crashed into Florida’s Panhandle. The storm devastated the communities in its path. Homes, jobs and lives were lost. Today, many of the residents who lived through the disaster say they’re still struggling to recover.

Big Bend residents are unlikely to forget the destructiveness of Hurricane Michael in 2018. Although Michael didn’t do its worst in Tallahassee, it wrought havoc in neighboring counties.

Southwest Florida has already answered the immediate question after Hurricane Ian slammed into the coast, killing dozens of people and destroying thousands of homes with record-high storm surge: Will we rebuild?

Mayor Greg Brudnicki and other leaders from a rebuilt Panama City traveled to the southwestern coast this week to help officials plan a way forward. Brudnicki says officials have to concentrate on removing debris because nothing else can happen until that's done.

A legislative budget panel this week gave Gov. DeSantis millions more dollars to pump into storm recovery projects after Hurricane Ian hit Southwest Florida. Ian landed nearly 4 years after Michael slammed into the Panhandle, where recovery continues.

A new research paper found that following Hurricane Michael in 2018, the eight counties most impacted by the storm saw an 7 percent decline in voter turnout in the November elections. What could it mean post-Hurricane Ian?

Such massive storms are fairly rare, and it's even more rare for them to make landfall. NOAA says that for such storms, "catastrophic damage will occur" with electricity outages "for weeks or months."

Hurricane experts say forecasting storm intensity remains a big challenge. That’s especially true in an era of climate change that scientists say is likely producing more powerful and deadly storms.

The high cost of rebuilding drove some residents out. But there are many newcomers. A real estate agent says, "It used to be called the Forgotten Coast. I don't think it's so forgotten anymore."

When Hurricane Michael tore through North Florida in 2018 as a Category 5 storm, it left more than 3 million acres of felled trees in its wake.

Three wildfires that started over the weekend are still threatening neighborhoods in Bay County.