Recovering from Hurricane Helene: One week later
The center of Helene may have been more than 100 miles from the Tampa area, but it brought historic flooding to the region, even before it made landfall in the Big Bend.
The flood damage left behind comes as the housing market already was wrestling with high insurance premiums and an affordability crisis.
A new law that went into effect this week requires anyone selling a home in Florida to now disclose if the property has ever had a flood insurance claim.
Guests:
- FL Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, (D) Broward County
- David Jolly, former U.S. Rep. (R) Pinellas County
Getting ready to vote
Monday is the deadline to register to vote in Florida if you want to cast a ballot in the election this fall. Vote-by-mail ballots already are in mailboxes and early voting begins in about two weeks.
Guests:
- Christina White, Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections
- Michael McDonald, Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida and with the UF Elections Lab.
PolitiFact claims check
As Election Day nears and voting begins, we will be examining some claims each week with our partner Politifact. If you have a claim you want us to check out - email us : radio@TheFloridaRoundup.org.
This week we skipped the politics and tackled social media, which is full of claims about Hurricane Helene, including this one.
Guest:
- Monique Curet, a deputy editor for PolitiFact focused on debunking online misinformation.
Weekly briefing
For three days this week, the union members who help load and unload cargo ships at ports in Florida went on strike. It was part of a work action at ports from Texas to Maine.
The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) union walked out at midnight Tuesday morning after its contract expired with a group of shipping companies known as the United States Maritime Alliance.
However Thursday, the two sides reached a tentative agreement on wages and to extend their expired deal until January 15. They will return to the bargaining table over other issues while the longshoremen go back to work.
Ports in Tampa, South Florida and Jacksonville were affected in Florida.
So, the week ends with the dockworkers union going back to work but that’s not what it sounded like on Tuesday when the strike began in Port Everglades.
This week, a f ederal court rejected a pro-abortion group’s attempt to block commercials and websites from a state agency about Amendment 4. That’s the amendment asking voters to put abortion protections into the state constitution. Health Reporter Joe Mario Pedersen explained the ruling from our partner Central Florida Public Media.
Before Hurricane Helene grew into the monster it became, the forecast was for some significant storm surge along the Gulf Coast. Four to eight feet in the Tampa Bay area, and much higher in the Big Bend region. Gabriella Paul from our partner station WUSF looked at the early data from tidal gauges from the Tampa Bay region.
There’s never a good time for a devastating storm. Helene’s rain and wind came to the P anhandle as harvest season was beginning for peanuts. Florida is the third largest state for peanuts. Jeff Pittman grows peanuts and cotton and raises beef cattle in Jackson County. He spoke with our partner station WUFT in Gainesville.
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