October 10, 2018

Hurricane Michael Just Slammed Into Florida With 155-MPH Winds

The National Weather Service says it’s like an incoming tornado.

NOAA

Hurricane Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida, with 155 mph winds. About 375,000 people are under a mandatory evacuation, but it’s unclear how many people have left.

A rare extreme wind warning is in effect in parts of the Panhandle, and the National Weather Service is advising Floridians to treat the winds as they would treat an incoming tornado.

Houses are being destroyed in Mexico Beach.

Michael is easily bending large trees.

The wind isn’t the only aspect of the storm that has forecasters worried. A storm surge up to 14 feet could inundate the area and devastate local communities. 

As the storm moves inland, it’s also expected to impact parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

Update, October 10, 6:40 p.m. ET: Experts say the storm surge could force red tide—a toxic algae bloom that’s been ravaging Florida’s coast in the past months—ashore and into coastal neighborhoods. Red tide can be deadly for marine mammals, fish, and sea turtles, and can cause respiratory problems for people, but it’s unclear what would happen if the bloom is pushed inland. “A storm surge or king tide could bring red tide up onto land,” Larry Brand, a professor in the Department of Marine Biology and Ecology at the University of Miami, told Bloomberg. “The toxin would get into the air and people would be breathing it.”

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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