Key Facts Of The Day 10/06

Hurricanes

• On Wednesday, President Biden visited Florida to assess damage and recovery efforts from Hurricane Ian.
  • At least 110 people have died due to Hurricane Ian after it tore through the southeastern U.S. including 105 in Florida and 5 in North Carolina. 
  • More than 120 communities, from recreational vehicle parks to entire cities and utilities, are under boil-water notices, meaning residents must boil water before consumption.
    • It includes the city of Punta Gorda, with a population of about 20,000; a precautionary boil-water notice for the city of Cape Coral, with almost 190,000 people; and Fort Myers, with more than 83,000 people. 
  • As of Thursday morning, over 310,000 customers in Florida remained without power.
  • Just weeks after Ron DeSantis made a very public display of his efforts to keep migrants from coming to Florida, immigrant workers are heading to Florida to help with hurricane cleanup.
  • Hurricane Ian’s destruction is filling hotel rooms and short-term rental accommodations throughout Florida and as far north as Georgia, after thousands of people have been unable to return to their homes.
• An estimated 118,000 homes and businesses were still without power in Puerto Rico on Thursday, over two weeks after Hurricane Fiona caused an island-wide outage.
  • Lawmakers question Luma Energy’s ability to improve Puerto Rico’s fragile power grid.
  • Residents in areas where power has been restored have also reported having unreliable power access.
• A fall storm is expected to bring strong winds and areas of flooding to parts of western Alaska.
  • The National Weather Service issued high wind warnings, in effect beginning Wednesday, for much of northwestern Alaska and for other parts of western Alaska, including St. Lawrence Island and the Bering Strait coast.

Wildfires

• As of Thursday, there are currently 76 large active wildfires that have burned 787,405 across CA, FL, ID, MT, NE, OK, OR, SD, TX, and WA. As of Thursday, 54,863 wildfires have burned 6,933,854 acres across the country.
• In California, 1 fire has burned 76,788 acres as of Thursday.
  • The Mosquito Fire has burned 76,788 acres and is 95% contained as of Thursday.
• In Florida, 1 fire has burned 1,845 acres as of Thursday.
• In Oregon, 5 fires have burned 327,248 acres as of Wednesday.
  • The Cedar Creek Fire has burned 120,926 acres and is 39% contained as of Thursday.
• In Texas, 1 fire has burned 313 acres as of Thursday.

Extreme Heat

• San Diego’s avocado production plummets due to ongoing drought and heat waves.
  • The crop generated just $82.8 million throughout the region last year, down from $152.9 million in 2020, according to the county’s annual crop report. It was the first time the fruit generated less than $100 million a year since 1996.
• A new report from Virginia Tech University found that a combination of climate-related disasters and stagnant government-funded research is cutting into farm productivity around the world.
  • Researchers found that drought has three times the impact on productivity growth as the average extreme climate event, in part because drought typically affects wider geographic areas than floods or storms.
  • They also found that fire has around six times the impact of the average extreme climate event, possibly because it damages perennial crops.
• A new study from the World Weather Attribution found that climate change increased the odds of drought across the northern hemisphere by as much as 20 times.

New Reports and Data

• An October 2022 report found that a combination of climate-related disasters and stagnant government-funded research is cutting into farm productivity around the world.
• An October 2022 study found that climate change increased the odds of drought across the northern hemisphere by as much as 20 times.