Jun 7, 2025 6 min read

Hurricane Season is here-- Week ending June 6

A picture of a van sticking rear up in a river in Asheville, North Carolina, months after Hurricane Helene deposited it there. Copyright Philip Cardella 2024.

By Philip Cardella

June 6, 2025

Introduction

Hurricane season is here so we're off to Asheville where there aren't hurricanes. Le sigh. I wrote those sentences before the new Director of FEMA told the staff at FEMA he didn't know there was a hurricane season (he later he claimed he was joking– hilarious joke, ha ha ha ha smdh). Anyway, family vacation is this week and I'm leaving the computer at home so this will be put in the queue to send it on Saturday, which happens to be my birthday!

Support This Week in Florida

Cuts have consequences, illustrated. As seen on TV 📺 pic.twitter.com/RoR3klSXpL
— John Morales (@JohnMoralesTV) June 2, 2025

A video on the impacts of cuts to NOAA and NWS.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson also offers some context on the cuts.

Finite Disappointment

Honestly, the historic interlude serves for this. I was sick to my stomach as I researched that bit this week about a ship with 922 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were not allowed to stay in Miami and sent back to Nazi Germany.

Historic Interlude

"Cuba rescinds island haven for refugees," reads the headline in The Miami News on June 6, 1939. The ship had been denied entry in Miami on June 4, 1939.

The horrific attack on people in Boulder, Colorado advocating for the release of hostages held by Hamas this week obviously has plenty of precedent in the United States. On June 3, 1939, 922 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany aboard the St. Louis, a German passenger ship, arrived in Miami, Florida, from Havana, Cuba. Despite efforts from some members of FDR's Cabinet to allow the refugees in, they were denied entry to the United States.

The ship sailed away seeking refuge in Cuba and Canada only to return to Germany, and the ruthless dictatorship there.

According to This Day in Florida History (pg 95), one quarter of them died through neglect or outright murder in Nazi death camps. There's no meaningful difference in this case between "died" and "murder" in this case, but the quote in the book was "one quarter of them died in Nazi death camps," and while accurate (disease was a major killer in the camps) realistically, these refugees returned home, where they had fled because it wasn't safe, and were murdered.

Not to get overly political here, but this has parallels to what Venezuelans in Miami-Dade County and around the country are saying will happen if they are forced to return to the ruthless dictatorship in Venezuela.

Remember, the first word in "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," is in fact, "life." That dusty old document, The Declaration of Independence, then goes on to say in the very next sentence, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"

The purpose of government is, according to the Declaration of Independence, to secure everyone's right to life and liberty not to eliminate it. And before someone says, "yeah, that's for the citizens of the government," feel free to look up what citizens meant in 1776– it's both broader than most people think (technically, there was no definition of citizen) and nastier (it functionally meant a small fraction of the people living in the United States, white men– but the definition of white men did not include the Irish or Italians!).

Infinite Hope

My mom and dad and "Corky." Corky went over the rainbow bridge long ago after a long life of fifteen years. Corky died doing what he loved, trying to get it on with a German shepherd. Unfortunately, the German shepherd said no and when a German shepherd says no to a five pound dog...well, pour one out for a dog who died they way he chose.

June 3, the day I'm writing this, is my dad's birthday. I know I already posted about him on the anniversary of his passing in late May, which, obviously, isn't that long ago. I hope he's in good hands now. I hope he's with his beloved pets.

Fun story, once, when he was in a battle with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, something he successfully beat twice, but finally got him last year, he was in the hospital and delirious.