Hurricane Michael threatens the Florida Panhandle

Hurricane Michael roared through the Florida Panhandle last week with 155 mph winds and a storm surge that reached 14 feet, killing at least 18 people in four states, destroying homes, and knocking down power lines serving millions of customers.

Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City, Florida, took a direct hit and suffered heavy damage. “The flight line is devastated. Every building has severe damage. Many buildings are a complete loss,” according to the base’s most recent storm damage update.

The head of the US National Guard, one of the top military officers in charge of responding to hurricanes and other disasters affecting the United States, claims he does not know why the climate is changing. What’s more, he has yet to discuss the threat climate change poses to Americans with President Donald Trump.

Those are the main takeaways from a conversation reporters had on Friday with Air Force Gen. Joseph Lengyel, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a session organized by George Washington University, Lengyel discussed the National Guard’s response to Hurricane Michael, which has devastated areas from Florida’s Panhandle to Virginia and killed 13 people this week.

As residents in a half-dozen states collect their remnants from the wreckage left behind by Hurricane Michael, relief efforts are still struggling to reach the most heavily damaged areas in Florida’s Panhandle. When they do, our understanding of the deadly storm’s toll will only grow.

Michael, which made landfall Wednesday as a Category 4 hurricane, has already taken the lives of at least 18 people, a number that grows every day as search and rescue teams dig into the debris.

Hurricane Michael made a dramatic landfall Wednesday afternoon as a fiercer-than-expected Category 4 storm.

After landing near Mexico Beach and Panama City in Florida, Michael continued to move. The storm entered Georgia Wednesday, still a Category 2 hurricane. Its remnants continued up the coast, bringing a huge amount of rain and flooding to many states on the Eastern seaboard.

Early this week, the National Hurricane Center issued a five-day forecast showing Hurricane Michael making landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida. It predicted that the storm would arrive with 80 mph winds.

Yet the storm that arrived Wednesday was not like the one predicted. It was an extremely intense Category 4 storm with 155 mph winds. Measured by barometric pressure, Michael was one of the top four most powerful storms to ever make landfall in the US. When it came ashore, meteorologists say, it was like a 20-mile-wide tornado.