Trump says hurricane is ‘under control’. That’s a relief.

Here at Second-Hand News, we’re delighted to hear that Donald Trump has the hurricane under control. We’d been under the impression that hurricanes were enormous, destructive weather systems governed by atmospheric conditions. Apparently, they just needed a firm word.

Speaking to reporters on Friday night, Trump said: “We’re watching it very closely, the hurricane,” adding that it was “under control”. Hurricane Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, as a Category 2 storm.

Watching something very closely is, of course, practically the same as controlling it. I’ve been watching my bank balance for years. Any day now.

To be fair, he wasn’t necessarily claiming to have personally negotiated a reduction in wind speed. The generous interpretation is that he meant the emergency preparations were under control. Reuters described the question as being about hurricane preparations.

But you would think someone in his position might manage a slightly more useful answer. Where help is being sent. What residents should do. Something with more substance than the reassurance you get from a bloke halfway up a ladder that’s visibly moving.

Particularly given his reported history with hurricanes.

The nuclear option. Literally.

In 2019, Axios reported that Trump had suggested using nuclear weapons to stop hurricanes reaching America, although Trump denied the report.

The idea itself, however, deserves every ounce of ridicule available.

Most of us, confronted by a weather forecast we dislike, consider a coat. Someone contemplating a nuclear response has skipped several quite reasonable alternatives.

Imagine being the adviser who has to explain it. You’ve spent years studying national security, worked your way into the White House, and now you’re looking for a respectful way to say: “Mr President, we cannot improve this situation by adding radiation.”

NOAA has an explanation of why nuking hurricanes is a terrible idea: an explosion might not even alter the storm, while radioactive fallout could spread to land and cause devastating environmental damage.

So you could still have a hurricane, with the considerable disadvantage of having also detonated a nuclear weapon.

This is the sort of flaw you’d hope would become apparent before anyone needed to write it down.

Some people actually have work to do

By Saturday, Reuters was reporting four deaths and about 670,000 people without power across four states. Hazardous conditions remained after the storm weakened.

For the people affected, reassurance needs to mean something. A working power supply. Safe drinking water. Someone answering when they call for help.

There are forecasters, emergency workers and utility crews doing difficult, necessary work. Their achievements deserve rather more attention than a president’s ability to sound pleased with himself beside a helicopter.

If Trump meant the response was organised, he could have said so. If he meant the hurricane itself was under control, we’d be fascinated to see the arrangements.

For now, we’ll settle for competent disaster relief and an explicit commitment not to bomb the fucking weather.

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