United States: hurricanes Helene and Milton – billions for war, pennies for disaster relief

Two weeks after being slammed by Hurricane Helene—the strongest storm to make landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region in 150 years—the Southeast is now bracing for a potentially worse “monster storm,” Hurricane Milton. It’s the latest in a series of humanitarian disasters across the region, which have wrought destruction far beyond anything seen in living memory.

[Originally published at communistusa.org]

Hurricane Helene made landfall on September 26. The damage is catastrophic, with cost estimates as high as $47 billion. Prior to making landfall, a South Carolina weather forecast office warned, “This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era.” As it turned out, the storm was also one of the deadliest in recent history. So far, hundreds are confirmed to have lost their lives. Thousands more are missing as the terrible task of recovering bodies continues.

Families uprooted and torn apart

After a relatively slow start to the peak hurricane season, Helene’s path to becoming a massive destructive force followed a pattern that has become all too familiar. Fueled by warmer than ever waters in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, Helene escalated from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in just 48 hours.

Families were uprooted and torn apart, not only by evacuations and displacement, but also by the literal disintegration of their homes / Image: Staff Sgt. Jacob Hancock, Florida National Guard

Due to its massive strength, Helene hit areas that are normally spared the worst effects of hurricanes. People were trapped by flood waters and battered by wind as they attempted to ride out the storm in the mountain passes of North Carolina, where hurricane conditions are virtually unknown and evacuation orders came too late. In Florida and Georgia, storm surges pulverized and carried off entire towns. As the hurricane moved inland, its massive size and pressure generated additional hazards, including six confirmed tornadoes which further devastated the Carolinas on September 27.

Families were uprooted and torn apart, not only by evacuations and displacement, but also by the literal disintegration of their homes, as they and their loved ones attempted to shelter in place.

“FEMA does not have the funds”

Having done little to prepare people and mitigate hurricane risks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is now coordinating relief efforts and payments to state administrations. With the incoming second storm’s destructive potential estimated to be every bit as bad—or worse—than the first, an unprecedented mobilization of resources is necessary to face the calamity.

When it comes to disaster relief, the ruling class claims its pockets are empty / Image: The White House, Wikimedia Commons

But the ruling class claims its pockets are empty. Hurricane victims responded with anger and confusion last week when Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said, “We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane to hit … FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.”

How is it possible that the richest, most powerful country in the world does not have enough money for disaster relief?

Anxieties are at a fever pitch with the promise of Milton’s further destruction. Fearing another unmitigated disaster, Florida roads are in gridlock as five million people attempt to flee the storm’s path. At least 16% of the gas stations have completely run out of fuel as of Tuesday night, October 8.

Bourgeois politicking

In true bottom-feeding fashion, Donald Trump wasted no time trying to scapegoat migrants, falsely claiming that the Biden-Harris administration, “Stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”

As Democrats criticize Trump for “politicizing” the disaster, they’re making a great show of visiting the important swing-states of Georgia and North Carolina. They gleefully excoriate Trump for his false claims while posing as benevolent saviors, passing out bottled water and other supplies.

Who can blame the Biden-Harris administration for the disaster? After all, aren’t hurricanes just “acts of god?” Of course, most bourgeois commentators recognize the role of climate change. But they treat it simply as a case of natural phenomena being tragically transformed into cataclysms by natural means, albeit worsened by “human activity” in the abstract.

Capitalism causes climate catastrophe

Communists understand that the “climate” does not affect all classes equally, and the working class is not equally responsible for its degradation as the rulers sitting at the top of society.

Democrats gleefully excoriate Trump for his false claims while posing as benevolent saviors / Image: The White House, Wikimedia Commons

In 2024, the majority of America’s ruling class prefers the Democrats to serve as political managers of American imperialism. They are the trusted leaders of the world capitalist system—a system in which just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

The global warming resulting from these emissions, including warming ocean waters, fuels weather phenomena like Helene and Milton. Private ownership of the means of production also hampers disaster response. Aid must be appropriated from public money, then paid to private companies who profit handsomely on the provision of essential goods.

Bosses say: work till you drown

The priorities of the capitalist class are clear. Across the South, we hear horrific stories of workers forced to toil until the very last moment by owners and management as Hurricane Helene hit. Workers at a Tennessee plastics plant made panicked—and in many cases final—phone calls to loved ones from the factory floor. Trying to get away from rising flood waters, many climbed on top of shelves and forklifts, before the waters overtook them.

Robert Jarvis, a plant worker, described the scene:

[We] were all in panic mode … the water came up so fast and … we had nowhere to go. I lost six good friends. Coworkers. We were family there. We all joked all day long. I spent more time with them than anybody else in my family … I just wish we never went to work that day. Because it was unnecessary, all these lives we lost because of that. It was wrong.

Despite their murderous wrongdoing, Impact Plastics, the owners of the plant, were left to investigate themselves. They put out a statement absolving themselves of any guilt and refusing to comment further—which is, apparently, the end of the matter.

Billions for war, pennies for disaster relief

When a flood carries off a father or hurricane winds collapse a wall which crushes a child, providing money for relief is “complicated” and victims must be patient. The bourgeois politicians and media mouthpieces call it a “horrific tragedy” and offer their “thoughts and prayers.”

Money for imperialist slaughter is already earmarked. What about relief money for disasters which the ruling class itself intensifies? That will take some time / Image: WAFA, Wikimedia Commons

When it is an American-made bomb blowing apart a Palestinian or Lebanese family, they call it Israel’s “right to defend itself,” which they are happy to bankroll with seemingly no limit. They’ve promised Israel $3.8 billion a year between now and 2028, adding to the more than $310 billion paid out to Israel since its founding.

The US military has a budget of $916 billion and is the single greatest polluter on the planet. The government has provided only $270 million, so far, for relief from Helene, with more being cobbled together for Milton’s impending landfall.

Money for imperialist slaughter is already earmarked. What about relief money for disasters which the ruling class itself intensifies? That will take some time, you see.

Not another dime for imperialist crimes!

Survivors of Helene have joined the ranks of the more than 120 million people displaced across Lebanon, Palestine, Ukraine, Mexico, Syria, Sudan, and beyond. The victims of Milton are soon to follow. Their experiences are all echoes of one another—the consequences of living in an increasingly barbaric world. They know what it is to be forced to watch as friends, husbands, wives, mothers, grandparents, and children are ripped away and the walls of their homes crumble around them.

The endless toll of death and destruction will not stop until the working class overthrows this brutal, decrepit, and irrational capitalist system. The fallout from Milton and Helene is preparing an explosion of class rage and indignation that will, sooner or later, set millions against the status quo across the American South.

Not another dime for imperialist crimes while workers go hungry, homeless, and die in disasters for which they were left unprepared and unaided, all to serve the interests of greedy companies! A socialist revolution led by a mass working-class communist party will dismantle imperialism worldwide and is the only way to radically reorganize society in the fight against climate change and its disasters.