I am so tired of being lied to. Aren't you? What are some of the biggest lies? Let's start out by the Republicans saying that Climate Change is a hoax. We can then go to the one they say a Green economy is too expensive. We can then go to the lie that Democrats won't secure the border. How about that oldie but goody the Democrats are weak on crime. I just love it when they say Democrats are weak on Foreign Policy. I am so tired of being lied to when I can see and read the truth. 

Helene formed in the Caribbean as a tropical storm. When it moved into the Gulf of Mexico it formed into a Category 1 Hurricane with the forecast saying that it would strengthen into a Category 3 or stronger storm. Before it made landfall it was a Category 4 Hurricane. All along they said it would make landfall in the Big Bend area in Florida which would make this the 3rd hurricane to hit the Big Bend area in just 13 months. The first one was Idalia. The second one was Debbie. The third one was Helene.  I live in the Fort Myers metropolitan area about 10 minutes to the causeway out to Sanibel Island so this was also going to be the third hurricane I had seen in 13 months that scooted up the coast toward the Big Bend Area. Idalia and Debbie were devastating hurricanes but not like what we experienced two years ago with Ian. Helene was definitely the strongest hurricane to hit the Big Bend area of Florida but when it was done it may also be one of the most costly storms to hit the United States. 

Living on the west coast of Florida the first thing I do in the morning is turn on the Weather Channel. I pay very close attention to every weather event especially Hurricanes and Tropical Storms. I witnessed first hand the destructive force of Ian when it decimated much of Southwestern Florida two years ago. As I was watching Helene form in the Caribbean and saw its projected path as another Hurricane hitting the Big Bend Area I felt bad for that area but was relieved that I wasn't in the path. As I was noticing the coverage of Helene I began to notice that this one seemed different, bigger maybe. The storm surge warnings were from the very southern tip of Florida almost all the way to Panama City in the Panhandle. In my area they were predicting a storm surge of 3 to 5 feet. I thought they were being overly cautious, 3 feet maybe but not 5 feet, not from a storm that was so far off the coast when it was going to go past us here. I guess everyone can be glad I never tried to be a weatherman. I was wrong but so was the weather forecast. Ft. Myers Beach got 7 feet of storm surge. The saying is you hide from the wind but you run from the water and much of the coast of Florida just had too much water.

You have to remember that just two years ago places like Sanibel Island and Ft. Myers Beach were decimated by Ian with 15 feet of storm surge. Now we have a Hurricane 150 miles off the coast and it is generating 7 feet of storm surge. A storm surge that likely erased much of the progress and recovery that had taken 2 years to get to where places were just starting to recover. Now there are homes and businesses that are back to zero starting over again. With Helene this storm surge reeked havoc up the entire west coast of Florida. I had never seen anything like that. This storm was so big that places that were not in the direct path of it suffered tremendous damage all up and down the West Coast of Florida. 

The storm wasn't through after it was done with Florida. Places in western Georgia, western South Carolina and western North Carolina places where the people never thought they had to worry about a Hurricane were now under Hurricane Warnings and Watches or Tropical Storm Watches and Warnings. This storm was a monster that affected almost a third of the country and all of the Southeast. 

I think that Helene is going to be the most costly storm in our history. It wouldn't surprise me that the damage is twice that of Ian which caused 112 billion dollars in damage. Why? because Helene was not just a coastal storm. It was a storm that reached farther inland than any other storm in my lifetime. Dams failing in Tennessee to property destruction in Atlanta GA to gale force winds in the Great Lakes. This storm had a pretty big reach. So why are we not doing anything about Climate Change? One thing is we still have pretty much an entire Political Party refusing to accept the fact that Climate Change is real. I don't know if they truly don't believe Climate Change isn't real or if they are being paid to say that Climate Change isn't real. The science is there but also, all you have to do is look at what Helene has done and you know that the science passes the eye test. Money corrupts and I think that many of our politicians and Supreme Court Justices have been paid too much money to lie to the American people. Who would be paying that money? How about the fossil fuel companies foreign and domestic. How about billionaires that profit from those corporations or profit from doing business with Governments like Saudi Arabia that control the flow of foreign oil.  They are called Campaign Donations or gifts but I think we should start calling them what they are. They are bribes and they should be illegal. 

I really am tired of the lies I am being told and I am also tired of people trying to convince me that those lies are the truth. Whether it is lies about Climate Change, Border Security, or the Economy, we are constantly being told lies by people that would love to ruin our nation. Written on a whiteboard in Jerry's Grocery Store on Sanibel after Ian was "Stupid is knowing the truth, seeing the truth, but still believing the lies." We see the number of weather events growing. We know that science says it is happening. Republicans are still saying it is a hoax and people are still believing the lies.