Meteorologists called it a once in one thousand year event. I think it’s likely to be a more frequent thing with the way the climate is changing but whatever the case, the scope and scale of this week’s Fort Lauderdale flooding was unprecedented in the Sunshine State.

Much has been rightly made of Governor DeSantis taking 18 hours (or more) to acknowledge via social media the scale of the disaster in Fort Lauderdale while he campaigned for President (unofficially of course) in Ohio and then the next day in Virginia. The Governor’s behavior has been outrageous. On Wednesday, Fort Lauderdale had the third-highest single day rainfall total in US history, and when you consider the size of the catchment area impacted, an area of about three and a half million residents (the metro area has over 6 million people but about half were not seriously impacted), it’s probably among the worst disasters in recent memory. Yet incredibly the Governor showed no regard for the matter.

I have already discussed that I was trapped in an airport garage during the storm, for upwards of 10 hours. Yet I was lucky- the devastation I saw even as I finally left the airport was beyond anything I have seen in my life as I saw dozens & dozens of displaced people tracking whatever they could carry on the side of the highway, with their kids. This was while flood waters consumed every major artery in Broward County with a few exceptions, every empty patch of grass was filled with water and even the runways at FLL, one of 35 busiest airports on the planet was completely submerged.

Truly frightening. It’s not an image you expect in the United States- it’s something I would expect to see in India quite frankly.

Yet the Governor and much of his team didn’t see this as a serious matter, while they played politics.

The Governor did not contact Broward Mayor Lamar Fisher or Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis on Thursday per the information I have been given. His staff, did to their credit, but some things cannot be pawned off on the staff.

It all feels punitive, because in the past the Governor has made a point of wanting to “remake” Broward County by suspending local officials and replacing them with rock-ribbed GOPers. Unlike his Republican predecessors, who would only suspend officials if they were indicted, DeSantis has removed countywide officials and school board members in this county simply because he felt like it.

I’d also point out DeSantis failed to acknowledge the scale of the humanitarian disaster in Orange County after Hurricane Ian, though he came through for coastal counties and even places like Volusia and St Johns whose impacts were arguably less than Orange. I don’t feel I need to spell out why this happened, it’s obvious to anyone who bothers to ponder it objectively.

And let me once again, stress something DeSantistans won’t acknowledge. People like me are judging DeSantis reaction to our plight in comparison to other Republicans- we are not here to play politics. This isn’t partisan. Our last governor, Rick Scott was more conservative than DeSantis, in any test of pure ideology. Yet Scott did compassion and disaster relief in an ideologically-blind way, coming to Democratic counties where he was not popular repeatedly. I am not exaggerating when I say Governor Scott would be here right now, leading and donning a navy cap and trying his best to appear helpful.

Given what we have gone through in this part of the state, it feels like the very top dog we’d look to for help and reassurance has a callous disregard for us. It’s something that goes beyond politics and it hurts. Badly.