Four Reasons Miami’s First Hurricane Under Donald Trump Will Be Terrible

Donald Trump might in fact hate brown and Latino people so much that he’s now hellbent on unleashing a record-breaking hurricane on South Florida, some sort of biblical wall of water that can carry “criminals” and “rapists” and Jorge Ramos and everything else Trump can’t stand about Miami into the sea. There’s no other way to explain his recent actions this week: According to multiple memos leaked to the Washington Post, the president is gunning to juice up the hurricanes that hit Miami.

Racial animus seems to be the only way to string Trump’s decisions together: To pay for his gigantic defense proposal, he wants to cut satellites that help track hurricanes. To pay for the border wall, he’ll bear down on FEMA and people who pay for flood insurance. Pretty much every monetary policy decision the Trump administration pitched this week seemed to be aimed squarely at Miami — if Trump can’t surround Florida with its own wall, he’ll ensure it sinks into the ocean. Here’s how:

1. Slashing Funding for Hurricane Satellites

According to a memo leaked to the Post, one of Trump’s major budget proposals calls for massive cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which spends a bit of its time studying the very real effects of human-made climate change. It seems Trump wants to punish NOAA for doing this — but the money he most wants to cut from NOAA goes toward tracking extreme weather events such as hurricanes. Trump reportedly wants to cut money to NOAA’s major satellite division; that agency uses its federal cash to maintain satellites that the world uses to track deadly hurricanes. A crippled NOAA means a slower, more cumbersome response the next time tropical storms hit South Florida.

2. Cutting money to FEMA

When those storms do hit Miami, we also won’t be able to clean up afterward. To pay for Trump’s useless wall, his Office of Management and Budget reportedly wants to cut FEMA’s cash allowance by 11 percent — despite the fact that FEMA money mostly goes toward distributing food, water, blankets, and flood insurance checks when storms hit. Less funding means less aid after a big ‘cane.

3. Taxing People Who Pay for Flood Insurance

In what might be the most obvious attack on Miamians, a leaked memo this week said Trump is considering taxing people with flood insurance in flood-prone areas, all so he can suck money into his wall quagmire. This pretty much translates to “taxing Miamians,” because Florida contains by far the most flood insurance policies per state. And Miami-Dade isn’t just the county with the most insurance policies; more people pay for flood insurance in Dade than those living in all but three states. Joke’s on you, Miami.

4. Making Climate Change worse

In addition to Trump’s own lunacy this week, Scott Pruitt, Trump’s climate-change-denying Environmental Protection Agency director, openly contradicted the basic tenets of earth science by saying carbon dioxide does not contribute to global warming. It does, and even oil company employees said Pruitt’s comments surprised them. New Times has repeatedly warned that Pruitt is on a warpath to drown Miami: By making boneheaded decisions like loosening emissions restrictions on cars, Pruitt is all but ensuring that sea levels will continue to rise long after he and Trump have left office. And if that happens, the storm surge from Miami’s next hurricane will be a doozy.