Survival in the Sunshine State: Mobilizing in the Wake of Helene and Milton

Report from Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR) on mutual aid organizing in Florida following recent hurricanes.

On September 24th, category 4 Hurricane Helene began gouging its destructive path across the southeast causing flooding along the gulf coast of Florida even before slamming at landfall into the Big Bend area and continuing in a devastating route leaving 230 dead with hundreds still missing. Two weeks later, with Helene debris still lining residential streets, communities across Florida were hit with Hurricane Milton which reached land as a category 3 storm and continued as a sustained hurricane system cutting across the middle of the state.

As Florida fell dark, with over three million losing power, flood waters seeped into Tampa streets, homes were felled, debris clogged the streets, and dozens of lives were lost in a climate event described as a one in one thousand year rain event, burying already Helene-devastated communities in one and a half feet of rain in twenty-four hours. The hyper-intensified climate events were fueled by historically high temperatures in the Gulf.

The Battle for Paradise

Between National Guard and FEMA emergency mapping giving a false all-clear in flood devastated neighborhoods and multibillion dollar cash shortfalls for state storm response due to the cash and arms pipeline to fortify the genocide in Gaza, government responses have abandoned communities to displacement, debilitating loss, and storm-related evictions. Naturally, these communities pivot away from state actors and to trusted movements for solidarity and visibility. Grassroots, communal recovery mobilizations responded with immediate search and rescue, supply distribution, hot meals, fuel access, on-site free markets, mutual aid centers, solar charging stations, flood cleanup assistance, chainsaw crews, and other necessities for survival.

The state, for their part, responded by leveraging threats to withhold top-down aid in communities they feared to enter. If they’re scared of our communities, they’re not part of our communities and can’t help our communities heal. The state, contrary to its limited vision, doesn’t have a monopoly on disaster response and their actions lacking compassion and contextual understanding simply reaffirm the utility of grassroots solidarity efforts supporting those in the crosshairs of disaster capitalism’s rapid rise as the floodwaters recede from homes.

Even if all we have is air mattresses on the floor of a warehouse or church, we are grateful to be able to offer refuge for people who no longer have safe homes to return to, and only wish we could do the same for our loved ones in Tijuana who contra viento y marea survive the violence of borders. Even if all we have to share is food, water, gatorade, fuel, ppe, and herbal medicine, we are grateful to have the ability to share what we have with people who have lost so much, and only wish there weren’t armies and genocide complicit international bodies, agencies, and institutions preventing us from doing the same for our loved ones in Gaza.

With Helene Behind Us and Milton Before Us

Many incarcerated people in the storm path experienced labor exploitation in the state’s frantic push to clear Hurricane Helene related debris from the streets before being lashed by another historic climate event. Prisoners were also forced to shelter caged in mandatory evacuation situated institutions. Fight Toxic Prisons’ rapid abolitionist organizing exposed county jails such as Orient Road in flood zone A, a mandatory evacuation area, adding crushing public pressure and media attention as Milton closed in with numerous county institutions refusing to follow emergency evacuation orders.

In response to hundreds of incarcerated people caged to endure Milton’s historic impact, mutual aid organizers moved pallets of water and gatorade through the prison gates of an impacted institution as solidarity based community organizing surge-responded with mutual aid centers focusing on response, resource sharing, and access to supportive services.

Helping One is Helping All

From Pasco to Pinellas to Hillsborough to Manatee counties and beyond, intersectional climate justice, housing justice, mutual aid and solidarity ethos organizations rapidly mounted resource access points as aid flowed in from autonomous supply lines to the north.

Rescue Pinellas emerged as a search and rescue effort, organized from below, where locals could organize to rescue their neighbors from floodwaters. Streets of Paradise mobilized shower and laundry services in Sarasota, Milton’s landing ground. Love Has No Borders expanded resource distribution to large, weekly street shares on debris-clogged North Tampa streets. St. Pete Food Not Bombs and Tampa Food Not Bombs bolstered hot meal distributions, getting food circulating to vulnerable, food and housing insecure community members. PSL Tampa Bay and St Pete Tenant’s Union have been fighting for a rent freeze and housing justice in the wake of evictions in flood-devastated low income housing projects. Project No Labels continues to populate and move resources through a Pinellas Mutual Aid Hub. Kaon City Medics has attended to the medical and wellness needs of many people impacted by both storms. Florida for Change, Tampa Bay Mutual Aid, Progressive People’s Action Pinellas, New Era Young Lords, Tampa DSA and Lakeland Mutual Aid are just a small number of the movement-rooted mutual aid responses mobilizing work crews and sharing supplies to meet emergent needs. All of the veins opened up between and before us have aided in our rapid organizing response through the connectivity we have built through years of relationship building for resiliency as we have watched our communities endure the double gut-punch of devastating twin climate events within a brief two week span.

With environmental catastrophe and climate gentrification devastating the sunshine state, a communal recovery and liberatory, horizontal response have stitched our intersectional movements together in this moment and time to heal from the disasters behind us and build our capacity to confront those we see approaching on the horizon.

As old systems and narratives break down and compost, uncovering other ways of being in relationship and exchanging resources that are rooted in regenerating our physical and social ecologies, we would do well to remember that the original meaning of apocalypse was not annihilation, but to reveal and to uncover. The unknown is always difficult to face, but as waters reclaim beaches and canals throughout our ecosystem and more and more people awaken to new possibilities, perhaps this is not an ending, but a new beginning, collectively written. What is a power outage to people who build power while the lights are out? And what is a city underwater to people who can swim?