Obama and the Frankenstorm

In the next twenty-four hours, America will toast a newly minted President. By all indications, as faint as they may have been— Barack Obama will win a second term. As if to stop the gnashing of teeth for more jobs and the wailing for a too- slow economic recovery, the heavens sent Hurricane Sandy to temporarily shush an acrimonious campaign and adjust perspectives. Like a divine intervention, the Frankenstorm may accidentally have been Obama’s most providential and effective tactic yet.

Seven days before D-day, Sandy took center stage in the dead-heat presidential race. Dubbed “Frankenstorm” the hurricane had merged with a northern blockage and a western storm system, fueling its strength into a monster cyclone. The deadlocked electoral campaign of Obama and Romney came to a screeching halt as details of the looming hurricane stole the show. The largest ever to hit the East Coast, it had a reach of over 520 miles from its center. Since it struck the East Coast at high tide, it had the power to cause higher floods. Before Sandy hit the US, sixty-seven had already died as it ravaged the Caribbean.

The Category 1 hurricane was weaker compared to Category 3 Katrina, but it may have been the scariest in a long while. National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist Paul Kocin said, “What we’re seeing in some of our models is a storm at an intensity that we have not seen in this part of the country in the past century. We’re not trying to hype it. ” Because it made landfall during Halloween, the nickname caught on. Some pundits go further with the analogy to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, noting that Frankenstorm was also man-made.

Although it is not possible to run tests to determine cause-and-effect with sufficient certainty, ocean warming is consistent with intense tropical storms. Darrell Mollendorf in Science, Climate Change asks: Has the warming of the oceans caused more intense tropical storms? Are greenhouse gas emissions the creator of Frankenstorm?

Collating data gained from countless observations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reported that from 1906-2005, the average global surface temperature increased to 0.74°C. Although oceans warmed more slowly than land areas, they have been absorbing over 80% of the heat being added to the climate system. Warm ocean waters are the energy supply for cyclones. This is why they lose force when they hit land. And according to the IPCC, “There is observational evidence of an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970.”

Hurricane Sandy cut a swath of destruction from New York, New Jersey, New England, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, North Carolina, Baltimore, Wisconsin, Virginia and West Virginia. More than 100 people reportedly died, and damages are estimated at $60 Billion. One report said that massive brownouts affected 65 million people. And while Sandy has left the East Coast after piling an October snowfall on West Virginia and Kentucky, it has moved on to Canada unleashing gale force squalls across the Great Lakes.

Frankenstorm left the voters a bit more thoughtful and transcendent. Suddenly the lack of jobs and unsteady economic recovery were made puny by an epic tempest that threatened to purge everyone’s problems — permanently. There’s nothing like a demonstration of life’s fragility to rearrange mindsets. Walter Russell Mead captures the dialectic well:

“For a little while at least, New Yorkers are reminded that we live in a world shaped by forces that are bigger than we are… Soon, though, the winds will die down and the waters recede… New Yorkers will go back to their normal pursuits and Hurricane Sandy will fade into lore.

But events like this don’t come out of nowhere… Human beings want to build lives that exclude what we can’t control — but we can’t.

Strangely, that admission of weakness opens the door to a new kind of strength. To acknowledge and accept weakness is to ground our lives more firmly in truth… to be grounded in reality is to become more able and more alive. Denial is hard work; those who try to stifle their awareness of the limits of human life and ambition in the busy rounds of daily life never reach their full potential. To open your eyes… on that which is infinitely greater than ourselves is to enter more deeply into life.” 

New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie’s unabashed praise of the incumbent’s crisis management skills couldn’t have happened at a better time. The Republicans tried to play down the value of the surprise endorsement from New York’s three-time, billionaire-Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. But political analysts concede that this may have sealed the presidential future. Bloomberg wrote —

When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters… The two parties’ nominees for president offer different visions of where they want to lead America.

One believes a woman’s right to choose should be protected for future generations; one does not. 

One recognizes marriage equality as consistent with America’s march of freedom; one does not.

One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not.

As of this writing, most surveys say that fifty percent of likely voters are backing Obama while 47% support the former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney. The three-point lead falls within the 3% margin of error. The critical swing states: Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia, also post blade-thin leads for Obama, too close to call.

As a keen political advocate, I have not seen a race so tight, so near elections. But then again, I have never experienced a Frankenstorm either. And based on these two phenomena, on the “wind” and a prayer — I place my faith (and bet my bottom dollar) on Obama.

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