Hurricanes cause destruction for many

Throughout the years, hurricanes and terrible weather has taken place in many states hitting Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina and most of all Florida. Recently in 2024, Florida has gotten hit the most. Approximately 500 tropical cyclones have affected the state of Florida. Lately, the hurricane season in Florida is more active than average.  

According to the National Hurricane Center, it is predicted that there could be up to 25 named storms. Hurricane Milton was the most recent hurricane that devastated parts of Florida. Some lives have even been taken recently by Hurricane Helene which flooded Tennessee. A family from Tennessee has filed a wrongful death lawsuit because of one of their family members that got killed during this flooding. These deathly floods left behind a path of destruction stretching over 500 miles from Florida. The storm caused at least 130 deaths.  

Millions of people had lost power and access to water across at least six states. This flooding and hurricane affected so many.  

Ella Puntel is a student taking online classes from Butler who lives in Florida. She, originally from Wichita, is also a social work major who is 21 years old, and she lived through the destruction of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. At the time, she was at her job and her family was at home.  

“That was very, very scary for me,” Puntel said. “I was at the school that I work at. I work at IMG Academy, so it's a boarding school having 260+ kids in a gym. You know crying, they don't know what's going on and then my mom doesn't know what's going on with me. I don't know what's going on. We didn’t have service. It was very scary. My home did get damaged pretty badly. It was unexpected.”  

Her neighborhood was destroyed. The most challenging part for her personally is coping with Milton because it didn't feel like it was a category five hurricane.  

“They didn't make any immediate changes, but they are going to be changing our windows to make them level five category five safe,” Puntel said. “Coping with the storm since it's been good with the children that I worked for. They are pretty worked up afterwards because the whole campus was completely destroyed, which was very sad to see in them.” 

For Puntel and her community, residents came together to help with what they could.  

Unlike many Butler students who live in the Kansas area or on campus, her academics were also affected due to the hurricane damage. 

 “I did have to email all of my professors to say I'm in a hurricane,” Puntel said. “I didn’t have any power for the next few days, my house was destroyed and some of them did understand and extend my assignments, but I was just more worried about if I was in a live or die and what was especially stressful for me. I try to do my assignments and try to get them done, but still like the craziness around me in my community just being destroyed.” 

For Puntel, dealing with the damages weren’t just physically scarring, but also mentally. 

 “” don't have a lot of people to talk to because everybody is scared and very stressed out,” Puntel said. “There were no support services that the school offered because it is in Kansas.” 

Another Butler student, William (Thomas)  Gibbs, is from Jacksonville, Florida. Gibbs came to Butler because he was recruited for baseball. Although his family were not directly affected by this hurricane, they did have to take precautions. While Gibbs was at Butler, his family bought sandbags to help against any flooding or storm surge as well as lots of groceries, candles and flashlights in case of a power outage.  

“In the past when we have been hit with large storm surges,” Gibbs said. “We have had to board windows and place sandbags around any points of entry to our house. Hurricanes for me and my family have been a pretty constant event that takes place. It feels like every year, we are preparing for storms come August and September. My brother and I even joke that it is like our version of snow days since it doesn't snow in Florida. It's the only time we got off school for the weather.” 

 The most challenging part of hurricanes for the Gibbs family given their distance to the ocean and the river is keeping their house dry. The palm trees do a good job at withstanding the winds, but storm surges are what worry them. Hurricane Matthew is what really caused them damage. They had about a foot of water in their first level for a little while. Other than that, they have been fortunate to have been narrowly missed by some of the bigger hurricanes, which have hit in recent years due to their geographic location. Since they are on the Atlantic coast, it always seems like the gulf gets hit harder.  

“The hurricanes this year definitely had an impact on me being here mainly because I was worried about my family and friends back home, which made it hard to focus on school and baseball at times,” Gibbs said. “Luckily, we were ok and only lost power for a couple of days but no major damages or injuries. When I was younger in high school, I probably missed 20+ days of school and multiple athletic events including several high school football games due to hurricanes.”  

Both Puntel and Gibbs explained that there are safety precautions that residents can take during hurricane season. 

“It made me want to prepare more for the storms, get sandbags and get wood, so it doesn't run out,” Puntel said. “Get extra gas to make sure we're all ok and get extra food. And if not at the last minute, like most people do, just definitely prepare in the future. Outside of Florida, I want people to understand that it is a natural disaster and it's not just you know this happens overnight.”