Governor Polis snubbed Douglas County, where a tornado ripped through six miles from Highlands Ranch Thursday in his disaster emergency declaration that only included Lincoln, Elbert, El Paso and Washington counties.
It was an EF-1 tornado. How did Polis and his staff miss that news?
It’s not clear why Polis would just skip Douglas County. After all, she lost to Heidi Ganahl in last year’s election in every other county in which she declared weather-related emergencies.
Eastern Colorado was at risk for large hail, wind gusts, and isolated tornadoes. At least one confirmed tornado touched down and caused damage in the Highlands Ranch area as the storms moved east.
Douglas County is not included in this Polis statement. But today’s tornado touched down in Douglas County, specifically Highlands Ranch.
Because it is @jaredpolis Ignore one of the most populous and conservative counties in Colorado? #copoliticshttps://t.co/z6WBzdbB0C
—Kristi Burton Brown (@KBBCorado) June 23, 2023
9News’ Kyle Clark told his Twitter followers that the emergency declaration was only for Wednesday’s storms, which were not reported in any of the media coverage we saw. Assuming that’s true, it’s been 24 hours since the tornado hit and there’s still no disaster declaration.
But Clark might be right, maybe it’s not so much political discrimination by Polis as sheer incompetence.
Twitter trolls think it’s funny and they think Douglas County had it coming because they are mostly conservatives who don’t believe the world will end next week due to climate change.
The first recorded tornado in the US was in July 1643, nearly 400 years before we attributed all weather to climate change.
Please take note of that.
Five years ago, Greta Thunberg tweeted that
“Climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels in the next five years.”
The tweet is now deleted. https://t.co/qLzZxJDJJG pic.twitter.com/Wfnjkv2wS5
—Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) June 21, 2023
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