REPORTER: Is the increase in tornados [caused by] global warming?

DESANTIS: I think you can back and find tornadoes for all of human history, for sure, and especially, you know, Florida, how does this storm rate in the history of storms? I think it hit with a barometric pressure of (looks at the man behind him), what was it? About 950 millibars when it hit?

Which, I think if you go back to 1851, there's probably been 27 hurricanes that have had lower, the lower the barometric pressure, the stronger it is. I think there have been about 27 hurricanes that have had lower barometric pressure on landfall than Milton did, and of those, 17 occurred, I think, prior to 1960, and the most powerful hurricane on record since the 1850s in the State of Florida occurred in the 1930s, the Labor Day hurricane. Barometric pressure 892 millibars.

It totally wiped out the Keys. We've never seen anything like it, and that remains head and shoulders above any powerful hurricane in the State of Florida. The most deadly hurricane we've ever had was in 1928, the Okichobi hurricane. Killed over 4,000 people. Fortunately, we aren't going to have anything close to that on this hurricane, but even ones like Ian, it wasn't anything close to that. Yeah, I just think people should put this in perspective. They try to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it's something. There's nothing new under the sun. This is something that the state has dealt with for its entire history, and it's something that we'll continue to deal with.

REPORTER: In your history, sir, how many storms form as rapidly as they have between Helena and Milton.

DESANTIS: I think most people remember 2004 where it seemed like we had them every other week in 2004. Then there's also time period. From 2006-16, we had no hurricanes at all in Florida. There's also been times where we had a lot. In the 1940s, we were hit a lot. Now, more recently, we've had a spate for more. That's just kind of the nature of it, but this really does, it has a lot of similarities to 2004 in terms of the season.