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Tag: Accidents and disasters

  • Sheriff: Dogs attack family in Tennessee, 2 children killed

    Sheriff: Dogs attack family in Tennessee, 2 children killed

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    MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Two young children were killed and their mother was hospitalized after two family dogs attacked them at their home in Tennessee, officials said.

    The dogs attacked a 2-year-old girl, a 5-month-old boy and their mother Wednesday afternoon in the home located north of Memphis near Shelby Forest State Park, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office said in a tweet.

    The children were pronounced dead at the scene and their mother was taken to a Memphis hospital in critical condition.

    The investigation remains active. No further information was immediately released.

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  • At 15 least dead as 2 migrant boats sink in Greek waters

    At 15 least dead as 2 migrant boats sink in Greek waters

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    ATHENS, Greece — At least 15 people have died as two boats carrying migrants sank in Greek waters late Wednesday, and rescuers were looking for dozens still missing, authorities said early Thursday. The coast guard said 15 bodies had been recovered near the eastern island of Lesbos after a dinghy carrying about 40 people sank. Five people were rescued and three had been located on a rocky outcrop near the site of the sinking. A second rescue effort was launched several hundred kilometers (miles) to the west, near the island of Kythira, where a sailboat carrying about 100 migrants hit rocks and sank late Wednesday.

    Officials said 30 people had been rescued after that boat hit rocks off the village port of Diakofti on the east of the island. Winds in the area were up to 70 kph (45 mph).

    “We could see the boat smashing against the rocks and people climbing up those rocks to try and save themselves. It was an unbelievable sight,” Martha Stathaki, a local resident told The Associated Press. “All the residents here went down to the harbor to try and help.”

    Fire service rescuers lowered ropes to help migrants climb up cliffs on the seafront. Local officials said a school in the area would be opened to provide shelter for the rescued. Navy divers were also expected to arrive Thursday.

    Most migrants reaching Greece travel from neighboring Turkey, but smugglers have changed routes in recent months in an effort to avoid heavily patrolled waters around Greek islands near the Turkish coastline.

    Kythira is some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Turkey and on a route often used by smugglers to bypass Greece and head directly to Italy. ——— Full coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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  • Climate change made summer drought 20 times more likely

    Climate change made summer drought 20 times more likely

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    Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study.

    Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species and led to water restrictions in Europe. It struck places already plagued by drying in the U.S., like the West, but also places where drought is more rare, like the Northeast. China also just had its driest summer in 60 years, leaving its famous Yangtze river half its normal width.

    Researchers from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists from around the world who study the link between extreme weather and climate change, say this type of drought would only happen once every 400 years across the Northern Hemisphere if not for human-caused climate change. Now they expect these conditions to repeat every 20 years, given how much the climate has warmed.

    Ecological disasters like the widespread drought and then massive flooding in Pakistan, are the “fingerprints of climate change,” Maarten van Aalst, a climate scientist at Columbia University and study co-author, said.

    “The impacts are very clear to people and are hitting hard,” he said, “not just in poor countries, like the flooding Pakistan …. but also in some of the richest parts of the world, like western central Europe.”

    To figure out the influence of climate change on drying in the Northern Hemisphere, scientists analyzed weather data, computer simulations and soil moisture throughout the regions, excluding tropical areas. They found that climate change made dry soil conditions much more likely over the last several months.

    This analysis was done using the warming the climate has already experienced so far, 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit), but climate scientists have warned the climate will get warmer, and the authors of the study accounted for that.

    With an additional 0.8 degrees C degrees warming, this type of drought will happen once every 10 years in western Central Europe and every year throughout the Northern Hemisphere, said Dominik Schumacher, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, a university in Switzerland.

    “We’re seeing these compounding and cascading effect across sectors and across regions,” van Aalst said. “One way to reduce those impacts (is) to reduce emissions.”

    ———

    Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

    ———

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Resident sues wood products company over California wildfire

    Resident sues wood products company over California wildfire

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California man who lost his home in a wildfire last month has sued a wood products company at the center of the blaze, accusing it of failing to address the risk of a fire starting on its property.

    The fire started near the Roseburg Forest Products Co. mill on Sept. 2 in the small town of Weed near the California-Oregon border. It eventually burned more than six square miles (15.5 square kilometers), destroyed 118 buildings and killed two people. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is still investigating the cause of the fire.

    The mill produces its own electricity from wood remnants, a process that produces hot ash that is then sprayed with water from a machine. The company says it is investigating whether that machine, which it says is supplied by a third-party, failed to cool the ash enough, which could have started the fire.

    Tuesday, lawyers for 61-year-old Robert Davies sued the company, saying it did not make sure the machine was adequately designed, inspected and maintained — making the shed where the ashes were stored “a tinderbox awaiting a spark.”

    Instead of fixing the machine, the lawsuit says the company relied on its employees to put out fires, resulting in “a number of unreported fires at the facility.”

    “It begs the question, what was done from a safety standpoint to be able to address these fires that had occurred by using the correct technology and systems that would not rely solely on humans to be able to intervene,” Frank Pitre, one of Davies’ lawyers, said during a press conference on Wednesday.

    A spokesperson for the company declined to comment.

    The company has set aside $50 million to support victims of the fire, and so far it has compensated more than 300 people. That included Davies, who received $5,000. The lawsuit says this wasn’t enough to compensate him for the loss of his home of over 30 years and everything inside it.

    Pitre said he doesn’t believe the fire was a freak accident, saying multiple fires occurred on the site leading up to the blaze, known as the Mill Fire, which began on Sept. 2. He added the area was notorious for high winds during certain parts of the year.

    Terry Anderlini, another lawyer representing Davies, said Wednesday that the fire should never have happened.

    “We’re here to bring this forward and get to the truth of the matter,” Anderlini said.

    Warmer temperatures and drier conditions as a result of climate change have sped up the cadence of wildfires in Western states, scientists say. Wildfires have devastated communities in California, which, in the last five years, has seen the largest and most destructive fires in history.

    The Mill Fire started less than a quarter mile (0.3 kilometers) from the Weed City Fire Department and burned for 11 days. It prompted Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency in Siskiyou County and resulted in federal grant money to fight the blaze and support residents.

    Davies, who previously worked for an engineering company that contracted with the U.S. military, said he was in his home with his 25-year-old son when the fire started. After hearing helicopters flying from above, Davies walked outside and saw smoke coming over a hill. Within less than an hour, the smoke reached his house, he said.

    Davies and his son left their home with laundry baskets and clothes. Among the items left behind in Davies’ house were Disney collectibles he planned to will to his 36-year-old daughter.

    Davies said his family moved to the house in the mountains at least in part to avoid crime in larger cities.

    “In a way, it was kind of like a fairytale,” Davies said. “We never had to worry. And that’s all been stripped from, not only myself, but my children.”

    ———

    Sophie Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Sophie Austin on Twitter.

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  • Florida’s island dwellers digging out from Ian’s destruction

    Florida’s island dwellers digging out from Ian’s destruction

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    ST. JAMES CITY, Fla. — Following Hurricane Ian’s destruction, many residents on one Florida island have stayed put for days without electricity and other resources while hoping the lone bridge to the mainland is repaired.

    Pine Island, the largest barrier island off Florida’s Gulf Coast, has been largely cut off from the outside world after Ian heavily damaged its causeway and rendered its towns reachable only by boat or aircraft.

    “We feel as a community that if we leave the island — abandon it — nobody is going to take care of that problem of fixing our road in and out,” Pine Island resident Leslie Arias said as small motor boats delivered water and other necessities.

    A week after the Category 4 storm hit southwest Florida, the full breadth of its destruction is still coming into focus. Utility workers continued Wednesday to push ahead to restore power and crews searched for anyone still trapped inside flooded or damaged homes, while the number of storm-related deaths has risen to at least 84 in recent days.

    At least 75 people were killed in Florida, five in North Carolina, three in Cuba and one in Virginia since Ian made landfall on the Caribbean island Sept. 27, a day before it reached Florida’s Gulf Coast. After churning northeastward into the Atlantic, the hurricane made another landfall in South Carolina before pushing into the mid-Atlantic states.

    There have been deaths in vehicle wrecks, drownings and accidents. A man drowned after becoming trapped under a vehicle. Another got trapped trying to climb through a window. And a woman died when a gust of wind knocked her off her porch while she was smoking a cigarette as the storm approached, authorities said.

    In hardest-hit Lee County, Florida, all 45 people killed by the hurricane were over age 50.

    President Joe Biden was scheduled Wednesday to visit Fort Myers’ Fisherman’s Wharf in an area that was especially devastated by winds and surging tides.

    Boats, including huge yachts, were thrown asunder, laying capsized inland far from their usual moorings. Homes and businesses lay in ruins with shattered windows, while the the surrounding landscape is a wasteland of debris and muck.

    The wharf lies on one side of the bridge that leads into Fort Myers Beach, which was brutalized by the storm.

    The Biden administration said the president has made additional federal disaster assistance available to Florida, including for debris removal and emergency protective measures.

    Power restoration has become job one, but vehicle access from barrier islands to the mainland is also a priority. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said a temporary bridge to Pine Island should be finished by the end of the week.

    Officials are also planning a similar temporary bridge for nearby Sanibel Island, but it will take a little more time.

    “They were talking about running ferries and stuff,” DeSantis said. “And honestly, you may be able to do that, but I think this is an easier thing, and I think people need their vehicles anyways.”

    In the meantime, small motorboats continued to provision Pine Island. Jay Pick, who has been on the island since May to help his in-laws, said the winds from Ian blew the house’s roof off.

    “We’re all safe, though,” Pick said Tuesday afternoon. “We’re blessed. Driving around seeing what some people have compared to what we have left, you get that survivor-guilt thing. I’m trying not to. I’m trying to be happy for what we do have left.”

    Arias, who also chose to stay on the island, said Tuesday that many who stayed are supporting each other.

    “We have now gathered a lot of resources, not only donations but volunteers as well,” Arias said. “It’s a wonderful thing to see how the community has come together. In every end of the island … there is a family member or a neighbor helping that other neighbor.”

    ———

    Associated Press writer Bobby Caina Calvan in Fort Myers, Florida, contributed to this report.

    ———

    For more coverage of Hurricane Ian, go to: https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes

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  • Seoul’s reprisal blows up after North Korean missile success

    Seoul’s reprisal blows up after North Korean missile success

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    SEOUL, South Korea — A malfunctioning South Korean ballistic missile blew up as it plowed into the ground Wednesday during a live-fire drill with the United States that was a reprisal for North Korea’s successful launch a day earlier of a weapon that flew over Japan and has the range to strike the U.S. territory of Guam.

    The explosion and subsequent fire panicked and confused residents of the coastal city of Gangneung, who were already uneasy over the increasingly provocative weapons tests by rival North Korea. Their concern that it could be a North Korean attack only grew as the military and government officials provided no explanation about the explosion for hours.

    South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said no injuries have been reported from the explosion, which involved a short-range Hyumoo-2 missile that crashed inside an air force base in the outskirts of the city. It said the crash didn’t affect any civilian facilities.

    Kwon Seong-dong, a ruling party lawmaker representing Gangneung, wrote on Facebook that a “weapons system operated by our blood-like taxpayer money ended up threatening our own people” and called for the military to thoroughly investigate the missile failure. He also criticized the military for not issuing a notice about the failure while maintaining a media embargo on the joint drills.

    “It was an irresponsible response,” Kwon wrote. “They don’t even have an official press release yet.”

    South Korea’s military acknowledged the malfunction hours after internet users raised alarm about the blast and posted social media videos showing an orange ball of flames emerging from an area they described as near the air force base. It said it was investigating what caused the “abnormal flight” of the missile.

    Officials at Gangneung’s fire department and city hall said emergency workers were dispatched to the air force base and a nearby army base in response to calls about a possible explosion but were sent back by military officials.

    The U.S. and South Korean militaries are conducting the joint exercises to show their ability to deter a North Korean attack on the South. During Tuesday’s drills, they conducted bombing runs by F-15 strike jets using precision munitions and launched two missiles each that are part of the Army Tactical Missile System.

    Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was scheduled to return to waters east of South Korea on Wednesday to demonstrate the allies’ “firm will” to counter North’s continued provocations and threats. The carrier was part of drills last week with South Korea and Japan.

    The homegrown Hyumoo-2 is key to South Korea’s preemptive and retaliatory strike strategies against the North. Some versions of the missile are similar to Russian-designed Iskander missiles, which are part of North Korea’s arsenal.

    North Korea’s successful launch of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile hours before the drills was the country’s most provocative weapons demonstration since 2017 and was its fifth round of weapons tests in 10 days.

    That missile has a range capable of striking Guam, which is home to one of the largest military facilities maintained by the U.S. in Asia. North Korea in 2017 also tested missiles capable of hitting the continental United States.

    North Korea has fired nearly 40 ballistic missiles over about 20 different launch events this year, exploiting Russia’s war on Ukraine and the resulting deep divide in the U.N. Security Council to accelerate its arms development without risking further sanctions.

    Its aim is to develop a fully fledged nuclear arsenal capable of threatening the U.S. mainland and its allies while gaining recognition as a nuclear state and wresting concessions from those countries.

    The United States, Britain, France, Albania, Norway and Ireland called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council over the latest North Korean launch. The open meeting was scheduled for 3 p.m. Wednesday.

    ———

    See more AP Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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  • Indonesia soccer group: Some gates locked in deadly crush

    Indonesia soccer group: Some gates locked in deadly crush

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    MALANG, Indonesia — Delays in unlocking the gates at an Indonesian soccer stadium after violence broke out at the end of a match contributed to a disaster in which at least 131 people died, the national soccer association said Tuesday.

    The Football Association of Indonesia said it has permanently banned the chief executive and security coordinator of the team that hosted Saturday’s match, Arema FC, for failing to secure the field and promptly issue a command to unlock the gates.

    “The doors should have been open, but were closed,” said Erwin Tobing, chief of the association’s discipline commission.

    Because of a lack of workers, only a few people were ordered to open the gates, and they had not yet reached some doors when spectators began rushing to escape tear gas fired by police in an attempt to control fans who had entered the field, association spokesperson Ahmad Riyadh said.

    He said all gates should be unlocked 10 minutes before the end of a match. But on Saturday, 7 minutes after the referee blew the final whistle, several doors were still locked, contributing to the toll in one of the world’s deadliest sporting disasters.

    Police, however, continued to insist Tuesday that the gates were open but were too narrow and could only accommodate two people at a time when hundreds were trying to escape.

    According to recommendations by FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation, exits at stadiums must be unlocked at all times during a game for safety purposes. Those rules don’t necessarily apply to domestic or national leagues but nevertheless are a safety standard, as is the recommendation against the use of tear gas as a crowd-control measure.

    Photos from the Malang stadium showed four connecting door panels forming one gate. There were 14 gates in total.

    Police said their investigation focused on video recordings from surveillance cameras at six of the 14 gates where most of the victims died.

    “For those six gates, they were not closed but they were too small. They had a capacity for two people but there were hundreds coming out. There was a crush there,” police spokesperson Dedi Prasetyo told reporters. He added that the gates were the responsibility of the organizers.

    Most of the deaths occurred when riot police fired tear gas and caused fans to make a panicked, chaotic run for the exits. Police acted after some of the 42,000 Arema fans ran onto the pitch in anger after their team was defeated 3-2, its first loss at home against visiting Persebaya Surabaya in 23 years.

    On Monday, police announced they had removed a police chief and nine elite officers, and 18 others were being investigated for responsibility in the firing of tear gas inside the stadium.

    Some survivors said some of the exit gates were locked and they were unable to escape. Most of them specifically mentioned Gate 13.

    “People tried to save themselves after tear gas was fired. My group was separated from each other,” said Prasetyo Pujiono, a 32-year-old farmer from Malang who watched the match with friends near Gate 13.

    “People could not stay anymore inside the stadium. We wanted to escape but the gate was closed. That is why most people died as they were trampled or suffocated,” he said. “I remember they were screaming that they cannot breathe and their eyes hurt.”

    Those trying to escape finally broke through the wall next to Gate 13, leaving behind a big hole with scrawled graffiti that read: “Goodbye my brothers and sisters. 01-10-2022.”

    Hundreds of Arema supporters and local residents have been paying tribute to the victims at Gates 13 and 12 since Monday. They prayed together, dropped rose petals, flower bouquets and placed several Arema scarves around the gates.

    Pujianto said he moved more than 20 bodies that lay scattered around Gate 13.

    “Poor them. So many bodies were scattered at Gate 13. We could not have gotten out if we had not moved them. So my friends and I carried them to the field,” he said.

    Evita Triawardani, a 26-year-old Arema supporter, said that in every match she had attended, the organizers usually opened the gates 15 to 20 minutes before the game ended. But that Saturday night, she said Gate 13 was closed. She saved herself by running out of the stadium through Gate 14, which she said was open.

    She said she saw people crying and gasping for air in clouds of tear gas, and parents holding their children above their shoulders so they could breathe. At least 17 children were among the dead.

    The Football Association of Indonesia announced it has banned Arema from hosting any matches attended by its supporters in Malang until next year as a result of Saturday’s disaster.

    Tobing said Arema’s chief executive, Abdul Harris, and the coordinator of security, Suko Sutrisno, have been banned from participating in soccer for life because they had not secured the field and delayed the opening of the gates.

    ———

    See more AP Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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  • 2 South American researchers killed in Missouri

    2 South American researchers killed in Missouri

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    KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri homicide and arson detectives are investigating the deaths of two South American researchers whose bodies were found after a weekend apartment fire near the Kansas City biomedical research center where they worked.

    Kansas City police identified the victims as Camila Behrensen, 24, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Pablo Guzmán Palma, 25, of Santiago, Chile.

    The Stowers Institute for Medical Research said in a tweet Tuesday that both Behrensen and Palma were predoctoral researchers there.

    “Our deepest sympathies are with their families,” the tweet said. “During this difficult time, and most importantly, out of respect to the two families, we want to honor and remember the joy, optimism, and exceptional work these two individuals embodied and all that they have accomplished.”

    Behrensen and Palma were suffering from what police described as “apparent trauma” when fire crews responded Saturday and extinguished the blaze. Both were declared dead at the scene.

    Police released few details but said there is a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. They asked Tuesday for help from anyone with surveillance video.

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  • Son documents harrowing rescue of mom from Ian’s floodwaters

    Son documents harrowing rescue of mom from Ian’s floodwaters

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    In one photo, Johnny Lauder’s 86-year-old mother is in her Florida home, submerged nearly to her shoulders in black murky water, staring straight at the camera, mouth open.

    In another, she lies just above the waterline on a table, wrapped in sheets to keep warm. In yet another, she’s being pushed through the water in a wheelchair, her rescue nearly complete.

    The photos were taken after Hurricane Ian made landfall last Wednesday, bringing a powerful storm surge and 150 mph (241 kph) winds. They tell the story of Lauder’s journey to save his mother, Karen Lauder, from the home she refused to leave, despite the family’s pleading .

    He sent the short videos and photos to his family, letting them know he was OK.

    “That’s how I unintentionally documented the whole ordeal,” he said.

    Before the storm hit, Lauder said his mother — who lost a leg and requires a wheelchair — “ kicked and screamed” and said she didn’t want to leave her home in Naples, Florida. “We didn’t evacuate because we couldn’t leave her behind,” he explained.

    She did not expect the level of destruction Ian would bring. Speaking from his son’s home on Tuesday, Lauder said his mom’s house had flooded about six inches during Hurricane Irma in 2017, so she assumed a similar outcome with Ian.

    Instead, Ian ravaged Florida as one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the U.S. and flooded more than three feet of her home, trapping her inside. She called her son for help.

    “She said the water was up to her wheelchair and hitting her belly button,” Lauder said. He was sheltering at his son’s house, a half mile (0.8 km) from his mom.

    Lauder, who said he has rescue diver training, dove out the window. He swam, walked, waded and kicked through water for about 45 minutes to get to her house. He said a van and a couple cars floated past him as he steered clear of sparking electric poles.

    Lauder said he heard his mother screaming as he approached.

    “It was a sense of terror and relief at the same time,” he said. “The terror was that I didn’t know if something was falling on her or if she was trapped and hurt. But the relief was knowing that there’s still air in her lungs.”

    He put her on a table and bundled her in dry sheets from a high shelf. He worried about the sores around her body — open wounds that were dangerously susceptible to infection in the bacteria —ridden floodwater.

    They waited three hours for the water to subside, so he could push her through the streets in her wheelchair. When the water was a couple feet high, he called for his 20-year-old son to join them and help push grandma to safety.

    Around 1 a.m. — about 11 hours after Lauder’s mother called him for help — Lauder returned to his older son’s house with his mother and younger son in tow.

    Lauder said his mom was later taken to a hospital, because she had some infections. “But they were treated, and she’s warm. She’s in a soft comfy bed. She’s good,” he added.

    Cassandra Clark, Lauder’s sister-in-law in Miami, started a GoFundMe to raise money for Lauder, his mother and his sons.

    “While we’re so grateful our family is physically alright, they’ve lost absolutely everything in this storm and, unfortunately, did not have any renter’s insurance,” Clark wrote.

    The page raised over $17,000 as of Tuesday.

    “I get choked up that all these people are helping me and they don’t even know me,” Lauder said.

    He hopes that people will know now to evacuate. “My mom has changed her tone: she will be evacuating next time,” he said. “I hope people learn from others’ mistakes and not their own.”

    ———

    Trisha Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Trisha Ahmed on Twitter.

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  • 10 mountaineers killed after avalanche in northern India

    10 mountaineers killed after avalanche in northern India

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    NEW DELHI — At least 10 trainee mountaineers died Tuesday after being swept away by an avalanche in the Himalayas in northern India, media reports said, as rescuers searched for 11 others missing.

    A group of 29 people was hit by an avalanche on a mountain peak located in the Gangotri range of the Garhwal Himalayas on Tuesday morning, said Uttarakhand state police chief Ashok Kumar. He said rescuers pulled eight survivors from the snow and took them to a local hospital for treatment.

    The Press Trust of India news agency reported 10 had died.

    All the missing were undergoing training at a mountaineering institute but far from the avalanche site, Kumar said.

    Uttarakhand state’s top elected official, Pushkar Singh Dhami, said the National Disaster Response Force and the Indian army deployed teams to help with rescue efforts. The Indian air force deployed two helicopters to search for the missing.

    “It has happened for the first time in the history of Indian mountaineering that such a large group of trainee mountaineers has been killed in an avalanche,” said Amit Chowdhary, an official at the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation and a former Indian air force officer.

    Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said he was “deeply anguished” by the loss of lives in the avalanche.

    “My condolences to the bereaved families who have lost their loved ones,” Singh tweeted.

    Avalanches are common in the mountainous areas of Uttarakhand. Last year, a glacier burst in the state resulted in a flash flood that left more than 200 people dead.

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  • Hurricane Ian shakes SW Florida’s faith but can’t destroy it

    Hurricane Ian shakes SW Florida’s faith but can’t destroy it

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    FORT MYERS, Fla. — In darkness and despair, there were flickers of light and hope, even for Jane Compton who lost her home and possessions to Hurricane Ian’s wrath. As the storm approached last week, she and her husband found sanctuary at their Baptist church, huddling with fellow parishioners through wind, rain and worry.

    They prayed for the gusts to subside and for God to keep them from harm as the hurricane made landfall last Wednesday. Floodwaters swept under the pews, driving the congregation to the pulpit and further testing their faith. The intensifying storm ripped the church’s steeple away, leaving a large gap in the roof. The parishioners shuddered.

    “Good Lord, please protect us,” Compton prayed, with her husband, Del, at her side.

    She compared the deluge to the biblical story Noah’s Ark, saying they had no idea when the water would stop rising. When it did, there were hallelujahs.

    With the storm now passed and its devastation abounding, churches across hard-hit Southwest Florida are providing a steadying force in the lives of those plunged into chaos and grief. Heartache, frustration and uncertainty now swirl in sanctuaries amid sermons about perseverance and holding on to one’s faith.

    “We believe this was a blessing in disguise,” said the Rev. Robert Kasten, the Comptons’ pastor at Southwest Baptist Church, a congregation of several hundred in one of the most devastated neighborhoods of Fort Myers.

    Also being tested are many of the nearly quarter million Catholics in the Diocese of Venice, which encompasses 10 counties from just south of Tampa Bay to the Everglades that bore the brunt of the hurricane. Bishop Frank Dewane has been visiting as many of the diocese’s five dozen parishes and 15 schools as possible.

    “A lot of people just wanted to talk about, ‘Why is there this much suffering?’” Dewane said of parishioners he met as he celebrated weekend Mass in a church in an inundated North Port neighborhood and in the parish hall of a storm-damaged Sarasota church. “We have to go on; we’re a people of hope.”

    Priests walked a fine line between holding Mass to provide comfort and not endangering older parishioners in areas with widespread lack of running water and electricity and flooded roadways. Dewane said one rescued man had kept asking about his wife, not realizing she had drowned in the storm.

    Around Kasten’s church, nearby mobile home parks where many of his parishioners lived became submerged. About a fourth of his congregation suffered major damage to their dwellings, with many like the Comptons losing nearly everything. The church’s sanctuary has become temporary quarters for nearly a dozen of the newly homeless.

    Most were handling things well, until the realities of tragedy hit.

    “When they saw pictures, they just burst into tears,” Kasten said.

    “Just the shock of knowing and seeing what you knew happened, it overwhelmed them. But they are just praising the Lord how he protected us, kept us safe,” he said.

    Barbara Wasko, a retiree who is now sleeping on a lounge chair in the sanctuary, said she has faith the community will rebuild.

    “We will get by,” she said. “We will make it.”

    Hurricane Ian’s fury — 150 mph (241 kph) winds and deluges of water — killed dozens of people and stranded countless in what for many communities has been their worst calamity in generations.

    Rhonda Mitchell, who lives near the Baptist church, said all she had left was her faith in God.

    “We don’t know what He is going to do,” she said, her belongings splayed to dry outside her mobile home as an empty U-Haul truck waited to be loaded.

    “I just lost my whole life,” she said, beginning to sob. “I’m still here but I just lost everything I own. … I’m just trying to figure things out.”

    At badly damaged Catholic churches and schools, reconstruction work is already underway. But Dewane said his priority is to “meet people where they are” and ensure the Catholic community can help overall relief efforts.

    That ranges from finding shelter for teachers whose homes were leveled even as many schools are re-opening this week to helping counsel elderly neighbors. The diocese is working with Catholic Charities to set up distribution centers for donations as well as supplies provided by FEMA.

    But many successful efforts are grassroots. When a group of nuns in small Wauchula, an inland town, lost power, they decided to just empty out their freezers of meat and other perishables, and invite the entire neighborhood for a barbeque. The fire blazing, hundreds of people lined up and started adding what they had in their own rapidly warming fridges.

    “We’re doing as well as we can,” Dewane said. “I think we can only be the Lord’s instruments.”

    The Rev. Charles Cannon, pastor at St. Hilary’s Episcopal Church, sermonized about the temporariness of the community’s losses. While much was lost, he said, not all is gone.

    “People think they have lost everything, but you haven’t lost everything if you haven’t lost yourself and the people you love,” Cannon said after Sunday services that were held outside amid the fallen boughs of once-majestic oaks.

    Cannon pointed out that the debris that left church grounds looking like an ugly, unearthly place can be cleaned.

    “Most of the work has been to get the people feeling safe again,” he said, “Almost everybody has been without power. All of them without water. Trying hard to get them feeling comfortable again.”

    Down the street, about 50 parishioners at the Assembly of God Bethlehem Ministry gathered to share in their hardships. They recounted how they had no electricity, no drinkable running water and, in many cases, were left with damaged homes.

    “But God has kept them safe,” said Victoria Araujo, a parishioner and occasional Sunday school teacher.

    “Some people lost a lot of things … We need to pray for the people who lost more than us,” said the Rev. Ailton da Silva, whose congregants are mostly immigrant families from Brazil.

    The storm has truly tested his community’s resiliency, he said, adding that “I think people will think about faith, family and God.”

    Five years ago, Hurricane Irma swept through the region, causing extensive damage to his church. Repairs were still ongoing when Ian hit. The church fared much better this time.

    In the end, “it’s just a building,” da Silva said. “The church is us.”

    ———

    Dell’Orto reported from Minneapolis.

    ———

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

    ———

    For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes

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  • California wells run dry as drought depletes groundwater

    California wells run dry as drought depletes groundwater

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    FAIRMEAD, Calif. — As California’s drought deepens, Elaine Moore’s family is running out of an increasingly precious resource: water.

    The Central Valley almond growers had two wells go dry this summer. Two of her adult children are now getting water from a new well the family drilled after the old one went dry last year. She’s even supplying water to a neighbor whose well dried up.

    “It’s been so dry this last year. We didn’t get much rain. We didn’t get much snowpack,” Moore said, standing next to a dry well on her property in Chowchilla, California. “Everybody’s very careful with what water they’re using. In fact, my granddaughter is emptying the kids’ little pool to flush the toilets.”

    Amid a megadrought plaguing the American West, more rural communities are losing access to groundwater as heavy pumping depletes underground aquifers that aren’t being replenished by rain and snow.

    More than 1,200 wells have run dry this year statewide, a nearly 50% increase over the same period last year, according to the California Department of Water Resources. By contrast, fewer than 100 dry wells were reported annually in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

    The groundwater crisis is most severe in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s agricultural heartland, which exports fruits, vegetables and nuts around the world.

    Shrinking groundwater supplies reflect the severity of California’s drought, which is now entering its fourth year. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, more than 94% of the state is in severe, extreme or exceptional drought.

    California just experienced its three driest years on record, and state water officials said Monday they’re preparing for another dry year because the weather phenomenon known as La Nina is expected to occur for the third consecutive year.

    Farmers are getting little surface water from the state’s depleted reservoirs, so they’re pumping more groundwater to irrigate their crops. That’s causing water tables to drop across California. State data shows that 64% of wells are at below-normal water levels.

    Water shortages are already reducing the region’s agricultural production as farmers are forced to fallow fields and let orchards wither. An estimated 531,00 acres (215,000 hectares) of farmland went unplanted this year because of a lack of irrigation water, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    As climate change brings hotter temperatures and more severe droughts, cities and states around the world are facing water shortages as lakes and rivers dry up. Many communities are pumping more groundwater and depleting aquifers at an alarming pace.

    “This is a key challenge not just for California, but for communities across the West moving forward in adapting to climate change,” said Andrew Ayres, a water researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California.

    Madera County, north of Fresno, has been hit particularly hard because it relies heavily on groundwater. The county has reported about 430 dry wells so far this year.

    In recent years, the county has seen the rapid expansion of thirsty almond and pistachio orchards that are typically irrigated by agricultural wells that run deeper than domestic wells.

    “The bigger straw is going to suck the water from right beneath the little straw,” said Madeline Harris, a policy manager with the advocacy group Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. She stood next to a municipal well that’s run dry in Fairmead, a town of 1,200 surrounded by nut orchards.

    “Municipal wells like this one are being put at risk and are going dry because of the groundwater overdraft problems from agriculture,” Harris said. “There are families who don’t have access to running water right now because they have dry domestic wells.”

    Residents with dry wells can get help from a state program that provides bottled water as well as storage tanks regularly filled by water delivery trucks. The state also provides money to replace dry wells, but there’s a long wait to get a new one.

    Not everyone is getting assistance.

    Thomas Chairez said his Fairmead property, which he rents to a family of eight, used to get water from his neighbor’s well. But when it went dry two years ago, his tenants lost access to running water.

    Chairez is trying to get the county to provide a storage tank and water delivery service. For now, his tenants have to fill up 5-gallon (19-liter) buckets at a friend’s home and transport water by car each day. They use the water to cook and take showers. They have portable toilets in the backyard.

    “They’re surviving,” Chairez said. “In Mexico, I used to do that. I used to carry two buckets myself from far away. So we got to survive somehow. This is an emergency.”

    Well drillers are in high demand as water pumps stop working across the San Joaquin Valley.

    Ethan Bowles and his colleagues were recently drilling a new well at a ranch house in the Madera Ranchos neighborhood, where many wells have gone dry this year.

    “It’s been almost nonstop phone calls just due to the water table dropping constantly,” said Bowles, who works for Chowchilla-based Drew and Hefner Well Drilling. “Most residents have had their wells for many years and all of a sudden the water stops flowing.”

    His company must now drill down 500 and 600 feet (152 to 183 meters) to get clients a steady supply of groundwater. That’s a couple hundred feet deeper than older wells.

    “The wells just have to go deeper,” Bowles said. “You have to hit a different aquifer and get them a different part of that water table so they can actually have fresh water for their house.”

    In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to slow a frenzy of well-drilling over the past few years. The temporary measure prohibits local agencies from issuing permits for new wells that could harm nearby wells or structures.

    California’s groundwater troubles come as local agencies seek to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2014 to prevent groundwater overpumping during the last drought. The law requires regional agencies to manage their aquifers sustainably by 2042.

    Water experts believe the law will lead to more sustainable groundwater supplies over the next two decades, but the road will be bumpy. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that about 500,000 acres (202,000 hectares) of agricultural land, about 10% of the current total, will have to come out of production over the next two decades.

    “These communities are going to be impacted from drinking water supplies and loss of jobs,” said Isaya Kisekka, a groundwater expert at the University of California, Davis. “There’s a lot of migration of farmworkers as this land gets fallowed.”

    Farmers and residents in the Valley are hoping for help from above. “Hopefully we get a lot of rain,” Chairez said. “There’s a big need: water. We need water, water, water.”

    ———

    Follow Terry Chea on Twitter: @terrychea

    ———

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Photographer rides out Ian to capture the storm for others

    Photographer rides out Ian to capture the storm for others

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    Chuck Larsen has lived on Sanibel Island for 12 years and until last week had never experienced a major hurricane. The 76-year-old who moved from California decided to ride out Hurricane Ian in his condominium with little idea of the horror he was about to go through.

    He filled his bathtub with water, stocked up on food and water, and made sure batteries were charged and his windows were rated to withstand 150 mph (240 kph) winds. He followed the forecast thinking the island would get strong wind and rain, and trees would fall, but areas to the north would take the hardest hit.

    “I have to tell you, I felt fairly safe going into this, but when the glass blew out and started shattering inside … I realized this was a problem,” said Larsen, who has since “retreated to Orlando.”

    There was another reason Larsen wanted to stay. He is the part owner and photographer for the local news website santivachronicle.com.

    “I stayed behind to record the event and record the aftermath for publication without realizing exactly how bad this storm was going to be,” Larsen said in a Zoom interview. “I tried to photograph the storm as it was happening. The high winds, the rain, the surge from the Gulf. After the storm I tried to document what was left, what damage was done, and it was horrific.”

    But with no internet or cell phone connectivity, he wasn’t able to publish any material until several days later when he was safely evacuated.

    Larsen has spent a career in television and continues to run a television distribution consulting company. His first television job was as a reporter and anchor at an Indianapolis station. One of his co-workers was weatherman David Letterman.

    Larsen was attracted to Sanibel because of its old Florida charm and the community of residents who want to preserve it. The barrier island off Fort Myers has no buildings taller than three stories, no chain restaurants or stores, no traffic lights and is home to locally owned shops. It’s famous for the thousands of shells that wash up on the beaches and is a quaint, picturesque island for tourists.

    He and his wife vacationed there a few years before deciding to move to the island of about 6,500 full-time residents. Sanibel attracts retirees — about 57% of the population is 65 years old or older — and while not an enclave for the mega-rich, the median value of owner-occupied homes tops $700,000 and its per capita income is more than $90,000, both well above state averages.

    “At the moment, it looks like nothing you would remember if you had ever visited Sanibel. It’s devastated,” Larsen said.

    While he, his wife and two dogs took shelter in an interior room during the storm, he ventured out the next morning with his camera hoping to get images for his news website, which covers community events, human interest stories and features on residents of Sanibel and nearby Captiva Island.

    “It was like living in a war zone — just decimated property and condominiums, trees gone, I don’t think there was a car that survived. It was pretty dramatic, much worse than I’ve ever experienced,” Larsen said.

    He and his wife eventually found a boat to take them to the mainland. They’re staying with a daughter in Orlando, not sure when they’ll be able to get back to their island home. But Larsen is sure they will.

    “Sanibel is a very cohesive community. It will rebuild. It won’t happen immediately. It will probably happen faster than most people might think, but it will need a complete rebuild — electric grid, water systems — it’s going to take a lot of work, but it will come back. I have no doubt about that.”

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  • Volunteer firefighter dies in Nebraska Sandhills wildfire

    Volunteer firefighter dies in Nebraska Sandhills wildfire

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    HALSEY, Neb. — A longtime volunteer firefighter died while battling a large wildfire in drought-stricken central Nebraska that destroyed much of a youth campsite and led officials to evacuate a nearby village.

    Mike Moody, 59, the assistant chief of the Purdum Volunteer Fire Department, died Sunday after suffering a medical emergency early in the efforts to battle the Bovee Fire, according to a statement from the Region 26 Emergency Management Council. Moody had been with the department for over 40 years and had previously served as chief of the department, officials said. No other injuries have been reported.

    The fire was initially reported as having burned around 100 acres Sunday afternoon in the Bessey Ranger District of the Nebraska National Forest, officials said. By Sunday night, the grassland fire in the state’s Sandhills region had grown to about 15,000 acres, or around 24 square miles (62 square kilometers), according to the Nebraska National Forests & Grasslands.

    None of the fire was contained by midday Monday, according to Travis Mason-Bushman, a spokesperson for the Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team. However, a bulldozer was brought in to dig a containment line.

    The Nebraska State 4-H Camp confirmed in a tweet that most of the camp’s buildings, including its main lodge and all of its youth cabins, were destroyed in the fire, as was a popular observation tower in the Bessey Ranger District.

    Officials also evacuated the tiny nearby village of Halsey, which is home to about 65 people, and shut down a section of state Highway 2 as smoke from the fire cut visibility. The highway had reopened by Monday.

    More than 100 firefighters were on the scene Monday, Mason-Bushman said, after air tankers were used Sunday to drop retardant and slow the fire’s spread, which was fueled by tinder-dry conditions and high winds. Conditions improved Monday, with cooler weather and lighter winds, he said.

    The fire was “likely human-caused,” the Nebraska National Forest said. Officials had not reported any injuries from the flames by midday Monday.

    The U.S. Drought Monitor shows Thomas County remains in a severe drought.

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  • California braces for dry winter as Western drought drags on

    California braces for dry winter as Western drought drags on

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The past three years have been California’s driest on record, a streak unlikely to break this winter, state officials said Monday.

    The official water year concluded Friday, marking an end to a period that saw both record rainfall in October and the driest January-to-March period in at least a century. Scientists say such weather whiplash is likely to become more common as the planet warms. It will take more than a few winter storms to help the state dig out of drought.

    “This is our new climate reality, and we must adapt,” Karla Nemeth, director of the state Department of Water Resources, said in a statement.

    Her comments came ahead of expected remarks Monday by state water officials about what to expect in the months ahead. The water year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, so that the rainiest winter months are recorded together.

    Snow that falls in California’s mountains typically provides one-third of the state’s annual water supply, but last year snow levels were far below average by the end of the winter. The Colorado River, another major source of water for Southern California, is also beset by drought, threatening its ability to supply farmers and cities around the U.S. West.

    Precipitation was 76% of average for the year that just ended, and the state’s reservoirs are at 69% of their historical levels, state officials said.

    Most of the state is in severe or extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The worst conditions are throughout the Central Valley, the state’s agricultural heartland where many of the nation’s fruits, vegetables and nuts are grown.

    Another dry year would mean little to no water deliveries from state supplies to farmers and cities in central and Southern California. State and local officials, meanwhile, continue to urge California’s 39 million residents to save water wherever possible by ripping out grass lawns or letting them go brown, taking shorter showers and generally being more conscious about water use.

    There are signs that the state and its residents are better learning to deal with ongoing dry periods, said Jeff Mount, a senior fellow with the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California. With limited water supplies, farmers in the northern part of the state have fallowed rice fields, while major water agencies in the south have started to look for ways to expand water supply through recycling and other means.

    Still, drought fatigue may be setting in. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom called on residents last year to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15%. The state still hasn’t met that target and water use went up in the spring compared to prior years. But use has started to tick down after state water officials put new restrictions on outdoor watering.

    “We’re not fighting anymore about whether things are changing — we’re having reasonable fights about how to adapt to it,” Mount said.

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  • Crash of small plane into house investigated; 3 dead

    Crash of small plane into house investigated; 3 dead

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    HERMANTOWN, Minn. — Federal investigators hope to determine what caused a single-engine plane to crash into a house in northern Minnesota, killing three on board and narrowly missing two people asleep in the house.

    Officials say the Cessna 172 Skyhawk went down shortly before midnight Saturday in Hermantown minutes after departing from Duluth International Airport.

    Authorities on Sunday identified the victims as passengers Alyssa Schmidt, 32, of St. Paul, her brother Matthew Schmidt, 31, of Burnsville, and the pilot, Tyler Fretland, 32, of Burnsville.

    Jason Hoffman told Minnesota Public Radio that he and his wife had been asleep on the second floor of their home when they were jolted by what sounded like an explosion. The plane tore through the roof above their bed, he said.

    “We couldn’t hardly see each other through all the insulation dust. I was able to grab a flashlight next to the bed and the first thing I saw was an airplane wheel sitting at the end of our bed,” Hoffman said. “That’s when we looked out and noticed the entire back half our our house was gone.”

    Hoffman said the wreckage of the plane wound up wedged between his truck and the garage.

    The Hermantown Police Department was notified by the control tower at the Duluth airport after the small airplane had left radar and was believed to have crashed. The control tower advised the last location on radar was 1 to 1 1/2 miles south of the airport.

    The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

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  • Indonesian recalls stinging tear gas in deadly soccer melee

    Indonesian recalls stinging tear gas in deadly soccer melee

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    MALANG, Indonesia — Dicky Kurniawan felt the sharp sting in his eyes as Indonesian police fired tear gas into the stadium.

    From his seat near an exit, he said he watched the melee unfold Saturday night as angry fans poured into the field to demand answers after host Arema FC of East Java’s Malang city lost to Persebaya Surabaya, its first defeat ever on its home turf. The mob threw bottles and other objects, and the violence spread outside the stadium, where police cars were overturned and torched.

    Kurniawan, 22, was shocked when police fired tear gas at spectators in the stands. As the stinging gas spread through the stadium, Kurniawan grabbed his girlfriend and — like everyone else — dashed to the exits.

    The mass rush led to a stampede that killed nearly three dozen people almost instantly. The death toll reached 125 and hundreds more were injured in one of the world’s deadliest tragedies at a sporting event. More than 40,000 spectators were at the match, all Arema fans because the organizer had banned Persebaya Surabaya supporters due to Indonesia’s history of violent soccer rivalries.

    “The chaos was on the field, but they fired the tear gas into the stadium stands,” Kurniawan said as he described the tragedy from his hospital bed. He received bruises on his face but said he was fortunate to survive.

    “Now I am done watching soccer in the stadium,” Kurniawan said.

    In the bed next to Kurniawan, teenager Farel Panji also had a lucky escape.

    Panji, 16, had just left his seat to go to the exit when the tear gas came. As people ran past him to get to the exit, Panji said he got pushed down by the crowd and collapsed.

    “I fainted for a while. When I woke up, I was still in the stadium seating area,” Panji said. He got home safely and was taken to the hospital the next day. Wearing an Arema jersey, Panji said Saturday’s incident did not stop him from loving the club.

    Malang’s Dr. Saiful Anwar General Hospital, one of several used to treat victims, was filled Sunday with grieving relatives waiting to identify bodies in the morgue or for information about their loves ones.

    Police say 323 people were injured in the crush, with some still in critical condition. At least 17 children were among the dead and seven other children are being treated at hospitals, according to the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection.

    Arema’s Chilean coach, Javier Roca, led the players and other officials in paying respect to the dead in a ceremony Monday.

    Wearing black shirts, the team gathered at the statue of a lion head outside Kanjuruhan Stadium. Dozens of Arema supporters also attended, and started to cry when the players poured rose petals around the statue and prayed together.

    “We came here as a team, asking forgiveness from the families impacted by this tragedy, those who lost their loves ones or the ones who are still being treated in the hospital,” Roca said.

    He said soccer violence must stop.

    “We feel like we got a punishment,” he said. “One match result is not worth paying with the lives of people, let alone more than 100 people.”

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  • In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts

    In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts

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    FORT MYERS, Fla. — People kayaking down streets that were passable just a day or two earlier. Hundreds of thousands without power. National Guard helicopters flying rescue missions to residents still stranded on Florida’s barrier islands.

    Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. It was clear the road to recovery from this monster storm will be long and painful.

    And Ian was still not done. The storm doused Virginia with rain Sunday, and officials warned of the potential for severe flooding along its coast, beginning overnight Monday.

    Ian’s remnants moved offshore and formed a nor’easter that is expected to pile even more water into an already inundated Chesapeake Bay and threatened to cause the most significant tidal flooding event in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region in the last 10 to 15 years, said Cody Poche, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

    The island town of Chincoteague declared a state of emergency Sunday and strongly recommended that residents in certain areas evacuate. The Eastern Shore and northern portion of North Carolina’s Outer Banks were also likely to be impacted.

    At least 68 people have been confirmed dead: 61 in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba.

    With the death toll rising, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the federal government was ready to help in a huge way, focusing first on victims in Florida, which took the brunt of one of the strongest storms to make landfall in the United States. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to visit the state on Wednesday.

    Flooded roadways and washed-out bridges to barrier islands left many people isolated amid limited cellphone service and a lack of basic amenities such as water, electricity and the internet. Officials warned that the situation in many areas isn’t expected to improve for several days because the rain that fell has nowhere to go because waterways are overflowing.

    Fewer than 700,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity by late Sunday, down from a peak of 2.6 million.

    Criswell told “Fox News Sunday” that the federal government, including the Coast Guard and Department of Defense, had moved into position “the largest amount of search and rescue assets that I think we’ve ever put in place before.”

    Still, recovery will take time, said Criswell, who visited the state Friday and Saturday to assess the damage and talk to survivors. She cautioned that dangers remain with downed power lines in standing water.

    More than 1,600 people have been rescued statewide, according to Florida’s emergency management agency.

    Rescue missions were ongoing, especially to Florida’s barrier islands, which were cut off from the mainland when storm surges destroyed causeways and bridges.

    The state will build a temporary traffic passageway for the largest one, Pine Island, DeSantis said Sunday, adding that an allocation had been approved for Deportment of Transportation to build it this week and construction could start as soon as Monday.

    “It’s not going to be a full bridge, you’re going to have to go over it probably at 5 miles an hour or something, but it’ll at least let people get in and off the island with their vehicles,” the governor said at a news conference.

    Coast Guard, municipal and private crews have been using helicopters, boats and even jetskis to evacuate people over the past several days.

    In rural Seminole County, north of Orlando, residents donned waders, boots and bug spray to paddle to their flooded homes Sunday.

    Ben Bertat found 4 inches (10 centimeters) of water in his house by Lake Harney after kayaking there.

    “I think it’s going to get worse because all of this water has to get to the lake” said Bertat, pointing to the water flooding a nearby road. “With ground saturation, all this swamp is full and it just can’t take any more water. It doesn’t look like it’s getting any lower.”

    Elsewhere, power remained knocked out to at least half of South Carolina’s Pawleys Island, a beach community roughly 75 miles (115 kilometers) up the coast from Charleston. In North Carolina, the storm downed trees and power lines.

    ———

    Associated Press reporters Rebecca Santana in Ft. Myers; Brendan Farrington and Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee; David Fischer in Miami; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va.; and Richard Lardner in Washington contributed to this report.

    ———

    For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes

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  • By boat and jet ski, volunteers assist in Ian rescue efforts

    By boat and jet ski, volunteers assist in Ian rescue efforts

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    SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. — There was no time to waste. As Hurricane Ian lashed southwest Florida, Bryan Stern, a veteran of the U.S. military, and others began gathering crews, boats and even crowbars for the urgent task that would soon be at hand: rescuing hundreds of people who might get trapped by floodwaters.

    “As soon as the sun came up, we started rolling,” said Stern, who last year put together a search-and-rescue team called Project Dynamo, which has undertaken operations in Afghanistan, Ukraine and, now, Florida.

    Project Dynamo has rescued more than 20 people, many of them elderly residents who became cut off when the Category 4 storm washed away a bridge connecting the Florida mainland with Sanibel Island, a crescent-shaped sliver of shell-strewn sand popular with tourists that is home to about 7,000 residents.

    On a stretch of beach, etched into the sand, there were calls for immediate assistance: “Help,” “SOS.”

    As local authorities continue reaching people isolated on barrier islands or trapped by floodwaters, others unwilling to be bystanders have sprung into action, sometimes risking their own safety or setting aside their own losses and travails to aid official rescue operations. It isn’t a new phenomenon: Grassroots rescue groups have responded to past disasters, including after Hurricane Ida pounded Louisiana last year.

    Although some officials frown on people running their own rescue operations — especially in the early going if it’s not safe enough yet or if the rescuers lack training — others welcome every bit of help.

    “It sort of restores your view of humanity. You see people chipping in and they aren’t getting paid for it,” said Tim Barrett, the training division chief for the Sanibel Fire Department. “There’s even people whose homes are destroyed, but they’re helping them. They’re still helping other people.”

    It can be dangerous work. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the ferocious storm, which lashed some areas with winds of 155 mph (249 kph) or more and pummeled the coast with ocean surge.

    “We’re still working on rescuing people. I mean, this is just horrible that people have lost their lives. It’s horrible that people are still possibly stuck in rubble,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

    “But I’ve been talking to the sheriffs and first responders and they’re trying to get to these people as quickly as they can.,” he said. “They’ve been working to evacuate people that stayed on, places like Sanibel and Pine Island and Fort Myers Beach.”

    The storm has killed dozens of people in Florida and more bodies might still be recovered.

    Matt Mengel and his friends said they had made seven rescues so far, most of them elderly residents of Sanibel Island whom they reached on jet skis.

    “We had gasoline. We had jet skis. We had water. We had food and snacks. And our mission was just to go find them, dead or alive,” he said.

    He called the destruction of the area, where he has lived for seven years, heartbreaking. “It was sad to see our home get destroyed and our favorite spots get destroyed.”

    The group’s rescue missions began Friday when they hadn’t heard from a friend who lives and works on Sanibel Island. That friend was found safe and sound, but they quickly found others who needed help.

    Just as they were leaving, Mengel’s girlfriend heard a woman calling out for help. They responded and found a couple who desperately wanted to leave the island.

    A Coast Guard helicopter was patrolling nearby, and Mengel — with the help of the Project Dynamo crew — began frantically waving for attention. The helicopter spotted him and touched down on the beach to whisk the couple away.

    “All I wanted to do was help,” Mengel said.

    A local television station recounted how three siblings — Leah, Evan and Jayden Wickert — helped save about 30 people from rising floodwaters in a Naples neighborhood.

    Water had deepened to about 6 feet (nearly 2 meters) in their neighborhood, and folks were standing on whatever they could to keep their necks above water. The siblings used kayaks and boats to save people.

    “There were a lot of people standing on their couches getting out of the water,” Leah Wickert told WBBH-TV.

    Betty Reynolds, 73, expressed appreciation for the men who came to her rescue after she spent days in her damaged Sanibel Island home.

    “You hate to leave a home you’ve lived in for 47 years,” she said, but said it filled with “lots and lots of mud.”

    She said she didn’t evacuate before the storm because she and her home survived previous storms unscathed. But she said this one took her by surprise: “I just didn’t believe there was going to be so much storm surge.”

    Reynolds was taken off the island Saturday while Stern and his Project Dynamo team were on another mission, having received a text from a man who was concerned about his mother.

    Stern, whose cohorts are also military veterans, speaks quickly and is full of bravado. On a recent trip to Sanibel Island, he landed a boat directly on the beach, jumped into the water as it hit the sand and ran ashore.

    “It’s like D-Day,” he said afterward.

    When there was no answer at the home of the woman whose son had texted, his team used a crowbar to enter, with the son’s permission.

    Stern said he couldn’t stand by. His rescue project was borne out of his frustrations watching Americans and their allies struggle last year to get out of Afghanistan.

    He has since turned his attention to helping people flee the war in Ukraine, where Stern and his team plan to return soon after what he called a brief “vacation” in Florida.

    ———

    Find more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes

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  • In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts

    In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts

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    FORT MYERS, Fla. — People kayaking down streets that were passable just a day or two earlier. Hundreds of thousands without power. National Guard helicopters flying rescue missions to residents still stranded on Florida’s barrier islands.

    Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. It was clear the road to recovery from this monster storm will be long and painful.

    And Ian was still not done. The storm doused Virginia with rain Sunday, and officials warned of the potential for severe flooding along its coast, beginning overnight Monday.

    Ian’s remnants moved offshore and formed a nor’easter that is expected to pile even more water into an already inundated Chesapeake Bay and threatened to cause the most significant tidal flooding event in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region in the last 10 to 15 years, said Cody Poche, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

    The island town of Chincoteague declared a state of emergency Sunday and strongly recommended that residents in certain areas evacuate. The Eastern Shore and northern portion of North Carolina’s Outer Banks were also likely to be impacted.

    At least 68 people have been confirmed dead: 61 in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba.

    With the death toll rising, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the federal government was ready to help in a huge way, focusing first on victims in Florida, which took the brunt of one of the strongest storms to make landfall in the United States. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to visit the state on Wednesday.

    Flooded roadways and washed-out bridges to barrier islands left many people isolated amid limited cellphone service and a lack of basic amenities such as water, electricity and the internet. Officials warned that the situation in many areas isn’t expected to improve for several days because the rain that fell has nowhere to go because waterways are overflowing.

    Fewer than 700,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity by late Sunday, down from a peak of 2.6 million.

    Criswell told “Fox News Sunday” that the federal government, including the Coast Guard and Department of Defense, had moved into position “the largest amount of search and rescue assets that I think we’ve ever put in place before.”

    Still, recovery will take time, said Criswell, who visited the state Friday and Saturday to assess the damage and talk to survivors. She cautioned that dangers remain with downed power lines in standing water.

    More than 1,600 people have been rescued statewide, according to Florida’s emergency management agency.

    Rescue missions were ongoing, especially to Florida’s barrier islands, which were cut off from the mainland when storm surges destroyed causeways and bridges.

    The state will build a temporary traffic passageway for the largest one, Pine Island, DeSantis said Sunday, adding that an allocation had been approved for Deportment of Transportation to build it this week and construction could start as soon as Monday.

    “It’s not going to be a full bridge, you’re going to have to go over it probably at 5 miles an hour or something, but it’ll at least let people get in and off the island with their vehicles,” the governor said at a news conference.

    Coast Guard, municipal and private crews have been using helicopters, boats and even jetskis to evacuate people over the past several days.

    In rural Seminole County, north of Orlando, residents donned waders, boots and bug spray to paddle to their flooded homes Sunday.

    Ben Bertat found 4 inches (10 centimeters) of water in his house by Lake Harney after kayaking there.

    “I think it’s going to get worse because all of this water has to get to the lake” said Bertat, pointing to the water flooding a nearby road. “With ground saturation, all this swamp is full and it just can’t take any more water. It doesn’t look like it’s getting any lower.”

    Elsewhere, power remained knocked out to at least half of South Carolina’s Pawleys Island, a beach community roughly 75 miles (115 kilometers) up the coast from Charleston. In North Carolina, the storm downed trees and power lines.

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    Associated Press reporters Rebecca Santana in Ft. Myers; Brendan Farrington and Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee; David Fischer in Miami; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va.; and Richard Lardner in Washington contributed to this report.

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    For more AP coverage of Hurricane Ian: apnews.com/hub/hurricanes

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