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Tag: Bridge construction

  • Molten lava on Hawaii’s Big Island could block main highway

    Molten lava on Hawaii’s Big Island could block main highway

    HILO, Hawaii — Many people on the Big Island of Hawaii are bracing for major upheaval if lava from Mauna Loa volcano slides across a key highway and blocks the quickest route connecting two sides of the island.

    The molten rock could make the road impassable and force drivers to find alternate coastal routes in the north and south. That could add hours to commute times, doctor’s visits and freight truck deliveries.

    “I am very nervous about it being cut off,” said Frank Manley, a licensed practical nurse whose commute is already an hour and 45 minutes each way from his home in Hilo to a Kaiser Permanente clinic in Kailua-Kona.

    If the highway closes, he anticipates driving two-and-a-half to three hours in each direction. Manley fears he might lose pay if an accident or other traffic disruption along an alternate route delays his arrival.

    The lava is oozing slowly at a rate that might reach the road next week. But its path is unpredictable and could change course, or the flow could stop completely and spare the highway.

    The slow-moving flow was coursing about 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers) from the road Friday, U.S. Geological Survey scientists reported.

    There are more affordable housing options on the island’s east side, home to the county seat, Hilo. But many jobs at beach resorts, in construction and other industries are readily available on the west side, where Kailua-Kona is located. Saddle Road, also known as Route 200 or Daniel K. Inouye Highway, connects the two communities.

    The state Department of Transportation took steps Thursday to remove potential traffic obstacles on the northern coastal route by reopening a lane across Nanue Bridge that was closed for repairs.

    Hilo also is one of the island’s major harbors, where a wide variety of goods arrive by ship before proceeding across the island by truck.

    Hawaii County Councilor Susan “Sue” L. K. Lee Loy, who represents Hilo and parts of Puna, said she’s concerned about big rigs traveling across aging coastal bridges.

    “It’s going to take a lot to rethink how we move about on Hawaii Island,” she said.

    Manley said he would have to get up at 3 a.m. to reach work by 8 a.m. If he left at 5 p.m., he wouldn’t get home until 8 p.m. “That drastically reduces my amount of time that I would be able to spend with my family,” he said.

    Tanya Harrison of Hilo said she would need a full day off work to travel to her doctor in Kona.

    There are more than 200,000 Big Island residents. Amidst throngs of tourists, delivery trucks and commuters forced to reroute, Harrison said she couldn’t imagine the congestion.

    “It might even be quicker just to fly to Honolulu,” she said of the hour flight. “There’s no line at the Hilo airport. Fly over, see the doctor, come back would actually be quicker than driving.”

    Outrigger Kona Resort & Spa plans to provide rooms at a Kailua-Kona hotel so its dozen or so Hilo-based employees can avoid the long commute five days per week.

    A shutdown could also affect major astronomy research at the summit of Mauna Kea, a 13,803-foot (4,207-meter) peak next to Mauna Loa that is home to some of the world’s most advanced telescopes.

    The road heading to Mauna Kea’s summit is midway between Hilo and Kona. If lava crosses Saddle Road on either side of Mauna Kea Access Road, many telescope workers would be forced to take long, circuitous routes.

    Rich Matsuda, associate director for external relations at W.M. Keck Observatory, said telescopes may need to adjust staff schedules and house workers at a facility partway up the mountain for a while so they don’t have to commute.

    There’s also a chance the lava flow may head directly across the lower part of Mauna Kea Access Road, which could block workers from reaching the summit. Matsuda hopes they’ll be able to use gravel or other bypass routes if that happens.

    The telescopes previously have shut down for multi-day or weeklong winter storms. “So we’re prepared to do that if we have to,” Matsuda said.

    Hilo resident Hayley Hina Barcia worries about the difficulty of reaching west-side surf spots and relatives in different parts of the island.

    “A lot of my family is on the Puna side and we have other family in Kona,” Barcia said. “We use this road to see each other, especially with the holidays coming up, to spend time, so we’re looking to have to go several hours longer to go the south way or taking the north road.”

    Geologists with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said if Mauna Loa follows historical patterns, they expect the eruption, which began Sunday night, to continue for one to two weeks.

    Since then, traffic has clogged the road as people try to glimpse the lava. A handful of resulting accidents included a two-vehicle crash that sent two people to the hospital with “not serious injuries,” Hawaii Police Department spokesperson Denise Laitinen said.

    U.S. Rep. Ed Case and U.S. Rep. Kaiali’i Kahele sent a letter to President Joe Biden saying Hawaii County would need “immediate help” to keep island communities safe if lava flow blocks the highway. The two Hawaii Democrats noted that restricted access could hinder emergency services because one of the island’s primary hospitals is on the east side.

    ———

    McAvoy reported from Honolulu. Associated Press writers Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu and Andrew Selsky in Salem, Oregon, contributed.

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  • Molten lava on Hawaii’s Big Island could block main highway

    Molten lava on Hawaii’s Big Island could block main highway

    HILO, Hawaii — Many people on the Big Island of Hawaii are bracing for major upheaval if lava from Mauna Loa volcano slides across a key highway and blocks the quickest route connecting two sides of the island.

    The molten rock could make the road impassable and force drivers to find alternate coastal routes in the north and south. That could add hours to commute times, doctor’s visits and freight truck deliveries.

    “I am very nervous about it being cut off,” said Frank Manley, a licensed practical nurse whose commute is already an hour and 45 minutes each way from his home in Hilo to a Kaiser Permanente clinic in Kailua-Kona.

    If the highway closes, he anticipates driving two-and-a-half to three hours in each direction. Manley fears he might lose pay if an accident or other traffic disruption along an alternate route delays his arrival.

    The lava is oozing slowly at a rate that might reach the road next week. But its path is unpredictable and could change course, or the flow could stop completely and spare the highway.

    The slow-moving flow was coursing about 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers) from the road Friday, U.S. Geological Survey scientists reported.

    There are more affordable housing options on the island’s east side, home to the county seat, Hilo. But many jobs at beach resorts, in construction and other industries are readily available on the west side, where Kailua-Kona is located. Saddle Road, also known as Route 200 or Daniel K. Inouye Highway, connects the two communities.

    The state Department of Transportation took steps Thursday to remove potential traffic obstacles on the northern coastal route by reopening a lane across Nanue Bridge that was closed for repairs.

    Hilo also is one of the island’s major harbors, where a wide variety of goods arrive by ship before proceeding across the island by truck.

    Hawaii County Councilor Susan “Sue” L. K. Lee Loy, who represents Hilo and parts of Puna, said she’s concerned about big rigs traveling across aging coastal bridges.

    “It’s going to take a lot to rethink how we move about on Hawaii Island,” she said.

    Manley said he would have to get up at 3 a.m. to reach work by 8 a.m. If he left at 5 p.m., he wouldn’t get home until 8 p.m. “That drastically reduces my amount of time that I would be able to spend with my family,” he said.

    Tanya Harrison of Hilo said she would need a full day off work to travel to her doctor in Kona.

    There are more than 200,000 Big Island residents. Amidst throngs of tourists, delivery trucks and commuters forced to reroute, Harrison said she couldn’t imagine the congestion.

    “It might even be quicker just to fly to Honolulu,” she said of the hour flight. “There’s no line at the Hilo airport. Fly over, see the doctor, come back would actually be quicker than driving.”

    Outrigger Kona Resort & Spa plans to provide rooms at a Kailua-Kona hotel so its dozen or so Hilo-based employees can avoid the long commute five days per week.

    A shutdown could also affect major astronomy research at the summit of Mauna Kea, a 13,803-foot (4,207-meter) peak next to Mauna Loa that is home to some of the world’s most advanced telescopes.

    The road heading to Mauna Kea’s summit is midway between Hilo and Kona. If lava crosses Saddle Road on either side of Mauna Kea Access Road, many telescope workers would be forced to take long, circuitous routes.

    Rich Matsuda, associate director for external relations at W.M. Keck Observatory, said telescopes may need to adjust staff schedules and house workers at a facility partway up the mountain for a while so they don’t have to commute.

    There’s also a chance the lava flow may head directly across the lower part of Mauna Kea Access Road, which could block workers from reaching the summit. Matsuda hopes they’ll be able to use gravel or other bypass routes if that happens.

    The telescopes previously have shut down for multi-day or weeklong winter storms. “So we’re prepared to do that if we have to,” Matsuda said.

    Hilo resident Hayley Hina Barcia worries about the difficulty of reaching west-side surf spots and relatives in different parts of the island.

    “A lot of my family is on the Puna side and we have other family in Kona,” Barcia said. “We use this road to see each other, especially with the holidays coming up, to spend time, so we’re looking to have to go several hours longer to go the south way or taking the north road.”

    Geologists with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said if Mauna Loa follows historical patterns, they expect the eruption, which began Sunday night, to continue for one to two weeks.

    Since then, traffic has clogged the road as people try to glimpse the lava. A handful of resulting accidents included a two-vehicle crash that sent two people to the hospital with “not serious injuries,” Hawaii Police Department spokesperson Denise Laitinen said.

    U.S. Rep. Ed Case and U.S. Rep. Kaiali’i Kahele sent a letter to President Joe Biden saying Hawaii County would need “immediate help” to keep island communities safe if lava flow blocks the highway. The two Hawaii Democrats noted that restricted access could hinder emergency services because one of the island’s primary hospitals is on the east side.

    ———

    McAvoy reported from Honolulu. Associated Press writers Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu and Andrew Selsky in Salem, Oregon, contributed.

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  • Nine arrested after bridge collapses in India, killing 134

    Nine arrested after bridge collapses in India, killing 134

    MORBI, India — Police in western India arrested nine people on Monday as they investigated the collapse of a newly repaired 143-year-old suspension bridge in one of the country’s worst accidents in years, officials said. The collapse Sunday evening in Gujarat state plunged hundreds of people into a river, killing at least 134.

    As families mourned the dead, attention turned to why the pedestrian bridge, built during British colonialism in the late 1800s and touted by the state’s tourism website as an “artistic and technological marvel,” collapsed and who might be responsible. The bridge had reopened just four days earlier.

    Inspector-General Ashok Yadav said police have formed a special investigative team, and that those arrested include managers of the bridge’s operator, Oreva Group, and its staff.

    “We won’t let the guilty get away, we won’t spare anyone,” Yadav said.

    Gujarat authorities opened a case against Oreva for suspected culpable homicide, attempted culpable homicide and other violations.

    In March, the local Morbi town government awarded a 15-year contract to maintain and manage the bridge to Oreva, a group of companies known mainly for making clocks, mosquito zappers and electric bikes. The same month, Oreva closed the bridge, which spans a wide section of the Machchu river, for repairs.

    The bridge has been repaired several times in the past and many of its original parts have been replaced over the years.

    It was reopened nearly seven months later, on Oct. 26, the first day of the Gujarati New Year, which coincides with the Hindu festival season, and the attraction drew hundreds of sightseers.

    Sandeepsinh Zala, a Morbi official, told the Indian Express newspaper the company reopened the bridge without first obtaining a “fitness certificate.” That could not be independently verified, but officials said they were investigating.

    Authorities said the structure collapsed under the weight of hundreds of people. A security video of the disaster showed it shaking violently and people trying to hold on to its cables and metal fencing before the aluminum walkway gave way and crashed into the river.

    The bridge split in the middle with its walkway hanging down, its cables snapped.

    Police said at least 134 people were confirmed dead and many others were admitted to hospitals in critical condition. Emergency responders and rescuers worked overnight and throughout Monday to search for survivors. State minister Harsh Sanghvi said most of the victims were teenagers, women and older people.

    At least 177 survivors were pulled from the river, said Jigar Khunt, an information department official in Gujarat. It was unclear how many people were on the bridge when it collapsed and how many remained missing, but survivors said it was so densely packed that people were unable to quickly escape when its cables began to snap.

    “There were just too many people on the bridge. We could barely move,” Sidik Bai, 27, said while recovering from injuries in a hospital in Morbi.

    Sidik said he jumped into the water when the bridge began to crack and saw his friend being crushed by its metal walkway. He survived by clinging to the bridge’s cables.

    “Everyone was crying for help, but one by one they all began disappearing in the water,” Sidik said.

    Local news channels ran pictures of the missing shared by concerned relatives, and family members raced to overcrowded hospitals searching for their loved ones.

    Gujarat is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was visiting the state at the time of the accident. He said he was “deeply saddened by the tragedy” and his office announced compensation for families of the dead and called for speedy rescue efforts.

    “Rarely in my life, would I have experienced such pain,” Modi said during a public event in the state on Monday.

    Modi was the top elected official of Gujarat for 12 years before becoming India’s prime minister in 2014. A Gujarat state government election is expected in coming months and opposition parties have demanded a thorough investigation of the accident.

    The bridge collapse was Asia’s third major disaster involving large crowds in a month.

    On Saturday, a Halloween crowd surge killed more than 150 people attending festivities in Itaewon, a neighborhood in Seoul, South Korea. On Oct. 1, police in Indonesia fired tear gas at a soccer match, causing a crush that killed 132 people as spectators tried to flee.

    India’s infrastructure has long been marred by safety problems, and Morbi has suffered other major disasters. In 1979, an upstream dam on the Machchu river burst, sending walls of water into the city and killing hundreds of people in one of India’s biggest dam failures.

    In 2001, thousands of people died in an earthquake in Gujarat. Morbi, 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the quake’s epicenter in Bhuj, suffered widespread damage. According to a report in the Times of India newspaper, the bridge that collapsed Sunday also was severely damaged.

    ———

    Hussain, Saaliq and Pathi reported from New Delhi.

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  • Truck bomb hits bridge to Crimea, hurts Russian supply lines

    Truck bomb hits bridge to Crimea, hurts Russian supply lines

    KYIV, Ukraine — An explosion Saturday caused the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia, damaging a key supply artery for the Kremlin’s faltering war effort in southern Ukraine. Russian authorities said a truck bomb caused the blast and that three people were killed.

    The speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament immediately accused Ukraine of being behind the explosion, though Moscow didn’t apportion blame. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge and some lauded the destruction, but Kyiv stopped short of claiming responsibility.

    The explosion risked a sharp escalation in Russia’s eight-month war, with some Russian lawmakers calling for Russian President Vladimir Putin to declare a “counterterrorism operation” in retaliation, shedding the term “special military operation” that had downplayed the scope of fighting to ordinary Russians.

    Such a move could be used by the Kremlin to further broaden the powers of security agencies, ban rallies, tighten censorship, introduce restrictions on travel and expand a partial military mobilization that Putin ordered last month.

    Hours after the explosion, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that the air force chief, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, would be named commander of all Russian troops fighting in Ukraine. It was the first official appointment of a single commander for all Russian forces in Ukraine.

    Surovikin, who over the summer was placed in charge of Russian troops in southern Ukraine, had led Russian forces in Syria and was accused of overseeing a brutal bombardment that destroyed much of the city of Aleppo.

    Moscow, however, continues to suffer battlefield losses.

    On Saturday, a Kremlin-backed official in Ukraine’s Kherson region announced a partial evacuation of civilians from the southern province, one of four illegally annexed by Moscow last week, amid an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive. Kirill Stremousov told Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti agency that young children and their parents, as well as the elderly, could be relocated to two southern Russian regions because Kherson was getting “ready for a difficult period.”

    The 19-kilometer (12-mile) Kerch Bridge across the Kerch Strait that links the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov is a tangible symbol of Moscow’s claims on Crimea and has provided an essential link to the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The $3.6 billion bridge, the longest in Europe, opened in 2018 and is key to sustaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine.

    While Russia seized the areas north of Crimea early during its invasion of Ukraine and built a land corridor to it along the Sea of Azov, Ukraine is pressing a counteroffensive to reclaim those lands.

    Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that a truck bomb caused seven railway cars carrying fuel to catch fire, resulting in the “partial collapse of two sections of the bridge.” A man and a woman riding in a vehicle across the bridge were killed by the explosion, Russia’s Investigative Committee said. It didn’t provide details on the third victim or what happened to the truck driver.

    The blast occurred even though all vehicles crossing the bridge undergo checks for explosives by state-of-the-art control systems, drawing a stream of critical comments from Russian war bloggers who urged Moscow to retaliate by striking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

    The truck that exploded was owned by a resident of the Krasnodar region in southern Russia. Russia’s Investigative Committee said investigators searched the man’s home and were looking at the truck’s route.

    Train and automobile traffic over the bridge was temporarily suspended. Automobile traffic resumed Saturday afternoon on one of the two links that remained intact from the blast, with the flow alternating in each direction and vehicles undergoing a “full inspection procedure,” Crimea’s Russia-backed regional leader, Sergey Aksyonov, wrote on Telegram.

    Rail traffic is expected to resume Saturday night, the Russian Transport Ministry said, while passenger ferry links between Crimea and the Russian mainland were being relaunched Sunday.

    The Russian Defense Ministry said troops in the south were receiving necessary supplies through the land corridor along the Sea of Azov and by sea. Russia’s Energy Ministry said Crimea has enough fuel for 15 days.

    Putin was informed about the explosion and he ordered the creation of a government panel to deal with the emergency.

    The speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament blamed Ukraine for the explosion, but downplayed the severity of the damage and said the bridge would be promptly repaired.

    Leonid Slutsky, head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of Russian parliament, said “consequences will be imminent” if Ukraine is responsible.

    Gennady Zyuganov, the head of the Russian Communist Party, said the “terror attack” should serve as a wake-up call.

    “The long-overdue measures haven’t been taken yet, the special operation must be turned into a counterterrorist operation,” he said.

    Sergei Mironov, the head of the Just Russia faction in parliament, said that Russia should respond to the explosion on the bridge by attacking key Ukrainian infrastructure including power plants, bridges and railways.

    The statements, especially from Zyuganov and Slutsky, may herald a decision by Putin to declare a counterterrorism operation.

    The parliamentary leader of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party on Saturday stopped short of claiming that Kyiv was responsible but appeared to cast it as a consequence of Moscow’s takeover of Crimea.

    “Russian illegal construction is starting to fall apart and catch fire. The reason is simple: if you build something explosive, then sooner or later it will explode,” said David Arakhamia, the leader of the Servant of the People party.

    The Ukrainian postal service announced that it would issue stamps commemorating the blast like it did after the sinking of the Moskva, a Russian flagship cruiser, by an Ukrainian strike.

    The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, tweeted a video with the Kerch Bridge on fire and a video with Marilyn Monroe singing her famous “Happy Birthday Mr. President” song. Putin turned 70 on Friday.

    In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said “the reaction of the Kyiv regime to the destruction of civilian infrastructure shows its terrorist nature.”

    Local authorities in Crimea made conflicting statements about what the damaged bridge would mean for residents and their ability to buy consumer goods. The peninsula is a popular destination for Russian tourists year-round and home to Sevastopol, a key city and a naval base. A Russian tourist association estimated that 50,000 tourists were in Crimea on vacation at the time of the blast.

    Elsewhere, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said that Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has lost its last remaining external power source as a result of renewed shelling and is now relying on emergency diesel generators.

    The blast on the bridge occurred hours after explosions rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early Saturday, sending towering plumes of smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.

    Ukrainian officials accused Russia of pounding Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, with surface-to-air missiles and said at least one person was wounded. The strikes targeted two largely residential neighborhoods, the governor said.

    Kharkiv resident Tetiana Samoilenko’s apartment caught fire in the attack. She said she was in the kitchen when the blast struck, sending glass flying.

    “Now I have no roof over my head. Now I don’t know what to do next,” the 80-year-old said.

    ———

    Stepanenko reported from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Francisco Seco contributed from Kharkiv.

    ———

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Large fire reported on key bridge linking Russia to Crimea

    Large fire reported on key bridge linking Russia to Crimea

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russian state-backed media are reporting that a fire has occurred on the bridge linking mainland Russia with the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula.

    RIA-Novosti and the Tass news agency quoted local Russian official Oleg Kryuchkov as saying an object thought to be a fuel storage tank caught fire and that traffic has been stopped on the bridge.

    Images shared on social media purported to show fire and damage to the span.

    The authenticity of the reports and images could not be immediately verified.

    The crossing is a pair of road and rail bridges that Russia built after it seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in violation of international law in 2014.

    The fire occurred hours after explosions rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early Saturday, sending towering plumes of smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.

    Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes in the center of the city. He said that the blasts sparked fires at one of the city’s medical institutions and a nonresidential building. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

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

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

    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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