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Milton will make landfall along Florida’s west coast.
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Spectrum News Weather Staff
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Tag: hurricane Helene
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LIVE CAMERAS: Watch Hurricane Milton as it approaches landfall in Florida
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Milton will make landfall along Florida’s west coast.
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Spectrum News Weather Staff
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FEMA Head Warns of Misinformation Impact on Hurricane Response Efforts
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FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell voiced concern Tuesday over increasing misinformation surrounding Hurricane Helene, warning it is harming both responders and survivors. Criswell said false conspiracy theories are eroding trust in federal and state governments, discouraging survivors from seeking help, and lowering first responder morale.
FEMA maintains a rumor control page to counter disaster-related misinformation, but Criswell noted the scale this time is unprecedented. Much of the misinformation is tied to baseless claims by Donald Trump and his supporters, alleging disaster funds are being diverted to immigrants. Elon Musk has also amplified these false claims.
While some Republicans praise the federal response and urge reliance on official sources, Criswell compared the situation to the 2023 Maui wildfires, where foreign entities spread disinformation.
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Media Bias Fact Check
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DeSantis Uses Hurricane To Damage Marijuana Initiative
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A second hurricane is less than 2 weeks is barreling down on Florida – the governor sees it as a chance to hurt the marijuana initiative
Hurricane Helene hit the Florida Big Bend causing havoc all the way to North Carolina with over 200 dead and thousands homeless. Now,Hurricane Milton hast targeted the Tampa area and, in a rarity, grown from a tropical storm to a category 5 storm in a matter of days. While people are prepping and worrying, DeSantis uses hurricane to damage marijuana initiative.
RELATED: Is New York Finally Getting Its Marijuana Act Together
Hurricane Milton strengthened to a powerhouse Monday, driving sustained winds of 180 mph as it headed to the Sunshine State. Tampa, Orlando and St. Petersburg are three of of 5 largest population centers and are targeted by the storm. With people either planning evacuation or prepping their home for the massive storm, DeSantis sees an advantage. The Governor has decided to not extend the voter registration deadline. He has stated there’s “nothing inhibiting” unregistered voters from registering ahead of the deadline. At the same time he is urging residents on the populated west coast to heed evacuation orders ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall on Wednesday.
as it
DeSantis has been concerned about the recreational marijuana initiative as public support and backing have been huge. The Governor has made it clear the voters are “confused” and “should leave decisions to him” around marijuana. He worked hard to block medical marijuana, but it passed with 71% of the states voters. He has worked hard to stop this one also, but with lackluster success. The PAC he encouraged to fight it has raised less than $20 million versus the pro group which has raised over $100 million. Even AARP has joined the fight with research seniors (a significant voter population in Florida) has accepted and starting consuming not just for fun but for chronic pain, inflammation, insomnia and more.
RELATED: Cannabis Can Help Soreness After Summertime Activities
With back to back storms, voting rights groups shared the current situation has the highest impact on residents who just moved to Florida or eligible voters who just turned 18 and likely haven’t registered. To show the concern over Hurricane Milton, Disney is considering closing, which has only happened 8 times previously in its history. Six times for a hurricane, 9/11 and Covid…and potential a 9th with Milton.
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Terry Hacienda
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Untapped Relief: FEMA Is Sitting on Billions of Unused Disaster Funds
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Credit: Credit: California National Guard, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By James Varney for RealClearInvestigations
Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Congress last month that it had $4 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, officials also warned that the Fund could have a shortfall of $6 billion by year’s end, a situation FEMA says could deteriorate in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for new money, budget experts note a surprising fact: FEMA is currently sitting on untapped reserves appropriated for past disasters stretching back decades.
An August report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General noted that in 2022, FEMA “estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.”
RELATED: Trump Blasts Harris for FEMA Help to Migrants as Hurricane Budget Runs Low
Drilling down on that data, the OIG found that $8.3 billion of that total was for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier.
Such developments are part of a larger pattern in which FEMA failed to close out specific grant programs “within a certain timeframe, known as the period of performance (POP),” according to the IG report. Those projects now represent billions in unliquidated appropriations that could potentially be returned to the DRF (Disaster Relief Fund).”
These “unliquidated obligations” reflect the complex federal budgeting processes. Safeguards are important so that FEMA funding doesn’t become a slush fund that the agency can spend however it chooses, budget experts said, but the inability to tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises complicates the agency’s ability to respond to immediate disasters.
‘Age Old-Game’
“This is an age-old game that happens and it doesn’t matter what administration is in,” said Brian Cavanaugh, who served as an appropriations manager at FEMA in the Trump administration. “It’s unfortunate how complex disaster relief has become, but it’s skyrocketing costs.”
Cavanaugh said neither action from Congress nor an executive order from the White House would be required to tap those funds because FEMA is operating on the sort of continuing resolutions Congress routinely authorizes. If the money is part of “immediate needs funding,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas could draw from the billions in untapped money to help the victims of Helene and then inform lawmakers he was compelled to do so, leaving elected officials facing charges they sought to pinch pennies when Americans were desperate.
FEMA did not respond to a request for comment about whether it could access the earmarked funds.
RELATED: Homeland Security Warns of Terrorism Threats Surrounding Election, Israel-Hamas War
Mayorkas, whose Department oversees FEMA, stressed the agency is not broke, and both he and other FEMA officials said this week there was enough money in the Disaster Relief Fund to meet the needs of victims of Hurricane Helene, which with a death count of more than 200 stands as the most lethal storm to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Most of Helene’s bills will come due in the future, and Mayorkas said FEMA can meet the day-to-day needs of operations right now in afflicted states but might be hard-pressed if another storm like Helene were to hit this year. Hurricane season officially lasts until the end of November, but historically, September and October have been the months in which the occasional monster smites the U.S.
“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas told a press gaggle Oct. 2 on Air Force One. “We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and … what is imminent.”
On Oct. 3, FEMA, which handles state and local government relief aid as well as the federal flood insurance plan and individual emergency requests, said it had spent at least $20 million in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida – three of the states that bore the brunt of Helene as it ripped ashore last week. The figures FEMA provided did not include Georgia, another state hard-hit by Helene, which made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane.
Longtime FEMA critics said the looming shortfall is not surprising, given its main job is to use federal taxpayer dollars to reimburse state and local governments for recovery costs, in addition to more immediate money it provides to victims on an individual basis.
“It doesn’t strike me as too weird,” said Chris Edwards, policy scholar at the conservative Cato Institute. “Right now, $20 million is peanuts, but it’s not necessarily unreasonable to think the upcoming bills will be much, much higher.”
RELATED: Bombshell Report: ‘High Risk Noncitizens’ Without IDs Flying Across U.S.
Skyrocketing Costs
The skyrocketing costs associated with disaster recovery are one of the main drivers of FEMA’s predicted budget woes. Last year, the U.S. saw a record 28 storms that caused more than $1 billion in damages, and the $1 billion threshold has been reached 19 times thus far in 2024. Since 2001, there have been nine times that FEMA nearly ran out of money in its Disaster Relief Fund, forcing it to pause hundreds of non “life-saving services” the agency runs.
The price tag on some of those services, such as those associated with assistance to immigration, has seen an unprecedented surge due to millions of illegal entrants during Biden’s term. FEMA has spent more than $640 million on those programs in 2024, leading to criticism this week from Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and others.
FEMA rebutted the claims by insisting those sums did not come out of the Disaster Relief Fund. Yet as Cavanaugh, Edwards, and others noted, the relief fund isn’t the main driver of FEMA’s expenses, which are primarily reimbursements to state and local agencies that handle things like debris removal, road and power grid repairs, and the like.
Thus far, FEMA has been getting mixed reviews from elected officials for its response to Hurricane Helene in afflicted states. While five state officials in North Carolina’s hard-hit Buncombe County did not respond to questions from RCI, some Tar Heel residents have complained in media reports about the agency’s invisibility.
While FEMA rarely initiates or administers contracts to clean debris, restore power, or search for survivors, the agency does provide emergency cash to storm victims who apply for it. Flood insurance protection comes not from private homeowners policies but from a federal program run by FEMA.
‘Crazy’ Numbers
Generally, FEMA, along with state or local officials and a neutral third-party civil engineer, will estimate the cost of such work, and then the final figure will come through negotiations. But given those settlements are far in the future, they should not have any bearing on FEMA’s current budget.
“It’s just crazy how expensive the numbers have gotten,” said Jeremy Portnoy of OpenTheBooks, a nonpartisan watchdog of government spending. “They’ve been warning for months now they are running out of money.”
Portnoy first called attention to FEMA’s unspent funds in conversations with RealClearInvestigations on Sept. 8. He said it seems bizarre that federal officials would have a pot substantial enough to cover a projected shortfall while adding billions to the Disaster Relief Fund, but fail to draw on it.
“There is all that money just sitting there,” Portnoy said. “They’re saying they don’t have enough money but when you juxtapose it with the more than $8 billion, well, why not use that right now in Florida and other places?”
RELATED: Inspector General Finds Litany of Failures Within Homeland Security Under Biden-Harris
The “unliquidated obligations” have stayed on FEMA’s books because it “subjectively” extended the deadlines on some projects. The deadline for 2012’s Superstorm Sandy has been extended to 2026.
“As a result, the potential risk for fraud, waste, and abuse increases the longer a program remains open,” a DHS report concluded.
Although DHS could probably reach into such unliquidated obligations to help restore order in areas devastated by Helene, experts note that bureaucracies are loath to resort to such tactics when budget negotiations are near, as they are when the fiscal year ends this month.
“The bridges that have been washed out, that’s not something FEMA will have to pay tomorrow,” Cavanaugh said.
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
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FEMA says it’s prepared for Hurricane Milton as it continues Helene response
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Eleven days after Hurricane Helene tore through the Southeastern United States, leaving a 600-mile path of destruction, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is deploying aid to the region while simultaneously preparing for expected fallout from another hurricane poised to make landfall in Florida this week.
“This is a complicated event, but let me be clear: FEMA is good at complexity,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said during a media briefing Monday in North Carolina, where hundreds of people are still missing and 500 roads and 50 water systems have been impaired or destroyed.
The White House says federal support has surpassed surpassed $210 million and FEMA has so far distributed $137 million in assistance to Hurricane Helene survivors. As of Monday, almost 7,000 emergency responders have been deployed and 15.6 million meals have been shipped, along with 13.9 million liters of water, 157 generators and more than 505,000 tarps.
In North Carolina, home to about half of the 227 fatalities from the storm so far, FEMA has more than 800 staff on the ground and 1,200 urban search and rescue personnel. More than 1,000 National Guard troops are also in the state, helping to deliver food, water and other supplies, some of which is being air dropped into isolated communities.
On Monday, the Department of Defense announced it has deployed 1,500 personnel to the Western part of North Carolina, much of which is still without power and largely inaccessible. Army General John Morrison said the DOD has sent 41 aircraft (including helicopters) and 918 vehicles (including all-terrain vehicles) to help clear roads, deliver commodities, provide medical care and search for missing people.
The number of missing “is rapidly dwindling,” according to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. “We know a lot of reunifications have occurred that have not been reported back. We know that a lot of people have finally gotten cell phone service and talked to the people who made the report that hasn’t gotten back to us.”
He said he will have an update on the list of missing by Tuesday morning.
More than 104,000 people in North Carolina have registered for FEMA assistance, he said; $31 million in aid has so far been distributed in the state. About 1,700 people are currently sheltering in hotels.
Cooper discouraged tourists from traveling to Western North Carolina.
“We need to preserve roads for the commodities that are coming in, for utility workers, for cell phone workers, for people who are providing medical assistance,” he said. “There’s a lot of work going on to make sure that people are getting their oxygen, making sure they’re getting their regular medical supplies, so we don’t want people coming right now.”
He said it will take time to repair the hundreds of roads that were damaged by the storm. On Friday, the Biden-Harris administration sent $100 million in emergency funding to North Carolina to repair roads and bridges damaged by the hurricane. Cooper said the state legislature will approve additional funding this week for road repairs.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell encouraged anyone affected by the hurricane to apply for assistance, including $750 in immediate monetary aid to help pay for medicine and food.
“Then we’re going to give additional money for the repairs to your homes and the items that were lost,” she said. “We’re going to help with any rental that they incur or any of the displacement costs if they stayed at a hotel. All of that will be reimbursed, but I can’t give it to them if they don’t apply.”
With Hurricane Milton poised to make landfall in Florida later this week, FMEA said it has the resources and capacity to address multiple disasters simultaneously.
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Susan Carpenter
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Biden appeals to those impacted by Helene
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President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden on Monday offered their sympathies to those impacted by Hurricane Helene and pledged that the federal government “has their back.”
The video message, shared on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” comes as falsehoods and conspiracies about the federal response to the storm — notably being echoed and amplified by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — threaten to disrupt recovery and relief efforts, officials say.
“The nation has your back,” Biden pledged to those in the path of the storm in North and South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the president said said, “is knocking on doors to sign up survivors for direct and immediate financial aid, because many of them need it now. And I’ve directed my team to stay there 24/7 with you, until this job is done.”
Helene, which made landfall in Florida last week as a Category 4 hurricane, has killed at least 230 people, with hundreds still unaccounted for, making it the deadliest mainland storm since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The president traveled to four of the impacted states last week — the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.
“Last week I spent time in four states to see firsthand how you’re doing and to thank the first responders who run toward danger,” President Biden said. “I saw homes destroyed, businesses wiped out, bridges washed away, survivors in shock and families grieving.”
“We grieve with you,” the first lady added. “This is more heartache than any one community can bear.”
“In moments like this, there are no red or blue states,” President Biden said, with the presidential election less than a month away.
“No matter how you vote, we help each other when disaster strikes,” Dr. Biden said. “Because we are one United States of America.”
Misinformation about the storm — particularly taking aim at the federal response to it — is complicating relief efforts and forcing officials of both parties to take time to set the record straight.
Trump has charged that the Biden administration is withholding aid from Republicans.
“They’re being treated very badly in the Republican areas,” Trump said, without evidence, on Fox News. “They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything.”
That claim has been echoed by right-wing figures like embattled North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, who has been dogged by his own scandals in recent weeks, and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was found liable for more than $1 billion for false and defamatory claims about the Sandy Hook school shooting. But they have been debunked by governors in both parties, including Republican Govs. Henry McMaster of South Carolina and Brian Kemp of Georgia and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, who have praised the federal response to the storm.
Trump has also falsely accused FEMA of spending money on migrants who have entered the country illegally. Other critics have criticized spending on aid to Ukraine and Israel, despite the fact that Congress allocates those funds for specific and separate purposes. One lawmaker even posited that the path of the storm was manipulated to harm Republican voters in an effort to influence the 2024 presidential election.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told ABC News on Sunday that false claims about storm recovery are “frankly ridiculous, and just plain false,” as well as “demoralizing” to aid workers and fear-mongering for those in need of aid.
“This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” Criswell said. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do.”
FEMA said Monday morning that federal support for Helene has surpassed $210 million, with hundreds of personnel on the ground to help with response efforts, including search and rescue. The agency said that it is prepared to continue response efforts while simultaneously bracing for Hurricane Milton, which strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane on Monday and is set to make landfall in Florida later this week.
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Justin Tasolides
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Biden appeals to those impacted by Helene
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President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden on Monday offered their sympathies to those impacted by Hurricane Helene and pledged that the federal government “has their back.”
The video message, shared on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” comes as falsehoods and conspiracies about the federal response to the storm — notably being echoed and amplified by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — threaten to disrupt recovery and relief efforts, officials say.
“The nation has your back,” Biden pledged to those in the path of the storm in North and South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the president said said, “is knocking on doors to sign up survivors for direct and immediate financial aid, because many of them need it now. And I’ve directed my team to stay there 24/7 with you, until this job is done.”
Helene, which made landfall in Florida last week as a Category 4 hurricane, has killed at least 230 people, with hundreds still unaccounted for, making it the deadliest mainland storm since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The president traveled to four of the impacted states last week — the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.
“Last week I spent time in four states to see firsthand how you’re doing and to thank the first responders who run toward danger,” President Biden said. “I saw homes destroyed, businesses wiped out, bridges washed away, survivors in shock and families grieving.”
“We grieve with you,” the first lady added. “This is more heartache than any one community can bear.”
“In moments like this, there are no red or blue states,” President Biden said, with the presidential election less than a month away.
“No matter how you vote, we help each other when disaster strikes,” Dr. Biden said. “Because we are one United States of America.”
Misinformation about the storm — particularly taking aim at the federal response to it — is complicating relief efforts and forcing officials of both parties to take time to set the record straight.
Trump has charged that the Biden administration is withholding aid from Republicans.
“They’re being treated very badly in the Republican areas,” Trump said, without evidence, on Fox News. “They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything.”
That claim has been echoed by right-wing figures like embattled North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, who has been dogged by his own scandals in recent weeks, and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was found liable for more than $1 billion for false and defamatory claims about the Sandy Hook school shooting. But they have been debunked by governors in both parties, including Republican Govs. Henry McMaster of South Carolina and Brian Kemp of Georgia and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, who have praised the federal response to the storm.
Trump has also falsely accused FEMA of spending money on migrants who have entered the country illegally. Other critics have criticized spending on aid to Ukraine and Israel, despite the fact that Congress allocates those funds for specific and separate purposes. One lawmaker even posited that the path of the storm was manipulated to harm Republican voters in an effort to influence the 2024 presidential election.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told ABC News on Sunday that false claims about storm recovery are “frankly ridiculous, and just plain false,” as well as “demoralizing” to aid workers and fear-mongering for those in need of aid.
“This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” Criswell said. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do.”
FEMA said Monday morning that federal support for Helene has surpassed $210 million, with hundreds of personnel on the ground to help with response efforts, including search and rescue. The agency said that it is prepared to continue response efforts while simultaneously bracing for Hurricane Milton, which strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane on Monday and is set to make landfall in Florida later this week.
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Justin Tasolides
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Voters in North Carolina and Georgia have bigger problems than politics. Helene changed everything
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VILAS, N.C. (AP) — Brad Farrington pulls over to grab a case of water bottles being passed out in Vilas, a small rural community tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He’s on his way to help a friend who lost much of what he owned when Hurricane Helene blew through last weekend.
His friend, like countless others across western North Carolina, is starting over, which explains why Farrington isn’t thinking too much about politics or the White House race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris right now.
“I don’t believe people’s hope is in either people that are being elected,” he said.
Farrington pauses, then gestures toward a dozen volunteers loading water and other necessities into cars and trucks.
“I believe we’re finding a lot more hope within folks like this,” he said.
In the election’s final weeks, people in North Carolina and Georgia, influential swing states, are dealing with more immediate concerns: widespread storm damage. If that weren’t enough, voters in Watauga County, a ticket-splitting Appalachian county that has become more Democratic in recent years, must contend with politicians laying blame while offering support as they campaign in a race that could be decided by any small shift.
Large uprooted trees litter the sides of roads, sometimes blocking driveways. Some homes in Vilas are inaccessible after bridges collapsed and roads crumbled. More populous areas like Boone, home of Appalachian State University, saw major flooding.
Residents wonder where are missing friends and relatives, is there enough food and water to last until new supplies arrive and how will they rebuild.
The focus is on survival, not politics — and may remain that way for weeks.
Politicians travel to affected battleground states
Trump and Harris have visited North Carolina and Georgia five times since the storm hit. Trump was in North Carolina on Friday, and Harris was there the next day.
After Trump went to Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, 20-year-old Fermin Herrera said the former president clinched his vote with his display of caring, not out of any frustration with how President Joe Biden and Harris, the vice president, are handling the federal disaster response. Herrera already leaned toward voting for Trump.
“I feel like everybody’s kind doing what they can,” he said. “All the locals are appreciating the help that’s coming.”
Trump, who has his own mixed record on natural disaster response, attacked Biden and Harris for what he said was a slow response to Helene’s destruction. Trump accused the Democrats of “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” and said there wasn’t enough Federal Emergency Management Agency money because it was spent on illegal immigrants. There is no evidence to support either claim.
“I’m not thinking about voters right now,” Trump insisted after a meeting with Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga., on Friday. “I’m thinking about lives.”
Biden pushed back hard, saying he is “committed to being president for all of America” and has not ordered aid to be distributed based on party lines. The White House cited statements from the Republican governors of Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee expressing satisfaction with the federal government’s response.
FEMA’s head, Deanne Criswell, told ABC’s “This Week” that this “truly dangerous narrative” of falsehoods is “demoralizing” to first responders and creating “fear in our own employees.”
What to know about the 2024 Election
Criticism of aid efforts so soon after a natural disaster is “inappropriate,” especially when factoring in the daunting logistical problems in western North Carolina, said Gavin Smith, a North Carolina State University professor who specializes in disaster recovery. He said the perilous terrain from compromised roads and bridges and the widespread lack of power and cellphone service make disaster response in the region particularly challenging.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has made several stops in western North Carolina, including Watauga County and surrounding areas, and Biden viewed the extensive damage via an aerial tour.
A focus on recovering and rebuilding
In Watauga County, Jessica Dixon was scraping muck and broken furniture off the ground with a shovel, then dumping it in the bucket of a humming excavator. The 29-year-old stood in a home she bought two years ago. It’s now gutted after a rush of water forced Dixon, her boyfriend and their two dogs to flee to safety.
Without flood insurance, Dixon is not sure what will happen over the next month. She said she filled out a FEMA application but hasn’t checked her email since. She had given the presidential election some thought before Helene, but now she’s preoccupied with cleaning her home.
“It wouldn’t change my views on anything,” said Dixon, who was planning to vote for Harris.
The presidential election isn’t top of mind for 47-year-old Bobby Cordell, either. He’s trying to get help to neighbors in western Watauga County, which has become inaccessible in some parts.
His home near Beech Mountain is one of those places, he said, after a bridge washed away. Cordell rescued his aunt from a mudslide, then traveled to Boone and has been staying in Appalachian State’s Holmes Convocation Center, which now serves as a Red Cross emergency shelter.
He’s trying to send disaster relief back where he lives by contacting officials, including from FEMA. That conversation, he said, “went very well.”
Accepting help isn’t easy for people in the mountains, he said, because they’re used to taking care of themselves.
Now, though, the people who are trapped “need everything they can get.”
Helping neighbors becomes more important in Helene’s aftermath
Over the past week of volunteering at Skateworld, where Farrington stopped for water, it’s become harder for Nancy Crawford to smile. She’s helped serve more than 1,000 people, she said, but the emotional toll has started to settle in for “a lot of us that normally are tough.”
That burden added to the weight she was already feeling about the election, which she said was “scary to begin with.” Crawford, a registered Republican, said she plans to vote for Harris. As a Latina of Mexican descent, she thinks Trump’s immigration policies would have harmful effects on her community.
The storm, she said, likely won’t change her vote but has made one thing evident.
“It doesn’t matter what party you are, we all need help,” she said.
Jan Wellborn had a similar thought as she made her way around the Watauga High School gym collecting supplies to bring to coworkers in need. A 69-year-old bus driver for the school district, she said the outpouring of support she’s seen from the community has been a “godsend.”
She takes solace from the county’s ability to pull together. The election matters, she said, but helping people make their way through a harrowing time matters more.
“The election, it should be important,” Wellborn said. “But right now we need to focus on getting everybody in the county taken care of.”
——
Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.
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US disaster relief chief blasts false claims about Helene response as a ‘truly dangerous narrative’
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government’s top disaster relief official said Sunday that false claims and conspiracy theories about the federal response to Hurricane Helene — spread most prominently by Donald Trump — are “demoralizing” aid workers and creating fear in people who need recovery assistance.
“It’s frankly ridiculous, and just plain false. This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” said Deanne Criswell, who leads the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do. We have had the complete support of the state,” she said, referring to North Carolina.
AP AUDIO: Correspondent Julie Walker reports after the deluge, lies and misinformation are clouding the recovery effort from Hurricane Helene.
Republicans, led by the former president, have helped foster a frenzy of misinformation over the past week among the communities most devastated by Helene, promoting a number of false claims, including that Washington is intentionally withholding aid to people in Republican areas.
Trump accused FEMA of spending all its money to help immigrants who are in the United States illegally, while other critics assert that the government spends too much on Israel, Ukraine and other foreign countries.
“FEMA absolutely has enough money for Helene response right now,” Keith Turi, acting director of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery said. He noted that Congress recently replenished the agency with $20 billion, and about $8 billion of that is set aside for recovery from previous storms and mitigation projects.
There also are outlandish theories that include warnings from far-right extremist groups that officials plan to bulldoze storm-damaged communities and seize the land from residents. A falsehood pushed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., asserts that Washington used weather control technology to steer Helene toward Republican voters in order to tilt the presidential election toward Democrat Kamala Harris.
Criswell said on ABC’s “This Week” that such baseless claims around the response to Helene, which caused catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian mountains and a death toll that rose Sunday to at least 230, have created a sense of fear and mistrust from residents against the thousands of FEMA employees and volunteers on the ground.
“We’ve had the local officials helping to push back on this dangerous — truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear of trying to reach out and help us or to register for help,” she said.
President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday that his administration “will continue working hand-in-hand with local and state leaders –- regardless of political party and no matter how long it takes.”
Meantime, FEMA is preparing for Hurricane Milton, which rapidly intensified into a Category 1 storm on Sunday as it heads toward Florida.
“We’re working with the state there to understand what their requirements are going to be, so we can have those in place before it makes landfall,” she said.
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US disaster relief chief blasts false claims about Hurricane Helene response as a “truly dangerous narrative”
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. government’s top disaster relief official said Sunday that false claims and conspiracy theories about the federal response to Hurricane Helene — spread most prominently by Donald Trump — are “demoralizing” aid workers and creating fear in people who need recovery assistance.
“It’s frankly ridiculous, and just plain false. This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” said Deanne Criswell, who leads the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do. We have had the complete support of the state,” she said, referring to North Carolina.
Republicans, led by the former president, have helped foster a frenzy of misinformation over the past week among the communities most devastated by Helene, promoting a number of false claims, including that Washington is intentionally withholding aid to people in Republican areas.
Trump accused FEMA of spending all its money to help immigrants who are in the United States illegally, while other critics assert that the government spends too much on Israel, Ukraine and other foreign countries.
“FEMA absolutely has enough money for Helene response right now,” Keith Turi, acting director of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery said. He noted that Congress recently replenished the agency with $20 billion, and about $8 billion of that is set aside for recovery from previous storms and mitigation projects.
There also are outlandish theories that include warnings from far-right extremist groups that officials plan to bulldoze storm-damaged communities and seize the land from residents. A falsehood pushed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., asserts that Washington used weather control technology to steer Helene toward Republican voters in order to tilt the presidential election toward Democrat Kamala Harris.
Criswell said on ABC’s “This Week” that such baseless claims around the response to Helene, which caused catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian mountains and a death toll that rose Sunday to at least 230, have created a sense of fear and mistrust from residents against the thousands of FEMA employees and volunteers on the ground.
“We’ve had the local officials helping to push back on this dangerous — truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear of trying to reach out and help us or to register for help,” she said.
President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday that his administration “will continue working hand-in-hand with local and state leaders –- regardless of political party and no matter how long it takes.”
Meantime, FEMA is preparing for Hurricane Milton, which rapidly intensified into a Category 1 storm on Sunday as it heads toward Florida.
“We’re working with the state there to understand what their requirements are going to be, so we can have those in place before it makes landfall,” she said.
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Farnoush Amiri
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US disaster relief chief blasts false claims about Helene response as a ‘truly dangerous narrative’
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. government’s top disaster relief official said Sunday that false claims and conspiracy theories about the federal response to Hurricane Helene — spread most prominently by Donald Trump — are “demoralizing” aid workers and creating fear in people who need recovery assistance.
“It’s frankly ridiculous, and just plain false. This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” said Deanne Criswell, who leads the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do. We have had the complete support of the state,” she said, referring to North Carolina.
Republicans, led by the former president, have helped foster a frenzy of misinformation over the past week among the communities most devastated by Helene, promoting a number of false claims, including that Washington is intentionally withholding aid to people in Republican areas.
Trump accused FEMA of spending all its money to help immigrants who are in the United States illegally, while other critics assert that the government spends too much on Israel, Ukraine and other foreign countries.
“FEMA absolutely has enough money for Helene response right now,” Keith Turi, acting director of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery said. He noted that Congress recently replenished the agency with $20 billion, and about $8 billion of that is set aside for recovery from previous storms and mitigation projects.
There also are outlandish theories that include warnings from far-right extremist groups that officials plan to bulldoze storm-damaged communities and seize the land from residents. A falsehood pushed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., asserts that Washington used weather control technology to steer Helene toward Republican voters in order to tilt the presidential election toward Democrat Kamala Harris.
Criswell said on ABC’s “This Week” that such baseless claims around the response to Helene, which caused catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian mountains and a death toll that rose Sunday to at least 230, have created a sense of fear and mistrust from residents against the thousands of FEMA employees and volunteers on the ground.
“We’ve had the local officials helping to push back on this dangerous — truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear of trying to reach out and help us or to register for help,” she said.
President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday that his administration “will continue working hand-in-hand with local and state leaders –- regardless of political party and no matter how long it takes.”
Meantime, FEMA is preparing for Hurricane Milton, which rapidly intensified into a Category 1 storm on Sunday as it heads toward Florida.
“We’re working with the state there to understand what their requirements are going to be, so we can have those in place before it makes landfall,” she said.
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Food poisoning dangers are real after severe weather. Here’s how to protect yourself
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Hurricanes and other natural disasters often create a cascade of unexpected complications, including extended power and water outages, flooding, mold damage and other emergencies. Now add the increased danger of food poisoning to that list.Related video above — Report: Only 1 in every 200 North Carolinians will be insured for Hurricane Helene damagesThere is the possibility for a rise in foodborne illnesses like salmonella and E. coli after natural disasters, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when power outages affect cold storage.If your household has recently been hit by a power outage, here are ways to keep your food safe:Keep your fridge door shutUnder normal circumstances, your fridge should be kept at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below and your freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit or below, according to the CDC. When the power goes out, it’s a race against time to make sure food doesn’t spoil.”Bacteria multiply quickly between temperatures of 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees Fahrenheit,” CNN wellness expert Dr. Leana Wen told CNN. “Refrigerators can generally keep food cold if it’s been under four hours and the door was not opened.”To make sure you’re getting the right temperature, purchase a food thermometer, the CDC suggests.Freezers can buy you more timeFood stored in a freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit is safe to re-freeze or cook as long as it doesn’t rise above that crucial 40-degree mark, according to the CDC.Once the power is cut, a full freezer can hold a safe temperature for 48 hours with the door closed. But, if it’s half full, that time could be cut to 24 hours – again, only if the door remains closed. That’s why experts suggest keeping any fridge activity to a minimum.Some people may turn to throwing things in the freezer to buy more time. Bill Marler, a food safety attorney in Seattle, said there are some things to take into account.”If you do this, you’re essentially adding warmer food into a cold environment, just like if you put hot food in the refrigerator,” he told CNN. “It will raise the temperature of the whole freezer and lower the amount of time things can stay safe.”To know when all is lost, the CDC and other food experts abide by a simple saying: “When in doubt, throw it out.”Some foods carry different risksPre-packaged foods and ready-to-eat foods can be a particular problem when considering food safety.”Things like improperly stored deli meals, cold cuts, hot dogs and even some types of soft cheeses can be linked to listeria,” Marler said. “Vegetables and fruits can be a little easier because they tell you when they’re not good to eat. But with some pre-made foods, it can be harder to tell.”He advised people to avoid cross-contamination that could complicate a post-power outage fridge purge.”Don’t let the juice from hot dogs contaminate other foods, and store meats — even cooked meats — separately from fruits and vegetables and the like.”Keeping foods separate from each other is a practice that should start at the grocery store, according to the CDC. They should also be kept in separate areas of the refrigerator any day of the week, regardless of the weather.Cooked doesn’t mean safeWhile items like milk and raw meat are the first things to consider when purging a too-warm fridge, Wen said it’s important not to overlook cooked items.”Cooked food should not be left out at room temperature for more than two hours. Leftovers that cannot be kept at 40 degrees F or lower should be thrown out,” she said.The CDC also has a helpful chart of how long foods can stay fresh in a functioning fridge, whether opened or unopened.People with pre-existing conditions should be more carefulThe effects of foodborne illnesses can range from mild discomfort to life-threatening complications. People with pre-existing conditions can be more at risk for serious illness, the CDC said.”It varies by the type of contamination, but pregnant women, the very young and the very old, and people with compromised immune systems are more at risk for contracting serious diseases, like listeria, that can occur with improper food handling or storage,” Marler said.If you are in one of these high-risk groups, the CDC recommends paying special attention to food safety procedures when buying, preparing, cooking and storing your food.
Hurricanes and other natural disasters often create a cascade of unexpected complications, including extended power and water outages, flooding, mold damage and other emergencies. Now add the increased danger of food poisoning to that list.
Related video above — Report: Only 1 in every 200 North Carolinians will be insured for Hurricane Helene damages
There is the possibility for a rise in foodborne illnesses like salmonella and E. coli after natural disasters, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when power outages affect cold storage.
If your household has recently been hit by a power outage, here are ways to keep your food safe:
Keep your fridge door shut
Under normal circumstances, your fridge should be kept at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below and your freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit or below, according to the CDC. When the power goes out, it’s a race against time to make sure food doesn’t spoil.
“Bacteria multiply quickly between temperatures of 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees Fahrenheit,” CNN wellness expert Dr. Leana Wen told CNN. “Refrigerators can generally keep food cold if it’s been under four hours and the door was not opened.”
To make sure you’re getting the right temperature, purchase a food thermometer, the CDC suggests.
Freezers can buy you more time
Food stored in a freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit is safe to re-freeze or cook as long as it doesn’t rise above that crucial 40-degree mark, according to the CDC.
Once the power is cut, a full freezer can hold a safe temperature for 48 hours with the door closed. But, if it’s half full, that time could be cut to 24 hours – again, only if the door remains closed. That’s why experts suggest keeping any fridge activity to a minimum.
Some people may turn to throwing things in the freezer to buy more time. Bill Marler, a food safety attorney in Seattle, said there are some things to take into account.
“If you do this, you’re essentially adding warmer food into a cold environment, just like if you put hot food in the refrigerator,” he told CNN. “It will raise the temperature of the whole freezer and lower the amount of time things can stay safe.”
To know when all is lost, the CDC and other food experts abide by a simple saying: “When in doubt, throw it out.”
Some foods carry different risks
Pre-packaged foods and ready-to-eat foods can be a particular problem when considering food safety.
“Things like improperly stored deli meals, cold cuts, hot dogs and even some types of soft cheeses can be linked to listeria,” Marler said. “Vegetables and fruits can be a little easier because they tell you when they’re not good to eat. But with some pre-made foods, it can be harder to tell.”
He advised people to avoid cross-contamination that could complicate a post-power outage fridge purge.
“Don’t let the juice from hot dogs contaminate other foods, and store meats — even cooked meats — separately from fruits and vegetables and the like.”
Keeping foods separate from each other is a practice that should start at the grocery store, according to the CDC. They should also be kept in separate areas of the refrigerator any day of the week, regardless of the weather.
Cooked doesn’t mean safe
While items like milk and raw meat are the first things to consider when purging a too-warm fridge, Wen said it’s important not to overlook cooked items.
“Cooked food should not be left out at room temperature for more than two hours. Leftovers that cannot be kept at 40 degrees F or lower should be thrown out,” she said.
The CDC also has a helpful chart of how long foods can stay fresh in a functioning fridge, whether opened or unopened.
People with pre-existing conditions should be more careful
The effects of foodborne illnesses can range from mild discomfort to life-threatening complications. People with pre-existing conditions can be more at risk for serious illness, the CDC said.
“It varies by the type of contamination, but pregnant women, the very young and the very old, and people with compromised immune systems are more at risk for contracting serious diseases, like listeria, that can occur with improper food handling or storage,” Marler said.
If you are in one of these high-risk groups, the CDC recommends paying special attention to food safety procedures when buying, preparing, cooking and storing your food.
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A Tennessee nurse and his dog died trying to save a man from floods driven by Hurricane Helene
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As the Hurricane Helene-driven waters rose around the Nolichucky River in Tennessee, Boone McCrary, his girlfriend and his chocolate lab headed out on his fishing boat to search for a man who was stranded by floodwaters that had leveled his home. But the thick debris in the water jammed the boat’s motor, and without power, it slammed into a bridge support and capsized.
McCrary and his dog Moss never made it out of the water alive.
Search teams found McCrary’s boat and his dog’s body two days later, but it took four days to find McCrary, an emergency room nurse whose passion was being on his boat in that river. His girlfriend, Santana Ray, held onto a branch for hours before rescuers reached her.
David Boutin, the man McCrary had set out to rescue, was distraught when he later learned McCrary had died trying to save him.
“I’ve never had anyone risk their life for me,” Boutin told The Associated Press. “From what I hear that was the way he always been. He’s my guardian angel, that’s for sure.”
The 46-year-old recalled how the force of the water swept him out his front door and ripped his dog Buddy — “My best friend, all I have” — from his arms. Boutin was rescued by another team after clinging to tree branches in the raging river for six hours. Buddy is still missing, and Boutin knows he couldn’t have survived.
McCrary was one of 215 people killed by Hurricane Helene’s raging waters and falling trees across six states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia — and was among a group of first responders who perished while trying to save others. The hurricane caused significant damage in nearby Unicoi County, where flooding swept away 11 workers at an plastics factory and forced a rescue mission at an Erwin, Tennessee, hospital.
McCrary, an avid hunter and fisherman, spent his time cruising the waterways that snake around Greeneville, Tennessee. When the hurricane hit, the 32-year-old asked friends on Facebook if anyone needed help, said his sister, Laura Harville. That was how he learned about Boutin.
McCrary, his girlfriend and Moss the dog launched into a flooded neighborhood at about 7 p.m. on Sept. 27 and approached Boutin’s location, but the debris-littered floodwaters clogged the boat’s jet motor. Despite pushing and pulling the throttle, McCrary couldn’t clear the junk and slammed into the bridge about two hours into the rescue attempt.
“I got the first phone call at 8:56 p.m. and I was a nervous wreck,” Harville said. She headed to the bridge and started walking the banks.
Harville organized hundreds of volunteers who used drones, thermal cameras, binoculars and hunting dogs to scour the muddy banks, fending off copperhead snakes, trudging through knee-high muck and fighting through tangled branches. Harville collected items that carried McCrary’s scent — a pillowcase, sock and insoles from his nursing shoes — and stuffed them into mason jars for the canines to sniff.
On Sunday, a drone operator spotted the boat. They found Moss dead nearby, but there was no sign of McCrary.
Searchers had no luck on Monday, “but on Tuesday they noticed vultures flying,” Harville said. That was how they found McCrary’s body, about 21 river miles (33 kilometers) from the bridge where the boat capsized, she said.
The force of the floodwaters carried McCrary under two other bridges, under the highway and over the Nolichucky Dam, she said. The Tennessee Valley Authority said about 1.3 million gallons (4.9 million liters) of water per second was flowing over the dam on the night McCrary was swept away, more than double the flow rate of the dam’s last regulated release nearly a half-century ago.
Boutin, 46, isn’t sure where he will go next. He is staying with his son for a few days and then hopes to get a hotel voucher.
He didn’t learn about McCrary’s fate until the day after he was rescued.
“When the news hit, I didn’t know how to take it,” Boutin told the AP. “I wish I could thank him for giving his life for me.”
Dozens of McCrary’s coworkers at Greenville Community Hospital have posted tributes to him, recalling his kindness and compassion and desire to help others. He “was adamant about living life to the fullest and making sure along the way that you didn’t forget your fellow man or woman and that you helped each other,” Harville said.
McCrary’s last TikTok video posted before the hurricane shows him speeding along the surface of rushing muddy water to the tune, “Wanted Dead or Alive.” He wrote a message along the bottom that read:
“Some people have asked if I had a ‘death wish.’ The truth is that I have a ‘life wish.’ I have a need for feeling the life running through my veins. One thing about me, I may be ‘crazy,’ Perhaps a little reckless at times, but when the time comes to put me in the ground, you can say I lived it all the way.”
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Bellisle reported from Seattle.
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Death toll from Hurricane Helene rises to 227 as grim task of recovering bodies continues
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FRANKFORT, Ky. — The death toll from Hurricane Helene inched up to 227 on Saturday as the grim task of recovering bodies continued more than a week after the monster storm ravaged the Southeast and killed people in six states.
Helene came ashore Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane and carved a wide swath of destruction as it moved northward from Florida, washing away homes, destroying roads and knocking out electricity and cellphone service for millions.
The number of deaths stood at 225 on Friday; two more were recorded in South Carolina the following day. It was still unclear how many people were unaccounted for or missing, and the toll could rise even higher.
Helene is the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. About half the victims were in North Carolina, while dozens more were killed in Georgia and South Carolina.
The city of Asheville, in the western mountains of North Carolina, was particularly battered. A week later workers used brooms and heavy machinery to clean mud and dirt outside of New Belgium Brewing Company, which lies next to the French Broad River and is among thousands of city businesses and households affected.
So far North Carolinians have received more than $27 million in individual assistance approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said MaryAnn Tierney, a regional administrator for the agency. More than 83,000 people have registered for individual assistance, according to the office of Gov. Roy Cooper.
In Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, FEMA-approved assistance has surpassed $12 million for survivors, Tierney said Saturday during a news briefing.
“This is critical assistance that will help people with their immediate needs, as well as displacement assistance that helps them if they can’t stay in their home,” she said.
She encouraged residents impacted by the storm to register for disaster assistance.
“It is the first step in the recovery process,” she said. “We can provide immediate relief in terms of serious needs assistance to replace food, water, medicines, other life safety, critical items, as well as displacement assistance if you cannot stay in your home.”
Helene’s raging floodwaters shocked mountain towns hundreds of miles inland and far from where the storm made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast, including in the Tennessee mountains that Dolly Parton calls home.
The country music star has announced a $1 million donation to the Mountain Ways Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to providing immediate assistance to Hurricane Helene flood victims.
In addition, her East Tennessee businesses as well as the Dollywood Foundation are combining efforts, pledging to match her donation to Mountain Ways with a $1 million contribution.
Parton said she feels a close connection to the storm victims because so many of them “grew up in the mountains just like I did.”
“I can’t stand to see anyone hurting, so I wanted to do what I could to help after these terrible floods,” she said. “I hope we can all be a little bit of light in the world for our friends, our neighbors — even strangers — during this dark time they are experiencing.”
Walmart U.S. President and CEO John Furner said the company, including Sam’s Club and the Walmart Foundation, would increase its commitment and donate a total of $10 million to hurricane relief efforts.
In Newport, an eastern Tennessee town of about 7,000, residents continued cleaning up Saturday from the destruction caused by Helene’s floodwaters.
Mud still clung to the basement walls of one Main Street funeral home. The ground-floor chapel of another nearby was being dried out, a painting of Jesus still hanging on the wall in an otherwise barren room.
Newport City Hall and its police department also took on water from the swollen Pigeon River. Some of the modest, one-story homes along its banks were destroyed, their walls crumbled and rooms exposed.
Farther east in unincorporated Del Rio, along a bend in the French Broad River, residents and volunteers toiled to clean up. The smell of wood hung in the air as people used chainsaws to cut through downed trees, and Bobcats beeped as they moved mangled sheet metal and other debris. Many homes sustained damage, including one that slid off its foundation.
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Associated Press journalists Jeff Roberson in Newport, Tennessee; Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa; and Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia, contributed.
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Volunteer pilots transport thousands of pounds worth of supplies from Va. to Hurricane Helene victims – WTOP News
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Volunteer pilots from across the D.C. area are gathering at Leesburg Executive Airport to bring supplies to Hurricane Helene victims as a part of a nationwide effort called Operation AirDrop.
Volunteer pilots from across the D.C. area are gathering at Leesburg Executive Airport in Loudoun County, Virginia, to help bring supplies to hurricane-devastated areas in the south as a part of a nationwide effort called Operation AirDrop.
A hangar at Leesburg Airport owned by Kuhn Aviation was transformed into a staging area to drop off supplies. Khun Aviation operations VP Jon Rooney says he came up with the idea to join the effort on Sunday.
“I was watching TV and watching the news, we just cleared out a hanger space. We had a bit of room available. And I said, ‘We could definitely coordinate something and get some bodies together,’” Rooney said.
Using only social media and word of mouth, Rooney and his team recruited around 50 volunteers and several pilots to help out. They have small aircrafts coming from all over Virginia and Maryland including Gaithersburg and Hagerstown.
Donations can be dropped off at Leesburg airport. Rooney says they’ve completed around 20 helicopter trips and nearly 25 plane flights transporting supplies all over Western North Carolina. They plan to have around 50 round-trips completed by the end of the week.
Jonathan Loveless is Chief Pilot at Khun Aviation. He’s done six trips so far.
“A lot of these small towns are down in valleys or up on plateaus. And all of the bridges to access these towns have been washed out. So literally, the only way we can get supplies to them is via airplane,” Loveless said.
Rooney says there’s tons of coordination that goes into the project, but it’s still a very fluid operation.
“We’ve had folks that have reached out directly and it’s unimaginable what they’ve gone through,” Rooney said. “Whenever we hear of someone with a certain need, we’ll send [supplies] directly to that location.”
They plan to run the operation through noon on Sunday, but say that could change based on demand.
Water, food, feminine products, baby products, generators and medical supplies are just some of the donations being accepted to fly over. Rooney says waterproof blankets remain at the top of their list as they’ve seen many people in affected areas sleeping outside.
“Local businesses have been super supportive. FedEx just helped us load a 757 [plane] for Asheville,” he said. “I’ve seen people bring over $1,000 of goods from Costco just drop off, say thank you, and go on their way. It’s unbelievable.”
Any pilots interested in joining the effort can contact Leesburg Executive Airport.
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Grace Newton
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Rubonia resident helps Hurricane Helene victims through her nonprofit
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MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — Residents in Rubonia are still reeling from the impacts of Hurricane Helene. Many residents are in need of help.
In the aftermath of a major storm like Hurricane Helene, many victims are holding on to the few memories they have left.
For Tonia Martinez, a family picture is one of them.
“God protected that. It’s amazing,” she said.
She says at least two feet of water flooded her home, damaging many of her belongings and furniture.
But she said she’s just grateful she, her family, and her dog made it out safely. Martinez says her 6-year-old granddaughter was impacted the most.
I checked on the residents living in #Rubonia who have lost almost everything from #Hurricanehelene one resident told me she thanks god every day for keeping her family safe from the flooding in her home. Now she’s helping others in her community. Tune in @BN9 to hear her plans. pic.twitter.com/NlRDCR536h
— Julia Hazel (@Julia_HazelTV) October 4, 2024
“And as we were talking about the waters coming in, she began to cry. She says, ‘Oh my, why does this have to happen? I wish the flood never came,’ and she just started crying,” she said.
Martinez doesn’t have flood insurance, so her main concern now is getting help from FEMA.
“Waiting on FEMA, because in this area, it’s hard to get insurance companies to write policies for floods,” she said.
Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio sent a letter to FEMA urging the agency to expedite hurricane reimbursements to local governments.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said while FEMA can meet immediate needs, it does not have enough funding to make it through hurricane season.
“We are suffering. We need help. Not just because it happened to me personally, because I love people. It happened to a lot of people,” Martinez said.
But Martinez isn’t used to waiting for help — she’s usually the one providing it.
She formed a nonprofit in 2022 called “Blessings Without Borders” that assists the homeless.
“I felt so much joy with that. I mean, joy like I had never seen, I felt before, and I knew that was my calling,” Martinez said.
Now, she’s using those efforts to aid hurricane victims.
“You know, this is the community I grew up in. This is the community that I love. So why not start here?” she said.
Helping a community might be a big job, but Martinez says she has an extra hand.
“I’m not going to worry, because God is still God, and God is still good,” she said.
On Saturday, Oct. 5, Blessings Without Borders will be handing out clothes and necessities for Hurricane Helene victims at Rubonia on the slab on 72nd Street and Bayshore Road.
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Julia Hazel
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Homeowners hit by Hurricane Helene face the grim task of rebuilding without flood insurance
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A week after Hurricane Helene overwhelmed the Southeastern U.S., homeowners hit the hardest are grappling with how they could possibly pay for the flood damage from one of the deadliest storms to hit the mainland in recent history.
The Category 4 storm that first struck Florida’s Gulf Coast on September 26 has dumped trillions of gallons of water across several states, leaving a catastrophic trail of destruction that spans hundreds of miles inland. More than 200 people have died in what is now the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina, according to statistics from the National Hurricane Center.
Western North Carolina and the Asheville area were hit especially hard, with flooding that wiped out buildings, roads, utilities and land in a way that nobody expected, let alone prepared for. Inland areas in parts of Georgia and Tennessee were also washed out.
The Oak Forest neighborhood in south Asheville lives up to its name, with trees towering over 1960s era ranch-style houses on large lots. But on Sept. 27, as Helene’s remnants swept through western north Carolina, many of those trees came crashing down, sometimes landing on houses.
Julianne Johnson said she was coming upstairs from the basement to help her 5-year-old son pick out clothes that day when her husband began to yell that a giant oak was falling diagonally across the yard. The tree mostly missed the house, but still crumpled part of a metal porch and damaged the roof. Then, Johnson said, her basement flooded.
On Friday, there was a blue tarp being held on the roof with a brick. Sodden carpet that the family torn out lay on the side of the house, waiting to go to the landfill. With no cell phone service or internet access, Johnson said she couldn’t file a home insurance claim until four days after the storm.
“It took me a while to make that call,” she said. “I don’t have an adjuster yet.”
Roof and tree damage are likely to be covered by the average home insurance policy. But Johnson, like many homeowners, doesn’t have flood insurance and she’s not certain how she’ll pay for that part of the damage.
Those recovering from the storm may be surprised to learn flood damage is a completely separate thing. Insurance professionals and experts have long warned that home insurance typically does not cover flood damage to the home, even as they espouse that flooding can happen anywhere that rains. That’s because flooding isn’t just sea water seeping into the land – it’s also water from banks, as well as mudflow and torrential rains.
But most private insurance companies don’t carry flood insurance, leaving the National Flood Insurance Program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as the primary provider for that coverage for residential homes. Congress created the federal flood insurance program more than 50 years ago when many private insurers stopped offering policies in high-risk areas.
North Carolina has 129,933 such policies in force, according to FEMA’s latest data, though most of that protection will likely be concentrated on the coast rather than in the Blue Ridge Mountains area where Helene caused the most damage. Florida, in comparison, has about 1.7 million flood policies in place statewide.
Charlotte Hicks, a flood insurance expert in North Carolina who has led flood risk training and educational outreach for the state’s Department of Insurance, said the reality is that many Helene survivors will never be made whole. Without flood insurance, some people may be able to rebuild with the help of charities but most others will be left to fend for themselves.
“There will absolutely be people who will be financially devasted by this event,” Hicks said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Some may go into foreclosure or bankruptcy. Entire neighborhoods will likely never be rebuilt. There’s been water damage across the board, Hicks said, and for some, mudslides have even taken the land upon which their house once stood.
Meanwhile, Helene is turning out to be a fairly manageable disaster for the private home insurance market because those plans generally only serve to cover wind damage from hurricanes.
That’s a relief for the industry, which has been under increasing strain from other intensifying climate disasters such as wildfires and tornadoes. Nowhere is the shrinking private market due to climate instability more evident than in Florida, where many companies have already stopped selling policies — leaving the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corporation now the largest home insurer in the state.
Mark Friedlander, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group, said Helene is a “very manageable loss event,” and estimates insurer losses will range from about $5 billion to $8 billion. That’s compared to the insured losses from the Category 4 Hurricane Ian in September 2022 that was estimated in excess of $50 billion.
Friedlander and other experts point out that less than 1% of the inland areas that sustained the most catastrophic flood damage were protected with flood insurance.
“This is very common in inland communities across the country,” Friedlander said. “ Lack of flood insurance is a major insurance gap in the U.S., as only about 6% of homeowners carry the coverage, mostly in coastal counties.”
Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, said the images of the flood destruction in North Carolina shook her despite decades of seeing challenging recovery faced by victims of natural disasters.
“This is a pretty serious situation here in terms of people disappointed. They are going to be disappointed in their insurers and they are going to be disappointed in FEMA,” Bach said. “FEMA cannot match the kind of dollars private insurers are supposed to be contributing to the recovery.”
This week, FEMA announced it could meet the immediate needs of Helene but warned it doesn’t have enough funding to make it through the hurricane season, which runs June 1 to Nov. 30 though most hurricanes typically occur in September and October.
Even if a homeowner does have it, FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program only covers up to $250,000 for single-family homes and $100,000 for contents.
Bach said that along with homeowners educating themselves about what their policies do and don’t cover, the solution is a national disaster insurance program that does for property insurance what the Affordable Care Act did for health insurance.
After Hurricane Floyd in 1999, the state of North Carolina started requiring insurance agents to take a flood insurance class so they could properly advise their clients of the risk and policies available, Hicks said. The state also requires home insurance policies to clearly disclose that it does not cover flood.
“You can’t stop nature from doing what nature is going to do,” Hicks said. “For us to think it’s never going to be this bad again would be a dangerous assumption. A lot of people underestimate their risk of flooding.”
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Associated Press Staff Writers Jeff Amy in Asheville, North Carolina, Lisa Leff in London and Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this report.
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Indian Rocks Beach man paddleboards to get to neighbors in need during Helene
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INDIAN ROCKS BEACH, Fla. — Marty Thomas is being praised by neighbors for using his paddleboard to rescue a number of people as Hurricane Helene’s storm surge rose.
“The angel of Indian Rocks Beach,” Thomas’ neighbor Ann McIntosh called him Friday.
One look down First Street, where the two live, and the toll Hurricane Helene took is evident. Piles of flood damaged belongings sit in front of each home.
“You’re looking at all my neighbors’ stuff, everything from start to finish — grills, clothes, everything — everything, it’s wasted,” Thomas said. “I mean, it’s completely drenched in saltwater and sewer water.”
Thomas said he had to get rid of most of his belongings, too. Still in his apartment, though, are several surfboards and paddleboards.
“I grew up in the water, and I’ve lived on the beach my whole life,” said Thomas, 51.
He told Spectrum News his family moved to Indian Rocks Beach more than 40 years ago.
When the storm surge during Helene started to invade the neighborhood, Thomas said he grabbed a paddleboard.
“Once I seen the water was coming up to the window, I just knew it was time to go,” he said.
The plan was to head to his friend’s house.
“He told me, you know, ‘I got five beers left. So, better bring me some beer,’” Thomas said. “So, I threw some beer in the backpack and my phone.”
He said he made his way down First Street in water that was chest-high in some spots. Once he got to his friend’s place, a neighbor called out to him.
“There was a lady trapped,” Thomas said. “My buddy’s neighbor said, ‘Hey, there’s a lady over there. Can you help her?’ I just paddled over there.”
After he got to that woman, Thomas said the calls for help kept coming, including from McIntosh.
“I’ve lived here 27 years. I’ve never flooded,” she said.
But late that Thursday, the water rose fast.
“Pretty soon, my bed is floating, all my furniture is floating, the refrigerator blew over, and about 11:30, I’m up to water about my hip,” McIntosh said.
She said that after he rescued her brother and sister-in-law and their two dogs, Thomas came back for her. Thomas and neighbors estimate he helped about a dozen people that night.
“They were definitely more scared,” Thomas said. “I don’t know if they were in imminent danger.”
“Virtually saved our lives,” said McIntosh. “I really believe he did.”
Thomas said the entire community has come together following Helene. He praised local businesses for bringing water and more to people in affected neighborhoods starting the morning after the storm.
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Sarah Blazonis
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Florida Rep. Luna Co-Sponsors Bipartisan Legislation for Additional FEMA Funding
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Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to support recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene’s devastating impact on Florida and other states across the nation.
“My constituents in Pinellas County depend on Congress to take swift and decisive action in the wake of this unprecedented disaster caused by Hurricane Helene,” said Republican Congresswoman Luna. “I am ready and willing to return to Washington and ensure our communities receive the critical resources necessary for a rapid recovery. Americans are counting on us, and we must take immediate action to address their life-saving needs.”
The bill, introduced by Democratic Florida Congressman Jared Moskowitz, allocates an additional $15 billion in response to Hurricane Helene, including $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for disaster relief and emergency assistance and $5 billion in supplemental funding to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program.
The office of Representative Anna Paulina Luna is committed to supporting constituents during this challenging time by providing a variety of resources. She provided a list of updated federal and local resources to help with assistance that is needed, and told residents do not hesitate to reach out directly to the Congresswoman’s office.
Here is the list of resources provided by Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna:
Important Steps for Assistance:
- Contact Your Insurance Provider:
If you have experienced damage to your home, business, or vehicle, your first step is to file a claim with your insurance company. Be sure to take photographs of all damages and submit them along with your claim. - Filing a Claim with FEMA:
After contacting your insurance company, you can also apply for disaster relief through FEMA. Below are links to the FEMA website and their mobile app, where you can access the application for disaster assistance:
- FEMA Helpline: 800-621-3362
- DisasterAssistance.gov (The fastest way to apply)
- FEMA Mobile App (Available for download on app stores)
Please be aware that after disasters, scammers may take advantage of vulnerable individuals by offering fraudulent assistance or services. It’s essential to protect yourself. Be cautious of anyone who arrives uninvited and offers to perform repairs. Always verify that the contractor provides a valid address, telephone number, and license information. For more details or to file a complaint, you can contact Pinellas County Consumer Services at 727-464-6200.
Federal Resources:
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management)-
Link to Application: DisasterAssistance.gov.
Mobile App: FEMA mobile app.
Helpline: 800-621-3362
SBA (Small Business Administration)-
Small Business Association (SBA)’s Office of Disaster Assistance
provides low-interest disaster loans to businesses of all sizes, private non-profit organizations, homeowners, and renters to repair or replace real estate, personal property, machinery & equipment, inventory, and business assets that have been damaged or destroyed in a declared disaster.
Disaster Unemployment Assistance-
https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/disaster.asp
Veteran Resources:
- If you or a veteran you know needs immediate housing assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, call the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans (24/7) – 1-800-424-3838
- If you’re unable to receive a benefit payment after a disaster, contact the VA National Call Center at 1-800-827-1000 to request a special one-time payment.
- If you’re a displaced Veteran and receive VA employment services, you may qualify for two additional months of Employee Adjustment Allowance. Contact your local VA regional office to speak with a Veteran Readiness & Employment specialist to learn more.
- American Red Cross Services for Veterans:
https://www.redcross.org/get-help/military-families/services-for-veterans.html
Local & State Resources:
Pinellas County Information Center:
The County Information Center remains open daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. until further notice.
Call (727) 464-4333.
Residents who are deaf or hard of hearing can contact the County Information Center via online chat at bit.ly/PinellasChat
Disaster Distress Hotline:
The Disaster Distress Helpline provides 24/7 toll-free, multilingual disaster crisis counseling for anyone experiencing emotional distress related to disasters. Call or text1-800-985-5990
American Red Cross Tampa Bay Chapter:
(Can provide emergency medical assistance/medications, disaster recovery planning, meals and water.)
Phone Number: 813-348-4820
Website: https://www.redcross.org/local/florida/central-florida/about-us/locations/tampa-bay.html
Salvation Army Disaster Assistance:
https://disaster.salvationarmyusa.org/HeleneServiceLocations
PODS (Points of Distribution):
Food, water, and tarps are available at three points of distribution on Pinellas barrier islands:
- St. Pete Beach: 4700 Gulf Bvd. Food, water and tarps
- Treasure Island: 10451 Gulf Blvd. Food, water and tarps
- Tierra Verde Fire Station: 540 Sands Point Drive. Water only
Crisis Cleanup
This is for people who need help cleaning up damage from Hurricane Helene and connects people with volunteers from local relief organizations, community groups, and faith communities who may be able to assist with jobs such as mucking (cleaning up), trees, tarp, and debris. All services are free, but service is not guaranteed. This hotline will remain open through Oct. 11, 2024.
They have activated the Hurricane Helene Cleanup Hotline: (844) 965-1386.
Website: https://crisiscleanup.org/disasters/171
Temporary Place to Live / Shelter:
Help with food/groceries:
-Feeding Tampa Bay’s food distribution Disaster Relief
- We Help Free Pantry at 863 Third Ave. N (8:30am-3pm)
- Deuces Drive-Thru at 2198 15th Ave. S (2pm-6pm).
–3 Daughters Brewing– 222 22nd Street S, St. Petersburg, FL 33712
-Fresh Meals from various local restaurants:
- 4-6pm Monday, 340 E Davis Blvd.
- 8-10am Tuesday, 2219 S Dale Mabry Highway
- 4-6pm Wednesday, 3644 S West Shore Blvd.
- 8-10am Thursday, 1700 W Fig Street and 340 E Davis Blvd
- 4-6pm Friday, 340 E Davis Blvd.
Fare Free Bus Services:
To assist residents affected by Hurricane Helene, the City of St. Petersburg and PSTA are offering a two-week period of fare-free bus service within St. Pete city limits, starting Monday, September 30 through Sunday, October 13.
- Applies to: Regular bus trips that begin and end within St. Pete city limits
- Exclusions: Does not apply to Access, MOD, or other mobility services
- SunRunner Update: SunRunner is turning around at Pasadena due to westbound access limitations
- Fares Resume: Monday, Oct. 14, 2024
For more information on routes and schedules, visit psta.net.
Free Laundry Services:
- Parking lot across from Allendale United Methodist Church (3803 Haines Rd. N) – 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.
- Easy Kleen Laundromat (2970 54th Ave. S) – 6 a.m. – 10 p.m. (last wash at 8:30 p.m.)
Cooling Stations
These will provide a place for residents to cool off and charge their phones.
Clearwater:
Recreation Centers – Open Monday, Sept. 30, to Friday, Oct. 4:
- Morningside Recreation Center, 2400 Harn Blvd, Clearwater – 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
- Long Center, 1501 N Belcher Road, Clearwater – 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- Countryside Rec Center, 2640 Sabal Springs Drive, Clearwater – 5 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
- McMullen Tennis Complex, 1000 Edenville Ave., Clearwater – 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
- Moccasin Lake Nature Park, 2750 Park Trail Lane, Clearwater – CLOSED MONDAY; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Friday
- North Greenwood Recreation and Aquatic Center, 900 N Martin Luther King Jr Ave., Clearwater – 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Libraries:
- Clearwater Countryside Library, 2642 Sabal Springs Dr, Clearwater – Monday-Thursday 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Friday-Sunday 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.
- Clearwater East Community Library at St Petersburg College, 2465 Drew St, Clearwater, FL 33765, Monday-Thursday 9 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Friday-Saturday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., closed Sunday
- Clearwater Main Library, 100 N. Osceola Ave, Clearwater, FL 33755, Monday-Wednesday 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Friday-Saturday 12 p.m. – 5 p.m., closed Sunday
- Clearwater North Greenwood Library, 905 N. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave., Clearwater, FL 33755, Monday-Thursday 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., Friday 12 p.m. – 5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., closed Sunday.
St. Petersburg:
- St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, 4444 5th Ave N, St. Petersburg – Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
- Lakewood United Methodist Church, 5995 Dr. M.L.K. Jr. St. S., St. Petersburg – Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (Pets welcome)
St. Pete Beach:
- St. Pete Beach Community Center, 7701 Boca Ciega Dr., St. Pete Beach – 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Madeira Beach:
- Madeira Beach City Hall, 14225 Gulf Blvd, Madeira Beach, Open daily 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. until further notice.
Seminole:
- Seminole Recreation Center, 9100 113th St, Seminole, – 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Largo:
- Largo Public Library, 120 Central Park Dr, Largo – Monday – Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday – Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Gulfport:
- Gulfport Senior Center, located at 5501 27th Ave. S., Gulfport – open through Oct. 4, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Dunedin:
- First United Methodist Church of Dunedin, 421 Main St., Dunedin – Monday, Sept. 30, through Thursday, Oct. 10, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Lost Pets:
- If you have lost or found a pet, visit pinellas.gov/lost-and-found.
- You can visit the Pinellas County Animal Services’ Found Center to check for your lost pet or drop off a found pet at 12450 Ulmerton Road, Largo. Found Center hours are Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. You can check other local animal shelters as well.
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- Contact Your Insurance Provider:
