I love living in Florida, but the sun-and-surf lifestyle eventually exacts a price
Ana Veciana -Suarez – October 7, 2022
For those who have spent most of their lives in Florida, as I have, the apocalyptic photos that emerged after Hurricane Ian are painfully familiar. The flooded roadways. The shattered storefronts. The flattened landscapes. The unending miles of debris. And more than 100 dead in my state alone.
I remember those horrors too well. I survived Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5, packed into a walk-in closet with seven other family members, including four terrified children. During that interminable night, I discovered that few things sound as scary as howling winds and splintering roof trusses. However, that wasn’t the worst part of the experience.
Rebuilding was. Gusts subsided and water receded but putting a life — and a home — back together took much longer. After Andrew, we were out of our house for almost seven months. The kitchen wasn’t done when we moved back, but I was desperate to return. I was very pregnant with my youngest and needed the semblance of a routine.
It would take well over a decade for my wider neighborhood to recover, and the experience marked me for life. I came away with a renewed respect for the wonder — and danger — of nature.
We’ve been through other hurricanes since 1992. Wilma, a Category 3, tore through the roof of our old house in 2005. That same year two other hurricanes — Rita and Katrina — slapped us hard, too. Then, in 2017, Irma flooded a trailer home we own on the state’s west coast. But none matched the fury of Andrew. I hope none ever do.
Nonetheless, Ian has been particularly difficult for me to process. Part of that dread, I think, is the path it was predicted to take. A son and a brother live in St. Petersburg, both a short walk from Tampa Bay. Another son lives south of Orlando. All would’ve gotten slammed had Ian not made landfall elsewhere.
They suffered minimal damage — water seeping through windows, a gate fence blown away — but nothing like the devastation in counties farther south. Some of our friends, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky. Those in Fort Myers and Naples have suffered huge property losses, and one farther inland in Bartow reported several trees down. We suspect that the quaint spots we like to visit on that side of the coast may never reopen. After all, calamities have a way of rearranging the map of entire towns.
So, yes, news of this kind should unsettle me, but there’s more to my disquiet than that. These hurricanes and several near-misses have forced me to reassess not only how I live but also where and why.
I claim residence in what one expert called “the most hurricane-ravaged state in the country.” There’s a good reason for that. We have 1,350 miles of coastline, second only to Alaska in that department. We also happen to stick out like a middle finger into warm, hurricane-feeding ocean waters. In short, we’ve got a target on our back.
That target — at least in terms of numbers — has only gotten bigger. Florida’s population has grown 60% since Hurricane Andrew, and most newcomers have settled along the coasts, where the scenery is amazing but also where hurricane forces can be most destructive. That sun-and-surf lifestyle eventually exacts a price.
Knowing this, I must ask myself the inescapable questions. Should I continue to live in a place where experiencing a monster storm (again) is just a matter of time? Are there better ways to build in the Sunshine State? How much risk am I willing to assume for a slice of paradise?
Arriving at the answers is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought.
Russian missiles slam into Ukrainian city near nuclear plant
Adam Schreck – October 6, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched missiles that hit apartment buildings in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, a local official said Thursday, killing three people and wounding at least 12 in a region that houses Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant and which Moscow illegally annexed.
The two strikes, the first before dawn and another in the morning, damaged more than 40 buildings, local authorities said. The attacks came just hours after Ukraine’s president announced that the country’s military had retaken three more villages in another of the four regions annexed by Russia, the latest battlefield reversal for Moscow.
The Zaporizhzhia region’s governor, Oleksandr Starukh wrote on Telegram that many people were rescued from the multi-story buildings, including a 3-year-old girl who was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Photos provided by the Emergency Service of Ukraine showed rescuers scrambling through rubble in the wreckage of a building looking for survivors.
Starukh said of Russia: “The terrorist country has shown its beastly face by converting defense weapons into offensive weapons and killing peacefully sleeping people.”
Zaporizhzhia is one of the regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed as Russian territory in violation of international laws and is home to a nuclear plant that is under Russian occupation. The city of the same name remains under Ukrainian control.
The head of the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog is expected to visit Kyiv this week to discuss the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant after Putin signed a decree Wednesday declaring that Russia was taking over the six-reactor facility.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called the move a criminal act and said it considered Putin’s decree “null and void.” The state nuclear operator, Energoatom, said it would continue to operate the plant.
Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, plans to discuss efforts to set up a secure protection zone around the facility, which has been damaged during Russia’s war in Ukraine and seen staff, including its director, abducted by Russian troops.
Grossi plans to travel to Moscow for talks with Russian officials after his stop in Ukraine.
The U.S. government sent its international development chief to Kyiv on Thursday, the highest-ranking American official to visit Ukraine since Russia illegally annexed the four regions.
The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Samantha Power, was holding meetings with government officials and residents. She said the U.S. would provide an additional $55 million to repair heating pipes and other equipment.
USAID said the United States had delivered $9.89 billion in aid to Ukraine since February. A spending bill signed by U.S. President Joe Biden last week promises another $12.3 billion directed both at military and public services needs. Power said Washington plans to release the first $4.5 billion of that funding in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, leaders from more than 40 European countries met in Prague on Thursday to launch a “political community” aimed at boosting security and prosperity across the continent.
“What you will see here is that Europe stands in solidarity against the Russian invasion in Ukraine,”further land grabs in Ukraine.
Speaking in a conference call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that “certain territories will be reclaimed, and we will keep consulting residents who would be eager to embrace Russia.”
The precise borders of the areas Moscow is claiming remain unclear, but Putin has vowed to defend Russia’s territory — including the annexed Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine — with any means at his military’s disposal, including nuclear weapons.
The deputy head of the Ukraine president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said 10 people were killed in the latest Russian attacks in the Dnipro, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. It was not clear if that number included those killed in the morning strikes in Zaporizhzhia.
In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian army recaptured three more villages in the Kherson region. Novovoskrysenske, Novohryhorivka, and Petropavlivka are all situated northeast of Kherson.
Ukrainian forces are seizing back villages in Kherson in humiliating battlefield defeats for Russian forces that have badly dented the image of a powerful Russian military and added to the tensions surrounding an ill-planned mobilization. They have also fueled fighting among Kremlin insiders and left Putin increasingly cornered.
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian military said the Ukrainian flag was raised above seven Kherson region villages previously occupied by the Russians. The closest of the liberated villages to the city of Kherson is Davydiv Brid, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) away.
Ukraine also was seeking to press a counteroffensive in the Donetsk region, which has been partly controlled by Moscow-backed separatists since 2014 yet remains contested despite Putin’s proclaimed annexation.
When Russian troops pulled back from the Donetsk city of Lyman over the weekend, they retreated so rapidly that they left behind the bodies of their comrades. Some were still lying by the side of the road leading into the city on Wednesday.
Lyman sustained heavy damage both during the occupation and as Ukrainian soldiers fought to retake it. Mykola, a 71-year-old man who gave only his first name, was among about 100 residents who lined up for aid on Wednesday.
“We want the war to come to an end, the pharmacy and shops and hospitals to start working as they used to,” he said. “Now we don’t have anything yet. Everything is destroyed and pillaged, a complete disaster.”
In his nightly address, a defiant Zelenskyy switched to speaking Russian to tell the Moscow leadership that it has already lost the war that it launched Feb. 24.
“You have lost because even now, on the 224th day of full-scale war, you have to explain to your society why this is all necessary.”
He said Ukrainians know what they are fighting for.
“And more and more citizens of Russia are realizing that they must die simply because one person does not want to end the war,” Zelenskyy said.
I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid for an abortion or if he blew up the planet Alderaan
Rex Huppke, USA TODAY – October 6, 2022
There’s a report that Herschel Walker, the staunchly anti-abortion Republican running in Georgia’s Senate race, got a woman pregnant then paid for her abortion back in 2009.
Dana Loesch, a conservative radio host and former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, put it best this week when she said: “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”
Abortions are unacceptable – except for this one
Amen, sister. Abort those eagle babies! Like Loesch, I believe deeply in the sanctity of life and oppose all abortions – except for this one, which I will accept to prevent it from costing my party control of the Senate.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker speaks at a rally in Athens, Ga., in May 2022.
The report came from The Daily Beast, and all they had to back it up was: a receipt from the abortion provider; a canceled check Walker sent to the woman five days after the procedure; and the get-well card Walker sent the check in. Walker denies the whole thing and claims he doesn’t know the woman, who, as The Daily Beast reported Wednesday, is also the mother of one of his children.
I’m going to have to side with Walker on this one, because I want my party in power and believe it’s a sin to use the word “hypocrisy.”
Control of the Senate is what matters here, and he played football!
As a matter of fact, I don’t think Loesch went far enough in defending Walker with her hypothetical eagle abortion clinic.
Like the many Republicans who’ve rushed in to stick up for Walker in the wake of the abortion news, I don’t care if the former football star is an ancient, trans-dimensional, shape-shifting entity of pure evil that takes the form of a clown named Pennywise and terrorizes a small town in Maine. I want control of the Senate, and I’m sure Walker regrets any past desire to feed on humans.
Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker signs memorabilia for supporters in Columbus, Ga.
The destruction of a planet or two is fine if it leads to power
Heck, I don’t care if Walker oversaw the construction of a moon-size space station that blew up the 2-billion-person planet of Alderaan, then later got in an argument with his son and chopped his right hand off. We have to secure that Georgia Senate seat so we can stop President Joe Biden’s immoral agenda!
I’m not the least bit bothered if Walker, in the year 1219, let loose the Mongol hordes on the Khwarazmian Empire in Persia after the shah, Ala ad-Din Muhammad II, broke a treaty. Control of the Senate is of tantamount importance to the moral fabric of our nation.
Ruling Mordor isn’t so bad when you think about it
The possibility Walker may have been described in the epic Anglo-Saxon poem “Beowulf” as the monster Grendel, “accursed of God, the destroyer and devourer of our human kind,” doesn’t bother me a whip if it leads to a Republican becoming Senate majority leader. And the additional claims that he slaughtered the inhabits of the mead hall of Heorot, built by King Hrothgar? A minor detail if the power to cut corporate taxes is in play.
No, I see no logical or moral inconsistency between my firmly held religious beliefs and the lack of concern I would feel if I learned Walker had remained a noncorporeal evil for centuries before rising again in the land of Mordor and building the dark fortress Barad-dûr not far from Mount Doom. And if he gathered massive armies of orcs and trolls then tricked the elven-smith Celebrimbor into forging the Rings of Power? Well that’s a small price to pay to defeat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is a pastor and has probably never paid to abort endangered baby eagles.
Basically, nothing matters as long as we win
The discovery that Walker is, in fact, the Dark Lord Voldemort, “He Who Must Not Be Named,” and is plotting, with the help of Death Eaters, to rid the world of Muggles, would in no way impact my support for a candidate whose qualifications include being somewhat famous.
The dark wizard Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) lords over the wizarding world in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I.”
I want control of the Senate. Getting Herschel Walker elected is key to that end. And if that means being OK finding out he once snapped his fingers while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet and instantly wiped out half of all life in the universe, well … so be it. I’m not about to let the morality I use to disguise my craven thirst for power get in the way of my craven thirst for power.
Court Screwup Reveals Mar-a-Lago Judge’s Latest Legal Absurdity in Trump Case
Jose Pagliery – October 6, 2022
Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast
First, she stopped FBI special agents from even glancing at the classified documents they recovered from Mar-a-Lago. Then she appointed a special court referee that former President Donald Trump wanted to slow down the investigation over his mishandling of classified documents.
But now, it’s clear District Court Judge Aileen Cannon already knew the Department of Justice was ready to hand Trump back a ton of personal records six days before she claimed the former president was suffering “a real harm” by being “deprived of potentially significant personal documents.”
The “medical records” she worried the feds might leak to the press—what she called a “risk of irreparable injury” to the former president—were actually a doctor’s note Trump himself made public when running for the White House in 2016 as part of a publicity stunt.
A description in court records indicates the feds were trying to return an addendum to the infamous, eye-rolling letter that a Manhattan doctor quickly typed up emphatically declaring, “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
Those details were made public when the court screwed up Tuesday night and posted a sealed DOJ filing on the public docket, which was quickly caught by Bloomberg reporter Zoe Tillmann.
The Aug. 30 letter to the judge, which is marked “sealed,” lays out the abundantly cautious way the DOJ treated its raid on Mar-a-Lago earlier that month. The FBI had a “privilege review team” of agents and lawyers conduct an initial sweep and sort through evidence to put aside anything that could taint an eventual prosecution of the former president—such as confidential letters between him and any of his 35 different lawyers.
In the letter, a DOJ lawyer representing that “taint team” explained that three weeks after the seizure of goods at the oceanside Florida estate, the team was ready to return 43 items that had nothing to do with the investigation: legal documents ranging from his confidential settlement with the Professional Golfers’ Association to invoices from his attorney Alina Habba.
The revelation makes even more obvious how far Cannon went to appease the president who gave her a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. And it’s only adding to what’s become a resounding consensus from legal scholars that Cannon is squarely on Trump’s side.
Trump lawyers, who’ve gone judge-shopping for her in the past, seemed to do it again when they filed this lawsuit to freeze the FBI investigation. Avoiding the South Florida magistrate judge who initially approved the search warrant and was already overseeing the matter, Trump’s lawyers marked the case as unrelated to other pending litigation—diverting this over to another judge and ending up with Cannon.
At the very first court hearing, Cannon signaled deep distrust of the DOJ and journalists. She expressed a belief that the FBI’s investigation of Trump for mishandling “top secret” records was somehow distinct from the federal government’s damage assessment over whether the nation’s secrets were put at risk. Legal analysts Teri Kanefield, Harry Litman, and others agonized over Cannon’s bizarre legal reasoning.
At every turn since, she has granted Trump’s lawyers exactly what their client wants most: time to burn.
“She’s just giving him the delay that he’s asked for,” said Peter M. Shane, a legal scholar at New York University’s law school. “She has obvious sympathy for Trump’s contention that, as a former president, he deserves super-consideration.”
Trump’s lawyers wanted to hit the brakes on the FBI investigation. Cannon forbade the agents from reviewing the classified documents.
They wanted to appoint a “special master” to micromanage the DOJ and review whether any seized document could be considered a privileged presidential record or attorney-client communication. Cannon didn’t just appoint one—she picked the semi-retired judge they wanted.
“This is how a judge would behave… if her motivation was simply to be helpful to Trump,” Shane told The Daily Beast.
The DOJ has already been moderately successful at appealing her decisions. The Eleventh Circuit, despite its conservative leaning, restored the FBI’s ability to keep reviewing the classified government records taken from Mar-a-Lago. And on Wednesday, the federal appellate court in Atlanta granted the DOJ’s pleas and agreed to expedite the appeal that could scrap the entire “special master” ordeal.
But while the case makes its way through that process, legal scholars worry Cannon will continue to micromanage her chosen micromanager.
“She seems to be cooperating quite well with the former president,” said Carl Tobias, a law school professor at the University of Richmond.
Dearie was once the top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn and went on to become a federal judge, including a seven-year stint on the coveted and hyper-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is where the feds ask for judicial approval to conduct some kinds of spying on foreigners. His role in this case could keep it moving forward fairly, although some legal scholars are starting to worry whether he’ll stick around.
“This is a person who spent 38 years building his enormous reputation. If I were a judge for 38 years… I wouldn’t want to be ordered around by someone who’s a lackey to Trump,” Tobias said.
But her potential to harm the FBI’s investigation is far from over. Dearie’s role is merely to be a temporary referee to shepherd the potentially privileged document review process. His decision’s aren’t even final. Any conclusion he makes will still be submitted for approval to Cannon, who’s 37 years his junior and was a newborn in Colombia when he was already leading the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York while the crime rate was soaring.
Tobias stressed that every day the case remains with Cannon is a step in the wrong direction, noting that she should have done the right thing: recognized that this case was already an extension of the Mar-a-Lago search and transferred it back to Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge who approved the search warrant.
“I just don’t think she ever had jurisdiction,” Tobias said. “She could have kicked this back to the magistrate. To the extent this case had any validity, it belonged there—rather than have this. They forum-shopped to get her. It raises all kinds of issues.”
Hurricane Ian: residents return to battered homes as death toll rises
Richard Luscombe in Miami – October 6, 2022
Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Residents of south-west Florida were on Thursday returning for a first look at damage wreaked on their homes by Hurricane Ian, as the storm’s death toll continued to rise and details emerged about the victims.
Inhabitants of Sanibel, Captiva and Pine Island were among the first to get a glimpse after authorities still searching for survivors from the 28 September storm gave the go-ahead for civilians to return.
A steady stream of residents arrived, mostly on small chartered motorboats, after sections of the Sanibel and Pine Island causeways, the only road links to the mainland, were swept away by 150mph winds and a 12ft (3.6 metres) storm surge.
“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,” said a Pine Island resident, Leslie Arias.
The number of storm-related deaths rose to at least 101 on Thursday, eight days after the storm made landfall in south-west Florida. According to reports from the Florida medical examiners commission, 98 of those deaths were in Florida. Five people were also killed in North Carolina, three in Cuba and one in Virginia.
Ian is the second-deadliest storm to hit the mainland US in the 21st century after Hurricane Katrina, which left more than 1,800 people dead in 2005. The deadliest hurricane ever to hit the US was the Galveston Hurricane in 1900 that killed as many as 8,000 people.
But Ian’s fury makes it the deadliest storm to strike Florida since the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 claimed more than 430 lives.
The oldest victim of Ian was a 96-year-old man found trapped under a car in high water in Charlotte county, the medical examiners’ report said.
A 73-year-old man in Lee county “shot himself after seeing property damage due to the hurricane”.
In Manatee county, a 71-year-old woman died after being blown over: “The decedent was outside her residence smoking a cigarette when a gust of wind from the hurricane blew her off the porch and she subsequently struck her head on a concrete step.”
Most victims drowned, underlining that the storm surge was the deadliest part of the hurricane.
Not included in the report are five deaths in North Carolina, one in Virginia and three in Cuba, when Ian swept across the west of the island two days before gaining power in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and slamming into the south-western Florida coast.
Authorities in Florida have been criticized for issuing evacuation orders too late, although Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, and county officials have defended their actions.
DeSantis has claimed, falsely, that Lee county was not yet included in the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) forecast track 72 hours before the storm hit, and that it was predicted instead to strike Tampa, about 120 miles north.
The NHC “cone of uncertainty” included parts of Lee county during that time frame, including Cayo Costa, where Ian made first landfall.
More than 215,000 customers remained without power across Florida, authorities said, while thousands of workers sought to repair grids.
On Pine Island, piles of rubble and debris have replaced many homes, power lines and wooden poles littering yards and roadways.
In a visit to the worst-hit areas on Thursday, Joe Biden promised the resources of the federal government would be available “as long as it takes”. Some estimates have calculated the damage at $55bn.
The president met local residents, small business owners and relief workers in Fort Myers, praising the cooperation between state and federal agencies.
Noting that the recovery could take months or years, he said: “The only thing I can assure you is that the federal government will be here until it’s finished. After the television cameras have moved on, we’re still going to be here with you.”
DeSantis, seen as a potential rival to Biden in the 2024 presidential election, also struck a conciliatory tone.
“We are cutting through the red tape and that’s from local government, state government, all the way up to the president. We appreciate the team effort,” he said.
Hurricane risk might seem like the obvious problem, but there is a more insidious driver in this financial train wreck.
Finance professor Shahid Hamid, who directs the Laboratory for Insurance at Florida International University, explained how Florida’s insurance market got this bad – and how the state’s insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance, now carrying more than 1 million policies, can weather the storm.
What’s making it so hard for Florida insurers to survive?
One is the rising hurricane risk. Hurricanes Matthew (2016), Irma (2017) and Michael (2018) were all destructive. But a lot of Florida’s hurricane damage is from water, which is covered by the National Flood Insurance Program, rather than by private property insurance.
Another reason is that reinsurance pricing is going up – that’s insurance for insurance companies to help when claims spike.
But the biggest single reason is the “assignment of benefits” problem, involving contractors after a storm. It’s partly fraud and partly taking advantage of loose regulation and court decisions that have affected insurance companies.
It generally looks like this: Contractors will knock on doors and say they can get the homeowner a new roof. The cost of a new roof is maybe $20,000-$30,000. So, the contractor inspects the roof. Often, there isn’t really that much damage. The contractor promises to take care of everything if the homeowner assigns over their insurance benefit. The contractors can then claim whatever they want from the insurance company without needing the homeowner’s consent.
If the insurance company determines the damage wasn’t actually covered, the contractor sues.
So insurance companies are stuck either fighting the lawsuit or settling. Either way, it’s costly.
Other lawsuits may involve homeowners who don’t have flood insurance. Only about 14% of Florida homeowners pay for flood insurance, which is mostly available through the federal National Flood Insurance Program. Some without flood insurance will file damage claims with their property insurance company, arguing that wind caused the problem.
How widespread of a problem are these lawsuits?
Overall, the numbers are pretty striking.
About 9% of homeowner property claims nationwide are filed in Florida, yet 79% of lawsuits related to property claims are filed there.
The legal cost in 2019 was over $3 billion for insurance companies just fighting these lawsuits, and that’s all going to be passed on to homeowners in higher costs.
Insurance companies had a more than $1 billion underwriting loss in 2020 and again in 2021. Even with premiums going up so much, they’re still losing money in Florida because of this. And that’s part of the reason so many companies are deciding to leave.
Assignment of benefits is likely more prevalent in Florida than most other states because there is more opportunity from all the roof damage from hurricanes. The state’s regulation is also relatively weak. This may eventually be fixed by the legislature, but that takes time and groups are lobbying against change. It took a long time to pass a law saying the attorney fee has to be capped.
Thirty more are on the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s watch list. About 17 of those are likely to be or have been downgraded from A rating, meaning they’re no longer considered to be in good financial health.
Florida beachfront paradise shattered by Hurricane Ian
Rod Nickel – October 5, 2022
Hurricane Ian aftermath in Florida
FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – Nearly a week after Hurricane Ian hammered southwest Florida, once tony Fort Myers Beach is a nearly deserted disaster zone where destroyed beach houses now mar the postcard views that made this stretch of the Gulf Coast famous.
The town on Estero Island facing the Gulf of Mexico was one of the communities hit hardest by the Category 4 hurricane, which killed more than 100 people in the state when it struck last week.
Fort Myers Beach, a barrier island that stands between the Gulf and the city of Fort Myers, has a population of 5,600, living in bungalows and posh multistory beach houses. Many retirees living here have second homes elsewhere in the United States.
The island’s soft, white sands and teal waves now make for a stark backdrop to rows of pastel storefronts that are missing walls and windows, a landmark pier stripped to its piles, crushed beach houses, and foundations swept entirely clean of the houses that once rested on them.
At one address, a set of concrete steps leads to nowhere. Furniture, plumbing fixtures and drywall are scattered everywhere.
Rescue teams directed by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are conducting a second round of door-to-door checks for survivors, equipped with dogs and cameras on extending poles.
“It’s going to be a long recovery,” said Ignatius Carroll, a representative of Florida Task Force 2, a search-and-rescue unit that is part of FEMA’s efforts.
“See that debris from the house?” Carroll asks during a tour of Fort Meyers Beach, pointing to a home with its front yard piled high like a junkyard. “That came from another house over here.”
The first 48 hours after a disaster hits are critical to finding survivors, although many people in hurricane-prone areas stock 72 hours’ worth of food and water, Carroll said. Even so, it’s possible to find people days later than that, depending on their provisions, he said.
Steve Duello, 67, a retired grocery store executive from St. Louis, said he was devastated on Tuesday to see the damage to his Fort Myers Beach home for the first time since the hurricane hit.
His ruined house filled with 8 feet of water during the storm, and Duello said he’s unsure whether he’ll rebuild, even though he has been coming to the beach since he was 14.
“It’s way too early. Right now our guts have been torn out. I don’t want to ever go through that again.”
Fort Myers Beach “looks like Hiroshima or Nagasaki,” he said, referring to Japanese cities where U.S. forces dropped atomic bombs during World War Two.
Another island resident, who declined to give his name, stayed through the storm, and has no plans to leave.
“I love this place. I don’t want to live anywhere else but here,” said the elderly, deeply tanned man, wearing shorts and no shirt.
“My daughter wants to pick me up and go back to New York. I don’t want to go.”
(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Fort Myers Beach; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
‘Forever chemicals’ in deer, fish challenge hunters, tourism
Patrick Whittle – October 5, 2022
A 10-point white-tailed deer walks through the woods in Freeport, Maine, on Nov. 10, 2015. Wildlife agencies are finding elevated levels of PFAS chemicals, also called “forever chemicals,” in game animals such as deer, prompting new restrictions on hunting and fishing in some parts of the country. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)This photo provided by the National Wildlife Federation shows a sign warning hunters not to eat deer because of high amounts of toxic chemicals in their meat, in Oscoda, Mich., March 26, 2021. Wildlife agencies in some parts of the country are finding elevated levels of PFAS chemicals in game animals such as deer, prompting new restrictions on hunting and fishing. (Photo by Drew Younge Dyke, National Wildlife Federation via AP)
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Wildlife agencies in the U.S. are finding elevated levels of a class of toxic chemicals in game animals such as deer — and that’s prompting health advisories in some places where hunting and fishing are ways of life and key pieces of the economy.
Authorities have detected the high levels of PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in deer in several states, including Michigan and Maine, where legions of hunters seek to bag a buck every fall. Sometimes called “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment, PFAS are industrial compounds used in numerous products, such as nonstick cookware and clothing.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched an effort last year to limit pollution from the chemicals, which are linked to health problems including cancer and low birth weight.
But discovery of the chemicals in wild animals hunted for sport and food represents a new challenge that some states have started to confront by issuing “do not eat” advisories for deer and fish and expanding testing for PFAS in them.
“The fact there is an additional threat to the wildlife — the game that people are going out to hunt and fish — is a threat to those industries, and how people think about hunting and fishing,” said Jennifer Hill, associate director of the Great Lakes Regional Center for the National Wildlife Federation.
PFAS chemicals are an increasing focus of public health and environmental agencies, in part because they don’t degrade or do so slowly in the environment and can remain in a person’s bloodstream for life.
In Maine, where the chemicals were detected in well water at hundreds of times the federal health advisory level, legislators passed a law in 2021 requiring manufacturers to report their use of the chemicals and to phase them out by 2030. Environmental health advocates have said Maine’s law could be a model for other states, some working on their own PFAS legislation.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill in September that bans the chemicals from cosmetics sold in the state. And more than 20 states have proposed or adopted limits for PFAS in drinking water, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
More testing will likely find the chemicals are present in other game animals besides deer, such as wild turkeys and fish, said David Trahan, executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, a hunting and outdoors advocacy group.
The discovery could have a negative impact on outdoor tourism in the short term, Trahan said. “If people are unwilling to hunt and fish, how are we going to manage those species?” he said. “You’re getting it in your water, you’re getting it in your food, you’re getting it in wild game.”
Maine was one of the first states to detect PFAS in deer. The state issued a “do not eat” advisory last year for deer harvested in the Fairfield area, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Portland, after several of the animals tested positive for elevated levels.
The state is now expanding the testing to more animals across a wider area, said Nate Webb, wildlife division director at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “Lab capacity has been challenging,” he said, “but I suspect there will be more facilities coming online to help ease that burden — in Maine and elsewhere in the country.”
Wisconsin has tested deer, ducks and geese for PFAS, and as a result issued a “do not eat” advisory for deer liver around Marinette, about 55 miles (89 kilometers) north of Green Bay. The state also asked fishermen to reduce consumption of Lake Superior’s popular rainbow smelt to one meal per month.
Some chemicals, including PFAS, can accumulate in the liver over time because the organ filters the chemicals from the blood, Wisconsin’s natural resources department told hunters. New Hampshire authorities have also issued an advisory to avoid consuming deer liver.
Michigan was the first state to assess PFAS in deer, said Tammy Newcomb, senior executive assistant director for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
The state issued its first “do not eat” advisory in 2018 for deer taken in and near Oscoda Township. Michigan has since issued an advisory against eating organs, such as liver and kidneys, from deer, fish or any other wild game anywhere in the state. It has also studied waterfowl throughout the state in areas of PFAS surface water contamination.
The state’s expanded testing also has proven beneficial because it helped authorities find out which areas don’t have a PFAS problem, Newcomb said.
“People like to throw up their arms and say we can’t do anything about it. I like to point to our results and say that’s not true,” Newcomb said. “Finding PFAS as a contaminant of concern has been the exception and not the rule.”
The chemical has also been found in shellfish that are collected recreationally and commercially. Scientists from the Florida International University Institute of Environment sampled more than 150 oysters from around the state and detected PFAS in every one, according to their study in August. Natalia Soares Quinete, an assistant professor in the institute’s chemistry and biochemistry department, described the chemicals as “a long-term poison” that jeopardizes human health.
Dr. Leo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine who has studied PFAS, said the best way to avoid negative health effects is reducing exposure. But, Trasande said that’s difficult to do because the chemicals are so commonplace and long-lasting in the environment.
“If you’re seeing it in humans, you’re likely going to see the effects in animals,” he said.
Wildlife authorities have tried to inform hunters of the presence of PFAS in deer with posted signs in hunting areas as well as advisories on social media and the internet. One such sign, in Michigan, told hunters that high amounts of PFAS “may be found in deer and could be harmful to your health.”
Kip Adams, chief conservation officer for the National Deer Association, said the discovery of PFAS in states like Maine and Michigan is very concerning to hunters.
“With the amount of venison my family eats, I can’t imagine not being able to do that,” Adams said. “To this point, everything we’ve done has been about sharing information and making sure people are aware of it.
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Florida’s Leaders Opposed Climate Aid. Now They’re Depending on It.
Christopher Flavelle and Jonathan Weisman – October 4, 2022
A helicopter carries evacuees from Pine Island, Fla., on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022. (Hilary Swift/The New York Times)
Hurricane Ian’s wrath made clear that Florida faces some of the most severe consequences of climate change anywhere in the country. But the state’s top elected leaders have opposed federal spending to help fortify states against and recover from climate disasters, as well as efforts to confront their underlying cause: the burning of fossil fuels.
Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott opposed last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law, which devotes some $50 billion to help states better prepare for events like Ian, because they said it was wasteful. And in August, they joined their fellow Republicans in the Senate to vote against a new climate law, which invests $369 billion in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the largest such effort in the country’s history.
At the same time, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has blocked the state’s pension fund from taking climate change into account when making investment decisions, saying that politics should be absent from financial calculations.
In the aftermath of Ian, those leaders want federal help to rebuild their state — but don’t want to discuss the underlying problem that is making hurricanes more powerful and destructive.
As Hurricane Ian approached Florida’s coast, the storm grew in intensity because it passed over ocean water that was 2 to 3 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year, NASA data show. Its destructive power was made worse by rising seas; the water off the southwest coast of Florida has risen more than 7 inches since 1965, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Finally, warmer air resulting from climate change increased the amount of rain that Ian dropped on Florida by at least 10%, or about 2 extra inches in some places, according to a study released last week.
Rubio has secured millions of dollars to restore the Everglades as a way to store floodwaters and repair coral reefs to buffer storm surges. One of his House colleagues, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a South Florida Republican, has secured billions for climate resiliency.
But none of the top Republicans in the state have supported legislation to curb the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.
With its sun and offshore wind, Florida could be a leader in renewable energy, said Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat who represents Tampa. Instead, it imports natural gas that it burns to produce electricity.
“To not admit that climate change is real and we need to address it bodes nothing but a harm for the future for Florida and the nation,” said Charlie Crist, a former Republican Florida governor who won a House seat as a Democrat and is now challenging DeSantis’ reelection.
Hurricane Ian is far from the first time Florida has felt the impacts of climate change. In Miami, the rising ocean means streets and sidewalks regularly flood during high tide, even on sunny days. In the Florida Keys, officials are looking at raising roadbeds that will otherwise become impassable.
Yet the state’s leaders have long resisted what scientists say is needed to stave off a catastrophic future: an aggressive pivot away from gas, oil and coal and toward solar, wind and other renewable energy sources.
“Attempting to reverse-engineer the U.S. economy to absolve our past climate sins — either through a carbon tax or some ‘Green New Deal’ scheme — will fail,” Rubio wrote in 2019. “None of those advocates can point to how even the most aggressive (and draconian) plan would improve the lives of Floridians.”
Scott, the former governor of Florida who is now the state’s junior senator, has argued the cost of attacking climate change is just too great.
“We clearly want to and need to address the impacts of climate change,” Scott told NPR last summer. “But we’ve got to do it in a fiscally responsible manner. We can’t put jobs at risk.”
Hurricane Ian could be among the costliest storms to hit Florida, with losses estimated in the tens of billions.
The two senators also voted against last year’s infrastructure bill, which provided about $50 billion toward climate resilience — the country’s largest single investment in measures designed to better protect people against the effects of climate change.
That bill, which passed the Senate with support from 19 Republicans, included measures designed to help protect against hurricanes. It provided billions for sea walls, storm pumps, elevating homes, flood control and other projects.
Many of those measures were co-written by another coastal Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who called it “a major victory for Louisiana and our nation.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also supported the bill. Both states face enormous threats from climate change.
But Rubio called it “wasteful,” while Scott said it was “reckless spending.” Both voted no.
Scott and DeSantis did not respond to requests for comment.
Dan Holler, a deputy chief of staff to Rubio, said the senator opposed the infrastructure bill because it included unnecessary measures, just as he opposed the final version of relief for Hurricane Sandy in 2013 because of what he called extraneous pork barrel spending.
But the larger issue, Holler said, is that those pushing broad measures to wean the nation from fossil fuels have yet to prove to Rubio that such efforts would actually slow sea level rise, calm storms or mitigate flooding.
Other Republicans offer similar explanations. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican candidate expected to win the House district around Tampa Bay, spoke of the devastation she said she saw in Fort Myers, Pine Island and Sanibel Island.
“The damage is so catastrophic, we are going to need help,” she said Monday.
But Luna pushed back hard on the need to address climate change by cutting fossil fuel emissions. She called it “completely bonkers” that the United States would harm its own economy “while we send manufacturing to a country that is one of the top polluters of the world,” referring to China.
Crist sounded almost sympathetic as he discussed the bind that Florida Republicans find themselves in — accepting donations from the oil and gas industry, unwilling to raise the issue of climate change with their most loyal voters, while surveying the damage it is doing to their state.
The oil and gas industry is not a major source of campaign cash for politicians in Florida, where offshore drilling is prohibited. Rubio has received $223,239 from the oil and gas industry since 2017, which puts the industry at 15th on his donor list, federal records show. Scott has received $236,483 from oil and gas, his 14th most generous industry.
But the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Scott leads, has received $3.2 million in oil and gas donations this campaign cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, eclipsed only by real estate, Wall Street and retirees. By contrast, the fossil fuel business isn’t among the top 20 industries that have given this cycle to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
“There’s an ‘ideological versus reality’ divide here that must be very excruciating to these Republican politicians,” Crist said.
Republicans in the state have taken steps to fund climate resilience and adaptation efforts but shy away from using the term “climate.” In 2017, Diaz-Balart, then the Republican chair of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds housing programs, secured $12 billion for “mitigation” measures in block grants to states and communities, $1.4 billion of that for Florida. The word “climate” did not appear in the definition of “mitigation.”
“If you’re from Florida, you should be leading on climate and environmental policy, and Republicans are still reticent to do that because they’re worried about primary politics,” Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from South Florida. “But on this, the consequences are so serious, it’s worth putting politics aside and addressing climate head on.”
While DeSantis announced a program last year to provide $1 billion over four years to local governments to address flooding, rising seas and other challenges, he has blocked his state’s pension plan from accounting for the environmental performance of companies in making investment decisions.
“We are prioritizing the financial security of the people of Florida over whimsical notions of a utopian tomorrow,” DeSantis said in a statement announcing the decision.
DeSantis’ record on other climate decisions may also come back to haunt him. As a congressman in 2013, he voted against a bill to provide extra disaster aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy — the same type of extra support that Florida is now seeking for Ian.
On Friday, Rubio and Scott wrote to their Senate colleagues asking them to support a package of disaster aid. Like DeSantis, Rubio opposed a similar measure after Sandy struck the Northeast in 2012. (Scott had not yet been elected to the Senate.)
Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of the CLEO Institute, a nonprofit group in Florida that promotes climate change education, advocacy and resilience, said the state’s top elected officials need to do much more than react after disaster strikes.
“Florida will continue to be on the front lines of more destructive hurricanes fueled by a warming climate,” Arditi-Rocha said. “We need Republican leaders to step up.”
‘Game changer’: Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab slows progression of disease in global study
Jayla Whitfield – Anderson, Nat. Reporter and Producer October 4, 2022
After losing three generations of his family to dementia, George Vradenburg co-founded UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, an organization dedicated to Alzheimer’s research.
In the past 40 years he has lost his grandmother, his mother and a sibling to the crippling disease. “And if we don’t pick up the pace on getting at this disease, it’s my kids and my grandkids that are right in the bullseye,” Vradenburg told Yahoo News. “I’m fighting for my family.”
Over 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, an incurable disease that affects the brain and causes loss of cognitive function over time. However, experts say there is hope on the horizon, after lecanemab, an experimental drug, slowed the cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s by 27% in a global clinical study.
The study was performed by two pharmaceutical research companies, Eisai and Biogen. They reported that their Clarity Ad Phase 3 clinical trial of lecanemab presented encouraging results in an 18-month trial. The clinical trial included 1,795 diverse patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s and showed “highly statistically significant reduction of clinical decline,” Eisai stated in a press release on Sept. 27.
Clinical research to develop a possible cure for Alzheimer’s and dementia in the lab. (Science Photo Library/Getty Images)
For many, this proves that the investments into dementia research are paying off. Annually, the federal government invests $3.1 billion in dementia research.
”This is a game changer. This is a drug that demonstrates in this large, diverse, phase 3 trial that by reducing amyloid and by reducing tau, there was a clinical benefit to modify the course of this disease,” Vradenburg said.
Amyloid and tau are two proteins in the brain that control thinking and memory. “This is the first time that a clinical trial has demonstrated [that] the reduction of amyloid and tau actually produces a clinical benefit,” he added. “This is historic.”
The trial also reported that 25% of the participants enrolled were from underrepresented populations. Maria Carrillo, the Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer, says diversity is a crucial factor to consider in any research. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, over 20% of Black Americans 70 and older are living with the disease, and they are twice as likely to get dementia.
“We’re very hopeful that as we get better at enrolling the right populations, as we get better at the science, we are able to actually see treatments come to the clinic and be accessible to people who may be able to benefit from them,” Carrillo said.
A man takes care of his father, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. (Shutterstock)
While the impact of lecanemab seems positive, experts say Food and Drug Administration approval is crucial for the drug to become readily available to those who need it most.
“The company has announced that it will be filing not only with the FDA, but [also] with other countries and regulatory agencies. And we hope that soon, the FDA might have an expedited review of this drug,” Carillo explained.
In a press release, Eisai said it “aims to file for traditional approval in the U.S., and to submit marketing authorization applications in Japan and Europe by the end of Eisai FY2022, which ends on March 31, 2023.”
Biogen and Eisai have an application pending for accelerated FDA approval, and a decision is expected by early January.
Experts believe lecanemab will get FDA approval and Medicare coverage, unlike aducanumab, which is sold as Aduhelm, a prior Alzheimer’s drug from Biogen that was approved by the FDA but received limited Medicare coverage. “This drug [lecanemab] has a much larger trial, much more diverse trial, and much clearer evidence of clinical benefit,” Vradenburg explained.
But the side effects are concerning. “Lecanemab also has a similar profile of dangerous side effects related to brain swelling and brain bleeding that we see with Aduhelm, though lecanemab is probably a bit friendlier than Aduhelm on this front, in that ‘only’ 10% of patients in the high-dose groups showed these side effects [in the phase 2 trial],” Dr. Michael Greicius, a professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford University in California, told Healthline.
A doctor reviewing brain scans. (Shutterstock)
If the drug is approved by the FDA, organizations like UsAgainstAlzheimer’s say they will push for Medicare coverage. “Medicare must cover it. Otherwise, we’re going to be waiting for another five or 10 years before a disease-modifying drug gets to work,” Vradenburg said. “This is an opportunity to change the course of our lives.”
But other experts raised concerns about the potential cost of the drug. Dr. Constantine Lyketsos, a psychiatrist who teaches at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, told CNN he would be reluctant to prescribe lecanemab to a patient. “If it was a simple pill, if it wasn’t very expensive, I might,” he said.
CNN noted that aducanumab costs about $28,000 for a year of treatment. Eisai told the news outlet that lecanemab hasn’t been priced yet.
This year, more positive results are expected from additional clinical trials. In November, at a conference in San Francisco on the 15th annual clinical trials on Alzheimer’s disease, other companies working to combat the disease will share their findings. “We also expect that gantenerumab, from a company called Roche, will report next month their top level,” Carrillo said.
Several companies are researching how to stop the progression of the disease, as the number of Americans living with Alzheimer’s is projected to double, to 13 million, by 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Even though this apparent breakthrough is not a cure, it could give those suffering with the life-threatening disease more time. “Slowing is really critical, especially earlier in the disease, when you can be more independent for a longer period of time,” Carrillo said.
Most importantly, “time with families, time to see a grandchild get married, have a bar mitzvah or confirmation — that time with family for an extra two to three years is priceless,” Vradenburg said.
