Hurricane Helene by the numbers: Catastrophic destruction covers 400 miles
Meredith Deliso – September 30, 2024
After making landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region Thursday night as a major Category 4 hurricane, Helene has caused catastrophic storm surge, wind damage and inland flooding across a wide swath of the South.
Here’s a look at the storm by the numbers, as impacted communities continue to gain a fuller picture of the deadly destruction.
PHOTO: A drone view shows a damaged area, following the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Asheville, N.C., Sept. 29, 2024. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
Category 4
Helene was the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Big Bend region on record, making landfall near Perry, Florida, as a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds.
400 miles
Helene left a widespread path of destruction across the Southeast — from Florida’s Big Bend to Asheville, North Carolina, nearly 400 miles from where the storm made landfall.
PHOTO: A damaged 100-year-old home is seen after an Oak tree landed on it after Hurricane Helene moved through the area Sept. 27, 2024, in Valdosta, Ga. (Mike Stewart/AP)
At least 132 people have been killed by Helene in six states — Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia — the Associated Press reported Monday.
Forty people are dead in hard-hit Buncombe County, North Carolina, which encompasses Asheville, according to county officials. Another 600 remain unaccounted for in the county amid widespread power and cell service outages, officials said.
In Unicoi County in Tennessee, at least 73 people remained unaccounted for as of Sunday morning, local officials said.
More than 30 inches of rain
PHOTO: Heavy rains from hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage in Asheville, NC, Sept. 28, 2024. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
Helene, and a separate system earlier in the week, dumped more than 30 inches of rain on North Carolina and produced the biggest local flooding in recorded history.
The flooding in western North Carolina surpassed records that stood for more than a century. The French Broad River in Asheville peaked at 24.67 feet, breaking the previous record of 23.1 feet from July 1916.
Elsewhere, Georgia saw a historic 11 inches of rainfall from the combination of Hurricane Helene and a storm earlier in the week.
The storm surge was more than 15 feet above ground level in parts of Florida, including Keaton Beach and Steinhatchee, both in Taylor County, and Horseshoe Beach in Dixie County.
Record storm surge also hit the Tampa Bay area, with 7.2 feet reported in Tampa East Bay — beating a record of 4.56 feet set in 2023.
Over 20 reported tornadoes
There were more than 20 reported tornadoes across five states — Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia — amid the storm.
In Rocky Mount, North Carolina, 15 people were injured — including four seriously — after a tornado tore through the city on Friday, the National Weather Service said.
PHOTO: Debris and smashed vehicles are scattered across a parking lot near Hing Ta Restaurant after a tornado hit Rocky Mount, N.C., Sept. 27, 2024. (City of Rocky Mount via AP)
400 roads closed in 1 state
In North Carolina, extreme floods washed away homes and bridges. At one point, authorities closed 400 roads, deeming them unsafe for travel, state officials said.
As of Monday, travel in western North Carolina should only be for emergencies, as hundreds of Helene-related road issues persisted, officials said.
In Florida, emergency responders had to bulldoze 4 to 5 feet of sand off roads in the wake of Helene, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday while updating that all state roads were expected to have reopened by the end of the day.
4 million customers
More than 4 million customers lost power across the South on Friday in the wake of Helene.
Nearly 2 million customers, from Florida to Ohio, were still without power as of Monday afternoon.
PHOTO: An airboat transporting residents rescued from flood waters due to storm surge due from Hurricane Helene is seen Sept. 27, 2024 in Crystal River,Fla. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA via Shutterstock)More
Thousands of successful rescue missions were reported in Florida, DeSantis said Monday.
In North Carolina, more than 200 people had been rescued from floodwaters amid Helene, Gov. Roy Cooper said Saturday. Over 150 rescues were performed in Buncombe County alone, officials said.
In Tennessee’s Unicoi County, 54 patients and staff were rescued via helicopter on Friday after getting trapped on the roof of a hospital amid swiftly rising floodwaters.
ABC News’ Melissa Griffin and Max Golembo contributed to this report.
Former President Donald Trump is making Hurricane Helene into a campaign issue, planning a stop in storm-ravaged, battleground Georgia on Monday and criticizing the Biden administration’s response with just weeks left until the November election.
During a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, Trump accused President Joe Biden of “sleeping” at his beach house in Delaware and dragged Vice President Kamala Harris for holding fundraising events in California over the weekend “when big parts of our country have been devastated by that massive hurricane.”
At least 84 people have been killed from Hurricane Helene, according to The Associated Press. The storm made landfall in Florida late Thursday, then moved into the interior Southeast, across the Southern Appalachians and into the Tennessee Valley. It caused millions of power outages and billions of dollars in property damage, with two electoral swing states — Georgia and North Carolina — among the most affected.
The Trump campaign announced shortly after he left the stage at his rally that the former president planned to receive a briefing about Helene in Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, and then distribute relief supplies and speak with reporters. Onstage, the Republican nominee said that Harris “ought to be down in the area” where the storm hit.
Later Sunday, Biden told Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell that he planned to visit “impacted communities” this week, “as soon as it will not disrupt emergency response operations.” And a White House official added that Harris, too, will go “as soon as it is possible” to do so without being disruptive.
Harris has been briefed by Criswell, according to the White House, and Biden has approved disaster declarations for numerous states and major disaster declarations for certain counties that will help provide temporary housing assistance, as well as grants and low-interest loans to help people with home repairs. Both urged the public to take the storm seriously ahead of landfall.
Harris released a statement expressing her condolences on Saturday and said she and the president “remain committed to ensuring that no community or state has to respond to this disaster alone.” Biden released a similar statement and cautioned that “the road to recovery will be long” but vowed to “be with you every step of the way” and to “make certain that no resource is spared” in rebuilding.
Harris opened her own Sunday night campaign rally in Las Vegas with an acknowledgment of the disaster.
“I know that everyone here sends their thoughts and prayers for the folks who have been so devastated by that hurricane and the ensuing events, in Florida, in Georgia, the Carolinas, and other impacted states,” she said.
Biden was at his beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, over the weekend, where he received briefings about Helene’s devastation from Criswell and Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall, according to the White House pool report. He urged the agencies to speed up the deployment of search and rescue teams into North Carolina, where people are stranded without cell service or electricity.
Biden returned to the White House Sunday afternoon.
In the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017, Trump received backlash as president following a visit to Puerto Rico, when he threw paper towels into a crowd of people at a relief center. The island territory struggled to get access to power for weeks, and Trump got in a high-profile fight with the mayor of San Juan who’d criticized the federal response.
Trump first built up his trip to the Helene-affected areas in a post on Truth Social on Sunday by wondering aloud why Harris was attending fundraisers in San Francisco and Los Angeles “when big parts of our country are devastated and under water — with many people dead.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, posted on X shortly after Trump’s rally that hurricane victims were “on my mind” and praised first responders. He added that “my heart breaks to see the devastation” in Asheville, North Carolina — where he’d been campaigning a week earlier — and “across the south.” Officials in Buncombe County, home to Asheville, said Sunday at least 30 people had died there.
During Sunday’s rally Trump revisited many of his favorite criticisms against his adversaries, including invoking deeply personal attacks toward Biden and Harris, calling them both “mentally impaired.” He said Democrats would have been better off with Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee, even though she though she is running significantly stronger in the polls against Trump, and played a video at his rally that mocked Harris’ laughter and revisited her past positions on illegal immigration.
The comments came even as many Republicans have urged Trump to focus on key issues in the final weeks before Election Day and with early voting underway in some states.
Biden has previously appeared with political adversaries following natural disasters, including touring the devastation alongside Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after Hurricane Ian struck the state in 2022. The following year, after Idalia hit and DeSantis was running for the Republican nomination for president, he told the public that security measures for a presidential visit would be too disruptive to the recovery efforts.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) took the meeting with Biden instead. Scott, who is up for reelection in November and has been heavily involved in the storm response in Florida, on Friday criticized Harris for not being on the ground, before Trump had announced any plans to tour storm-torn areas. Harris’ campaign also hit Trump over the hurricane on social media, highlighting a clip from Sunday’s rally in which he mocked climate change.
Criswell has been at press conferences alongside DeSantis in Florida over the weekend. She was in Georgia on Sunday and is scheduled to be in North Carolina on Monday.
Hurricane Helene leaves dozens dead, millions without power in the Southeastern U.S. Here’s what we know and what to expect next.
With many still unaccounted for, the devastation from Hurricane Helene continues to unfold by the hour.
David Artavia – September 29, 2024
In Atlanta, a partially submerged vehicle sits in flood water after Hurricane Helene passed the area on Sept. 27. (Jason Allen/AP Photo)
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The aftermath of Hurricane Helene is still unfolding across the Southeastern U.S., where at least 64 people have been reported dead, according to the Associated Press, and roughly 2.4 million were without power as of Sunday afternoon.
The storm made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region on Thursday night as a Category 4 hurricane with winds reaching 140 mph. Now downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, Helene is still lingering over the Tennessee Valley, according to the National Hurricane Center.
In North Carolina, over 200 people have been rescued from floodwaters that washed away homes in several areas. Search teams are reportedly still trying to find over a thousand missing people in North Carolina and Tennessee. Meanwhile, about 1,100 residents are staying in emergency shelters in North Carolina as the state deals with widespread damage.
In response to the crisis, President Biden approved North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s request for a Federal Major Disaster Declaration on Sunday, enabling FEMA to provide vital aid to 25 North Carolina counties and the Eastern Band of Cherokee.
Here’s a look at the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene — and what to expect in the days ahead.
Death toll in the dozens
As of Sunday morning, at least 64 people have been killed across five states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. According to the New York Times, the fatalities have reportedly been attributed to various causes, including flooding, falling trees and car accidents.
Emergency personnel are observed on a road as the Rocky Broad River merges into Lake Lure, carrying debris from Chimney Rock, N.C., after heavy rains caused by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
In Florida, where Helene initially made landfall, 11 people have been confirmed dead, per Reuters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis described “complete obliteration” in parts of the state, with 90% of homes in communities like Keaton Beach on the west coast of Florida, still recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia in 2023, reportedly being washed away.
As of Sunday, 24 people have been confirmed dead in South Carolina — the most of any state so far as a result of the storm — prompting the state’s weather agency to call it “the worst event in our office’s history” in a Facebook post Saturday evening. Over 20 people, including children, died in Georgia as a result of Helene.
An apartment building can be seen flooded after Hurricane Helene brought in heavy rains overnight on Sept. 27 in Atlanta. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
North Carolina has had 10 weather-related deaths as of Sunday, according to the New York Times, and over 1,000 people remain unaccounted for in Buncombe County alone. Over 70 people remain unaccounted for in east Tennessee, officials said in a news briefing Sunday morning, per NBC News.
Power outages by the numbers
As of 2:41 p.m. ET on Sunday, nearly 2.4 million homes and businesses across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia remain without power.
South Carolina was hit hardest, with almost 870,000 residents still in the dark as of the latest update. Georgia follows with more than 656,000 customers without electricity, while North Carolina has just over 526,000 affected. In Florida, around 194,000 people remain without power, and over 127,000 are still impacted in Virginia.
Damages upward of $110 billion
AccuWeather estimates the total cost of Helene’s damages and economic losses will be between $95 billion and $110 billion, positioning it as one of the costliest storms in U.S. history. For comparison, Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Harvey (2017) each caused around $125 billion in damages, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Helene reportedly triggered the worst flooding North Carolina has seen in a century, with Yancey County hit hardest with 29.5 inches of rainfall.
Storm damage in Biltmore Village in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28 in Asheville, N.C. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Atlanta also saw record-breaking rainfall, with 11.12 inches falling over 48 hours, the most the city has endured since the 1800s. On Saturday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said statewide damages may amount to more than the reported $1.2 billion the state incurred following Hurricane Michael in 2018.
In Florida alone, around 84 structures have reportedly been destroyed and over 4,000 have sustained water damage, according to Florida Urban Search and Rescue.
Rescue efforts
Over 800 FEMA staff are working around the clock to provide support and resources in the most affected areas, according to the agency. Evacuations have continued through the weekend as water overtopped several dams, including the Nolichucky Dam in Tennessee and the Lake Lure Dam in North Carolina.
As of Sunday morning, at least 190 people have been rescued in Florida, according to an update from DeSantis, and over 1,300 people are currently seeking refuge in 43 shelters across 21 counties in that state. More than 200 people have been rescued from flood waters in North Carolina as of Saturday.
A fallen tree on a home in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28 in Asheville, N.C. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Debris, downed trees and flooding led to more than 400 road closures in North Carolina, per the New York Times. Now, as of Sunday afternoon, there are at least 300 active road incidents, per the state’s Department of Transportation.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency is reportedly in 32 counties across the state of Georgia, as they help local agencies in their rescue efforts.
More rain is expected
The storm has been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone and is now lingering over the Tennessee Valley, according to the National Hurricane Center. Parts of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee — including Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg — could see upward of 2 inches of rain through Monday.
While it’s forecast to dissipate by Monday, the National Weather Service warns that heavy rain and flash flooding remain a threat for the Central Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic regions, with a slight risk of “excessive rainfall” expected through Tuesday morning.
Additionally, an upper-level low over the Ohio Valley is predicted to gradually weaken as it moves east toward the Mid-Atlantic by Tuesday.
Hurricane Helene left millions without power. Here’s how electricity outages can impact your health.
Kaitlin Reilly – September 28, 2024
You may want to toss the food in your fridge after a power outage, according to experts. (Getty Creative)Olga Pankova via Getty Images
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Hurricane Helene killed at least 50 people and left more than 4.8 million utility customers without power in the Southeastern U.S. on Friday.
Though it is not often considered the top safety risk of hurricanes, power outages can have major implications for one’s health and pose an additional threat to those who are recovering from the natural disaster. Here’s what to know, and how to keep yourself and your family safe.
Heat-related illness
Power outages mean no ability to run an air conditioning system in one’s home, and widespread loss of power in a community means there are no public cooling centers to escape the heat.
This is particularly a problem during summer storms in hot, humid climates, such as Texas, which faced severe challenges when Hurricane Beryl hit in July 2024. The hurricane’s impact led to significant outages and resulted in multiple heat-related deaths.
If you are dealing with heat issues during a power outage, it’s important to stay inside and out of the sun as much as possible, stay hydrated and not exert yourself. If safe water is available (it’s possible for power outages to disrupt water purification and other means of maintaining usable water) you can dampen your clothes to keep cool in the absence of air conditioning.
Also, keep an eye out for signs of heat-related illness, such as headaches, dizziness, excessive sweating, rapid heartbeat, nausea and confusion, which may require medical attention.
Food safety
Health standards state that food must not be in the zone of 40°F to 140°F for more than two hours to avoid harmful bacteria from growing. When your power goes out, however, so does the cooling mechanism in your refrigerator, which keeps food safe at below that 40°F mark.
This is particularly a problem for people who are unaware of how long their power has been out. If you return home unaware that your food has spoiled due to a power outage in your now-working fridge, you may inadvertently put yourself at risk for foodborne illness. Experts previously told Yahoo Life that you are safest throwing away meat, poultry, fish, eggs and leftovers after you learn of a power outage for this reason.
One trick in order to tell how long your fridge may have been without power is to keep a cup of frozen water in your freezer with a coin on top of the ice, Jill Roberts, a food safety expert and associate professor at the University of South Florida, told Yahoo Life. If it melts, the coin drops to the bottom — so, whether or not it re-freezes, you’ll know a little more about the inner workings of your fridge.
Medical devices
Some people rely on medical devices that are powered by electricity, such as CPAP machines for sleep apnea, insulin pumps for diabetes or nebulizers for respiratory conditions. When the power goes out, so too, can your ability to use these machines.
If you have a device that is compatible, keeping a portable battery charged and on hand during these scenarios can buy you time while you wait for the power to return. You may also want to consider a backup generator in your home for emergency scenarios.
It’s also important to keep information about your local hospitals and clinics nearby during a crisis, so you can reach out for assistance.
Medication
Many medications, such as insulin for managing diabetes, need to be kept at a cool temperature — which can be impossible when the power goes out. In this case, it’s important to have a plan in place for storing medications. This could include using coolers with ice packs, if you are able to freeze them in advance, in order to maintain the necessary temperature.
If you rely on medications that need to stay cool, it’s important to talk to your pharmacist or doctor about how long they can be safely stored without refrigeration and what steps to take if you lose power.
It’s also worth noting that, in an emergency situation, you may be able to get medication you need from a hospital or urgent care center should yours no longer be viable due to temperatures.
That outlandish idea has been thoroughly debunked since former President Donald Trump repeatedly raised it as an anti-immigrant talking point in the Sept. 12, 2024, presidential debate. Trump never mentioned where the migrants allegedly “eating the pets” came from, but many viewers understood it as a reference to Haitians, a population that Trump has previously degraded.
As debate moderator David Muir stated in his real-time fact check, there is no evidence that any pets in Springfield have been taken or consumed. NPR and other media outlets have also declared the rumor, which began with local right-wing advocates and officials in Springfield decrying the city’s disorganized response to an influx of Haitian migrants in recent years, to be false.
The Republican ticket’s untrue rumors about Haitians in Springfield reflects a long history of prejudice toward Haitians in the United States. As a scholar of Haitian history and literature, I have identified three anti-Haitian ideas prevalent in the United States that will help put the Springfield story into context.
The unfitness of Haitians ‘to govern themselves’
In July 1915, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson invaded Haiti under the guise of restoring order and economic stability following the assassination of Haitian President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam.
Five years into what would become a 19-year military occupation, the American diplomat and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson was sent by the NAACP to investigate the supposed benefits of the occupation. His resounding takeaway: “The United States has failed Haiti.”
In related pieces for The Nation and The Crisis, Johnson chronicled abuses ranging from extra-judicial killings of Haitian citizens – U.S forces killed 15,000 Haitians between 1915 and 1934 – to the harassment and rape of Haitian women. Johnson said the U.S. occupation amounted to nothing more than a belief in the “unfitness of the Haitian people to govern themselves.”
“Racism,” Alexis writes, “was at the core of the seizure of Haiti and all interactions with Haitians.”
The ‘4H disease’
In June 2017, Trump reportedly “stormed into a meeting” on immigration from Haiti and repeated a slanderous anti-Haitian claim: “They all have AIDS,” he said.
The account, from author Jake Johnston, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, shows the then-president repeating a falsehood that has circulated since HIV erupted in the 1980s.
The federal government turned a small disease cluster into a migration policy designed to keep Haitians out of the U.S.
Betweeen 1981 and 1991, more than 27,000 Haitian asylum-seekers fleeing Jean-Claude Duvalier’s dictatorship were intercepted off the coast of Florida and detained. The vast majority were repatriated, in part because of a deportation agreement with Duvalier and in part because stopping Haitians at sea was a “screening strategy” to prevent HIV/AIDS from spreading in the U.S.
The Reagan administration called the virus the “4H disease,” referring to Haitians, hemophiliacs, homosexuals and heroin users. This designation spread harmful lies about four groups, but Haitians were the only nationality singled out as an “at-risk” population for contracting HIV/AIDS.
By the time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removed Haitians from its list of highest-risk groups in 1985, the damage had been done. Haitians in the U.S. were effectively vilified as vectors of a deadly virus.
Haiti’s occupation by foreign forces has continued on and off in different forms since the U.S. invasion of 1915.
United Nations troops were stationed there for nearly two decades following the the 2004 ouster of President Jean Bertrand Aristide. After the devastating 2010 earthquake, they were joined by the Red Cross and Oxfam. As all three organizations have since acknowledged, their humanitarian interventions left numerous crises in their wake, including cholera, chronic corruption in rebuilding projects and a market for sexually exploiting young girls.
Still, Haiti has long faced the accusation that its instability is homegrown. It is widely portrayed in the U.S. as a basket-case nation incapable of managing its own affairs. Trump, as president, once dismissed the entire country as a “shithole.”
At present, Haitians are coping with overlapping crises that have U.S. fingerprints.
After President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July 2021, the Biden administration hand-picked Haiti’s interim prime minister, Ariel Henry, as its new leader. This undemocratic decision was such a resounding failure that in March 2024, Haitian gangs revolted against Henry’s administration, unleashing a wave of gruesome violence that ultimately forced Henry out of office.
In July 2024, the Biden administration granted temporary protected status to 500,000 Haitian migrants in the U.S., allowing them to stay in the country, in recognition of the life-threatening conditions back home.
The people Trump insists are “illegal aliens” are in fact authorized U.S. residents from a country buffeted by American meddling in its politics.
A very old pattern
In barking about cats and dogs in Springfield, Trump, Vance and their right-wing supporters are spreading the same kind of anti-Haitian rhetoric that has sown a harmful distrust of Haitian migrants for over a century.
“This is not the first time that we [Haitians] have been the victims of ‘yon kanpay manti,’” said the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad in a press release following the debate, using the Haitian Creole phrase for “a campaign of lies.”
The result of such misinformation, it added, is “mistreatment, hatred, and misunderstanding in the interest of politics.”
America is a land of immigrants. Stop weaponizing false language about them.
Alex Seojoon Kim – September 19, 2024
In the recent presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, both sides traded jabs without much regard for the opposition. It made sense, as pulling punches now could spell disaster for the presidential hopefuls. With election day less than two months away, the national stage in Pennsylvania was the perfect opportunity to sway middle ground voters that often determine the result of an election. Yet, in the heat of lax factual statements, one claim made by Trump sparked immense outrage in a large community.
Trump claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets, cats and dogs, in Springfield, Ohio. Not only are these comments harmful, but they are insensitive and dangerous. Assuming these stereotypes about immigrants, specifically those of Haitian descent, can be immensely damaging in the face of the plight and challenges these people face.
Springfield, Ohio, is reported to have “approximately 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants” from Haiti in their county. They are “legally [there] as part of a parole program” in the hopes that they can bring family members from Haiti into the United States. And yet Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have both been targeting this minority community with a lack of reasonable decency behind their claims.
Several reputable leaders from the city, including Springfield’s mayor, police chief and even the state’s governor, have said that these claims are far from true. Troubled by bomb threats at schools since the Trump-Vance pet-eating allegations, at least one with anti-Haitian sentiment, Springfield continues to battle this antilogic.
A cat sits on the porch on a tree-lined street in Springfield, Ohio, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. The area has attracted national scrutiny after conservative figures, including former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance, spread debunked claims that Haitians in the community were stealing and eating people’s pets.More
“We do not have any evidence that [this incident] has happened, and I’ve made it known in multiple interviews that this is absolutely not true,” Springfield Mayor Bob Rue said on BBC Newshour, wanting to make clear that “the weight of [politicians’] words … can negatively affect communities.”
Harsh rhetoric is not new in American politics. Immigrants have been falsely accused of bringing a multitude of undesirable ideas and practices into the United States for a long time ― from disease to overpopulation. For centuries, millions flocked from Europe at first, and later Asia, to the United States to escape harsh living conditions and in pursuit of a fair chance of achieving the “American Dream.” Yet nativist ideology spread rapidly through the states time and time again, leading to limitations such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924. Demoralizing language and actions were key in spurring these laws.
Now, both Trump’s and Vance’s incendiary comments about Haitian immigrants seem to be nothing more than a weaponization of rumors for political gain. Similar tactics have been used by politicians in scapegoating other marginalized groups, such as Asians and Hispanics, as well. When prominent figures use their elevated platforms for statements viciously attacking minority groups, it only adds fuel to the fire by instigating hate crimes. Not only are the Haitians in Springfield at risk, but physical and verbal threats can harm all residents in the area.
It’s important to remember that immigrants make up an important sector of this country’s workforce and contribute to their local communities. According to news reports, before Haitian immigrants arrived on the scene, Springfield had lost a quarter of its population over the past few decades, a startling decline for a once-booming agricultural economy. Now, Haitians are essential to the workforce, especially at Springfield’s Dole Fresh Vegetables, where they’re “hired to clean and package produce” and to work at automotive machining plants. Their businesses, cultural foods and identities have merged into the Ohio city, transforming it into a bustling place of diversity. And this is the main reason Trump’s and Vance’s threats of deporting these civilians is so detrimental.
A nation founded, in part, on the backs of immigrants should not use improper, falsified accusations as political leverage. This is not only offensive to Haitians but to all immigrants in the United States. The speeches talking about eating pets in Ohio are not just wrong but a sad distraction from more authentic issues at hand, such as the reformation of immigration laws. Empathy must come first to create a nation that includes and values its citizens and residents, regardless of their origin.
Alex Seojoon Kim is a high school student in Stillwater
Alex Seojoon Kim is a high school student in Stillwater.
Debtor Organizing Can Transform Our Individual Financial Struggles Into a Source of Collective Strength
Alone, our debt is a liability. Together, it’s our leverage.
J. Patrick Patterson – September 16, 2024
ILLUSTRATION BY KAZIMIR ISKANDER
debt•or pow•er
noun
leverage that springs from an organized association of debtors, often in debt to shared creditors, to negotiate the terms and conditions of debt contracts, including the abolition of unjust debts
the transformation of individual financial struggles into a source of collective strength by waging strategic campaigns of economic disobedience and debt refusal
a tool to build reparative public goods using debt as leverage
Debtor organizing has the potential to bring millions of people who may never have the option of joining a traditional labor union into the struggle for economic justice. —Debt Collective, Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition
Is this a new idea?
Collective debt resistance — if not debtors’ unions — has happened for centuries! Ancient Roman plebeians used strikes, demonstrations and periodic exoduses to win a range of concessions from the aristocratic class, including substantial political rights and the elimination of debt slavery. Today, just as organized renters have leverage over their landlords because they owe the same person, collectively withholding payments (or threatening to!) builds collective power to make demands.
But where does the power come from?
A debtors’ union is a newer concept that is still emerging. Debt Collective is in the throes of this experiment, but the provocation is simple: Just as workers have potential collective power over capital in the form of their employer, and tenants in the form of their landlord, debtors can also wield this kind of collective power when they organize against their creditors.
How can we use it once we build it?
Although debtors’ unions are a new, emerging front in the fight against racial capitalism, their potential holds across many types of debt.
The millions of people being crushed by medical debt could organize locally to demand hospitals cancel their bills. Or they could start a national medical debt strike to advance the cause of universal healthcare.
Credit card debtors could rally against usurious lending practices and advocate for a socially productive — as opposed to predatory — system of credit and debt. Student debtors could transform not only the predatory lending that has become synonymous with higher education, but also the landscape of who has access to that higher education in the first place.
And people with debts in the criminal punishment system could organize to challenge fines, fees and other costs associated with incarceration, demanding the abolition of a system that extracts on so many levels. The possibilities for debt resistance campaigns are practically endless.
J. PATRICK PATTERSON is the Associate Editor at In These Times. He has previously worked as a politics editor, copy editor, fact-checker and reporter. His writing on economic policies and electoral politics has been published in numerous outlets.
He wants you to believe that as he simultaneously hurls inflammatory rhetoric at Harris and while he sits idly by as Springfield, Ohio, suffers bomb threats and school evacuations over his outrageous and racist lies about legal Haitian immigrants.
Early Monday, Trump spoke with Fox News and decried statements from Democrats calling him “a threat to democracy.”
“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out,” Trump said, referring to Harris and Democrats as “the enemy from within” and “the real threat.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump addresses journalists at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles on Sept. 13, 2024, in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
Trump denounces political rhetoric while hurling inflammatory nonsense
The logic in Trump’s statements is twisted beyond comprehension. It’s schoolyard-level reasoning, effectively saying: “You called me a threat to democracy, and that’s a terrible thing to do. And besides, you’re the enemy and you’re destroying the country.”
Let’s start with the apparent assassination plan the Secret Service thankfully foiled. An advance agent spotted a rifle sticking through a fence several hundred yards away from where Trump was playing golf. The agent fired at the gunman, and the man, who didn’t fire any shots, was later apprehended.
The 58-year-old suspect appears to be, as one would expect, a nut whose politics are all over the place. NPR described him as a “vocal supporter-turned-critic of Trump who was passionate about defending Ukraine in its war with Russia.”
There is zero evidence connecting either gunman to Democrats calling Trump “a threat to democracy.” More important, however, that label is not hyperbolic.
Trump is a threat to democracy. That’s a fact with ample evidence.
The idea that Harris or her campaign should stop talking about the threat Trump poses to our democracy is absurd. Democrats aren’t encouraging any form of violence against him or anyone else. They’re speaking a self-evident truth and asking voters to respond accordingly at the ballot box.
On Sunday, before the incident on the Florida golf course, Trump posted on social media: “The Democrats are DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY!”
On Monday morning, he posted on social media: “Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse! Allowing millions of people, from places unknown, to INVADE and take over our Country, is an unpardonable sin. OUR BORDERS MUST BE CLOSED, AND THE TERRORISTS, CRIMINALS, AND MENTALLY INSANE, IMMEDIATELY REMOVED FROM AMERICAN CITIES AND TOWNS, DEPORTED BACK TO THEIR COUNTIES OF ORIGIN.”
Trump’s racist lies have terrorized an Ohio town
That comes on the heels of a campaign of vile lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio ‒ lies that have led to repeated bomb threats and widespread fear among a community of hardworking, legal immigrants.
On Friday – days after spouting nonsense about Haitian immigrants eating pets – Trump lied, saying: “In Springfield, Ohio, 20,000 illegal Haitian migrants have descended upon a town of 58,000 people destroying their way of life.”
Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck releases a statement in September 2024 saying there’s no evidence of any cats or other pets being harmed or eaten by the Haitian immigrants. Springfield, a central Ohio city of 58,000 about 50 miles west of Columbus, is experiencing a “significant housing crisis,” according to a letter from Heck. He says the city’s Haitian population has increased to 15,000-20,000 in recent years.More
On Sunday, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, effectively admitted that the campaign’s vicious lies about Haitians in Springfield were made up, and that he didn’t care: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people then that’s what I’m going to do.”
Except, according to the Republican governor of Ohio, Vance and Trump are also making up the part about the suffering. Springfield has had challenges with an influx of legal immigrants, but the city has not been “destroyed” in any way, shape or form.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said: “These people are here legally. They came to work. They are looking for good people. These are hardworking people.”
Trump has based his entire political identity on inflammatory rhetoric
So spare me the sanctimony over anyone describing him as a threat to democracy. That’s what he is.
Democrats haven’t promoted violence – only voting
Political violence, on any side and of any sort, is abhorrent. Whatever the suspect arrested Sunday was plotting, I’m immensely glad it was stopped.
But whatever the plot was, it can’t be blamed on directly and factually highlighting the threat posed by a man who spews anti-democratic and racist lies without the slightest concern for others.
Trump and his campaign, through their dishonest rhetoric, are wreaking havoc on a Midwestern town. That’s a fact. Through his statements and actions past and present, he poses a threat to our democracy. That’s a demonstrable fact.
The only solution to those concerns, the only action being promoted by Harris and her campaign or people like me who care about America’s basic sense of decency, is simple: Vote.
Vote, and don’t be cowed into silence by a dishonest hypocrite.
How long do we have until sea level rise swallows coastal cities? This fleet of ocean robots will help find out
Laura Paddison, CNN – September 3, 2024
A team of NASA rocket scientists is developing autonomous underwater robots able to go where humans cannot, deep beneath Antarctica’s giant ice shelves. The robots’ task is to better understand how rapidly ice is melting — and how quickly that could cause catastrophic sea level rise.
In March, scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory lowered a cylindrical robot into the icy waters of the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska to gather data at 100 feet deep. It was the first step in the “IceNode” project.
The ultimate aim is to release a fleet of these robots in Antarctica, which will latch on to the ice and capture data over long periods in one of the most inaccessible places on Earth.
There is an urgent need to better understand this remote, isolated continent; what happens here has global implications.
A slew of recent research suggests Antarctica’s ice may be melting in alarming new ways, meaning the sea level rise forecast might be vastly underestimated. If Antarctica’s ice sheet were to melt entirely, it would cause global sea level rise of around 200 feet — spelling complete catastrophe for coastal communities.
Scientists are particularly keen to understand what’s happening to Antarctica’s ice shelves, huge slabs of floating ice which jut out into the ocean and are an important defense against sea level rise, acting as a cork to hold back glaciers on land.
The “grounding line” — the point at which the glacier rises from the seabed and becomes an ice shelf — is where the most rapid melting may be happening, as warm ocean water eats away at the ice from underneath.
But getting a detailed look at the grounding line in the treacherous Antarctic landscape has been exceptionally difficult.
“We’ve been pondering how to surmount these technological and logistical challenges for years, and we think we’ve found a way,” said Ian Fenty, a climate scientist at JPL and IceNode’s science lead.
NASA’s plan to release around 10 IceNode robots, each around 8 feet long and 10 inches in diameter, into the water from a borehole in the ice or a ship off the coast. They have no propulsion but will ride ocean currents, directed by special software, to their Antarctic destination where they will activate their “landing gear” — three legs which spring out and attach to the ice.
Once in place, their sensors will monitor how fast the warmer, salty ocean water is melting the ice, as well as how quickly the cold meltwater is sinking.
The fleet could operate for up to a year, capturing data across the seasons, NASA said.
Once they have finished monitoring, the robots will detach themselves from the ice, drift to the surface of the ocean and transmit data by satellite. This data can then be fed into computer models to improve the accuracy of sea level rise projections.
“These robots are a platform to bring science instruments to the hardest-to-reach locations on Earth,” said Paul Glick, JPL robotics mechanical engineer and IceNode principal investigator.
The team is currently focused on developing the robots’ technical capabilities and there are more tests planned. There is currently no exact timeline for when they will be deployed in Antarctica, Glick told CNN, “but we’d ideally like it to be as soon as possible.”
An IceNode prototype beneath the frozen surface of Lake Superior, off Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, during a field test in 2022. – NASA
Robots have been used to look beneath Antarctica’s ice before. A recent research project used a torpedo-like robot called Icefin, a remotely operated vehicle which recorded information about ocean heat, saltiness and currents.
But where Icefin included a propulsion system and remained attached to a tether, through which it was controlled and could send back data, the IceNodes will be entirely autonomous.
Both systems complement each other, said Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey, which was part of the research project using Icefin.
Where Icefin can release data in real time, deployments are limited by how long a borehole can be kept open before freezing over, usually a matter of days. IceNodes will be able to collect data over much longer periods but won’t transmit until its mission is over.
Deployment of both machines is challenging and involves substantial risk to sophisticated equipment, Larter told CNN, “but such innovative approaches and risk taking are necessary to find out more about the critical hidden world beneath ice shelves.”
How California Became a New Center of Political Corruption
Ralph Vartabedian – August 29, 2024
Over the last 10 years, 576 public officials in California have been convicted on federal corruption charges, according to Justice Department reports, exceeding the number of cases in states better known for public corruption, including New York, New Jersey and Illinois. (Getty Images)More
LOS ANGELES — Jose Huizar’s downfall at Los Angeles City Hall was as stunning as his rise to success, a political tragedy that, like many in the land of dreams, has become a familiar one.
Born to a large family in rural Mexico and raised in poverty near the towering high-rises of downtown Los Angeles, he overcame enormous odds to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University and UCLA law school.
He returned to his old neighborhood in East Los Angeles to run for the school board and eventually the City Council, where he gained control of the influential committee that approves multimillion-dollar commercial development projects across the city.
His spectacular fall — after FBI agents caught him accepting $1.8 million worth of casino chips, luxury hotel stays, a liquor box full of cash and prostitutes from Chinese developers — was cast by federal prosecutors as an epic Hollywood tale. They persuaded a judge in January to sentence him to 13 years in prison on charges of tax evasion and racketeering.
“He was the King Kong of LA City Hall for many, many years,” Mack E. Jenkins, chief of the criminal division at the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, told the court. “And with his fall, a lot of devastation was left in his wake.”
This week, when Huizar is scheduled to report to prison, he will become the third recent Los Angeles City Council member to go down on charges of corruption, part of a much larger circle of staff aides, fundraisers, political consultants and real estate developers who have been charged in what federal authorities called an “extraordinary” recent wave of bribery and influence-peddling across California.
Two other members of the City Council, Mitchell Englander and Mark Ridley-Thomas, were convicted earlier on various corruption charges, as was the former head of the city’s Department of Water and Power. A fourth City Council member, Curren Price, is facing charges of embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest.
Over the last 10 years, 576 public officials in California have been convicted on federal corruption charges, according to Justice Department reports, exceeding the number of cases in states better known for public corruption, including New York, New Jersey and Illinois.
California has a larger population than those states, but the recent wave of cases is attributable to much more than that, federal prosecutors say.
A heavy concentration of power at Los Angeles City Hall, the receding presence of local news media, a population that often tunes out local politics and a growing Democratic supermajority in state government have all helped insulate officeholders from damage, political analysts said.
In Los Angeles, Huizar’s influence was even greater than that of most other council members: Not only did his district include downtown Los Angeles, where billions of dollars of foreign investment was transforming the skyline, but he also controlled the Planning and Land Use Management Committee that approves major developments all over the city.
“When you have that kind of power, pay-to play schemes run amok,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, whose office has led many of the recent prosecutions in Los Angeles. “I wouldn’t call it ordinary what these folks did. It is extraordinary.”
Huizar, 55, pleaded guilty to racketeering, a charge often used in prosecuting organized crime or street-gang cases. The $1.8 million in bribes he received was twice the amount that recently convicted Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was charged with accepting.
In March, a jury convicted Raymond Chan, a former Los Angeles deputy mayor whom prosecutors called the “architect” of the Huizar conspiracy, also on racketeering charges. In all, more than 50 key political figures and executives in Los Angeles and San Francisco have been convicted since 2019. Many more were investigated or resigned after allegations surfaced.
California also had cases of corruption in the days, now in the distant past, when Republicans held statewide office.
But political analysts say the Democrats’ present lock on political power leaves little opportunity for Republicans to effectively raise the issue of corruption as a campaign issue.
“When a political party enjoys that much uncontested power, there’s no penalty for stepping over ethical or legal lines,” said Dan Schnur, a former head of the state Fair Political Practices Commission and a former Republican who is now an independent.
A two-year-old reform effort to curb some of the extraordinary power conferred to individual council members in Los Angeles has foundered.
“When you talk about reducing individual council member discretion over land use, there is real pushback,” said Nithya Raman, a council member who sits on the city’s charter reform committee.
What happened in Los Angeles had been playing out on a smaller scale for years in the small industrial cities of Los Angeles County that have been described as a “corridor of corruption”: South Gate, Bell, Lynwood and Vernon, among others, where civic leaders were prosecuted for taking bribes or tapping into city funds.
“You have large immigrant populations, largely marginalized communities that do not have the resources to watch their politicians closely,” said Estrada, whose parents emigrated from Guatemala. “I think you have a pretty unique cauldron of factors in Los Angeles and the greater Los Angeles area that allow for these things to happen.”
The arrival of large-scale investments from China starting in 2011 heightened the risks.
Over the next half-dozen years, about $26 billion of direct investment from Chinese firms and their billionaire owners arrived in the state.
Downtown Los Angeles underwent a dramatic revival. New high-rise condos and hotels went up, abandoned warehouses were converted into loft apartments and galleries and expensive restaurants opened.
The 40-year-old Grand Hotel, a rundown eyesore used until recently by the city as a homeless shelter, was at the center of one investor’s grandiose plan.
The investor, Wei Huang, a billionaire owner of the development company Shen Zhen New World, bought the hotel in 2010 with plans to convert it into a 77-story tower, the highest in the western United States.
What he needed was help managing the byzantine political approval process. He found it, federal prosecutors said, with Huizar, who had been elected to the council in 2005.
Starting in 2013, federal prosecutors said, Huizar took the first of 20 all-expenses paid trips to Las Vegas with Huang, during which he was supplied with about $10,000 worth of casino chips each time.
Their involvement deepened just before a 2015 election, when Huizar faced allegations from his deputy chief of staff that he had sexually harassed her. Huang, prosecutors said, provided him with $600,000 of collateral for a loan to settle out of court.
But it was the free casino chips in Las Vegas that would ultimately unravel the arrangement. During one trip to the Cosmopolitan casino in 2016, its security chief, a former FBI agent, spotted Huizar playing a $16,000 pile of chips at a card table. When he asked his identity, he became flustered and walked away, leaving the chips.
“Who walks away from $16,000 of casino chips?” said Carlos Narro, who was then the chief of the FBI’s public corruption section in Los Angeles, who got a call from the security chief.
In short order, Narro had the casino’s video of the scene at the card table and flight records. With those, the FBI got court approval for wire taps and searches of Huizar’s text messages and emails.
Ultimately, the investigation found that Huang had paid roughly $1.8 million to Huizar, but that was only part of a much wider network of corruption, investigators found. The wide-ranging racketeering indictment to which Huizar pleaded guilty also targeted a City Hall aide, a deputy mayor, a lobbyist and a political fundraiser, all of whom were also convicted.
Huang was also indicted and is now a fugitive, believed to be in China. His company was fined $4 million.
Also included in the indictment were three other large development projects whose backers, prosecutors said, obtained Huizar’s help in exchange for bribes.
The scandal was almost inevitable, said Miguel Santana, the former top administrative officer of Los Angeles.
“The depth of power that a council member has around development in their own districts almost facilitates the level of corruption that took place,” Santana, now president of the California Community Foundation. “That level of power still exists today.”
San Francisco has had its own round of corruption cases, many of the recent ones surrounding the former Department of Public Works chief, Mohammed Nuru, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to accepting gifts, including a tractor for his ranch outside the city, a Rolex watch and millions of dollars, from various people with business before the city.
Florence Kong, the owner of a recycling company, pleaded guilty to offering some of the bribes in exchange for city contracts. Zhang Li, a Chinese developer also accused of offering bribes, signed a deferred prosecution agreement.
Now scheduled to surrender to prison by Saturday, Huizar made a public apology at his sentencing hearing, saying he had long been dedicated to his community. “Shiny things were dangled in front of me, and I could not resist the temptation,” he said in a letter to the judge asking for leniency. “The money, the fancy dinners, luxury flights. It was there for the taking, and I could not say no.”
Estrada, the U.S. attorney, said that Huizar’s corruption offended him as a Latino.
“It feels like a real betrayal,” Estrada said. “Because for those of us whose families came from Latin America, and know that system, there’s just rampant corruption there. You come to this country, you have more opportunities, you are offered to be part of a system that is theoretically supposed to operate cleanly.”
