Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue Saturday, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 56 people, caused widespread destruction across the U.S. Southeast and left millions without power.
“I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” said Janalea England, of Steinhatchee, Fla., a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbors, many of whom couldn’t get insurance on their homes.
“To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement,” said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff. Relatives put out desperate pleas for help on Facebook. Among those waiting for news was Francine Cavanaugh, whose sister told her she was going to check on guests at a vacation cabin as the storm began hitting Asheville. Cavanaugh, who lives in Atlanta, hasn't been able to reach her since then.
U.S. President Joe Biden said Saturday that Helene's devastation has been “overwhelming” and that his administration is committed to helping recovery in the huge swath of the Southeast impacted by the storm. Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes in a matter of hours.
Among the 11 confirmed deaths in Florida were nine people who drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation area on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County, where St. Petersburg is located, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said. Taylor County is in Florida’s Big Bend, where salt marshes and pine flatwoods stretch into the horizon, and where the condo developments and strip malls that have carved up much of the state’s coastlines are largely absent.The county went years without taking a direct hit from a hurricane. But after Idalia and two other storms in a little over a year, the area is beginning to feel like a hurricane superhighway.
“We watched our town get tore to pieces is what we done,” he said, noting that his grandfather helped found the town, where many homes have been reduced to piles of lumber. Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.The Israeli strike that killed Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah was a 'measure of justice' for victims of a four-decade 'reign of terror,' U.S. President Joe Biden said Saturday.
The CEO of the Ottawa Mission is responding to controversial comments made this week by Premier Doug Ford about those living in homeless encampments that received swift blowback from advocates.Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge is set to make history by becoming the first openly lesbian cabinet minister to take parental leave when her wife gives birth in the coming weeks.
P.E.I. shellfish festival gastrointestinal illness outbreak largest in province's history: health officer Ari Kinarthy never imagined he'd become the focus of photographers on a red carpet, back when he was a boy fighting to have fun.The U.S. Department of Transportation said Friday it had fined Air Canada US$250,000 for operating flights in 2022 and 2023 in prohibited Iraqi airspace.WeightWatchers CEO Sima Sistani, who pushed the company into embracing weight-loss drugs, is leaving the position after a two-and-a-half year stint.
Thousands of dead birds, from kingfishers to blue jays, encircle a wild turkey to illustrate in one snapshot a mere fragment of how many die from colliding into glass windows – a death that can be easily prevented, the Torontonian photographer says.Peel Regional police have charged a suspect in connection with two alleged assaults on seniors in Mississauga that they say were unprovoked.
A northern Alberta woman is hoping her family's history can help reunite Indigenous families with loved ones who died at the Charles Camsell Indian hospital in Edmonton.Communities that suffered total losses in Hammonds Plains, N.S., and Upper Tantallon, N.S., in the 2023 wildfire received a donation of trees from Northern Pulp on Saturday.Education and infrastructure were the focus of promises made on the tenth day of New Brunswick’s provincial election campaign.
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