All posts tagged "Hurricanes"

A special forces soldier turned motivational speaker who led a civilian disaster response to Hurricane Helene last fall, generating an Army investigation into whether he was leading an armed militia group, is running for Congress in North Carolina.

In the final stretch of the 2024 presidential campaign, Adam R. Smith’s Savage Freedoms Relief Operations won praise from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, as he sought to discredit federal disaster response efforts under then-President Joe Biden.

But as reported by Raw Story, Smith’s effort, part of a surge of armed civilians, many with military experience, also contributed intentionally or not to a climate of intimidation that led to the evacuation of a state medical assistance team including contract workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the investigation by U.S. Army Special Operations Command....

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here.

No matter where you live, extreme weather can hit your area, causing damage to homes, power outages, and dangerous or deadly conditions. If you’re on the coast, it may be a hurricane; in the Midwest or South, a tornado; in the West, wildfires; and as we’ve seen in recent years, anywhere can experience heat waves or flash flooding.

Living through a disaster and its aftermath can be both traumatic and chaotic, from the immediate losses of life and belongings to conflicting information around where to access aid. The weeks and months after may be even more difficult, as the attention on your community is gone but civic services and events have stalled or changed drastically. ...

Debby strengthened into a hurricane late Sunday as it bore down on Florida’s Gulf Coast with potential for history-making levels of rain and major flooding, prompting evacuation orders.

Debby grew rapidly into a Category One hurricane, the lowest on a five-stage scale, thanks to unusually warm Gulf of Mexico and is expected to slam into Florida’s Big Bend region around mid-day Monday.

The National Hurricane Center warned there is a danger of life-threatening storm surges along Florida’s Gulf Coast with six to 10 feet (1.8 to 3.0 meters) of inundation above ground level in some areas....

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.

Coastal Texas was under hurricane and storm surge warnings on Sunday, as the southern U.S. state braced for the approach of Beryl, which was threatening to make landfall as a hurricane.

The city of Galveston, southeast of Houston, had issued a voluntary evacuation order for some areas, with videos on social media showing lines of cars heading out of town Sunday afternoon.

As Beryl’s winds intensified, acting Governor Dan Patrick called on Texans to be on alert, listen to local officials, and leave the danger zone if possible....

Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season, strengthened into an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm Sunday as it threatened the southeast Caribbean with potentially life-threatening winds and storm surge, US trackers said.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned residents that Beryl — currently churning in the Atlantic Ocean about 350 miles (565 kilometers) east of Barbados — was creating a “very dangerous situation” and to heed local government and emergency management instructions.

Beryl “is now an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane,” it said, noting that the storm’s eye is expected to move early on Monday across the Windward Islands, a cluster of islands including Martinique, Saint Lucia and Grenada, among others....