Associated Press, Author at Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Associated PressSeptember 18, 2017

Dealing with wrecked belongings and reports of toxic muck, residents of a tiny town where Florida’s Everglades meet the Gulf of Mexico cleared their homes Monday in scorching 92 F (33 C) heat with no air conditioning and no electricity except from a few generators. The isolated Everglades City community of about 400 people suffered […]

Associated PressSeptember 18, 2017

Florida’s agriculture commissioner said Monday that the path of Hurricane Irma “could not have been more lethal” to the state’s farmers and that the scope of damage to the state’s fruits and vegetables is unprecedented. Commissioner Adam Putnam, along with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, flew over hundreds of miles of Florida farmland to view […]

Associated PressSeptember 18, 2017

Florida’s economy has long thrived on one import above all: People. Until Irma struck this month, the state was adding nearly 1,000 residents a day — 333,471 in the past year, akin to absorbing a city the size of St. Louis or Pittsburgh. Every jobseeker, retiree or new birth, along with billions spent by tourists, […]

Associated PressSeptember 17, 2017

As the devastated Florida Keys began reopening to residents who fled Hurricane Irma, officials warned the returning islanders to bring enough supplies to sustain them for a while, because no one yet knows when water and power will be fully restored. “The Keys are not what you left several days ago when you evacuated. Electricity, […]

Associated PressSeptember 17, 2017

The first 911 call from the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills didn’t sound ominous: A nursing home patient had an abnormal heartbeat. An hour later, came a second call: a patient had trouble breathing. Then came the third call. A patient had gone into cardiac arrest – and died. Over the next few hours of […]

Associated PressSeptember 17, 2017

Standing tall in a NAVY cap, Florida Gov. Rick Scott will be an enduring image from Hurricane Irma. Seemingly everywhere but the eye of the storm, he was there on social media urging millions to evacuate, calmly taking charge at emergency briefings, even delivering early word of devastation in the Keys after a much-publicized flyover. […]

Associated PressSeptember 17, 2017

Tim Stanton emerged from his ruined workshop off Highway 1 on Big Pine Key and collapsed to the ground, his sunburned, tear-covered face contorted in anguish. The skeleton-thin 58-year-old with long, stringy gray hair sat under an old gas station awning, overcome by his personal loss in this idyllic place that was one of the […]

Associated PressSeptember 15, 2017

It’s been one week since Margherita Lopez has taken a shower. She’s been shuffled to three different shelters since evacuating her home in Key West last week as Hurricane Irma approached. She’s slept on a gymnasium floor without a cot, has struggled to find food and says she feels like emergency management officials have forgotten […]

Associated PressSeptember 15, 2017

Confronted with back-to-back major hurricanes, the American Red Cross has received a huge outpouring of financial support — and a simultaneous barrage of criticism based on its struggles to respond to several past disasters. To date, combined donations to the Red Cross for hurricanes Harvey and Irma have topped $300 million. Former President Barack Obama […]

Associated PressSeptember 15, 2017

As if loss of air conditioning and refrigeration weren’t bad enough, widespread power outages in hurricane-battered Florida are teaming with structural failures to cause another headache: sewage overflows. Local governments have submitted well over 100 “notices of pollution” to the state Department of Environmental Protection since Hurricane Irma struck, some involving multiple spills and releases […]

Associated Press
Scary hand opening wooden treasure chest

SW Florida residents clear sodden homes in scorching heat

Official: ‘Lethal’ Irma a ‘major calamity’ for Florida crops

Irma’s damage a reminder of Florida economy’s vulnerability

Officials: Returning Keys residents must be self-sustaining

‘Red flag’ calls signaled post-Irma deaths at nursing home

Rick Scott could get political boost for leadership in Irma

Irma wipes out dreams across independent-minded Florida Keys

Irma’s ‘forgotten’ evacuees struggle to find housing

For Red Cross, hurricanes bring both donations and criticism

Sewage spills add to misery in hurricane-battered Florida