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This is Toby Sumpter, and today is Friday, September 30th, and this is your CrossPolitic Daily Newsbrief.
https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-ian-impact-path-d4db93bcac5af1134e31a3b7f2f694f0
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (AP) — Rescue crews piloted boats and waded through inundated streets Thursday to save thousands of Floridians trapped amid flooded homes and shattered buildings left by Hurricane Ian, which crossed into the Atlantic Ocean and churned toward another landfall in South Carolina.
Hours after weakening to a tropical storm while crossing the Florida peninsula, Ian regained hurricane strength Thursday evening after emerging over the Atlantic Ocean. The National Hurricane Center predicted it would make landfall in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane Friday.
The devastation inflicted on Florida began to come into focus a day after Ian struck as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane and one of the strongest storms ever to hit the U.S. It flooded homes on both the state’s coasts, cut off the only bridge to a barrier island, destroyed a historic waterfront pier and knocked out electricity to 2.67 million Florida homes and businesses — nearly a quarter of utility customers.
At least one man was confirmed dead in Florida, while two other people were reported killed in Cuba after the hurricane struck the island Tuesday.
Aerial photos from the Fort Myers area, a few miles west of where Ian struck land, showed homes ripped from their slabs and deposited among shredded wreckage. Businesses near the beach were completely razed, leaving twisted debris. Broken docks floated at odd angles beside damaged boats and fires smoldered on lots where houses once stood.
“I don’t know how anyone could have survived in there,” William Goodson said amid the wreckage of the mobile home park in Fort Myers Beach where he’d lived for 11 years.
The hurricane tore through the park of about 60 homes, many of them, including Goodson’s single-wide home destroyed or mangled beyond repair. Wading through waist-deep water, Goodson and his son wheeled two trash cans containing what little he could salvage of his belongings — a portable air conditioner, some tools and a baseball bat.
The road into Fort Myers was littered with broken trees, boat trailers and other debris. Cars were left abandoned in the roadway, having stalled when the storm surge flooded their engines.
“We’ve never seen storm surge of this magnitude,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told a news conference. “The amount of water that’s been rising, and will likely continue to rise today even as the storm is passing, is basically a 500-year flooding event.”
After leaving Florida as a tropical storm Thursday and entering the Atlantic Ocean north of Cape Canaveral, Ian spun up into a hurricane again with winds of 75 mph (120 kph). The hurricane center predicted it would continue to strengthen before hitting South Carolina on Friday, but still remain a Category 1 storm.
A hurricane warning was issued for the South Carolina coast and extended to Cape Fear on the southeastern coast of North Carolina. With tropical-storm force winds reaching 415 miles (667 kilometers) from its center, Ian was forecast to shove storm surge of 5 feet (1.5 meters) into coastal areas in Georgia and the Carolinas. Rainfall of up to 8 inches (20.32 centimeters) threatened flooding from South Carolina to Virginia.
Sheriffs in southwest Florida said 911 centers were inundated by thousands of stranded callers, some with life-threatening emergencies. The U.S. Coast Guard began rescue efforts hours before daybreak on barrier islands near where Ian struck, DeSantis said. More than 800 members of federal urban search-and-rescue teams were also in the area.
In the Orlando area, Orange County firefighters used boats to reach people in a flooded neighborhood. A photo the department posted on Twitter showed one firefighter carrying someone in his arms through knee-deep water. At an area nursing home, patients were carried on stretchers across floodwaters to a waiting bus.
Among those rescued was Joseph Agboona. “We were happy to get out,” he said after grabbing two bags of possessions when water rose to the windows in his Orlando home. “It was very, very bad.”
In Fort Myers, Valerie Bartley’s family spent desperate hours holding a dining room table against their patio door, fearing the storm raging outside “was tearing our house apart.”
“I was terrified,” Bartley said. “What we heard was the shingles and debris from everything in the neighborhood hitting our house.”
The storm ripped away patio screens and snapped a palm tree in the yard, Bartley said, but left the roof intact and her family unharmed.
In Fort Myers, some people left shelters to return home Thursday afternoon. Long lines formed at gas stations and a Home Depot opened, letting in a few customers at a time.
Frank Pino was near the back of the line, with about 100 people in front of him.
“I hope they leave something,” Pino said, “because I need almost everything.”
Authorities confirmed at least one Florida death — a 72-year-old man in Deltona who fell into a canal while using a hose to drain his pool in the heavy rain, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said. Two other storm deaths were reported in Cuba.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said his office was scrambling to respond to thousands of 911 calls in the Fort Myers area, but many roads and bridges were impassable.
Emergency crews sawed through toppled trees to reach stranded people. Many in the hardest-hit areas were unable to call for help because of electrical and cellular outages.
A chunk of the Sanibel Causeway fell into the sea, cutting off access to the barrier island where 6,300 people live. It was unknown how many heeded orders to evacuate, but Charlotte County Emergency Management Director Patrick Fuller expressed cautious optimism.
No deaths or injuries have been confirmed in the county, and flyovers of barrier islands show “the integrity of the homes is far better than we anticipated,” Fuller said.
South of Sanibel Island, the historic beachfront pier in Naples was destroyed, with even the pilings underneath torn out. “Right now, there is no pier,” said Penny Taylor, a Collier County commissioner.
In Port Charlotte, a hospital’s emergency room flooded and fierce winds ripped away part of the roof, sending water gushing into the intensive care unit. The sickest patients — some on ventilators — were crowded into the middle two floors as the staff prepared for storm victims to arrive, said Dr. Birgit Bodine of HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital.
Ian struck Florida with 150 mph (241 kph) winds that tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane ever to hit the U.S.
While scientists generally avoid blaming climate change for specific storms without detailed analysis, Ian’s watery destruction fits what scientists have predicted for a warmer world: stronger and wetter hurricanes, though not necessarily more of them.
“This business about very, very heavy rain is something we’ve expected to see because of climate change,” said MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel. “We’ll see more storms like Ian.”
Club Membership Plug:
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The first transgender officer in the U.S. Army and wife have both been indicted for allegedly attempting to communicate with Russian officials in the hopes of giving them kompromat on some members of the military and their spouses.
Over the summer, Major Jamie Lee Henry, 39, and wife Dr. Anna Gabrielian, 36, had reportedly made contact with someone whom they thought worked at the Russian embassy but who was actually an undercover FBI agent. Henry, an internist, is a medical doctor with security clearance at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, one of the largest military installations in the entire world. Gabrielian, an anesthesiology and critical care instructor at Johns Hopkins, allegedly expressed hope to the FBI agent that they could use her husband’s security clearance to obtain the private medical records of some strategic members of the military and/or their spouses and relatives that Russian officials could then “exploit.”
According to the indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday, Gabrielian said she was motivated to help Russia because of her Russian patriotism, and her profile at Johns Hopkins does indicate that Gabrielian speaks fluent Russian. However, it is unclear whether she is a Russian national or somehow otherwise affiliated with the country.
Though Henry was not said to be motivated by Russian patriotism, the indictment does suggest the Army officer expressed some sympathy for Russian interests.
“My point of view is until the United States actually declares war against Russia,” Henry allegedly told the agent, “I’m able to help as much as I want.”
Henry also told the agent that Henry had attempted to enlist in the Russian army to fight against Ukraine but had been rejected for a lack of combat experience.
“The way I am viewing what is going on in Ukraine now, is that the United States is using Ukrainians as a proxy for their own hatred toward Russia,” Henry allegedly said.
Gabrielian also allegedly called Henry a “coward” when the Army officer expressed misgivings about violating HIPPA regulations in service to Russia.
During a meeting with the agent at a hotel last month, Gabrielian reportedly gave the agent private medical information belonging to the spouse of a service member in the Office of Naval Intelligence, as well as the information of a relative from an Air Force veteran. Henry likewise handed the agent the medical records of five Fort Bragg patients, according to the filing. It is unclear whether Henry had treated those patients personally.
During that meeting, the couple also supposedly attempted to establish a contingency plan, in the event they were ever arrested.
Gabrielian allegedly requested that the Russian embassy help find her children “a nice flight to Turkey to go on vacation” so that they couldn’t be used as “hostages” against her if she were ever incarcerated.
Both Henry and Gabrielian have been charged with conspiracy and wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information. They face up to 15 years in prison each, if convicted.
The couple were married in 2015, the same year Henry came out as transgender. At the time, Henry gave an interview with Brightest Young Things. “My passion is service member health,” Henry said in the interview. “…The biggest part in supporting the health of service members is listening to them. Trauma has to be handled on an individual’s timeline and in a way that is unique to that individual.”
Brightest Young Things has since changed its name to Exactly. It claims to be an “award-winning Design, Strategy, and Events agency for brands who want to stay relevant with today’s beautifully diverse audience.”
https://www.gty.org/library/blog/B220928
Almighty God says in His Word, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). Scripture also teaches that it is the chief duty of any civic leader to reward those who do well and to punish evildoers (Romans 13:1–7). You have not only failed in that responsibility; you routinely turn it on its head, rewarding evildoers and punishing the righteous.
The Word of God pronounces judgment on those who call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20), and yet many of your policies reflect this unholy, upside-down view of honor and morality. The diabolical effects of your worldview are evident in the statistics of California’s epidemics of crime, homelessness, sexual perversions (like homosexuality and transgenderism), and other malignant expressions of human misery that stem directly from corrupt public policy. I don’t need to itemize or elaborate on the many immoral decisions you have perpetrated against God and the people of our state, which have only exacerbated these problems. Nevertheless, my goal in writing is not to contend with your politics, but rather to plead with you to hear and heed what the Word of God says to men in your position.
“Let all kings bow down before Him, all nations serve Him” (Psalm 72:11).
“He who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God, is as the light of the morning when the sun rises” (2 Samuel 23:3–4).
“It is an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts, for a throne is established on righteousness” (Proverbs 16:12).
The Psalm of the Day: Psalm 103
https://open.spotify.com/track/24Ej0kqdU8sjppEDhSpeD4?si=a6a17d7c563f483e
Play: 0:05-2:12
Amen!
This is Toby Sumpter with CrossPolitic News. Remember you can always find the links to our news stories and these psalms at crosspolitic dot com – just click on the daily news brief and follow the links. Or find them on our App: just search “Fight Laugh Feast” in your favorite app store and never miss a show. We are now doing a daily show, with daily backstage content for Fight Laugh Feast Club Member. Join today and get access as well as a $100 discount at the Fight Laugh Feast conference in Knoxville, TN Oct. 6-8, and have a great day.