FEMA not too worried about the idea of a Tsunami hitting Washington, Oregon; about as worried as a wildfire in Hawaii

Wave-breaks-on-shore

Important Takeaways:

  • It’s Only a Matter of Time Before a Tsunami Hits the Northwest. Why Is It Missing from FEMA’s Risk Analysis?
  • Scattered like driftwood along the coast of Washington state is a string of Native reservations, tourist havens and faded timber towns whose names bespeak their geography: Long Beach, Westport, Ocean Shores, the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe. Some lie on nearly naked sandspits with a single point of connection to the mainland. Together with their coastal counterparts in Oregon and Northern California, they may be the most endangered communities in the United States.
  • That’s because about 70 miles offshore, a jammed-up 800-mile tectonic seam called the Cascadia Subduction Zone is approaching a shattering shakeout. The odds that it will unleash an earthquake in the next 50 years are estimated at 1 in 4. The odds of an 8.7-plus megaquake that would send a tsunami washing 30 feet or more over those communities is 1 in 6. At the tiny Hoh tribal reservation on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, the waves could reach 100 feet and put the tribal center 45 feet underwater.
  • Washington State’s Emergency Management Division calculates that nearly 90,000 people live or work in the outer coast’s inundation zone, and there are another 86,000 more along inner waterways that the waves will take longer to reach. On a summer day, they could be joined in the danger zone by up to 248,000 sightseers, clam diggers and other visitors. Western Washington University’s Resilience Institute has calculated that as many as 28 percent would be unable to reach higher ground in time to escape the tsunami and 18 percent — up to 60,000 people — would be crushed or swept out to sea.
  • It is, in the words of the Emergency Management Division, “expected to be the largest natural disaster ever in the United States.” And the question isn’t whether there will be a quake and tsunami but when.
  • There’s just one problem: the online tool the federal government has built for mapping and gauging disaster risks is oblivious to dangers along the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
  • The updated National Risk Index (NRI), announced in March, assigns only a “relatively moderate” tsunami risk to the Quinault Indian Nation, even though the Washington State Geological Survey predicts it will be buried under 30 to 50 feet of water.

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National Test: Oct 4th FEMA to test cell services’ Emergency Alert System

FILE PHOTO: Representatives from FEMA speak with a resident of the Staten Island borough neighborhood of New Dorp Beach about registering with the agency for financial assistance to help recover from the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy in New York, NY, U.S., November 15, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

Important Takeaways:

  • Get ready for an alert on your cellphones, televisions and radios on Oct. 4.
  • At 2:20 p.m., the federal government will test its nationwide Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts. The purpose is to ensure that the systems continue to be an effective means of warning the public about national emergencies.
  • Cell towers will broadcast the test for approximately 30 minutes. All wireless phones should receive the message only once.
  • People with cell phones will get a message that reads: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”
  • Phones with the main menu set to Spanish will display: “ESTA ES UNA PRUEBA del Sistema Nacional de Alerta de Emergencia. No se necesita acción.”
  • FEMA and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are coordinating with Emergency Alert System participants, wireless providers, emergency managers and other stakeholders in preparation for this national test to minimize confusion and to maximize the public safety value of the test.
  • The alert to be sent through radio and television broadcasters, cable systems and satellite radio is scheduled to last about one minute. It will state: “This is a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, covering the United States from 14:20 to 14:50 hours ET. This is only a test. No action is required by the public.”
  • If the Wednesday, Oct. 4, test is postponed due to widespread severe weather or other significant events, the back-up testing date is Wednesday, Oct. 11.

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FEMA turns down Ohio for disaster assistance after chemical spill

Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Important Takeaways:

  • Biden admin turns down Ohio’s request for disaster assistance after toxic derailment
  • The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) told Ohio’s state government that it was not eligible for disaster assistance to help the community recover from the toxic spill, Dan Tierney, a spokesperson for DeWine, told Fox News Digital on Thursday. Tierney explained that FEMA believed the incident didn’t qualify as a traditional disaster, such as a tornado or hurricane, for which it usually provides assistance.
  • “The DeWine Administration has been in daily contact with FEMA to discuss the need for federal support, however FEMA continues to tell Governor DeWine that Ohio is not eligible for assistance at this time,” DeWine’s office said in a statement earlier in the day. “Governor DeWine will continue working with FEMA to determine what assistance can be provided.”
  • FEMA said that its team is in constant communication with DeWine’s office, but didn’t comment on the request for federal relief.

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Biden visits tornado-stricken Kentucky bringing federal aid, empathy

By Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden flew to Kentucky on Wednesday to survey the areas hardest hit by one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in recent U.S. history, a system that killed at least 74 people in the state and at least 14 elsewhere.

Biden, no stranger to tragic personal losses, will reprise his familiar role as consoler in chief, while promising to bring the might of the federal government to rebuild devastated communities that suffered billions of dollars in damage.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear offered a grim update on Tuesday, saying the dead included a dozen children, the youngest of whom was a 2-month-old infant. He added that he expected the death toll to rise in the coming days, with more than 100 still missing.

Biden will visit the Army installation at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for a briefing on the storm before continuing on to Mayfield and Dawson Springs, two towns separated by roughly 70 miles (112 km) that were largely flattened by the twisters.

The president will be “surveying storm damage firsthand, (and) making sure that we’re doing everything to deliver assistance as quickly as possible in impacted areas to support recovery efforts,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent search-and-rescue and emergency response teams to Kentucky, along with teams to help survivors register for assistance, Psaki said.

FEMA has also sent dozens of generators into the state, along with 135,000 gallons (511,000 litres) of water, 74,000 meals and thousands of cots, blankets, infant toddler kits and pandemic shelter kits.

Biden has approved federal disaster declarations for Kentucky and the neighboring states of Tennessee and Illinois, offering residents and local officials increased federal aid.

Credit ratings agency DBRS Morningstar said the tornadoes were likely the most severe in the United States since 2011. Insurers are sufficiently prepared to cover claims without significant capital impact, it said in a report.

The trip marks one of the few that Biden, a Democrat, has taken to areas that tilt heavily toward the Republican Party, many of whose voters and leaders have embraced Donald Trump’s fraudulent claims that he won the 2020 election. The White House has been careful not to bring politics into the disaster relief efforts, including not focusing on what role, if any, climate change may have played in the tragic events.

“He looks at them as human beings, not as people who have partisan affiliations,” Psaki said. “And in his heart, he has empathy for everything that they’re going through.”

“The message he will send to them directly and clearly tomorrow is: ‘We’re here to help, we want to rebuild, we are going to stand by your side and we’re going to help your leaders do exactly that,'” she added.

Biden lost his first wife and daughter in a 1972 car crash, and his older son, Beau, died in 2015 after a fight with brain cancer.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, additional reporting by Rod Nickel; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Heather Timmons, Peter Cooney and Jonathan Oatis)

A month after Ida’s landfall, Louisianans decry ‘Third World’ conditions

By Brad Brooks

CROZIER, La. (Reuters) -Bruce Westley stood outside his wrecked mobile home, pointing to a small lime green tent, two patio chairs and a 30-quart aluminum pot atop a single propane burner.

“For more than a month, that’s been our bedroom, our living room and our kitchen,” said the 65-year-old disabled Navy veteran. He and his wife Christina are among thousands of southeast Louisianans struggling more than a month after Hurricane Ida swept through the heart of Cajun country.

Reuters traveled the bayous of hard-hit Terrebonne, Lafourche, Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes in recent days, speaking with more than 40 residents. All said they felt abandoned by state and federal officials. A few said they had not received any type of support from any level of government.

“We can’t keep living like this,” Westley said. “We just need any damn thing to get off the ground, man.”

In most areas it looked as if Ida rolled through only a day or two ago. Old timers who say they’ve seen it all swear they have never witnessed a more destructive storm.

A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spokesman said the agency was working as quickly as possible. Louisiana’s Governor John Bel Edwards on Monday announced a temporary sheltering program supported by FEMA that he said would start bringing trailers into the hardest-hit areas to alleviate housing shortages.

The human misery and the piles of debris testify to the massive strain on public and private resources in a hurricane-prone area. The scenes also raise questions about how the United States will cope as climate change creates a new, more destructive normal.

Reuters saw no heavy equipment, trucks or workers helping people clear the rubble and recover their belongings. The only government presence was in the form of law enforcement officers and staff at FEMA mobile centers processing disaster claims. Residents said it has basically been that way since Ida made landfall on Aug. 29 and killed 26 people, though roadways in the area were largely cleared of debris.

Hundreds of people, many of them elderly and children, were in tents. Others were in homes that clearly have severe structural damage and where mold, which can impact respiratory health and cause severe allergic reactions, was spreading.

Grocery stores, most restaurants and other businesses remain closed. Power is still out for thousands of people and many have no water or sewage services.

Despite the difficulties, communities are trying to band together. Outside the Howard Third Zion Travelers Baptist Church just two blocks down from where Westley and his wife are camping, volunteers say they have been handing out meals to 1,000 families daily. Ida destroyed the church’s south-facing wall.

“You want to know what’s been going on to help these people? Pretty much nothing,” said Talisa Clark, a community activist for the historically Black area who has been helping coordinate the food distribution. “There are no state or federal boots on the ground to help. It’s looking like a Third World country’s efforts down here.”

Clark was forced out of her badly damaged home near Houma and has been staying with relatives.

Parish officials for Terrebonne, Lafourche, Jefferson and Plaquemines did not respond to a request for comment.

DIFFICULT CHOICES

John Mills, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spokesman at a support site in Golden Meadow, Louisiana, said he understood the frustrations of those who survived Ida.

“Families and communities will have to face difficult choices about how to rebuild – and whether to rebuild here at all,” he said.

FEMA is distributing money so people can rent housing for at least two months. In addition, as of Monday FEMA said it was paying hotel costs for nearly 8,000 families. In total, it estimates it has spent at least $30 million in hotel costs.

“That plan probably works under most circumstances. But the breadth of Ida’s damage is so huge, that there’s no housing stock, there’s no hotel rooms available,” said Tanner Magee, a state representative whose district includes Terrebonne parish.

State and parish governments have contracted out the task of picking up debris, but have struggled with even deciding on where they will put it, Magee said. He said far more workers and trucks were needed in hard-hit areas.

Magee and his family, who live in Houma, are staying in his Ida-damaged home.

“If you see this destruction around you constantly and it’s not going anywhere, it beats down on people,” Magee said. “I’m really worried about the mental health of people.”

Magee and others say they need temporary FEMA trailers. FEMA says that takes several weeks, and is complicated by federal and state regulations that make it difficult to bring in temporary shelters during hurricane season.

FEMA, along with the Small Business Administration, has paid out over $1.1 billion for Ida damage so far, mostly through grants to homeowners, along with FEMA’s national flood insurance program. Uninsured damage estimates are upward of $19 billion, according to the property data and analytics company CoreLogic, with 90% of those losses along Louisiana’s coast, and the rest in Alabama and Mississippi. There could be another $21 billion in damage to insured properties.

STAY RIGHT HERE

In Galliano, Maria Molina hand washed shirts and shorts for her 7-year-old daughter Julia and grown son Leonardo; she then hung them out to dry.

“I’m out of work, I’m out of money and we’re out of food. We don’t have anywhere to go, even though this trailer seems unsafe,” she said of her blue mobile home, which was now akilter with a damaged roof and foundation.

Molina was awaiting word on whether she’ll qualify for any FEMA aid.

Down the road in the town of Golden Meadow, Rosie Verdin, 73, stood on the tilted porch of her home behind the tribal headquarters of her United Houma Nation.

Verdin said Ida’s destruction was the worst she’d seen. Some three-fourths of her tribe’s 19,000 members saw their homes destroyed or left uninhabitable.

“But there is nothing that will drive us off this land,” she said. “With or without help, we’ll rebuild and stay right here.”

(Reporting by Brad Brooks; Editing by Donna Bryson and Aurora Ellis)

Ida loses punch, levees hold, but Louisiana expects more rain and flooding

By Devika Krishna Kumar

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) -Ida lost some of its punch over southwestern Mississippi on Monday after making landfall in Louisiana as one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the region, but it could still trigger heavy flooding, the National Hurricane Center said.

Ida, the first major hurricane to strike the United States this year, made landfall around noon on Sunday as a Category 4 storm over Port Fourchon, a hub of the Gulf’s offshore oil industry, packing sustained winds of up to 150 miles per hour (240 km per hour).

Although weakened to a tropical storm, heavy downpours could bring life-threatening flooding, the NHC said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Deanne Criswell said the full impact of the storm would become clear later in the day.

“We’re hearing about widespread structural damage,” Criswell said in an interview with CNN. “I don’t think there could have been a worse path for this storm. It’s going to have some significant impacts.”

Federal levees installed to reduce the risk of flooding appeared to have held, according to preliminary reports.

“Daylight will bring horrific images as the damage is assessed. More than 20,000 linemen will work to restore the deeply damaged power lines,” Shauna Sanford, communications director for Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards wrote in a tweet.

“The good news: no federal levee failed or was overtopped.”

Kevin Lepine, president of Plaquemines Parish, home to 23,000 residents and one of Louisiana’s southern most communities, said he had had little sleep overnight as he braced for first light and the chance to go and assess the damage.

“We’re worried about the levees down the road,” he said.

On Sunday night, the sheriff’s office in Ascension Parish reported the first known U.S. fatality from the storm, a 60-year-old man killed by a tree falling on his home near Baton Rouge, the state capital.

President Joe Biden declared a major disaster in the state, ordering federal assistance to bolster recovery efforts in more than two dozen storm-stricken parishes.

Ida crashed ashore as Louisiana was already reeling from a resurgence of COVID-19 infections that has strained the state’s healthcare system, with an estimated 2,450 COVID-19 patients hospitalized statewide, many in intensive care units.

Its arrival came 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, one of the most catastrophic and deadly U.S. storms on record, struck the Gulf Coast, and about a year after the last Category 4 hurricane, Laura, battered Louisiana.

A loss of generator power at the Thibodaux Regional Health System hospital in Lafourche Parish, southwest of New Orleans, forced medical workers to manually assist respirator patients with breathing while they were moved to another floor, the state Health Department confirmed to Reuters.

Within 12 hours of landfall, Ida had plowed a destructive path that submerged much of the state’s coastline under several feet of surf, with flash flooding reported by the National Hurricane Center across southeastern Louisiana.

Nearly all offshore Gulf oil production was suspended in advance of the storm, and major ports along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts were closed to shipping.

WIDESPREAD OUTAGES

Power was knocked out Sunday night to the entire New Orleans metropolitan area following the failure of all eight transmission lines that deliver electricity to the city, the utility company Entergy Louisiana reported.

One transmission tower collapsed into the Mississippi River, the Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Department said.

More than 1 million Louisiana homes and businesses in all were without electricity early on Monday, as well as some 120,000 in Mississippi, according to the tracking site Poweroutage.US.

Residents of the most vulnerable coastal areas were ordered to evacuate days ahead of the storm. Those riding out the storm in their homes in New Orleans braced for the toughest test yet of major upgrades to a levee system constructed following devastating floods in 2005 from Katrina, a hurricane that claimed some 1,800 lives.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the newly reinforced New Orleans levees were expected to hold, though they said they said the flood walls could be overtopped in some places.

Hundreds of miles of new levees were built around New Orleans after flooding from Katrina inundated much of the low-lying city, especially historically Black neighborhoods.

Inundation from Ida’s storm surge – high surf driven by the hurricane’s winds – was reported to be exceeding predicted levels of 6 feet (1.8 m) along parts of the coast. Videos posted on social media showed storm surge flooding had transformed sections of Highway 90 along the Louisiana and Mississippi coast into a choppy river.

(Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in New Orleans; Additional reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault and Jonathan Allen in New York, Erwin Seba in Houston, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Laura Sanicola, Linda So and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington, Liz Hampton in Denver, and Arpan Varghese, Kanishka Singh, Bhargav Acharya and Nakul Iyer in Bengaluru; Writing by Steve Gorman and Maria Caspani; Editing by Richard Pullin and Nick Macfie)

Biden in Florida to comfort families as search at collapse site paused over safety concerns

By Katanga Johnson and Steve Holland

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) – President Joe Biden visited Florida on Thursday to comfort the families of those killed and missing in last week’s condominium collapse, as the search-and-rescue operation was temporarily suspended due to concerns about the stability of the remaining structure.

Biden, whose personal experience with tragedy has marked his political career, was set to reprise the role of “consoler-in-chief” a week after the 12-story building partially caved in as residents slept.

The confirmed death toll remained at 18, after the discovery of six more bodies in the ruins of the Champlain Towers South condo, including two children, aged 4 and 10. Another 145 people are missing and feared trapped in the rubble, with hopes of finding any survivors dimming with each passing day.

After arriving in Miami, Biden attended a briefing with local officials, including Governor Ron DeSantis, who is widely seen as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2024.

Biden told them he would deliver “whatever you need” and said he expected the federal government would cover the full costs for the county and state.

“We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “This is life or death.”

Workers at the site were instructed to stop just after 2 a.m. on Thursday, when movement in the debris raised concerns that the part of the building still standing could collapse, officials said.

“The search-and-rescue operation will continue as soon as it is safe to do so,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news briefing. Officials said they were unsure when that would happen.

Authorities said they have not given up on locating survivors. But nobody has been pulled alive from the wreckage since the early hours of the disaster in the oceanfront town of Surfside, adjacent to Miami Beach.

Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said rescuers did hear signs of life during their initial efforts last week.

“They were searching for a female voice, is what we heard for several hours,” he said. “Eventually, we didn’t hear her voice anymore.”

Officials are also keeping a watchful eye on Tropical Storm Elsa, which formed over the Atlantic and could reach south Florida by Monday, potentially hampering search operations.

SEARCH-AND-RESCUE

Among those traveling with Biden on Thursday were U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose district includes the collapse site; Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell; and Liz Sherwood-Randall, White House homeland security adviser.

Biden had delayed his visit to Florida to avoid interrupting rescue efforts.

FEMA has dispatched five urban search-and-rescue teams – each comprised of 80 members – to assist in sifting through the rubble, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One.

DeSantis said workers have removed some 1,400 tons of material from the collapse site.

Thursday’s trip is Biden’s second visit to the scene of a disaster since he became president in January.

In February, he traveled to Texas after a winter storm left millions without power or clean water for days and killed several people.

After his briefing, the president planned to thank first responders and rescue crews before meeting with victims’ families. He is scheduled to deliver remarks shortly before 4 p.m. in Miami.

Biden’s ability to connect his own hardships with the grief and anguish of others has become a defining feature of his public life, having endured the deaths of his first wife, a daughter and a son.

Investigators have not determined what caused nearly half of the 40-year-old condo complex to crumble in one of the deadliest building collapses in U.S. history.

But a 2018 report prepared by engineering firm Morabito Consultants ahead of a building safety recertification process found structural deficiencies in the 136-unit complex that are now the focus of inquiries.

The Washington Post reported late on Wednesday that the majority of the board of the Surfside condominium, including its president, resigned in 2019, partly in frustration over what was seen as the sluggish response to the report.

(Reporting By Katanga Johnson in Surfside and Steve Holland in Bal Harbor; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Francisco Alvarado, Brendan O’Brien, Peter Szekely, Kanishka Singh and Trevor Hunnicutt; Writing by Joseph Ax; Editing by Giles Elgood, Steve Orlofsky and Sonya Hepinstall)

Praying for ‘miracle,’ families await news of missing in Florida condo collapse

By Francisco Alvarado

SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) -Families and friends of the 159 people missing after the collapse of a condo building in a Miami suburb were clinging to hope on Friday as rescue workers sifted through a mountain of debris for signs of life, having found four dead so far.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters on Friday crews had pulled three more bodies from the wreckage overnight, after one person was reported to have died on Thursday. Officials increased the number of presumed missing from 99 reported missing on Thursday.

“I’m praying for a miracle,” Rachel Spiegel, whose mother Judy Spiegel is missing, told CNN on Friday.

The last time Spiegel communicated with her mom was Wednesday night, when her mother excitedly texted her that she had bought a dress online for Spiegel’s daughter, her granddaughter.

Hours later, early Thursday morning, a large section of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, a barrier island town across Biscayne Bay from the city of Miami, crumbled to the ground, authorities said.

Video captured by a security camera nearby showed an entire side of the building suddenly folding in two sections, one after the other, at about 1:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) on Thursday, throwing up clouds of dust.

Dozens of people were gathered at a reunification site at the Surfside Community Center on Friday, where the scene was hectic with volunteers running around and people hugging to console each other.

Outside the center, Toby Fried held back tears when she said she last spoke to her brother Chiam “Harry” Rosenberg around midnight Wednesday. Rosenberg had lived in Champlain Towers for about a year and a half. He and his daughter Malki Weiss and Beni Weiss, who were visiting him from Brooklyn, are all missing.

“They came to stay with him for a week on vacation,” Fried said.

Joining the families searching for missing loved ones was Paraguay’s first lady Silvana López Moreira, who traveled to Florida because her sister, brother-in-law and their children were unaccounted for. The first lady’s family owned a condo in the building, local media reported.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Fire Chief Ray Jadallah said on Friday that rescuers had heard sounds in the rubble overnight, but said it could be either falling debris or people tapping.

“We are listening for sounds, human sounds and tapping,” Jadallah said, as rescuers use shovels and jackhammers to tunnel under the debris to find pockets where survivors could be.

Mariela Porras, a friend of a woman who lived in the building with her young daughter and is now missing, said she has not abandoned hope that the two were still alive beneath the rubble.

“I vacillate between hope and I’m heartbroken,” Porras told CNN.

‘WE STILL HAVE HOPE’ Mayor Cava on Friday said that rescue teams were “incredibly motivated” to find anyone who might have survived the collapse.

“We still have hope that we will find people alive,” the mayor said.

She said on Thursday that 110 individuals whose whereabouts were initially unknown have since been located and “declared safe.”

A fire official said earlier that 35 people were evacuated from the section of the high-rise left standing, and response teams using trained dogs and drones in the search pulled two individuals from the rubble. One of them was dead.

U.S. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration in the state of Florida and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts.

“The president’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts,” the White House said on Friday.

What caused the 40-year-old high-rise to cave in was not immediately known, although local officials said the 12-story tower was undergoing roof construction and other repairs.

Space-based radar data showed that the land underneath the building was sinking during the 1990s, according to a 2020 study. That by itself would not cause a building’s collapse but it is worth investigating further, according to Florida International University professor Shimon Wdowinksi, one of the study’s authors.

The sinking, or subsidence, underneath the building amounted to 1 to 3 millimeters per year, which could add up to several inches over a decade, according to the study.

Late Thursday night, a resident of the collapsed building filed what is believed to be the first lawsuit against the condominium, the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association.

Manuel Drezner said in the proposed class action that the collapse could have been avoided had the condominium made needed repairs and ensured it was safe.

He said the condominium should pay unit owners millions of dollars for their “unfathomable loss.”

Officials said the complex, built in 1981, was going through a recertification process requiring repairs, with another building under construction on an adjacent site.

The Champlain Towers South had more than 130 units, about 80 of which were occupied. It had been subject to various inspections recently due to the recertification process and the adjacent building construction, Surfside Commissioner Charles Kesl told Miami television station WPLG Local 10.

(Reporting by Francisco Alvarado in Surfside, Florida; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Gabriella Borter in Washington and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Jonathan Oatis)

Storm Eta drenches Tampa Bay, threatens more flooding as it moves offshore

(Reuters) – Tropical Storm Eta drenched Florida’s west coast on Thursday after making landfall north of Tampa Bay with 50 mile-per-hour (80 kph) winds, but the system weakened slightly as it moved across the northeastern part of the state and into the Atlantic.

Eta, the 28th named storm of the busiest Atlantic hurricane season on record, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC), made its fourth landfall at around 4 a.m. on Thursday near Cedar Key, Florida, after it already slammed Central America, Cuba and the upper Florida Keys.

The storm had moved offshore into the Atlantic and was about 40 miles (65 km) north-northeast of Jacksonville on Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour (65 kph), the NHC said.

Storm surge from Eta in Tampa Bay reached 3 to 4 feet (0.9-1.2 m) above ground inundation, the NHC’s Storm Surge Unit said. The NHC forecasted that swells along the Florida Gulf coast today and the southeastern U.S. coast tonight would be “life-threatening.”

Flooded streets in downtown Tampa resembled lakes and sailboats in Gulfport, a city on Tampa Bay, were beached and tipped over on Thursday, photos on Twitter showed.

The storm was expected to drop an additional 1 inch to 3 inches ((2.5-7.6 cm) of rain over the Florida peninsula on Thursday, adding up to a total of 20 to 25 inches of rainfall in parts of South Florida.

“Localized bands of heavy rainfall will continue to impact portions of the Florida Peninsula today, resulting in isolated flash and urban flooding, especially across previously inundated areas,” the NHC said.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Trump administration denies California request for more wildfire aid

By Nichola Groom

(Reuters) – The Trump administration has denied a request by California for additional wildfire recovery relief, saying the September blazes, part of the state’s record-setting fire year, were not severe enough.

“The early September fires were not of such severity and magnitude to exceed the combined capabilities of the state, affected local governments, voluntary agencies and other responding federal agencies,” Federal Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Lizzie Litzow said in an emailed statement on Friday.

More than 4.1 million acres have burned in California this year, shattering a previous record.

President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration for some parts of the state in August. California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent him a request on Sept. 28 seeking another major disaster declaration for seven counties affected by fires that ignited earlier that month.

A major disaster declaration provides federal assistance for individuals, infrastructure and emergency and permanent work, according to FEMA’s web site.

“The more recent and separate California submission was not supported by the relevant data that States must provide for approval and the President concurred with the FEMA Administrator’s recommendation,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an email.

California officials were not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by David Gregorio)