FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Four years before Category 4 Ian wiped out parts of southwest Florida, the state’s Panhandle had its own encounter with an even stronger hurricane, Michael. The Category 5 storm all but destroyed one town, fractured …
MEXICO BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Standing on the deck of the new Driftwood Inn, 31/2 years after Hurricane Michael obliterated the old one, Tom Wood spoke of the months after the storm. One of his daughters had urged him and …
ALLIGATOR POINT, Fla. (AP) — Three years after Hurricane Michael left a path of destruction spanning hundreds of miles along the Forgotten Coast, Tonya McNabb decided to move to Alligator Point permanently. She’s rebuilt the porch that was ripped from …
ATLANTA — A public was charged with stealing more than $215,000 in insurance money from a Georgia business damaged by Hurricane Michael, authorities said. Steven Eric Chastain is accused of stealing insurance checks from a business in Albany, Georgia, and …
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Two former officials of a Florida city are charged with conspiring with two businesses to bilk the federal government out of $5 million in Hurricane Michael cleanup money, the U.S. attorney’s office announced Tuesday. U.S. Attorney Lawrence …
BLOUNTSTOWN, Fla. — The sunsets are a sight to behold in Joe Leonard’s neck of the woods these days. A year ago, lush stands of towering pines obscured the horizon, he said as he drove his pickup along a dusty …
PANAMA CITY, Fla. — As the scale and frequency of major disasters escalate, millions of dollars in federal, state and insurance payments intended for recovery efforts are being stolen by fraudsters taking advantage of chaos and the pipeline of aid …
LUMBERTON, N.C. — For eight years, James Lesane paid what he could for his mobile home lot rental every month _ $150. But in February, five months after Hurricane Florence flooded the Lumberton region and shortly after Florida-based company Time …
The Atlantic hurricane season, which begins Saturday, puts 7.3 million homes at risk with an estimated reconstruction cost of $1.8 trillion, CoreLogic said in its 2019 Storm Surge Report. That’s 300,000 more homes and $200 billion more in reconstruction costs …
As many as eight hurricanes may form in the Atlantic in 2019, a “near normal” season following two years of storms that have left a trail of death and destruction in the Caribbean and U.S. coast. Nine to 15 named …