Widespread frost and freeze conditions possible tonight in Central Illinois
The National Weather Service in Lincoln: Cold conditions are expected Tuesday and Wednesday night, with low temperatures falling to between 29 and 35 degrees. All of the area is under a frost advisory or a freeze warning tonight, so take precautions to protect sensitive vegetation.
Florida neighbors band together to recover after one-two punch from hurricanes Helene and Milton
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — When ankle-deep floodwaters from Hurricane Helene bubbled up through the floors of their home, Kat Robinson-Malone and her husband sent a late-night text message to their neighbors two doors down: “Hey, we’re coming.”
The couple waded through the flooded street to the elevated front porch of Chris and Kara Sundar, whose home was built on higher ground, and handed over their 8-year-old daughter and a gas-powered generator.
The Sundars’ lime-green house in southern Tampa also became a refuge for Brooke and Adam Carstensen, whose house next door to Robinson-Malone also flooded.
The three families met years earlier when their children became playmates, and the adults’ friendships deepened during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. So when Helene and Hurricane Milton struck Florida within two weeks of each other, the neighbors closed ranks as one big extended family, cooking meals together, taking turns watching children and cleaning out their damaged homes.
And as Milton threatened a direct strike on Tampa last week, the Malones, the Sundars and the Carstensens decided to evacuate together. They drove more than 450 miles (725 kilometers) in a caravan to metro Atlanta — seven adults, six children, four dogs and teenage Max Carstensen’s three pet rats.
“Everyone has, like, the chain saw or a tarp,” Robinson-Malone said Sunday. “But really the most important thing for us was the community we built. And that made all the difference for the hurricane rescue and the recovery. And now, hopefully, the restoration.”
Recovery efforts continued Sunday in storm-battered communities in central Florida, where President Joe Biden surveyed the devastation. Biden said he was thankful the damage from Milton was not as severe as officials had anticipated. But he said it was still a “cataclysmic” event for people caught in the path of the hurricane, which has been blamed for at least 11 deaths.
The number of homes and businesses in Florida still without electricity dropped to about 500,000 on Sunday, according to Poweroutage.us. That was down from more than 3 million after Milton made landfall Wednesday as a Category 3 storm.
Fuel shortages also appeared to be easing as more gas stations opened, and lines at pumps in the Tampa area looked notably shorter. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced nine sites where people can get 10 gallons (38 liters) each for free.
While recovery efforts were gaining steam, a full rebound will take far longer.
DeSantis cautioned that debris removal could take up to a year, even as Florida shifts nearly 3,000 workers to the cleanup. He said Biden has approved 100% federal reimbursement for those efforts for 90 days.
“The (removal of) debris has to be 24/7 over this 90-day period,” DeSantis said while speaking next to a pile of furniture, lumber and other debris in Treasure Island, an island city near St. Petersburg that has been battered by both recent hurricanes. “That’s the way you get the job done.”
National Weather Service meteorologist Paul Close said rivers will keep rising for the next several days and result in flooding, mostly around Tampa Bay and northward. Those areas got the most rain, which came on top of a wet summer that included several hurricanes.
Meanwhile, residents unable to move back into their damaged homes were making other arrangements.
Robinson-Malone and her husband, Brian, bought a camper trailer that’s parked in their driveway. They plan to live there while their gutted home is repaired and also improved to make it more resilient against hurricanes.
“These storms, they’re just going to keep happening,” she said. “And we want to be prepared for it.”
The Carstensens plan to demolish what’s left of their flooded, low-slung home, which was built in 1949, and replace it with a new house higher off the ground. For the time being they are staying with Brooke Carstensen’s mother.
Chris Sundar said he’s questioning his plan to remain in Tampa until his children have all graduated from high school a decade from now. His house remains the home base for the families’ kids, ages 8 to 13. On the wall there is a list of chores for them all, from folding laundry to emptying wastebaskets. Brooke Carstensen, a teacher, has helped the children through an extended period without school.
The Sundars lost both their vehicles when Helene’s storm surge flooded their garage, so they drove Robinson-Malone’s car when they evacuated to Georgia. Arriving, exhausted after the 14-hour trek, Chris Sundar said to Robinson-Malone: “This is where community shines or it falls apart.”
“And that night we got together and we all hung out,” he said.
On Sunday back in Florida, they worked together to remove sticks and logs from a large oak limb that dangled over another neighbor’s driveway. Brian Malone cut it up with a chain saw.
Tackling recovery as a group has made it seem far less overwhelming, Brooke Carstensen said. The families share tips and ideas on a group text thread. The Sundars threw an impromptu 13th birthday party for her son at their house between the storms. And she found solace and laughter from Brian Malone’s advice about rebounding: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
It’s why she wants to remain in Tampa, despite her concerns that Helene and Milton won’t be the last storms.
“Why do we live here in a place that’s trying to destroy us?” Brooke Carstensen said. “Well, it’s all the people that we have here.”
Milton knocks out power to millions and spawns tornadoes across Florida. At least 5 dead
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Hundreds of Florida residents were rescued Thursday from the aftermath of Hurricane Milton after the storm smashed through coastal communities where it tore homes into pieces, filled streets with mud and spawned a barrage of tornadoes that killed at least five.
Arriving just two weeks after the misery wrought by Hurricane Helene, the system also knocked out power to more than 3 million customers, flooded barrier islands, tore the roof off a baseball stadium and toppled a construction crane.
But many people also expressed relief that Milton wasn’t worse. The hurricane spared Tampa a direct hit, and the lethal storm surge that scientists feared never materialized.
The storm tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall late Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane in Siesta Key, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa. Damage was widespread, and water levels may continue to rise for days, but Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was not “the worst-case scenario.”
“You face two hurricanes in a couple of weeks — not easy to go through — but I’ve seen a lot of resilience throughout this state,” the governor said at a briefing in Sarasota. He said he was “very confident that this area is going to bounce back very, very quickly.”
South of Tampa, Natasha Shannon and her husband, Terry, felt lucky to be alive after the hurricane peeled the tin roof off their cinder block home in Palmetto. They spent the night in a shelter with their three children and two grandchildren after she pushed them to leave.
“I said, ‘Baby, we got to go. Because we’re not going to survive this,’” she said.
They returned to find the roof torn into sheets across the street, shredded insulation hanging from exposed ceiling beams and their belongings soaked.
“It ain’t much but it was ours,” she said. “What little bit we did have is gone.”
The worst storm surge appeared to be in Sarasota County, where it was 8 to 10 feet (2.5 to 3 meters) — lower than in the worst place during Helene. The storm also dumped up to 18 inches (45 centimeters) of rain in some areas.
At least 340 individuals and 49 pets have been rescued in ongoing search-and-rescue operations, DeSantis said Thursday afternoon.
After flying over some of the hard-hit areas, the governor said many of the homes that went up in recent years withstood the storm: “Our buildings that were built in the last 20 or 30 years, they did very well.”
Officials in the hard-hit Florida counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees in roads, blocked bridges and flooding.
Just inland from Tampa, the flooding in Plant City was “absolutely staggering,” according to City Manager Bill McDaniel, who estimated the city received 13.5 inches (34 cm) of rain.
“We have flooding in places and to levels that I’ve never seen, and I’ve lived in this community for my entire life,” he said in a video posted online Thursday morning.
The tiny barrier island of Matlacha, just off Fort Myers, got hit by both a tornado and a surge, with many of the colorful buildings in the fishing and tourist village sustaining serious damage. Tom Reynolds, 90, spent the morning sweeping out four feet of mud and water and collecting chunks of aluminum siding torn off by a twister that also picked up a car and threw it across the road.
Elsewhere on the island, a house was blown into a street, temporarily blocking it. Some structures caught fire. Reynolds said he planned to repair the home he built three decades ago.
“What else am I going to do?” he said.
In contrast, city workers on Anna Maria Island were grateful not to be wading through floodwaters as they picked up debris Thursday morning, two weeks after Helene battered buildings and blew in piles of sand up to 6 feet (1.8 m) high. Those piles may have helped shield homes from further damage, said Jeremi Roberts of the State Emergency Response Team.
“I’m shocked it’s not more,” city worker Kati Sands said as she cleared the streets of siding and broken lights. “We lost so much with Helene, there wasn’t much left.”
The storm slammed into a region still reeling from Helene, which flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the South. In many places along the coast, municipalities raced to collect and dispose of debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge could toss it around and compound any damage.
Power was knocked out across much of the state, with more than 3.4 million homes and businesses without electricity, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
The fabric that serves as the roof of Tropicana Field — home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St. Petersburg — was ripped to shreds by fierce winds. Debris littered the field, but no injuries were reported.
Jessie Schaper, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Melbourne, Florida, said it was too early to know exactly how many tornadoes touched down or how strong they were.
The five tornado deaths happened in the Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, where homes were destroyed, authorities said.
Speaking at a White House briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there were reports of as many as 10 fatalities from tornadoes, but he cautioned that the number was tentative.
By Thursday afternoon, Milton was headed into the Atlantic Ocean as a post-tropical cyclone with winds of 75 mph (120 kph) — just barely hurricane force.
Officials had issued dire warnings to flee or face grim odds of survival.
Jackie Curnick said she wrestled with her decision to stay at home in Sarasota, just north of where the storm made landfall. She and her husband started packing Monday to evacuate, but they struggled to find available hotel rooms, and the few they came by were too expensive.
With a 2-year-old son and a baby girl due Oct. 29, Curnick said there were too many unanswered questions if they got in the car and left: Where would they sleep? Would they be able to fill their gas tank? And could they even find a safe route out of the state?
Video taken during the storm showed howling winds and sheets of rain lashing their glass-enclosed swimming pool as their son and dog watched. Trees shook violently.
On Thursday morning, she reported that the family was without power but safe.
About 80,000 people spent the night in shelters and thousands of others fled after authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders across 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people.
Crossing the bridge from the mainland to Anna Maria Island early Thursday, Police Chief John Cosby breathed a sigh of relief. Nearly all residents had evacuated. There were no injuries or deaths, and the projected storm surge never happened. After fearing that his police department would be underwater, it remained dry.
“It’s nice to have a place to come back to,” he said.
Payne and Daley reported from Palmetto, Florida. Associated Press journalists Holly Ramer and Kathy McCormack in New Hampshire; Stephany Matat in Fort Pierce, Florida; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; Michael Goldberg in Minneapolis; Joshua Boak in Washington and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this report.
It’s warmer and drier than usual in the Midwest this fall. Here’s what that means for producers
Fall is typically a drier time of the year for the Great Plains and Midwest. But drought is once again rearing its head in much of the region, and experts are not seeing relief anytime soon.
As Ralph Lents harvests corn and soybeans on his farm in southwest Iowa, he said some precipitation would be welcome.
“We got a lot of dust and dirt and everything,” said Lents, who has been farming for about 50 years. “It’d just settle everything down, you know, and take the dirt out of the air. It’s kind of hard to breathe with all this dust and stuff in the air.”
Autumn is typically a drier time of year for the Midwest and Great Plains. But this fall has been unseasonably warm and dry. Above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation are expected until Oct. 22, according to data from the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center.
Some areas have been parched for the last 30 days, and in some cases, since the middle of the summer, said Dennis Todey, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Midwest Climate Hub.
“We’ve had some spotty rainfalls in places that have been beneficial,” Todey said. “But unfortunately, the widespread area has seen very dry conditions. And along with that, we’ve seen very warm conditions, so what little moisture there is available is drying things out very quickly.”
For farmers who are harvesting crops, the weather is making vegetation dry and increasing its risk of burning. Fire danger in the fall can be a problem in fields because the crop is dry. Now, it’s more of a concern because the surrounding areas are also dry.
In Iowa, there have been reports of equipment fires, and several burn bans are in effect across the state. For Lents, this means being smart while harvesting crops – not making unnecessary trips across a field and conserving moisture.
“You know, you just use some common sense and be wise what you’re doing,” Lents said.
The drought conditions are also causing low water levels in the Mississippi River, Todey said, which are driving up transportation costs for farmers.
Dry and hot fall
Big portions of the the U.S. are in at least a moderate drought as of Oct. 1, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. That includes about 30% of the region stretching from Ohio to Minnesota and down to Missouri, more than 40% of the region from Kansas to North Dakota, and more than 30% of the region from Oklahoma to Tennessee.
Many producers grappled with ongoing drought last summer into the spring throughout the central U.S., especially in Iowa and parts of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Those drought conditions eased earlier this summer before returning, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System.
Some states, such as Kansas, have also seen nearly record-high temperatures this month, said Matthew Sittel, Kansas’ assistant state climatologist.
“90s in October are not unprecedented, but they’re certainly unusual,” Sittel said
Kansas typically has its first freeze near the beginning of the month, and Sittel said it’s likely the state will see a later freeze this year.
Todey said the recent weather conditions are in part related to the developing La Niña climate pattern, which typically ushers in warmer and drier autumns. High pressure over the region preventing weather systems from forming and bringing moisture is also a player, Todey said.
It’s possible that ongoing drought might continue and worsen in parts of the region, according to the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center. The center shows a rapid onset drought risk is also in place for certain areas because of the warmer temperatures, lack of precipitation, low soil moisture and low rainfall prediction for the next couple of weeks.
While corn and other crops are being harvested, Todey said there is some concern for winter wheat planting. That’s because for crop insurance coverage, seeds need to be planted by later this month in some places, while that deadline has already passed in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
“It’s all part of the changing climate system that has us very concerned,” Todey said. “And it is why we do what we do, to help share information with producers about what’s going on and to help them manage through this in the shorter term and looking ahead to the longer term.”
Tightening cattle herds
In the beef industry, ongoing drought conditions have shrunk cattle herds. Drought can hurt hay production and water supplies, which can make it expensive for producers to keep herds.
Derrell Peel, an extension livestock marketing specialist at Oklahoma State University, said although the industry runs in cycles, cattle numbers are low. The national beef cattle herd is the smallest it’s been since 1961 and drought has pulled the numbers down over a handful of years, he said.
“The bottom line is, beef production continues to get tighter in the U.S.,” Peel said. “So we’ve got record high beef prices for consumers, and we’re going to continue to have record high prices for the foreseeable future.”
Peel said there are enough hay supplies to get through the winter, but producers are looking ahead and are concerned about the growing conditions for the coming summer.
“Going forward, I think it really has to do with producers’ expectations,” Peel said. “The fact that we’re looking very dry right now. The weather forecasts are not very favorable both short term and really, long term at this point.”