Residents of Florida Coast Increasingly Desperate for Food and Shelter

Source: New York Times

A familiar tension of disasters is emerging throughout the Florida Panhandle: People are increasingly desperate for food, water and shelter, but a sprawling relief operation is confronted with challenging conditions that are delaying the delivery of help.

Emergency workers said they were struggling, two days after the storm made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, to create paths into the hardest-hit communities, limiting their ability to deliver millions of pounds of supplies that were stockpiled ahead of the destruction.

Beyond the formerly picturesque coastline, the Panhandle is a densely wooded region, and many roads are still blocked with debris. The Red Cross said that it had loaded some of its supplies onto National Guard trucks because the terrain was too difficult for some of the nonprofit’s own vehicles.


In April, FEMA said that residents of Puerto Rico should keep 10 days of supplies on hand. But for people in the continental United States, the government recommends a far smaller amount: enough food and water for three days or more. And as the weekend neared, it was becoming increasingly clear that many Panhandle residents were not only left without a habitable home but also without adequate stockpiles of food in the aftermath of the devastating storm.



Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/us/looting-stores-hurricane-michael.html?partner=rss&emc=rss