US federal officials vowed urgent support on Sunday for a region devastated by the deadliest US natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina, even as they acknowledged recovery would not be quick or easy.
US President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to show an effective response to the storms and twisters that killed about 350 people last week in seven southern states, reduced neighborhoods to rubble and caused damage expected to run into billions of dollars.
Obama visited Alabama on Friday and US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and the administrator of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Craig Fugate, toured damage on Sunday.
“I don’t think words can fairly express the level of devastation here. I am not articulate enough,” Napolitano said after seeing how killer storm winds had torn through Pratt City, Alabama.
Later in Smithville, Mississippi, Napolitano said the visit had offered an acute sense of urgency about the need to help communities “come to grips and recover” from the disaster.
“This is not going to be a quick comeback or an immediate one but it will be, in my view, a complete one when all is said and done,” she said.
The Republican governors of Alabama and Mississippi both spoke highly of Washington’s response to the latest disaster.
“When you see local, state and federal people cooperating like this, it really makes a difference,” Alabama Governor Robert Bentley said on CBS’ Face the Nation program.
Alabama was the worst hit state in last week’s storms, with 250 people killed. Elsewhere, 101 people died in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Virginia and Louisiana.
About 1,700 people were injured in Alabama alone and others were missing after tornadoes crushed homes, flipped cars upside down and tore children from their parents’ arms.
To help people get back on their feet, the US Department of Agriculture will make homes in rural areas available for rent, Vilsack said.
The US Small Business Administration said it would make loans of up to US$200,000 available to homeowners and up to US$2 million for small businesses.
FBI officers, FEMA officials, state troopers, police, sheriffs, firefighters and officials of the US Fish and Wildlife service worked with many local volunteers to clear roads and debris on Saturday.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
RSS