SE (AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC PR SC TN)

"Saltwater moving up the Mississippi River is threatening drinking water supplies in Plaquemines Parish, triggering a plan by the Army Corps of Engineers to build an underwater levee in the channel."

"Most of the Florida homes in the path of Hurricane Ian lack flood insurance, posing a major challenge to rebuilding efforts, new data show."

"Hurricane Ian rapidly intensified as it neared landfall along Florida’s southwest coast Wednesday morning, gaining top winds of 155 mph (250 kph), just shy of the most dangerous Category 5 status. Damaging winds and rain lashed the state, and the heavily populated Naples to Sarasota region was at highest risk of a devastating storm surge."

"Hurricane Ian made landfall over western Cuba early Tuesday as a Category 3 storm, bringing with it “significant wind and storm surge impacts” as it continued to make its way toward Florida, forecasters said."

"Sprawling industrial complexes line the drive east along the Mississippi River to the majority-Black town of Reserve, Louisiana. In the last seven miles the road passes a massive, rust-colored aluminum-oxide refinery, then the Evonik chemical plant, then rows of white tanks at the Marathon oil refinery."

"Hurricane watches were issued for a stretch of Florida's western coast Monday morning as Ian strengthened into the fourth hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season. AccuWeather forecasters warn that the storm will only grow stronger in the coming days and is forecast to become a Category 4 behemoth in the Gulf of Mexico later this week."

"The vast majority of Puerto Rican homes have been plunged into darkness after Hurricane Fiona wiped out the power grid, but people on the island are facing another devastating emergency: How to access clean water?"

"Louisiana’s proposed $2 billion project to divert water and sediment from the Mississippi River into Barataria Basin as part of an unprecedented plan to fight coastal land loss moved a major step forward on Monday with the release by the Army Corps of Engineers of a final environmental impact statement."

"The hurricane winds that knocked out power to the entire island of Puerto Rico over the weekend encountered an electrical grid that experts liken to a house of cards: a fragile, decrepit, patchwork system running on old equipment that has failed to substantially modernize since the U.S. territory’s deadliest storm, Hurricane Maria, swept through five years before."