MIAMI --When Hurricane Irma charged across the state last month, coastal communities hammered by powerful storm surges attracted the most attention. But inland Lake Okeechobee, the state's 730-square mile liquid heart, also took a hit.

Lake levels already high from the wettest rainy season in 86 years shot up 3 1/2 feet, raising concerns about ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--Florida regulators have moved to permanently revoke the operating license of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills after 14 people died when it lost air conditioning during Hurricane Irma.

The state Agency for Health Care Administration also wants the owners to pay a fine of about $43,000 for violations of health ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Even though Albertina Vega is dead and the sweltering nursing home where she died is shut down, the facility still billed her on what would have been her 100th birthday.

Vega, 99, was one of 14 deceased residents of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills where the central air conditioning failed during Hurricane ...Read more

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A nursing home staff worker called 911 seeking help for an 84-year-old woman in cardiac arrest, citing the facility's lack of air conditioning.

"I just noticed, because we don't have any air conditioning, so I saw her slouch over," the attendant tells 911, according to audio recordings released by the city of Hollywood ...Read more

"She's not breathing." "Her fingers started to change color." "They're doing CPR now."

At the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, the first of 14 lives were beginning to flicker out. After days without air conditioning -- because Hurricane Irma had knocked out the power to the home -- the fragile elders were starting to show increasing ...Read more

Near the end of a long hurricane season that has included destructive blows from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, one more powerful storm has appeared on the horizon.

Surprisingly, however, Hurricane Ophelia is not aiming for the hard-hit U.S. or the Caribbean, but rather for Ireland.

"In last 40 to 50 years, this is the first time we've ...Read more

MIAMI -- Ophelia became a hurricane late Wednesday, the 10th named storm in a row to reach that status, tying a record set more than a century ago.

Located in the central Atlantic about 760 miles southwest of the Azores, the hurricane poses no threat to land and would probably be unremarkable if not for its place in the record books. The last ...Read more

MIAMI -- Cecilia Franco, 90, died at 3:45 a.m. Monday, becoming the 13th Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills resident to die from ailments suffered when the nursing home turned into a hotbox following Hurricane Irma.

Franco lived only 26 days after her husband of 61 years, Miguel Antonio Franco, who was among the eight Sept. 13 deaths at ...Read more

MIAMI -- Within hours after Hurricane Maria crashed ashore last month, officials at Fort Lauderdale's Nova Southeastern University knew their Puerto Rico campus would be closed for weeks or even longer while the shattered island recovered. And, with power, water and even most forms of commerce knocked out, they worried about what might be ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration is brushing off new criticism from the mayor of San Juan over the federal government's recovery effort in hurricane-battered Puerto Rico.

Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, dismissed the latest pleas for urgent assistance from the mayor, Carmen Yulin Cruz, as "political ...Read more

Hurricane Nate crashed ashore near the mouth of the Mississippi River on the Louisiana coast Saturday night, the latest in an unusually ferocious storm season that's racked up billions in damages.

With top winds of 85 miles per hour, Nate was headed north at 20 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. The warning for New Orleans and Lake ...Read more

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- A bipartisan group of legislators flew over the devastated interior of Puerto Rico Saturday and returned to the island's capital voicing astonishment at the level of destruction caused by Hurricane Maria.

"The scope of the devastation was really sobering," said Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., whose district has a significant...Read more

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- They were mostly very old and sickly. But at least 10 of the 12 residents of the Hollywood nursing home who died after Hurricane Irma had another factor in common -- they lived on the building's top floor, where the heat was the worst and most windows were left unopened.

It wasn't until the morning of Sept. 13, shortly before...Read more

WASHINGTON -- When the Trump administration waived the Jones Act in Puerto Rico for 10 days Sept. 28, it was called an important step for the U.S. territory's recovery from Hurricane Maria.

But the president's waiver, which expires Sunday, has made little difference in the flow of aid to Puerto Rico.

None of the 12 ships known to be operating ...Read more