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PANAMA CITY, Florida – Hurricane Michael Latest News (local time):
4:45 p.m.
An official responsible for search and rescue efforts in one of Florida's most hard-hit communities by Hurricane Michael said the researchers had found bodies.
Joseph Zahralban is the Fire Chief of Miami. Friday, he was in Mexico Beach, on the Gulf Coast, acting as the leader of a working group of a search and rescue unit. He told The Associated Press that the researchers had found "dead people" among the ravages caused in Mexico Beach and Bay County.
He added that officials had not yet counted the dead and were trying to identify them. He did not give more details.
Zahralban said teams during their first sweep of Mexico Beach Thursday saved slightly injured people and helped other people who survived the storm and found themselves with no way to leave.
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3:40 p.m.
Workers in the oil and gas sector are returning to drilling rigs and production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, but oil production remains down about one-third at the resumption of operations.
The Office of Environmental Protection and Safety announced Friday in a report that 32.4% of oil production and just over 13% of natural gas production in the Gulf were still closed. . The agency bases its estimates on daily reports of operators.
The office said the workers had only been evacuated from nine of the 687 staffed platforms in the Gulf, and that all unmoored platforms moved in the wake of the storm had returned. at their drilling locations.
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15:30.
Walt Disney Co. donates a million dollars for relief in areas devastated by Hurricane Michael.
The company said Friday in a statement that the money would be routed via the Florida Disaster Fund.
The press release also states that employee contributions to eligible relief groups will be matched dollar by dollar through a matching program.
Disney employs 70,000 people in Florida at its Walt Disney World leisure park, located in the Orlando area.
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2:50 p.m.
President Donald Trump has announced that he will visit Florida and Georgia early next week to assess the damage caused by Hurricane Michael.
Trump announced his plans on Twitter Friday but did not specify the day he would go to the affected areas.
Trump also tweeted that "people have no idea of the harshness of Hurricane Michael who hit the great state of Georgia".
Michael hit the Florida Panhandle as a Category 4 hurricane earlier this week. One of the hardest hit places in Florida is Mexico Beach, where entire neighborhoods of homes have been destroyed. The storm then crossed Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.
Trump says that the administration is working very hard on every area and every state that has been hit.
He adds: "We are with you!"
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2:20 p.m.
Authorities in Virginia say the record of Hurricane Michael's remains could cause many casualties while they were looking for a woman washed away by floodwaters.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam told reporters Friday that five people died on Thursday as torrential rains and high winds swept the state.
In Charlotte County, the crews were still looking for a grandmother who had been washed away by the whitewaters. The county administrator said that she is presumed dead.
State officials said about 432,000 people were still without electricity Friday afternoon, compared with about 565,000 at the height of the storm.
(This item has been modified to correct the fact that the authorities are only looking for one person, not two)
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1:15 p.m.
Authorities in North Carolina announced that a car had crashed against a tree shot by Hurricane Michael, causing two deaths and a total of 13 deaths.
McDowell County Emergency Management Director, William Kehler, said the accident occurred around 7:30 pm Thursday in Marion, in the mountainous county of McDowell.
Emergency management spokesman Keith Acree said the 64-year-old woman was declared dead at the scene. The man died after being flown to a hospital. His age was not immediately released.
Authorities say the death toll in the state is currently at three.
(This item has been modified to correct the spelling of Kehler's name).
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24:30
The US Federal Emergency Management Agency's administrator, Brock Long, expects Hurricane Michael to kill, as the teams have not reached the hardest-hit areas of Florida.
Long said on Friday that he feared that people would not evacuate along Mexico Beach or other devastated places and may not have survived.
Long says that "very few people" live to tell what it is like to experience a strong storm surge. The water rose to about 4 meters, repelling the buildings.
The FEMA director said the country was not learning enough about past storms and was worried that residents would suffer from "hurricane-induced amnesia" when the blue sky returned.
He stated that it was extremely important to consider evacuation warnings, to build their homes with care and to subscribe to the flood insurance and damage necessary to live in the areas affected by it. hurricanes.
Long said he would travel to Florida this weekend.
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24:30
Florida Governor Rick Scott opened the governor's mansion in Tallahassee for state soldiers heading for the hurricane-hit areas of Michael.
Scott and his first lady, Ann Scott, had dinner on Thursday with 50 soldiers, 35 of whom slept in beds inside the mansion.
The governor's office said he would continue to use the mansion as a police shelter for as long as necessary.
Most of Florida's capital is without electricity, but the mansion has its own generators to provide electricity. The residence is located just north of the state Capitol.
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24:30
Virginia police have identified another person who died after Tropical Storm Michael.
Danville police said Friday in a statement that William Lynn Tanksley, 53, died Thursday afternoon after being swept by floodwaters.
Police said the Danville man had been swept away by his vehicle around 5 pm. during a flash flood. His body is transported to Roanoke for an autopsy.
Danville police said that a second person died after his vehicle was blocked and submerged by floodwater after 22 hours. Thursday. The police have not yet identified this person.
The Virginia state police announced Friday that there had been five state deaths related to Michael. Among them, a firefighter who was hit and killed by a truck outside Richmond.
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24:30
North Carolina is recovering from Hurricane Michael, the second major storm to cross the state in a month.
Emergency and transport officials said on Friday that utility and transport workers had re-established electricity in 460,000 homes and businesses and reopened some 360 roads largely blocked by trees. debris or power lines.
Governor Roy Cooper urged the public to stay safe during the damage inspection and not bypassing the road barriers. Of the 40 people who died in North Carolina during Hurricane Florence, it's about drivers who were snapped up by floodwaters. A death related to a storm was confirmed in the state by Michael.
Cooper planned later Friday to visit damaged areas in the mountains. The governor said that it was unclear whether there was enough overall damage to be eligible for federal aid to help clean up. Congress has already approved $ 1 billion for North Carolina's response to Florence.
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11:20
A Senate debate in Florida between Democratic Senator Bill Nelson and Republican Governor Rick Scott was postponed because of Hurricane Michael.
According to a CNN statement, the live debate scheduled for Tuesday night will be postponed to a later date. The statement said the two campaigns accepted the deadline so that candidates could focus on the reaction and recovery after the storm.
Florida's run between Nelson and Scott is closely monitored throughout the country as a vital battleground for Senate control.
Nelson and Scott have met until now in a debate, earlier this month, on Telemundo51, which broadcasts mainly on Spanish-language stations in Florida.
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11:10
Florida state emergency officials said they conducted initial searches in 80% of areas affected by Hurricane Michael and found no evidence of widespread death.
State officials announced Friday that search and rescue units are expanding over a vast area from the sea to the border with Georgia, in search of survivors of the deadly storm.
Rescue teams did what was described as an "early search" to search for victims or survivors. Florida officials have announced plans to use people from search and rescue teams to help distribute food and water to people living in severely damaged communities.
Distribution centers have been set up outside retailers such as Wal-Mart and Publix, as there is currently no way to let survivors know where they can get supplies.
Some supplies are trucked, but state officials said they used helicopters to transport supplies to some coastal towns where roads were not cleared.
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10:50
Florida authorities have received thousands of appeals asking for information about missing persons in the region affected by Hurricane Michael, but so far, no cases of widespread death have occurred. has been reported.
State emergency officials announced Friday morning that they had canceled their intention to set up a temporary mortuary unit in the Panhandle. But they are still looking for areas near the coast as well as counties near the border with Georgia hard hit by Michael's catastrophic winds.
Governor Rick Scott said state officials "still did not know enough" about the fate of people who stayed in the area to weather the storm.
"We are not quite finished, we are still there," added the governor.
State officials said the high volume of phone calls from outside the disaster area may be due to the fact that large areas of the Panhandle remain without mobile phone service.
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9:45
Virginia State Police said that a man had been washed away by his vehicle and that he had died while Michael had whipped the state.
Death is one of five storm-related deaths confirmed Friday by the Virginia Emergency Management Department.
A state police press release indicates that James E. King Jr., 45, of Dry Fork, Va., Was caught in his vehicle during a flash flood on Thursday around 15:30.
A Pittsylvania County sheriff's deputy and a local resident tried to save King, but the flood waters were too deep and too fast.
Volunteer firefighters and state police found his body downstream Thursday night.
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9:15
The Virginia authorities provide more details on the death of a firefighter who had been an accident north of Richmond while Michael had whipped the state.
The Hanover County Fire Department announced that Fire Lieutenant Brad Clark had died on the scene when a semitrailer had struck his fire truck at the scene of a car accident. involving two vehicles, around 9 pm Thursday.
The ministry said the lights and emergency equipment were lit in the fire pump, but the roads were slippery and thunderstorms were heavy. The state medical examiner's office found Clark's death among the five victims of the storm in the state.
Authorities say two other crew members were seriously injured. The driver of the truck had to be ripped off and also suffered serious injuries.
With four other confirmed deaths in Virginia, the official toll of Hurricane Michael is rising to eleven.
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8:45
Virginia authorities have confirmed five storm-related deaths in the state.
Emergency Management Department spokesman Jeff Caldwell told The Associated Press on Friday that four people drowned: three in the west state and a fourth in the state. Central Virginia. He added that a firefighter had also lost his life when a semitrailer had crashed into his fire truck while he was responding to a car accident involving two storms.
Caldwell says that there were five alleged tornadoes in the state, but that they are still waiting for confirmation from the National Weather Service.
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8:25
The commander of Tyndall Air Force Base stated that the "base had been defeated" by Hurricane Michael and that it would require "thorough cleaning and repairs".
Colonel Brian Laidlaw told the 3,600 airmen posted at the base, just east of Panama City, that he would not be asking them or their families to return before their safety was guaranteed. The base was evacuated before the Category 4 storm hit the Gulf Coast on Wednesday afternoon with winds of 155 km / h and a strong storm surge.
Laidlaw called the damage "catastrophic". Videos of the damaged base show torn roofs by sheds and a ground-hovering battle plane that has rocked.
In her letter posted on the base's website, Laidlaw says teams must eliminate trees from roads, repair power lines and "assess the structural integrity of our buildings" before anybody returns.
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8h
The National Hurricane Center has released its latest review of Michael, who is now a post-tropical cyclone flying off the Atlantic Ocean.
And, impressively, Michael's sustained maximum winds drop to nearly 100 km / h at 5 am, forecasters claiming the situation will strengthen further.
It remains very important, with tropical storm force winds extending outward to 445 kilometers (275 miles) from the center. A gauge on an offshore buoy recorded a gust of force close to that of a hurricane.
The Hurricane Center says that threats to the land are decreasing. There is still a small storm along the coast of North Carolina, strong winds may blow for a few more hours on the south of Chesapeake Bay and several rainfalls are expected from New Jersey to Cape Cod , in Massachusetts. Sudden floods may continue in the meantime in the Carolinas and the central Atlantic states.
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6:15
At least six people were blamed on Michael, the most powerful hurricane hit in the Americas for more than 50 years.
The sheriff's office in Gadsden County, near Tallahassee, says he "can now confirm 4 dead following the storm after Hurricane Michael," which happened "in connection with or during the storm". County authorities have stated that they do not disclose names or other information. details while the families are notified.
One of these deaths would be a man killed by a falling tree. In Georgia, an 11-year-old girl also died when Michael's wind took away a carport and dropped it through the roof of his grandparents' house. In North Carolina, a driver was killed when a tree fell on his car.
Some fear that the toll may rise as rescue teams bypass the debris of the storm, blocking roads and reaching isolated areas.
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12:06
The waves and strong winds of Hurricane Michael erased row after row of beachfront homes to zero on the Florida Panhandle when the Category 4 hurricane epic crashed ashore in the middle of the week. Now, the recovery is just beginning, it comes from catastrophic destruction, even as Michael, declassified, spreads the strong winds, rains and sudden floods to Virginia.
At least three deaths have been blamed on Michael, the most powerful hurricane hit in the Americas for more than 50 years.
At the beginning of Friday, the end of the wave was not over yet: a tropical storm long after Wednesday's landing, Michael stubbornly continued to hit hard as he flew over land towards a planned exit of Atlantic. According to forecasters, the storm has already begun to lose its tropical characteristics, but it will begin a new chapter as a powerful extratropical storm with strong winds during its sea voyage.
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To learn more about Hurricane Michael, visit https://www.apnews.com/tag/Hurricanes.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, disseminated, rewritten or redistributed.
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