LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Hurricane Helene has weakened to a tropical storm as it traveled north from Florida to Georgia.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The storm, which had developed into a powerful Category 4 hurricane, made landfall in northwestern Florida last night shortly after 11 p.m., with winds up to 140 miles per hour and a storm surge of 20 feet. Early reports say there have been three storm-related deaths.
FADEL: NPR's Frank Morris has been following the storm and joins us now from St. Petersburg. Hi, Frank.
FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Hi. How you doing?
FADEL: Good. How are you? What more...
MORRIS: Yeah, I'm OK.
FADEL: ...Do we know about the damage?
MORRIS: Well, we do know at least three people are dead. One person was killed by a falling sign in Florida. Two people in Georgia reportedly died in a possible tornado ahead of the hurricane. We're not clear on the injuries. There is some good news. The eye of the storm hit right between a state park and Flint Rock Wildlife Management Area, so east of Tallahassee and west of Perry, Fla. So it missed the beach communities that line much of the coast.
And there's still a bunch we don't know. Like, the most vulnerable islands are still cut off from the mainland. We haven't seen damage from wind that tore buildings apart and sent roofs sailing and shredded thousands of trees. It also snapped power poles. Almost 2 million households and businesses lost power, mainly in Florida but also in Georgia and the Carolinas. The storm inundated coastal towns, wrenching boats from their docks and breaking the docks. Rescue crews were out through the night. Electrical linemen are hard at work restoring power. And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says with daylight, more help will kick into gear.
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RON DESANTIS: Florida Department of Transportation standing by - 307 cut-and-toss crews to get the roads cleared - 120 bridge inspectors to get the bridges back open.
MORRIS: Of course, that's not going to happen immediately. Helene came ashore in a region that's really dense with tree cover - lots of big, old live oaks and pines. So just clearing the trees is going to be a major chore.
FADEL: How are the people in the way of the storm holding out?
MORRIS: Well, again, you know, there's a lot we don't know, but almost 5,000 people in Florida spent the night in shelters, and many others just rode it out in their houses. Eighty-five-year-old James Judy weathered the storm at home, though he says his place is close to the water and prone to flooding.
JAMES JUDY: They're telling everybody to leave, you know. Ain't no other place we need to go. I just hate to leave home.
MORRIS: Others fled to higher ground. Kevin Collins bought his dream house in Hernando Beach, Fla., last year. It's a one-story place right off the water. He sandbagged the doors and put his electronic stuff up on tables, but Collins is expecting to find huge losses this morning.
KEVIN COLLINS: The insurance is so high. We don't have it, you know? We just got regular liability. And it's crazy. It's crazy. It's cheaper to just pay for the stuff than have insurance - what's going to get ruined. You know what I mean?
MORRIS: So there's a lot of rebuilding ahead.
FADEL: Now the storm is moving into Georgia and the Carolinas. What are people in the Southeast facing this morning?
MORRIS: Well, the wind's tapering off - still strong. Georgia is reporting gusts up to 92 miles an hour. And the rain is actually getting worse in places, likely dropping 6 to 12 inches of rain over the next 24 hours or so. It'll be falling on ground that's already soaked up lots and lots of rain in the last few days, so expecting flash flooding all over the place. In fact, that's already happening in parts of Georgia and the Carolinas. And the storm is likely to keep knocking people off the power grid across a huge area from Florida to Virginia, the Pacific Coast to Nashville, Tenn.
FADEL: That's NPR's Frank Morris joining us from St. Petersburg, Fla. Thanks, Frank.
MORRIS: Thanks.
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FADEL: All week at the United Nations, world leaders have been calling for cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon.
MARTIN: Today, it's Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chance to make his case to his peers.
FADEL: NPR's Michele Kelemen has been at U.N. headquarters all week and joins us now from New York. Good morning, Michele.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So what are you expecting from Netanyahu's address?
KELEMEN: Well, I asked Netanyahu's ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, and here's what he told me.
DANNY DANON: I think the prime minister, you know, not only will describe what we have endured in the last year. But he will also speak about the future, about, you know, what our plans regarding Gaza and the commitment, you know, to bring back the people of the north back to their homes.
KELEMEN: And he's talking there about the tens of thousands of Israelis who had to flee their homes last October in northern Israel after Hezbollah in Lebanon started firing rockets in solidarity with Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7. So while everyone at the U.N. has been talking about de-escalation in both of these conflicts, the Israeli prime minister says that he's determined to hit Hezbollah until it pulls back from the so-called blue line that's between Lebanon and Israel, and that's required, by the way, under U.N. Security Council resolutions. And I have to say that, you know, his language on Lebanon has sounded similar to me about what he says about Gaza when he talks about the need for a total victory over Hamas.
FADEL: Right. And now, of course, there are tens of thousands of Lebanese displaced in this moment. The Biden administration has been trying to prevent an escalation like this. Is Netanyahu ignoring the U.S.?
KELEMEN: Yeah. Well, that's what a lot of people at the U.N. are saying. You know, as Netanyahu was flying here, U.S. officials were telling reporters that they had a breakthrough on a 21-day cease-fire that the U.S. and France had proposed. But it seems like that was just a lot of wishful thinking. I mean, the Israelis say they're still discussing this with the U.S. But Jordan's foreign minister, Ayman Al Safadi, told reporters at the U.N. yesterday that this has really been a pattern, and he said that the world has failed to hold Israel to account. Take a listen.
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AYMAN AL SAFADI: And the question in everybody's mind is, then what? How are we going to get this to stop? And the conclusion that a year of failure to do so is that unless Israel is held - this Israeli government is held accountable, unless it faces consequences for its action, it's not listening to international law. It's not listening to the ICJ. And it's not even listening to its friends, including the U.S.
KELEMEN: Yeah. So a lot of frustration and anger here with the Israeli prime minister.
FADEL: So it sounds like it'll be a tough audience for Netanyahu.
KELEMEN: Yeah, definitely. I mean, there are also protesters out on the streets in New York. There are family members of hostages held by Hamas who have been pleading with Netanyahu to make a deal with Hamas in Gaza to get their loved ones home. So, you know, there's all of these conflicts - expanding conflicts. And remember that the U.S. argument all along to Israel has been that if you reach a deal with Hamas in Gaza, then Hezbollah will stop firing rockets. But the Israeli officials that I talked to don't - just don't really buy that. They see this as a fight with Iranian proxies. As Israel's ambassador to the U.N. put it in the Security Council this week, he called Iran the spider at the center of this web of violence. And I'm expecting really to hear Netanyahu focus a lot on Iran in this speech.
FADEL: NPR's Michele Kelemen. Thank you, Michele.
KELEMEN: Thank you.
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FADEL: The Sudanese army has launched a major offensive in Khartoum in a bid to retake the capital city from Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, the paramilitary group that has controlled it for more than a year.
MARTIN: Meanwhile, millions have been displaced since the war began, and it's the worst displacement and hunger crisis in the world.
FADEL: All this is happening as Sudan's military leader is attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York. NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu is there. Good morning, Emmanuel.
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So this new fight for the capital, what more can you tell us?
AKINWOTU: Well, overnight yesterday, the army sprung a surprise attack from Omdurman, which is a twin city of the capital, and it advanced into northeast parts of Khartoum, which is overrun by the Rapid Support Forces. And we've not seen fighting like this in the capital region for many months. And like so much of this war, the fighting is just playing out street to street in hotels, hospitals, at the Arab market, at the University of Khartoum. And the army have essentially advanced a few miles into the capital. It's continued this morning into central parts of Khartoum. It's not clear how this will end or whether this advance will hold, but it's clearly a bold attempt to shift the balance of power in a war that's gone on for close to 18 months now without either side having a definitive advantage.
FADEL: You were just in Sudan. What are people living through?
AKINWOTU: It's catastrophic. The hospitals in Omdurman, where I went, were overwhelmed from victims of shelling, which was constant, from critically high levels of malnutrition, from patients with just common conditions like diabetes that have become so much more fatal because they lack basic medicine, basic equipment.
More than 10 million people are displaced. That's more than a fifth of the country - more than the population of New York. And there were so many schools that were turned into shelters. So many people fortunate enough to live in their own homes are hosting relatives, friends, neighbors. And Sudan is a breadbasket with huge agriculture, but now half of the country is acutely hungry, according to the U.N. And it's only going to get worse unless something significant changes. And it's clear both sides really only see a military solution as the way forward.
FADEL: Now, the push for the capital came at the same time Sudan's military leader was here for the U.N. General Assembly, and you saw him last night. What did he say?
AKINWOTU: Yes. While the attack was unfolding in Khartoum, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the military leader of Sudan, he was addressing the U.N. General Assembly. And then he held a press conference where he mostly spoke in Arabic.
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ABDEL FATTAH AL-BURHAN: (Speaking Arabic).
AKINWOTU: And the timing seemed deliberate, like he was sending a message, trying to show that the army is taking the fight to the RSF in the country and taking a more authoritative position internationally. He said the army was committed to peace but would never negotiate with the RSF. And then he mentioned the United Arab Emirates.
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AL-BURHAN: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: And he repeated evidence from the U.N. Security Council that was published earlier this year that the UAE are basically bankrolling the RSF. He said the UAE was smuggling weapons into Sudan via Chad and Uganda and that this was prolonging the war. The UAE have denied this, but the evidence continues to mount and is a huge focus point. He was asked about the attacks in Khartoum, and he acknowledged them, but he said very little about it, which made it clear that there is still so much at stake and so much in the balance.
FADEL: That's NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu. Thank you, Emmanuel.
AKINWOTU: Thanks, Leila. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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