Palma Sola
LATEST NEWS
Pinellas teacher who died in Hurricane Helene left a legacy of impact
Donna Fagersten spent her career teaching elementary school kids, a job she loved, but before Hurricane Helene hit, she was envisioning the next phase of her life: A lot more time by the pool in the beach town she loved. Fagersten, 66, was set to retire this past Monday after...
Helene’s powerful storm surge killed 12 near Tampa. They didn’t have to die
Hurricane Helene’s storm surge struck Florida fast and hard when it slammed into Gulf Coast communities near St. Petersburg. Longtime residents had never seen anything like the 8-foot wall of water that pushed ashore, and that was the problem. Because the Sept. 26 storm surge was unprecedented, many people living near the beaches ignored mandatory evacuation orders and stayed behind, thinking the warnings were exaggerated. Some people still escaped the rising waters and others were rescued. But 12 died from the surge, including a retired restaurant owner, a former hairdresser, a beach lover and a teacher who was about to retire.
'Harper was loved': Siesta Key neighbors find box of ashes washed in by Hurricane Helene
SIESTA KEY, Fla. — Hurricane Helene has turned people's lives topsy-turvy, and many have lost precious lifelong and irreplaceable mementos to the disaster. That sense of immense loss is why one woman in Siesta Key is on a mission to get someone's memory back home to them. She hopes to reunite a box of ashes with the rightful owner after it washed up in their yard from the storm.
Hurricane Helene forces some people to move and place their homes on the market
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Families in Shore Acres are just one group in the Bay area still cleaning up after last week's storm. Some said they're rebuilding, but others are leaving town. Shore Acres got several feet of water in streets and homes during Helene. Flooding is a common...
Pinellas County health officials see spike in West Nile Virus
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Pinellas County Mosquito Control is urging residents to protect themselves from mosquitoes as there is an increase in West Nile Virus cases. Officials say they've seen an increased transmission of the disease through its sentinel chicken illness detection program. With a lot of rain forecasted...
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.