AFP UK

Under the scheme, around 20 mature trees would have been cut down, while four new buildings housing a cafe, shops, toilets and baggage drop-off were set to be constructed

The Paris mayor’s office has abandoned plans for new buildings around the foot of the Eiffel Tower following months of protests from environmentalists and a petition signed by nearly 150,000 people.

Under the scheme, around 20 mature trees would have been cut down, while four new buildings housing a cafe, shops, toilets and baggage drop-off were set to be constructed.

“I am announcing that we are completely cancelling any construction project at the foot of the tower but the re-landscaping is maintained,” deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire told the Journal du Dimanche.

A decision to save the trees had been made in May following protests and objections from local residents.

The landscaping is part of a much larger plan to re-organise the space around the famous tourist attraction, which will see roads and public areas planted with grass and shrubs.

“We are not giving into pressure but we would like that the project is not overshadowed by controversy. Let’s just say that we are removing some of the friction,” Gregoire continued.  

An area of 54 hectares (133 acres) around the tower, currently crisscrossed by several roads, will be largely turned over to pedestrians and “low-impact transportation” such as bus and bike lanes.

City authorities are aiming to finish as much as possible for the start of the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.

An estimated 150,000 people visit the tower site every day during the summer high season, including the 20,000 to 30,000 who climb the tower itself.

Overall, seven million people visit the tower each year. 

Campaigners were delighted that the plans for new buildings had been dropped and the trees saved.

“We’re satisfied for now but we remain vigilant,” said Thomas Brail from the National Surveillance Group for Trees (GNSA), which took part in a coalition of groups opposed to the plans.

Already honoured by almost all other major medicine prizes, Hungarian-born Katalin Kariko could win for her pioneering research

Breast cancer discoveries and mRNA vaccines are seen as possible winners when the Nobel Medicine Prize kicks off a week of winner announcements on Monday, with this year’s awards held under the shadow of war in Europe.

Established more than 120 years ago before Europe was ravaged by two world wars, the Nobel prizes will celebrate those who have “conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” after a year marked by bloodshed and devastation in Ukraine.

The Medicine Prize will be announced around 11:30 am (0930 GMT) in Stockholm on Monday, followed by the awards for physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday.

The Peace Prize, the most highly anticipated of the awards and the only one announced in Oslo, will follow on Friday, with the Economics Prize wrapping things up on October 10.

For medicine, one woman’s name keeps popping up among prize watchers: US geneticist Mary-Claire King, who in 1990 discovered the BRCA1 gene responsible for a hereditary form of breast cancer.

She could be honoured together with oncologists Dennis Slamon of the United States and Germany’s Axel Ullrich for their research, which led to the development of the breast cancer drug Herceptin.

However, if the jury were to break with its tradition of honouring decades-old research, another woman could be well placed for her role in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

– Male domination –

Already honoured by almost all other major medicine prizes, Hungarian-born Katalin Kariko could win for her pioneering research which led directly to the first mRNA vaccines to fight Covid-19, made by Pfizer and Moderna.

“There’s not only the direct benefit that it gave us to fight the pandemic, it’s also the first in a series of very promising applications using this technology,” Nobel watcher Ulrika Bjorksten, the head of Swedish public radio’s science service, told AFP.

Kariko could be honoured together with her collaborator Drew Weissman of the United States and Pieter Cullis of Canada.

Last year, the prize went to US researchers David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries on human receptors for temperature and touch.

David Pendlebury, who heads the closely watched Clarivate analytics group which lists dozens of possible winners for the Nobel science prizes, said his money was on King and Slamon this year.

But he also mentioned Hong Kong molecular biologist Yuk Ming Dennis Lo, who pioneered the development of non-invasive prenatal testing. 

He also developed a new method of detecting cancer early using just a few drops of blood, dubbed liquid biopsies.

With a simple blood draw “you can determine all kinds of possible problems and diseases”, Pendlebury said.

Male researchers based in the United States have overwhelmingly dominated the Nobel science prizes through the years.

The various prize committees have insisted they are trying to recognise women’s achievements, but say many of the top discoveries were made decades ago when fewer women were involved in high-level research.

Last year, 12 men and one woman won Nobel Prizes, with all of the science nods going to men.

– Anti-Putin prizes? –

For the Literature Prize on Thursday, literary critics told AFP they thought the Swedish Academy may go for a more mainstream author this year, after selecting lesser-known writers the past two years.

Last year, Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah won, while US poet Louise Gluck was crowned in 2020.

US novelist Joyce Carol Oates, France’s Annie Ernaux and Maryse Conde, Russia’s Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Canada’s Margaret Atwood have all been cited as potential laureates if the committee has its eyes on a woman.

Online betting sites however have France’s Michel Houellebecq as the favourite, ahead of British author Salman Rushdie, who was the victim of an attempted murder attack in August. 

But it is the Peace Prize that is expected to hold special significance this year. 

After Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov won the prize last year together with his Philippine colleague Maria Ressa in the name of freedom of expression, will the Norwegian Nobel Committee award another anti-Putin prize after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine?

Not since World War II has a conflict raged between two countries so close to Oslo.

The International Criminal Court, tasked with investigating war crimes in Ukraine, and the International Court of Justice — both based in The Hague — have been mentioned as possible laureates this year.

So have jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

If the committee were to focus on the climate crisis, experts tipped Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, possibly together with British environmentalist David Attenborough or other activists such as Sudan’s Nisreen Elsaim and Ghana’s Chibeze Ezekiel.

bur-map-aco-phy/po/imm

For most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents, power cuts are a daily occurrence, and many are turning to solar power, such as these panels on the roof of a bakery

Palestinians living in the Israeli-blockaded enclave of Gaza have long endured an unstable and costly electricity supply, so Yasser al-Hajj found a different way: solar power.

Looking at the rows of photo-voltaic panels at his beachfront fish farm and seafood restaurant, The Sailor, he said the investment he made six years ago had more than paid off.

“Electricity is the backbone of the project,” Hajj said, standing under a blazing Mediterranean sun. “We rely on it to provide oxygen for the fish, as well as to draw and pump water from the sea.”

The dozens of solar panels that shade the fish ponds below have brought savings that are now paying to refurbish the business, he said, as labourers loaded sand onto a horse-drawn cart.

Hajj said he used to pay 150,000 shekels ($42,000) per month for electricity, “a huge burden,” before solar power slashed his monthly bill to 50,000 shekels.

For most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, living under Hamas Islamist rule and a 15-year-old Israeli blockade, power cuts are a daily fact of life that impact everything from homes to hospital wards.

While some Gazans pay for a generator to kick in when the mains are cut — for around half of each day, according to United Nations data — ever more people are turning to renewables.

From the rooftops of Gaza City, solar panels now stretch out into the horizon.

Green energy advocates say it is a vision for a global future as the world faces the perils of climate change and rising energy costs.

– Swap to green power –

Gaza bakery owner Bishara Shehadeh began the switch to solar this summer, by placing hundreds of gleaming panels on his rooftop.

“We have surplus electricity in the day,” he said. “We sell it to the electricity company in exchange for providing us with current during the night.”

Solar energy lights up the bright bulbs illuminating the bustling bakery, but the ovens still run on diesel.

“We are working on importing ovens, depending on electrical power, from Israel, to save the cost of diesel,” said Shehadeh.

Both the bakery and the fish farm have relied partially on foreign donors to kick-start their switch to solar, although their owners are also investing their own cash.

But in a poverty-stricken territory where nearly 80 percent of residents rely on humanitarian assistance, according to the UN, not everyone can afford to install renewable energy.

Around a fifth of Gazans have installed solar power in their homes, according to an estimate published in April by the “Energy, Sustainability and Society” journal.

Financing options are available for Gazans with some capital, like Shehadeh, who got a four-year loan to fund his bakery project.

– Import restrictions –

At a store selling solar power kits, MegaPower, engineer Shehab Hussein said prices start at around $1,000 and can be paid in instalments.

Clients included a sewing factory and a drinks producer, which see the mostly Chinese-made technology as “a worthwhile investment”, he said.

Raya al-Dadah, who heads the University of Birmingham’s Sustainable Energy Technology Laboratory, said her family in Gaza has been using simple solar panels that heat water for more than 15 years.

“The pipe is super rusty, the glass is broken… and I just had a shower and the water is super hot,” she said during a visit to the territory.

But Dadah encountered obstacles when she tried to import a more sophisticated solar system for a community project in Gaza, where imports are tightly restricted by Israel and Egypt.  

“Bringing them to the Gaza Strip has proved to be impossible,” she said.

The advanced set-up includes more efficient panels and equipment that tracks the sun’s path.

Such technology is being used by Israeli firms such as SolarGik, whose smart control systems factor in weather conditions and can harness up to 20 percent more energy than standard panels, chief executive Gil Kroyzer told AFP.

Across the frontier in Gaza, in the absence of such high-tech equipment, Dadah relies on the standard panels to power a women’s centre and surrounding homes in the strip’s northern Jabalia area.

Despite the challenges, Dadah said solar energy remains a “brilliant” option for Gaza, with its copious sunlight: “It is really a very promising energy source, and it’s available everywhere”.

Amazigh man Moha Ouchaali sits in his tent near the village of Amellagou where Morocco's last nomads live

In the blistering desert of Morocco, the country’s last Berber nomads, the Amazigh, say their ancient lifestyle is under threat as climate change brings ever-more intense droughts.  

“Everything has changed,” said Moha Ouchaali, his wrinkled features framed by a black turban. “I don’t recognise myself anymore in the world of today. Even nature is turning against us.” 

Ouchaali, an Amazigh man in his 50s, has set up an encampment near a dry riverbed in barren hills about 280 kilometres (174 miles) east of Marrakesh. 

Amid the rocky, arid landscape near the village of Amellagou, he and his family have pitched two black woollen tents, lined with old animal fodder bags and fabric scraps.

One is for sleeping and hosting guests, the other serves as a kitchen.

“Water has become hard to find. Temperatures are going up and the drought is so harsh, but we can’t do much,” said Ouchaali.

His tribe, the Ait Aissa Izem, has spent centuries roaming the country to find food for their animals, but their way of life is steadily disappearing.

According to the last census, just 25,000 people in Morocco were nomadic in 2014, down by two-thirds in just a decade.

“We’re exhausted,” Ouchaali’s 45-year-old wife Ida said emotionally.

“Before, we managed to live decently, but all these droughts, more and more intense, make our lives complicated. Without water we can’t do anything.”

– ‘Last nail in coffin’ –

This year has seen Morocco’s worst drought in four decades.

Rainfall is set to decline by 11 percent and average temperatures set to rise by 1.3 percent by 2050, according to forecasts from the Ministry of Agriculture.

“Nomads have always been seen as a barometer of climate change,” said anthropologist Ahmed Skounti.

“If these people, used to living in extreme conditions, can’t resist the intensity of global warming, that means things are bad.”

The drying up of water resources was “the last nail in the coffin for nomads”, he added.

In easier times, the Ait Aissa Izem would pass the summer in the relatively cool mountain valley of Imilchil, before heading to the area around regional capital Errachidia for the winter.

“That’s ancient history,” Ouchaali said, sitting in his tent and taking a sip of sweet Moroccan tea. “Today we go wherever there’s a bit of water left, to try to save the animals.”

Severe water shortages have even pushed some nomads to take the rare step of taking out loans to feed their livestock, their most vital asset.

“I’ve gone into debt to buy food for my animals so they don’t starve to death,” said Ahmed Assni, 37, sitting by a tiny, almost dried-out stream near Amellagou.

Saeed Ouhada said the difficulties had pushed him to find accommodation for his wife and children in Amellagou, while he stays with his parents in a camp on the edge of the town.

“Being a nomad isn’t what it used to be,” he said. “I’ll keep at it because I have to. My parents are old but they refuse to live in a town.” 

Driss Skounti, elected to represent nomads in the region, said the area used to have around 460 tents. Today, they don’t even add up to a tenth of that number.

– ‘Tired of fighting’ –

Some Moroccan nomads have given up their ancient lifestyle altogether — and not just because of the ever-worsening climate.

“I was tired of fighting,” said Haddou Oudach, 67, who settled permanently in Er-Rich in 2010.

“We’ve become outcasts from society. I can’t even imagine what nomads are going through today.”

Moha Haddachi, the head of an association for the Ait Aissa Izem nomads, said social and economic changes were making a nomadic lifestyle ever-more difficult. 

The scarcity of pastures due to land privatisation and agricultural investment also contributes to the difficulties, he said.

“Agricultural investors now dominate the spaces where nomads used to graze their herds.”

Nomads also face hostility from some villagers, angered by those camping in their region despite officially belonging to other provinces.

A law was passed in 2019 to delineate where nomads and sedentary farmers could graze their animals, but “nobody applies it”, Haddachi said.

Former nomad Oudach is despondent about “this era of selfishness where everyone thinks only of themselves”. 

“It wasn’t always like this, we used to be welcomed everywhere we went,” he said.

Embarking on a life of nomadism offers little to young people.

Houda Ouchaali, 19, says she can’t stand watching her parents “suffering and battling just to survive”.

“The new generation wants to turn the page on nomadism,” she said.

She now lives with an uncle in Er-Rich and is looking for professional training to allow her to “build a future” and escape the “stigmatising gaze that city people often have for nomads”.

Driss Skounti said he had little hope for the future of nomadism.

“Nomadic life has an identity and a tradition steeped in history,” he said, “but is doomed to disappear within 10 years.”

Somalia is enduring its worst drought in 40 years

Environment ministers from about 50 countries will gather in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday for a “pre-COP27” climate summit, with rich nations likely to come under pressure to raise spending to combat climate change.

The talks in the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, are informal but meant to allow various countries and green groups to take stock of political positions ahead of COP27 — the United Nations climate gathering of world leaders in Egypt next month.

An opening ceremony will take place in the Congolese parliament building in Kinshasa, followed by discussions on mitigating climate change, and providing funding for countries already damaged by global heating and severe weather events. 

Delegates from about 50 countries are expected to attend the talks, including United States climate envoy John Kerry. 

“The emphasis will certainly be on support from industrialised countries to countries in the south,” a Western diplomat recently told AFP. 

The last UN climate summit, COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021, reaffirmed the goal — agreed in Paris in 2015 — of limiting the rise in the Earth’s average temperature to well below 2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C.

That goal may already be beyond reach as the Earth’s temperature is already 1.2C higher than before the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. 

Poorer countries had pushed at Glasgow for a financial mechanism to address losses and damage caused by climate change. 

But wealthier nations — the largest polluters — rejected the call and the participants agreed instead to start a “dialogue” on financial compensation for damages.  

– Climate justice –

Egypt, which is hosting COP27, has made implementing the pledge to curb global heating the priority of the November summit. 

Poorer countries are again likely to remind their richer counterparts of the need to increase financial support. 

The latter have so far failed to deliver on their promise to provide $100 billion a year to help developing countries limit climate change. 

Demands for climate justice were front and centre of a protest in Kinshasa last month, where young Congolese activists chanted slogans and demanded that world leaders take swift action rather than repeat old promises.

The Congolese government is also expected drive home the message that it requires funding to protect its vast rainforests, which act as a carbon sink. 

Around 30 billion tonnes of carbon are stored across the Congo Basin, researchers estimated in a study for Nature in 2016. The figure is roughly equivalent to three years of global emissions.

However, the central African nation in July launched an auction for 30 oil and gas blocs, ignoring warnings from environmentalists that exploiting them could harm ecosystems and release vast amounts of heat-trapping gases. 

One of the poorest countries in the world, the DRC argues that drilling for oil and gas could help diversify its economy and benefit the Congolese people. 

Already honoured by almost all other major medicine prizes, Hungarian-born Katalin Kariko could win for her pioneering research

Breast cancer discoveries and mRNA vaccines are seen as possible winners when the Nobel Medicine Prize kicks off a week of winner announcements on Monday, with this year’s awards held under the shadow of war in Europe.

Established more than 120 years ago before Europe was ravaged by two world wars, the Nobel prizes will celebrate those who have “conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” after a year marked by bloodshed and devastation in Ukraine.

The Medicine Prize will be announced around 11:30 am (0930 GMT) in Stockholm on Monday, followed by the awards for physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday.

The Peace Prize, the most highly anticipated of the awards and the only one announced in Oslo, will follow on Friday, with the Economics Prize wrapping things up on October 10.

For medicine, one woman’s name keeps popping up among prize watchers: US geneticist Mary-Claire King, who in 1990 discovered the BRCA1 gene responsible for a hereditary form of breast cancer.

She could be honoured together with oncologists Dennis Slamon of the United States and Germany’s Axel Ullrich for their research, which led to the development of the breast cancer drug Herceptin.

However, if the jury were to break with its tradition of honouring decades-old research, another woman could be well placed for her role in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

– Male domination –

Already honoured by almost all other major medicine prizes, Hungarian-born Katalin Kariko could win for her pioneering research which led directly to the first mRNA vaccines to fight Covid-19, made by Pfizer and Moderna.

“There’s not only the direct benefit that it gave us to fight the pandemic, it’s also the first in a series of very promising applications using this technology,” Nobel watcher Ulrika Bjorksten, the head of Swedish public radio’s science service, told AFP.

Kariko could be honoured together with her collaborator Drew Weissman of the United States and Pieter Cullis of Canada.

Last year, the prize went to US researchers David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries on human receptors for temperature and touch.

David Pendlebury, who heads the closely watched Clarivate analytics group which lists dozens of possible winners for the Nobel science prizes, said his money was on King and Slamon this year.

But he also mentioned Hong Kong molecular biologist Yuk Ming Dennis Lo, who pioneered the development of non-invasive prenatal testing. 

He also developed a new method of detecting cancer early using just a few drops of blood, dubbed liquid biopsies.

With a simple blood draw “you can determine all kinds of possible problems and diseases”, Pendlebury said.

Male researchers based in the United States have overwhelmingly dominated the Nobel science prizes through the years.

The various prize committees have insisted they are trying to recognise women’s achievements, but say many of the top discoveries were made decades ago when fewer women were involved in high-level research.

Last year, 12 men and one woman won Nobel Prizes, with all of the science nods going to men.

– Anti-Putin prizes? –

For the Literature Prize on Thursday, literary critics told AFP they thought the Swedish Academy may go for a more mainstream author this year, after selecting lesser-known writers the past two years.

Last year, Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah won, while US poet Louise Gluck was crowned in 2020.

US novelist Joyce Carol Oates, France’s Annie Ernaux and Maryse Conde, Russia’s Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Canada’s Margaret Atwood have all been cited as potential laureates if the committee has its eyes on a woman.

Online betting sites however have France’s Michel Houellebecq as the favourite, ahead of British author Salman Rushdie, who was the victim of an attempted murder attack in August. 

But it is the Peace Prize that is expected to hold special significance this year. 

After Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov won the prize last year together with his Philippine colleague Maria Ressa in the name of freedom of expression, will the Norwegian Nobel Committee award another anti-Putin prize after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine?

Not since World War II has a conflict raged between two countries so close to Oslo.

The International Criminal Court, tasked with investigating war crimes in Ukraine, and the International Court of Justice — both based in The Hague — have been mentioned as possible laureates this year.

So have jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

If the committee were to focus on the climate crisis, experts tipped Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, possibly together with British environmentalist David Attenborough or other activists such as Sudan’s Nisreen Elsaim and Ghana’s Chibeze Ezekiel.

bur-map-aco-phy/po/imm

A man sits on a broken section of the Pine Island Road in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Matlacha, Florida on October 1, 2022

Karen Pagliaro walks down Matlacha’s main street, dodging downed trees, debris and abandoned vehicles, unsure where to go in the small island town cut off after Hurricane Ian damaged bridges linking it to mainland Florida.  

“We feel kind of forgotten,” says the 50-year-old teacher, who lost her home to the storm. “We thought they’d send in help, water and supplies and things, and we were told no, just get off.”

Until Wednesday, Matlacha was a small paradise in southwest Florida.

The fishing village of 800 people across two islets was dotted with colorful wooden houses built around the wide street. It was a place to enjoy the sea, good weather, seafood restaurants and small art galleries. 

The hurricane changed everything. 

Three days after Ian hit, the Coast Guard, firefighters and citizens from nearby towns are still coming by boat to rescue the last residents who were trapped there after refusing to evacuate. 

Other residents, those who did leave the island, are making the journey in the opposite direction from the mainland to check on the damage to their homes. 

Christian Lopez watches the jetty as the emergency services evacuate people — but he has no intention of leaving, despite losing his home.  

“I’d rather stay here than go somewhere else and be on the street. Here at least we have a little roof and we are going to try to fix up the trailer where we live,” says the 25-year-old. 

– ‘I never want to come back’ –

At the other end of Matlacha, the main street is cut off by a huge crevasse that people have to cross thanks to a makeshift bridge made of a metal board.    

Dozens of stunned and weary people walk somberly about, taking in the devastation. Most of them share the same uncertainty of not knowing what to do or where to go. 

“I don’t have a plan,” says John Lynch, sounding resigned. The 59-year-old’s house is sinking into the sea and he is preparing to leave. 

“We’ve been here for 25 years… It’s heartbreaking because this is where we plan on living for the rest of our lives.”  

Karen Pagliaro doesn’t know what she is going to do either. She has nowhere to go. The school where she works is temporarily closed because of hurricane damage. 

What is clear to her is that she wants to return to live in Matlacha.  “It’s our beloved city and we love it here,” she says.  

Near the pier, Jim Bedra doesn’t share that sentiment. The septuagenarian is about to leave town with his wife, Kathy, and their dog, Luna, on a Coast Guard boat.   

Last week he wanted to evacuate the island with Kathy and their 31-year-old son, but the two convinced him to stay where they had lived since 2013.  

He no longer has a home and his voice cracks at the thought. “We are going to stay in a shelter, I imagine,” says Bedra, who wants to return to his safely landlocked home state of Ohio. 

“I never want to come back here,” he says before boarding the boat for the mainland. 

“This is not the retirement we looked for.”

ma/st/bbk

Workers board up windows ahead of Hurricane Orlene's arrival, in Mazatlan, Mexico on October 2, 2022

Powerful Hurricane Orlene headed Sunday toward Mexico’s Pacific coast, where it is expected to make landfall on Monday night, the US National Hurricane Center said.

The storm lost some strength as it moved across the water, falling from Category 4 to 3, the agency said.

But it is expected to be a strong hurricane when it passes near or over the Islas Marias archipelago, and remain a hurricane when it reaches southwestern Mexico, the NHC said.

The NHC forecast that the storm would pass over the Islas Marias Sunday night or Monday morning, and reach the mainland by Monday night.

Mexico’s National Water Commission (Conagua) predicted that the storm would be a Category 1 or 2 hurricane by the time it moves onto land.

The storm will generate wind gusts of up to 70 miles (110 kilometers) per hour and waves of up to 16 feet (five meters) on the coasts of Nayarit and Jalisco states, Conagua added, urging the inhabitants of at-risk areas to take refuge in temporary shelters. 

The Ministry of the Navy has closed the ports of Nayarit and Jalisco.

Authorities are keeping a close eye on the storm’s track as they mull whether to evacuate tourists from Mexican beach resorts to temporary shelters, Víctor Hugo Roldan, director of Civil Protection in Jalisco, told the press.

Tropical cyclones hit Mexico every year on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, usually between May and November. 

In October 1997, Hurricane Paulina hit Mexico’s Pacific coast as a Category 4 storm, leaving more than 200 dead.

A man sits on a broken section of the Pine Island Road in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Matlacha, Florida on October 1, 2022

Karen Pagliaro walks down Matlacha’s main street, dodging downed trees, debris and abandoned vehicles, unsure where to go in the small island town cut off after Hurricane Ian damaged bridges linking it to mainland Florida.  

“We feel kind of forgotten,” says the 50-year-old teacher, who lost her home to the storm. “We thought they’d send in help, water and supplies and things, and we were told no, just get off.”

Until Wednesday, Matlacha was a small paradise in southwest Florida.

The fishing village of 800 people across two islets was dotted with colorful wooden houses built around the wide street. It was a place to enjoy the sea, good weather, seafood restaurants and small art galleries. 

The hurricane changed everything. 

Three days after Ian hit, the Coast Guard, firefighters and citizens from nearby towns are still coming by boat to rescue the last residents who were trapped there after refusing to evacuate. 

Other residents, those who did leave the island, are making the journey in the opposite direction from the mainland to check on the damage to their homes. 

Christian Lopez watches the jetty as the emergency services evacuate people — but he has no intention of leaving, despite losing his home.  

“I’d rather stay here than go somewhere else and be on the street. Here at least we have a little roof and we are going to try to fix up the trailer where we live,” says the 25-year-old. 

– ‘I never want to come back’ –

At the other end of Matlacha, the main street is cut off by a huge crevasse that people have to cross thanks to a makeshift bridge made of a metal board.    

Dozens of stunned and weary people walk somberly about, taking in the devastation. Most of them share the same uncertainty of not knowing what to do or where to go. 

“I don’t have a plan,” says John Lynch, sounding resigned. The 59-year-old’s house is sinking into the sea and he is preparing to leave. 

“We’ve been here for 25 years… It’s heartbreaking because this is where we plan on living for the rest of our lives.”  

Karen Pagliaro doesn’t know what she is going to do either. She has nowhere to go. The school where she works is temporarily closed because of hurricane damage. 

What is clear to her is that she wants to return to live in Matlacha.  “It’s our beloved city and we love it here,” she says.  

Near the pier, Jim Bedra doesn’t share that sentiment. The septuagenarian is about to leave town with his wife, Kathy, and their dog, Luna, on a Coast Guard boat.   

Last week he wanted to evacuate the island with Kathy and their 31-year-old son, but the two convinced him to stay where they had lived since 2013.  

He no longer has a home and his voice cracks at the thought. “We are going to stay in a shelter, I imagine,” says Bedra, who wants to return to his safely landlocked home state of Ohio. 

“I never want to come back here,” he says before boarding the boat for the mainland. 

“This is not the retirement we looked for.”

ma/st/bbk

A man sits on a broken section of the Pine Island Road in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Matlacha, Florida on October 1, 2022

Karen Pagliaro walks down Matlacha’s main street, dodging downed trees, debris and abandoned vehicles, unsure where to go in the small island town cut off after Hurricane Ian damaged bridges linking it to mainland Florida.  

“We feel kind of forgotten,” says the 50-year-old teacher, who lost her home to the storm. “We thought they’d send in help, water and supplies and things, and we were told no, just get off.”

Until Wednesday, Matlacha was a small paradise in southwest Florida.

The fishing village of 800 people across two islets was dotted with colorful wooden houses built around the wide street. It was a place to enjoy the sea, good weather, seafood restaurants and small art galleries. 

The hurricane changed everything. 

Three days after Ian hit, the Coast Guard, firefighters and citizens from nearby towns are still coming by boat to rescue the last residents who were trapped there after refusing to evacuate. 

Other residents, those who did leave the island, are making the journey in the opposite direction from the mainland to check on the damage to their homes. 

Christian Lopez watches the jetty as the emergency services evacuate people — but he has no intention of leaving, despite losing his home.  

“I’d rather stay here than go somewhere else and be on the street. Here at least we have a little roof and we are going to try to fix up the trailer where we live,” says the 25-year-old. 

– ‘I never want to come back’ –

At the other end of Matlacha, the main street is cut off by a huge crevasse that people have to cross thanks to a makeshift bridge made of a metal board.    

Dozens of stunned and weary people walk somberly about, taking in the devastation. Most of them share the same uncertainty of not knowing what to do or where to go. 

“I don’t have a plan,” says John Lynch, sounding resigned. The 59-year-old’s house is sinking into the sea and he is preparing to leave. 

“We’ve been here for 25 years… It’s heartbreaking because this is where we plan on living for the rest of our lives.”  

Karen Pagliaro doesn’t know what she is going to do either. She has nowhere to go. The school where she works is temporarily closed because of hurricane damage. 

What is clear to her is that she wants to return to live in Matlacha.  “It’s our beloved city and we love it here,” she says.  

Near the pier, Jim Bedra doesn’t share that sentiment. The septuagenarian is about to leave town with his wife, Kathy, and their dog, Luna, on a Coast Guard boat.   

Last week he wanted to evacuate the island with Kathy and their 31-year-old son, but the two convinced him to stay where they had lived since 2013.  

He no longer has a home and his voice cracks at the thought. “We are going to stay in a shelter, I imagine,” says Bedra, who wants to return to his safely landlocked home state of Ohio. 

“I never want to come back here,” he says before boarding the boat for the mainland. 

“This is not the retirement we looked for.”ma/st/bbk