Washington Post

Hurricane Florence is less than 48 hours away from making landfall in the Southeast region with catastrophic impacts, including damaging winds, flash flooding and widespread power outages. Here's what we know:
-Florence will likely be the most intense storm to strike the region in at least 25 years, since Hugo.
-Forecasts project it to make landfall as a Category 3 or 4 hurricane.
-The National Hurricane Center is warning of “life-threatening storm surge” at the coast — a tsunami-like rise in ocean water over normally dry land as well as “life-threatening freshwater flooding from a prolonged and exceptionally heavy rainfall event” from the coast to interior sections and “damaging hurricane-force winds.”
-The storm could linger over the region for several days, unloading 15 to 25 inches of rain and isolated amounts of up to 40 inches.
-More than 1.5 million people have been ordered to evacuate coastal areas ahead of the storm.
Go to washingtonpost.com for updates.
This photo is by Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo shows Johnny Mercer's Fishing Pier along the Atlantic Ocea in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina on Wednesday. (Photo via EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

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Hurricane Florence has the ­potential to decimate North Carolina’s agricultural economy, which accounts for nearly a fifth of all jobs in the state and produces much of the nation’s sweet potatoes, tobacco, pork and poultry. Many farms are based in the eastern part of the state, which is poised to take a direct hit from Florence and could receive two feet of rain. For many like Shahane Taylor and Steve Carroll, the right temperatures, humidity levels and lighting is essential to running their produce business. They know that hurricane season and harvest season overlap in their region, sometimes with devastating consequences. Their sheds are bolted into a concrete floor and, Taylor and Carroll say, have withstood every major hurricane and storm since the early 1980s. But Hurricane Florence is forecast to be a storm of enormous ferocity, posing an even greater threat to their crops. Read more about how farmers are preparing for Florence on washingtonpost.com. (Steve Carroll is photographed above by Eamon Queeney/For The Washington Post)

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Following what they perceive as a lack of institutional support for the chair umpire who gave Serena Williams a game penalty late in the U.S. Open women’s final, other umpires are discussing the possibility of boycotting her matches. Top umpires are also considering the formation of a union, according to a new report. Williams accused chair umpire Carlos Ramos of sexism after losing Saturday to Japan’s Naomi Osaka. He had given her a warning for coaching, then a point penalty for smashing her racket and, after she repeatedly expressed frustration, Ramos levied the game penalty for verbal abuse. Williams then claimed that Ramos would not have treated a male player in such a harsh manner. Steve Simon, CEO of the Women’s Tennis Association, quickly issued a statement of support for the 23-time Grand Slam singles winner, saying that the organization “believes that there should be no difference in the standards of tolerance provided to the emotions expressed by men vs. women” and that it did “not believe that this was done last night.”

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Sharmelehia Morges, 6, sits in the doorway of her seaside home swatting mosquitos from her skin while she watches The Little Mermaid on her tablet. She used to ride her bicycle on the porch in front of her home, which is built on sand a step from the ocean, but Hurricane Maria sent the sea crashing into the small cottage, ripping the cement porch to pieces and filling the inside with a mountain of mud and debris. With no place to ride her bike, Sharmelehia spends much of her afternoons wandering through the wreckage: cement blocks, rubber tires, soda bottles, Pringles cans and other trash washed up by the sea. Nearly a year after Hurricane Maria ripped through her mountainous town, the storm continues to cripple nearly every aspect of life. It was in this southeast corner of the U.S. territory that the hurricane first made landfall, tearing a path of destruction and wiping out power for the entire island. In Naguabo, more than 4,000 homes were damaged and 700 were total losses. Dozens of roads, bridges and buildings faltered. It’s one of the many places in Puerto Rico where recovery has barely begun and life is still far from normal. Read more by clicking the link in our bio.

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Shortly after Hurricane Maria made landfall a year ago, residents in this mountaintop community of Naguabo, Puerto Rico painted SOS on the road so relief workers in helicopters could see that they were in desperate need. Despite almost a year of traffic driving over it, the cry for help still remains bright white on the road. The mountainous fishing town continues to be crippled by the storm in nearly every aspect of life. This corner of the U.S. territory is where the Category-4 hurricane first made landfall, tearing a path of destruction and wiping out power for the entire island. In Naguabo, more than 4,000 homes were damaged and 700 were total losses. Dozens of roads, bridges and buildings faltered. It’s one of the many places in Puerto Rico where recovery has barely begun and life is still far from normal. Read more by clicking the link in our bio.

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