8 a.m.: Today is the day Florida’s long run of good hurricane fortune comes to a howling end. By early this evening, Hurricane Matthew’s 130 mile per hour winds, torrential rains and massive storm surges will collide with the Florida coast, ending an 11-year streak without a major ‘cane crossing into…
Hurricane Matthew will almost certainly crawl up Florida’s eastern coastline as — at least — a Category 3 storm this weekend. The National Hurricane Center confirmed this yet again in its 5 p.m. update today, which keeps Miami-Dade under a tropical storm warning and most of the state north of…
Hurricane Matthew’s eyewall bulldozed right across Baracoa, Cuba last night, one of the island nation’s oldest and most historic towns. Baracoa was the first city the Spanish settled after landing on the island — some of the town’s buildings have stood since the 1500s. But many were no match for…
In less than 24 hours, still-growing Hurricane Matthew will slide along South Florida after tearing through Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas. If you’ve still been holding out last minute hope that the monster storm won’t unleash torrential rain and howling winds in our neck of the woods, it’s time to…
The updates Miami residents are getting about Hurricane Matthew keep getting worse. After initially predicting the hurricane would miss the Florida coast entirely, the National Hurricane Center said yesterday that portions of South Florida were, indeed, in the storm’s path. This morning, the Center issued hurricane watches for Central Florida,…
Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine has shown two big talents in recent years: Nabbing high-profile press for his attempts to save his city from climate change, and hobnobbing with A-list celebs. So, when Leonardo DiCaprio started filming a documentary on global warning last year, you bet Levine made sure he…
As Category 4 Hurricane Matthew’s eye passes over Les Cayes, Haiti this morning, the storm remains a churning behemoth. Winds topping 140 miles per hour have been reported in Haiti’s westernmost tip, while up to three feet of rain pours onto mountain villages in the nearby hillsides. Across the border…
Miamians still aren’t sure if they should prepare for the III Points Music Festival this weekend or get ready for a multi-foot storm surge. Category 4 Hurricane Matthew is slowly barreling up through the Caribbean and this morning’s predictions that it would stay east of the Florida coastline is now…
In Miami Beach, it’s now illegal to hand anyone food or drinks in styrofoam containers, which dissolve into tiny particles that float along the top of the ocean for hundreds of years. Miami Beach has already issued hundreds of dollars in Styrofoam fines. But it’s apparently still perfectly legal to…
Had a few state senators voted differently last February, Miami-Dade County would have had zero control over whether oil companies could build fracking wells on county soil. That’s because the Senate proposed a bill that would have banned local governments from regulating the controversial oil-drilling process. Critics blasted the measure, saying…
Hurricane Matthew is already a monster, packing 130 mile per hour winds as of 5 am this morning as its howling center inches north toward Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba. Those islands are bracing for catastrophe, with storm surges up to 15 feet and 40 inch deluges of rain possible. The…
After a month of infighting among Miami Beach citizens, media outlets, and Gov. Rick Scott, Miami-Dade County has finally released the areas in South Beach where mosquitoes tested positive for the Zika virus. They are as follows: 932 Lenox Ave., which tested positive August 22 1619 Meridian Ave., which tested…
Dr. Philip Stoddard, a Florida International University biologist and the mayor of South Miami, has released a study that shows definitively that Miami-Dade County’s spraying of naled, a controversial neurotoxic pesticide, is not working to combat the Zika virus in Miami Beach. Provided Stoddard’s analysis is correct, the study shows…
Is it possible? Just plain wrong? Sacrilege? You can no longer get a colada in Miami Beach in a Styrofoam cup. At David’s Cafe, the iconic Cuban restaurant at 9th and Alton that’s been a staple for more than four decades, the coffee is now served in tan-colored paper cups…
Harvard scientist Dr. Michael Callahan, one of the world’s preeminent experts on the Zika virus, has said in a video interview that aerial spraying to combat the Zika virus likely does not work to kill disease-carrying Aedes aegpyti mosquitoes. Callahan, who works at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical…
Governor Rick Scott visited the former epicenter of the Zika virus Monday morning to announce the area is now Zika-free, and that a Dine Out Wynwood day will be held September 30 to bring back business. “It’s a great day for Wynwood,” Scott said. Scott was joined by Miami Mayor…
In just over a month, naled has gone from a largely unknown pesticide to the most hotly debated issue in Miami’s fight against the Zika virus. The controversial organophosphate pesticide, which is banned in the European Union and could harm infants, has been the county’s main weapon against Zika virus-carrying…
Just after 11 a.m. today, a former Columbia University professor, who now serves as dean of Florida International University’s Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, stood in front of a packed crowd at Miami Beach City Hall. Opening his speech, Dr. Thomas R. Guilarte thanked everyone in attendance…
If Miami’s going to stop the spread of Zika, residents have to trust that the government knows what it’s doing. That’s why it’s all the more concerning that the Florida Department of Health last week published an outright lie in a Q&A on the virus and the pesticides being used to combat…
Miami Beach residents’ protest against the controversial anti-Zika pesticide naled is quickly morphing from a spirited public debate into an all-out ground war. In protest threads on social media, some protest organizers yesterday suggested that flying drones could intercept the county’s pesticide-spraying airplanes. Michael DeFilippi, the anti-naled organizer who raised…
If you’re living in Miami Beach right now, you’re probably wondering whether to freak out about Zika. That’s certainly understandable, and if an emergency Zika meeting yesterday proved anything, it’s that even the public officials we look to for guidance don’t have all the answers. Meant to be informational, Wednesday’s…
A rowdy crowd gathered today in Miami Beach to discuss the Zika epidemic and whether the city should spray controversial pesticides from planes to fight it. But there was an odd undercurrent to that talk: Many in the crowd insisted that the whole Zika phenomenon is overblown and that the…
