First Run News

HOUSTON — Hurricane Harvey’s floodwaters have left this sprawling metropolis partially ruined and eager to return to something like normalcy. But the storm has also forced many thousands of people out of their homes. As a result, the city is engaged in one giant collective improvisation. Its defining creative endeavor is where to find a place to sleep. Greater Houston is big enough, with enough dry and intact neighborhoods, to absorb many of the people whose own homes are now moldy and wrecked. But absorption is not always easy.

HOUSTON — Kacey Cartwright and his family lost their home during Hurricane Harvey, spent a few difficult nights sheltered at a convention center and are now living in a hotel far from their old neighborhood. So the first day of school here on Monday was a welcome respite. “It takes my mind off of everything that’s going on,” said Kacey, who is 16, a junior at Wheatley High School and a lineman on the football team. Last week, he picked up some donated clothes from the school gym after losing most of his possessions in the storm.

GUSTAVIA, St. Barthélemy — The pace is frantic. Residents with shovels clean the streets. Dump trucks laden with the stumps of storm-ravaged trees rumble back and forth along narrow streets. Construction crews clear downed telephone poles and debris from houses and businesses in a race to restore the lifeblood of this small Caribbean island — tourism. Those who live on St. Barthélemy — working in its restaurants, building its homes, fishing its seas — know there is nothing without it.

TUTU, V.I. — With residents ignoring the loosely enforced curfew here and lining up hours before the makeshift pantries opened, it was clear Monday that many were still going to end the day hungry. All some of them could do was walk around neighborhoods smelling for cooking and plead for the kindness of strangers. “It’s survival mode right now,” said Kaleem Stephens, a 30-year-old construction worker in St. Thomas.

HOUSTON — Floodwaters in two Houston neighborhoods have been contaminated with bacteria and toxins that can make people sick, testing organized by The New York Times has found. Residents will need to take precautions to return safely to their homes, public health experts said. It is not clear how far the toxic waters have spread. But Fire Chief Samuel Peña of Houston said over the weekend that there had been breaches at numerous waste treatment plants.

WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, says it is insensitive to discuss climate change in the midst of deadly storms. Tomás Regalado, the Republican mayor of Miami whose citizens raced to evacuate before Hurricane Irma, says if not now, when? “This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the E.P.A. and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change,” Mr.

WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, says it is insensitive to discuss climate change in the midst of deadly storms. Tomás Regalado, the Republican mayor of Miami whose citizens raced to evacuate before Hurricane Irma, says if not now, when? “This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the E.P.A. and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change,” Mr.

MIAMI — After the wind and rain had passed, and the Florida sun had begun shining again, Bruce Mawry emerged from his Miami Beach home to find a grisly scene of fallen trunks, scattered fronds and rolling coconuts. It amounted to a palm tree massacre. “I was amazed at the number of trees that had damage,” said Mr. Mawry, the chief civil engineer for the city of Miami Beach, who immediately began dispatching teams to tag every tree that could be saved. “Many had their roots pulled out.

CUDJOE KEY, Fla. — You pay a price for paradise. In the Florida Keys, it’s hurricanes. The stretch of highway that leads to the continental United States’ southernmost point was riddled Monday with Jet Skis, seaweed, and the occasional refrigerator. In a few places, the ferocious force of water from Hurricane Irma’s onslaught Sunday washed-out chunks of the two-lane highway.

NAPLES, Fla. — Across coastal Florida, the dreaded storm surge from Hurricane Irma — caused when ferocious winds pile up ocean water and push it onshore — was not as bad as forecast. While some areas were hard hit, notably the Florida Keys and Marco Island, residents of neighborhoods north to Fort Myers, Sarasota and Tampa Bay were expressing relief. That bit of good fortune was the product of some meteorological luck. Because a hurricane’s winds blow counterclockwise, the precise path of the storm matters greatly for determining storm surge.