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In Florida, families seeking the missing amid storm damage
PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Joanne Garone Behnke has replayed every possible scenario in her mind a hundred times.
Maybe her 79-year-old aunt sought shelter at the sturdy condo nearby that withstood Hurricane Michael’s devastating winds. Maybe she was rescued and is lying in a hospital bed somewhere. The pile of rubble that was once her Mexico Beach home is shallow, too shallow for a body to go unnoticed, Garone Behnke tells herself.
“It’s torture,” says Garone Behnke, who last talked to her Aunt Aggie Vicari right before the storm hit, begging her to leave her cinderblock home.
Five days after the hurricane slammed into the Florida Panhandle, people are struggling to locate friends and loved ones who haven’t been heard from, though how many residents are missing seems to be anyone’s guess.
“I’ve been on the phone to reporters, to fire chiefs, to heads of task force from Miami, to you name it, I’ve called them. I’ve called every hospital,” Garone Behnke said Monday, then stopped to look at a text from the fire chief in Mexico Beach.
To her disappointment, it read: “We’re still working on it … we’ll keep you posted.”
As President Donald Trump visited the devastated zone, the death toll from Michael’s march from Florida to Virginia stood at 17, and the search for victims continued.
As the hurricane closed in and more than 375,000 people were warned to evacuate, emergency authorities expressed frustration that many residents weren’t leaving.
Since the storm, many people have been rescued from the devastated zones. Emergency officials said that because of widespread cellphone outages, others could be safe and just haven’t been able to tell friends or family.
Rescue worker Trevor Lewis and the rest of his six-member squad lent their cellphones to storm victims so that they could contact loved ones for the first time in days. He said he watched them “cry out in joy.”
“Just the desperation in the family members’ voices that hadn’t contacted their loved one for a few days was bad,” he said. “Then we get on scene and find their family members and they have no food, no water, no power.”
There was just one confirmed death so far in Mexico Beach, the town of about 1,000 people that was nearly wiped off the map in a direct hit from the hurricane and its 155 mph (250 kph) winds.
Mexico Beach City Clerk Adrian Welle told local media Sunday that 46 people were unaccounted for. That number had previously been 285, but officials think many left right before the storm hit. Other city officials told reporters that the number of unaccounted for was three.
A Houston-based organization called CrowdSource Rescue that takes calls from worried family members and sends the details to rescue crews on the ground said it has helped find nearly 1,500 people across the region since Michael struck.
George Ruiz, a former Coast Guard rescue boat driver from Alabama who runs Geaux Rescue, a
“There’s a lot of work to be done still as far as the rescue and recovery goes,” said Ruiz, whose organization still has 433 requests for help from family members looking for loved ones.
“We listened to voicemails we received overnight,” he said, “and you can just hear in their voice their desperation, wanting to know if their family member is alive and well or if their family member has passed.”
Melissa and Rodney Reinhardt spent days wondering whether Rodney’s 79-year-old father survived the storm at his home in the devastated Port St. Joe area.
“Our hope was that he evacuated but nobody had heard from him,” she said. “It’s horrifying not knowing. It’s scary. Seeing the pictures on the news makes it even scarier.”
Emergency officials checked on him Thursday night and said he was there, but that was all the information they received. Rodney finally went in with a church group on Sunday and picked him up.
“It was a happy ending,” Melissa Reinhardt said.
During his visit to the devastated zone, Trump commended Republican Gov. Rick Scott for an “incredible” response to the disaster and said: “You’re a great governor.” Scott, who is running for the U.S. Senate, returned the praise, saying, “Every time I’ve called, he’s come through.”
Some in the affected area were lukewarm about the president’s visit.
About 5 miles from a
“You want to see the president?” Vann asked her husband, Joseph, with a dismissive tone. “I ain’t got time, unless he wants to help clean up.”
Nanya Thompson, 68, of Lynn Haven, said of the president: “He’s doing this, I believe, to project a different image of himself because of all the bad publicity he’s had. He’s not going into get into the sewage water with other people and start digging.”
“If this is just going to be another reality show, I don’t think he should come,” she added.
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Contributors in Florida include Associated Press writers Russ Bynum in Mexico Beach, Brendan Farrington in Panama City, Gary Fineout in Tallahassee, Kelli Kennedy in Miami and AP Photographer Gerald Herbert in Panama City.
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For the latest on Hurricane Michael, visit https://www.apnews.com/tag/Hurricanes
Russ Bynum And Kelli Kennedy, The Associated Press
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Hopkins
The Trump administration is creating a first-of-its-kind task force aimed at ushering in a new “Golden Age” of beautiful infrastructure across the U.S.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) will announce the establishment of the Beautifying Transportation Infrastructure Council (BTIC) on Thursday, the Daily Caller News Foundation exclusively learned. The BTIC seeks to advise Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on design and policy ideas for key infrastructure projects, including highways, bridges and transit hubs.
“What happened to our country’s proud tradition of building great, big, beautiful things?” Duffy said in a statement shared with the DCNF. “It’s time the design for America’s latest infrastructure projects reflects our nation’s strength, pride, and promise.”
“We’re engaging the best and brightest minds in architectural design and engineering to make beautiful structures that move you and bring about a new Golden Age of Transportation,” Duffy continued.
Mini scoop – here is the DOT’s rollout of its Beautifying Transportation Infrastructure Council, which will be tasked with making our buildings beautiful again. pic.twitter.com/
9iV2xSxdJM — Jason Hopkins (@jasonhopkinsdc) October 23, 2025
The DOT is encouraging nominations of the country’s best architects, urban planners, artists and others to serve on the council, according to the department. While ensuring that efficiency and safety remain a top priority, the BTIC will provide guidance on projects that “enhance” public areas and develop aesthetic performance metrics.
The new council aligns with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in August 2025 regarding infrastructure. The “Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again” order calls for federal public buildings in the country to “respect regional architectural heritage” and aims to prevent federal construction projects from using modernist and brutalist architecture styles, instead returning to a classical style.
“The Founders, in line with great societies before them, attached great importance to Federal civic architecture,” Trump’s order stated. “They wanted America’s public buildings to inspire the American people and encourage civic virtue.”
“President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson consciously modeled the most important buildings in Washington, D.C., on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome,” the order continued. “Because of their proven ability to meet these requirements, classical and traditional architecture are preferred modes of architectural design.”
The DOT invested millions in major infrastructure projects since Trump’s return to the White House. Duffy announced in August a $43 million transformation initiative of the New York Penn Station in New York City and in September unveiledmajor progress in the rehabilitation and modernization of Washington Union Station in Washington, D.C.
The BTIC will comprise up to 11 members who will serve two-year terms, with the chance to be reappointed, according to the DOT. The task force will meet biannually. The deadline for nominations will end Nov. 21.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has released a new report titled Canada’s Surrender of Sovereignty: New WHO health regulations undermine Canadian democracy and Charter freedoms. Authored by Nigel Hannaford, a veteran journalist and researcher, the report warns that Canada’s acceptance of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) revised International Health Regulations (IHR) represents a serious erosion of national independence and democratic accountability.
The IHR amendments, which took effect on September 19, 2025, authorize the WHO Director-General to declare global “health emergencies” that could require Canada to follow directives from bureaucrats in Geneva, bypassing the House of Commons and the will of Canadian voters.
The WHO regards these regulations as “binding,” despite having no ability or legal authority to impose such regulations. Even so, Canada is opting to accept the regulations as binding.
By accepting the WHO’s revised IHR, the report explains, Canada has relinquished its own control over future health crises and instead has agreed to let the WHO determine when a “pandemic emergency” exists and what Canada must do to respond to it, after which Canada must report back to the WHO.
In fact, under these International Health Regulations, the WHO could demand countries like Canada impose stringent freedom-violating health policies, such as lockdowns, vaccine mandates, or travel restrictions without debate, evidence review, or public accountability, the report explains.
Once the WHO declares a “Pandemic Emergency,” member states are obligated to implement such emergency measures “without delay” for a minimum of three months.
Importantly, following these WHO directives would undermine government accountability as politicians may hide behind international “commitments” to justify their actions as “simply following international rules,” the report warns.
Canada should instead withdraw from the revised IHR, following the example of countries like Germany, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, and the United States. The report recommends continued international cooperation without surrendering control over domestic health policies.
Constitutional lawyer Allison Pejovic said, “[b]y treating WHO edicts as binding, the federal government has effectively placed Canadian sovereignty on loan to an unelected international body.”
“Such directives, if enforced, would likely violate Canadians’ Charter rights and freedoms,” she added.
Mr. Hannaford agreed, saying, “Canada’s health policies must be made in Canada. No free and democratic nation should outsource its emergency powers to unelected bureaucrats in Geneva.”
The Justice Centre urges Canadians to contact their Members of Parliament and demand they support withdrawing from the revised IHR to restore Canadian sovereignty and reject blind compliance with WHO directives.
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