(WASHINGTON) — On one small, white rectangle is the name of a 29-year-old engineer, on another the name of a World War II veteran, and on a third, that of a 15-year-old — just three of more than 600,000 flags on the National Mall reflecting the devastating impact COVID-19 has had on American lives and the country.
On the grassy expanse near the Washington Monument, the field of flags is being displayed as a part of a chilling exhibition called “In America: Remember.”
Each represents a life lost to the pandemic, and each sits amid a sea of symbolic grief.
This is the second stunning exhibit based on a project trying to capture, the artist said, the “human dignity” behind the mind-numbing numbers.
Back in the fall of 2020, the first featured a then-unthinkable 200,000 flags near RFK Stadium in Washington.
Since then, the scope of the new project has more than tripled as the death toll continues to rise, coming ever closer to the number estimated to have died during the 1918 influenza pandemic, now at more than 667,000 — or one in every 500 Americans.
The exhibit, being unveiled Friday, will stay on the National Mall until Oct. 3.
Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, the artist, spoke with ABC News as more and more flags were being placed on Thursday.
“It’s really hard to think about the grief that is just embodied by one flag,” Firstenberg said. “And when as you walk amongst 660,000, it’s unimaginable the pain that people have gone through.”
Visitors can stop at a table and personalize a flag with the name of a loved one lost.
Many now also carry messages from across the country submitted on the project’s website, messages to mothers, fathers, siblings and friends. Firstenberg said she hoped it could be cathartic for families not able to hold large funerals or be with family and other loved ones given pandemic restrictions.
Some are to strangers, but fellow Americans.
She recalled one emergency room doctor who traveled to Washington from New York last fall to add the names of 12 patients he lost to COVID.
He then turned around, she said, heading back to start a new shift.
Firstenberg said she hopes the flags, and the sound of them being pulled in the wind, will give visitors “a moment of pause.”
“This is all of our art,” she said, “because it’s when people personalize flags and a complete stranger comes and meets that flag and feels something, senses the grief that is embodied by just that one flag, they created the art, too.”
ABBA’s Gold is has caught a second wind, rising back up thecharts for the first time in three years.
Gold: Greatest Hits, the compilation album by the Swedish pop group, soared up the Billboard 200 chart from number 114 to number 34 on the survey dated September 18.
According to the outlet, the album moved 15,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. for the week ending September 9, a 61% jump, as per MRC data. Part of that includes 5,000 units in physical album sales, which allows it to climb the Top Album Sales chart from the 33rd spot to the 11th, as well.
ABBA’s climb up the charts comes after the quartet dropped two new singles — “Don’t Shut Me Down” and “I Still Have Faith In You” — earlier this month. Additionally, they announced a new album, Voyage — their first in 40 years — as well as a special production to open in London next year featuring digital avatars of the group’s members performing their legendary songs.
Gold: Greatest Hits, whichwas originally released in 1992, last saw the top 40 in August 2018, when it peaked at number 25. That was likely due to the release of the movie Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which features the group’s songs.
All in all, the set has spent an impressive 168 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart in total since its release.
After spending months hyping his debut album, Lil Nas X‘s emotionally charged Monterois finally here.
Released Friday at midnight, Lil Nas X also delighted fans by dropping the heartbreaking music video for the song, “That’s What I Want.”
The single explores the 22-year-old Grammy winner’s pains of the heart as he openly craves sharing his life and success with a significant other that loves and needs him just as much. Lil Nas X also confesses that he’s garnered a reputation “for givin’ love away,” admitting it’s a crutch to combat the loneliness that’s consuming him.
The music video follows Lil Nas X loving and, eventually, losing the man he thought was going to be his forever, culminating with the rapper donning a wedding dress and walking down the aisle to accept a guitar given to him by Billy Porter.
Montero boasts a robust list of collaborators, including Elton John, Miley Cyrus, Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion and several others.
Montero explores personal themes of self-hatred and struggling with self-acceptance, such as in the track “Sun Goes Down,” with lyrics describing what it means to be happy or at peace with one’s self. The album, which boasts an array of pop and hip hop crossover tracks, also features the song “Dead Right Now,” which has Lil Nas X looking back at those who have doubted him when he took a leap of faith to drop out of college and pursue his dream of making music.
Montero is now available to purchase and stream everywhere.
Hitting theaters today is the gritty crime thriller COPSHOP, starring and produced by Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo, and directed by Narc‘s Joe Carnahan.
“This is like…in the spirit of all the best 70s Westerns,” Butler, star of 300 and Olympus Has Fallen, tells ABC Audio. “Small-town rookie cop, there’s not a lot going on in that town until the bad guys roll in.”
“And you have this wily con man, Teddy Muretto, that’s Frank Grillo, who actually breaks into the police station, essentially gets arrested because he’s trying to get away from myself,” Butler says of his shadowy hitman, Bob Viddick. “And I also find a way to break into the police station. People just keep following into this damn police station to try and kill Teddy Muretto,” he says with a laugh.
COPSHOP is anchored by newcomer Alexis Louder, playing the rookie cop trapped with the two main characters, and who has to unravel a mystery dealing with corrupt officers while dealing with a psychotic contract killer, played by Toby Huss.
Louder called her acting trial by fire “amazing.” “It felt great to work with people that they are veterans in this industry and in this genre, and they treated me like a peer,” she told ABC Audio. “They had confidence in me to do what I know how to do.”
Louder added, “But if I had a question, they were very generous and humble and gracious with the wealth of information that they have. And it was just so much fun just running through the police station with these guys.”
Butler says COPSHOP is, “Extremely tense and fun and dark and hard edged and yet kind of irreverent and explosive.”
(ATLANTA) — Despite the persistent pleas by public health officials to get vaccinated as coronavirus infections continue to surge, a staggeringly low number of pregnant people have been vaccinated against the virus nationwide.
Just 25% of pregnant people in the United States between the ages of 18 and 49 are currently vaccinated with at least one dose, according to data through Sept. 11 compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The decision to not get vaccinated has resulted in a growing number of pregnant people ending up in intensive care wards, many severely ill with COVID-19. This worrisome uptick has been particularly evident in Mississippi, where state health officials have been sounding the alarm not only about the influx of fetal and maternal deaths, but also about several reports of pregnant women being turned away from getting the shot.
“Some of the patients had reported to us that they had gone to be vaccinated, and were turned away because they were pregnant. Those were people who were just sharing their experiences at pharmacies and other areas around the state,” Dr. Michelle Owens, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at University of Mississippi Medical Center, told ABC News.
Owens, alongside other state health officials, reported this week that not all of their patients had been vaccine-hesitant, but instead were turned down after disclosing that they were expecting.
“People are kind of adverse to pregnant patients when they come in. They’re hesitant to give pregnant patients medications, and certainly, vaccinations kind of fall into that,” said Dr. Marty Tucker, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at UMMC, during a press conference on Thursday.
In light of the concerning reports, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs issued a standing order last week for women to receive COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy, “to give the pharmacy some reassurance for the places that it’s OK and recommended for pregnant women to get immunized at any stage in pregnancy.”
Owens added that health officials and physicians were all working together “to help reduce barriers to vaccination for pregnant women, and we just really tried to amplify this information so that wherever a pregnant person goes in order to receive care or to receive a vaccine that they are welcomed with open arms and that they receive that vaccine.”
In Mississippi, 72 patients have experienced late pregnancy loss and 15 pregnant women have succumbed to the virus, more than half of whom have died since the end of July. None of the pregnant women who died was fully vaccinated, and the majority were overweight, according Dobbs.
“There are NICUs all over this country that are filling up with babies who will not get to know their moms, and that’s devastating. There are families who are losing their matriarchs, and then, there are women who have been infected by this virus who won’t ever be the same,” Owens said.
Since the onset of the pandemic, more than 21,000 pregnant people have been hospitalized nationwide, and at least 155 have died as result of COVID-19, according to federal data. Additionally, there have been at least 266 pregnancy losses nationwide, and approximately 10.3% of patients have had to deliver prematurely.
“When we lose a mom, especially something that could be prevented, it is a tragedy. It does not discriminate, we see it in people with and without co-morbidities. We see it in people as young as 23 years old, so it is a bad actor across the board,” Tucker said.
Earlier in the pandemic, pregnant women at UMMC were not becoming as severely ill with COVID-19, but following the spread of the delta variant, Owens said, it became evident patients were becoming severely ill and deteriorating more quickly.
“We are seeing women, who may not have other co-morbid conditions, being affected at an earlier gestational age. Most of the people who we’re seeing now, are affected in the middle of their pregnancy, and they have a much more aggressive form of the disease,” Owens said. “The next thing you know, they end up progressing very quickly to need intubation.”
Pregnant people are at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 when compared to non-pregnant people, according to the CDC. In addition, they are also at increased risk for preterm birth and other poor pregnancy outcomes.
The CDC and other leading health organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, have issued guidelines calling on all pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
“CDC encourages all pregnant people or people who are thinking about becoming pregnant and those breastfeeding to get vaccinated to protect themselves from COVID-19,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement about the updated guidance last month. “The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people.”
The updated guidance from the CDC was based on further research that found pregnant people can receive an mRNA vaccine with no increased risk to themselves or their babies.
“[It] is really the most important thing to give pregnant women an opportunity to still be able to live to fight another day,” Owens said. “It’s really imperative that women get the good information to know that the COVID vaccine is safe, approved and recommended, and that it makes a big difference in whether or not a patient has severe disease, or potentially, could die.”
The 73rd Annual Emmy Awards will be held live and in person in Los Angeles on Sunday night, and many prognosticators say there could be some new faces heading to the podium.
Netflix’s trophy magnet The Crown earned 24 nominations — tied with the Star Wars series The Mandalorian — and could do well indeed. But with last year’s big winners Schitt’s Creek, Euphoria, Watchmen and Succession out of contention this year, the door could finally be open for Ted Lasso to score, and surprising nominees Cobra Kai and The Boys to shine.
Another newcomer that could log some wins on the big night is Marvel Studios’ first small-screen MCU spin-off, WandaVision, which earned 23 nominations, one shy of its fellow Disney+ show The Mandalorian. W/V earned nominations in the Outstanding Actor category for its two stars — Marvel movie vets Paul Bettany and his onscreen love Elizabeth Olsen.
Both of those shows are already on the winner board, thanks to trophies won at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, which also saw The Crown and The Queen’s Gambit log wins.
NBC’s previous Emmy winner This Is Us could win again, but this year it’s facing stiff competition from Kate Winslet and her HBO show Mare of Easttown.
Cedric The Entertainer hosts when the 73rd Emmys are held live at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.
(ANCHORAGE, Alaska) — In January, Alaska had the highest per capita coronavirus vaccination rate in the nation. Now, hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, and the state’s largest hospital is rationing care.
Vaccine hesitancy and the delta variant have pushed the state’s fragile and limited hospital system to the breaking point.
Providence Alaska Medical Center, the state’s largest hospital, released a letter to the public Tuesday saying that more than 30% of its patients have COVID-19 and the hospital is rationing treatment.
“While we are doing our utmost, we are no longer able to provide the standard of care to each and every patient who needs our help,” wrote Chief of Staff Kristen Solana Walkinshaw on behalf of the hospital’s Medical Executive Committee. “The acuity and number of patients now exceeds our resources and our ability to staff beds with skilled caregivers, like nurses and respiratory therapists.”
Of Alaska’s 120 ICU beds, 106 were filled as of Thursday — leaving only 14 beds available statewide.
Alaska had a strong initial vaccine rollout, delivering doses to remote areas of the state by helicopters, planes, dog sleds and ferries, with additional support from the Indian Health Service and state tribal health system to vaccinate Alaska Natives. Due to the challenges posed by the state’s vast size, it received vaccine allocations monthly as opposed to weekly, giving it the ability to plan ahead and deliver many doses early on.
But, as in the rest of the country, vaccination rates slowly began dropping off over the summer, stagnating with 56.7% of Alaskans fully vaccinated as of Thursday, according to the state’s coronavirus dashboard.
“In terms of why things went stagnant, it does seem like hesitancy is the main factor behind that,” said Jared Kosin, CEO and president of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association. “It’s not an access issue. The vaccine’s widely available in Alaska anywhere.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy ended Alaska’s COVID-19 emergency declaration in the spring, and both the state legislature and Dunleavy’s administration have yet to reinstate one even at the pleading of hospitals and doctors.
In a spring mayoral race, Anchorage voters elected Dave Bronson, who has repeatedly said his administration will not enact citywide mask or vaccine mandates.
Bronson reiterated that commitment on Tuesday after an assembly meeting where hospital workers begged for action.
Cases in Alaska have been sharply increasing since August, and the state shattered its new daily case record with 1,068 infections reported Wednesday. As a result, hospitalizations have skyrocketed, reaching all time highs.
And health care experts warn this is only the beginning of a surge that could last weeks.
“It has brought us to the breaking point, and to be totally direct, in many respects we are broken,” said Kosin. “The situation is extremely bleak.”
Alaska runs on a “hub-and-spoke model” of health care, according to Kosin. “If you’re in a more rural area, you’re going to go to clinics, rural hospitals,” he told ABC News. “The idea is, as you need a higher level of care or (have) more needs, you will transfer in, ultimately, to our biggest hub, which is Anchorage.”
Anchorage, the state’s most populous city, is home to the state’s three largest hospitals — some of which offer the only advanced neurological and cardiovascular care in the state. While many people live in rural and geographically isolated areas, those communities still rely on the specialty medical care that can only be found in the city.
As city hospitals have reached capacity and Anchorage residents are forced to remain in their cars or emergency room waiting areas until they can receive care, health care institutions must refuse transfer patients from rural communities, leaving them without what can be lifesaving treatment, Solana Walkinshaw said.
The nearest next option are hospitals in the contiguous U.S. like Seattle, Washington — an over three-hour flight away. Seattle is also experiencing an influx of COVID-19 patients and is trying to help by taking patients from neighboring states like Idaho, which is coping with its most serious surge in cases since the beginning of the pandemic. That leaves very limited options.
Because city hospitals are inundated with COVID-19 cases, they are struggling to provide routine care and emergency services to patients who do not have the virus.
As of Tuesday night, Providence Alaska Medical Center had only a single available bed with 10 admitted patients in need of one, along with patients in the emergency room also waiting for an opening, Solana Walkinshaw said. Three of those patients needed an ICU bed, but the hospital had none available.
Between 80-85% of COVID-19 patients at the hospital are unvaccinated and the same is true of the COVID-19 patients who die, according to Providence Alaska Medical Center spokesperson Mikal Canfield.
The hospital began rationing care Saturday, leaving health care workers to decide which patients get care and which ones have to wait. The staff is demoralized, Solana Walkinshaw said, with some breaking down in tears, sad and frustrated over the situation they find themselves in.
“People are struggling, working as hard as they can and having to make these decisions is probably some of the hardest things people have done in their careers,” she said.
While rural Alaska has experienced a stark increase in coronavirus cases, with some communities seeing the worst outbreaks on record, rural health providers are not being hit as hard with COVID-19 patients, Kosin said.
That’s due to the smaller populations outside of the city, the fact that the COVID-19 patients in the most serious condition are sent to Anchorage and because some of the villages have very high vaccination rates.
The bigger problem for rural institutions is that they are being tasked with caring for non-COVID-19 patients they would typically transfer to Anchorage.
At Tuesday’s city assembly meeting, a group of health care workers from hospitals across Anchorage pleaded for residents to wear masks and get vaccinated.
Leslie Gonsette, an internal medicine hospitalist at Providence Alaska Medical Center, came to testify at the meeting during her hospital shift. One of her patients, who does not have COVID-19 and is vaccinated, was in critical condition and in need of an ICU bed, she said.
“I called my colleagues in the ICU, and I explained, ‘My patient is going to probably die. I need an ICU bed,'” she said. “And the answer I got was, ‘We are doing our best. We do not have a bed.'”
Bronson’s office released a statement after the meeting.
“My administration has been clear since the beginning that we will not mandate masks or vaccines,” it said. “If someone wants to wear a mask or get a vaccination that’s their personal choice. But we will not violate the privacy and independent health care decisions of our citizens in the process.”
Alaska’s health care providers, however, are left worrying about the kinds of choices they will be left with.
“Rationing care will take on a whole new meaning than it does today,” Kosin said. “I think it’s going to lead to the types of decisions you can’t imagine a person having to make.”
The Jonas Brothers are out with a brand-new single, which asks the question “Who’s In Your Head”?
The mysterious single finds the brothers learning that the love of their life has cheated on them, leading them to agonize over their doomed romance. It boils down a the point where the three can’t even look at their significant others without thinking of the mysterious third person who tarnished their relationship.
“I wanna know/ Who’s in your head/ Stealin’ your heart while I’m still bleeding/ Who’s in your bed/ Wrapped in your arms while I ain’t sleepin,” the brothers harmonize.
And while the trio reminisce about what made them fall in love with their partner in the first place — from their “like magic” moves to getting “lost in your halo” — they also begin to wonder if those attributes were red flags in disguise.
“Who’s In Your Head” is available for purchase and streaming on demand now. A music video is forthcoming.
The Jonas Brothers are currently on their road with Kelsea Ballerini as part of their Remember This Tour. They’re set to play in Nashville, Tennessee, tonight.
(NEW YORK) — With the FDA gearing up to decide if all Americans need booster shots, some researchers are pointing to preliminary data suggesting that mixing different vaccines could offer an even stronger immune boost.
For now, data is too sparse to support a mix-and-match strategy, experts say. But scientists are learning more about just how strong the immune response can be for someone who has previously been infected with COVID-19 then gets the vaccine — a phenomenon called “hybrid immunity.”
“The best thing we can hope for is that three vaccine doses will emulate the super immune response, found among those previously infected with the virus,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, an infectious disease physician and director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic. “This [type of immunity] will protect against variants in the future.”
With the nation still slogging through the pandemic and contending with the delta variant’s threat of breakthrough infections, “super immunity” becomes an appealing concept.
In one review recently published in Science, people with that hybrid immunity see an immediate and “striking” improvement in protection — up to a 100-fold increase in their antibody response as compared to what they built up after their COVID-19 infection — Dr. Shane Crotty, review author and virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, said.
Experts are also discovering these hybrid antibodies appear to be more versatile and recognize more variants, including those as distant as the original SARS virus, Crotty said.
One yet to be peer reviewed study of previously COVID-19 positive patients who were then vaccinated at least six months later found participants were able to fight off both variants of concern tested: delta, the most infectious, and beta, the most lethal.
“With prior infection, their antibodies are able to recognize numerous variants, but with the addition of the vaccine, they are able to generate a large number to have a stronger effect against the virus,” Crotty said.
Like an exercise regimen that pairs weight lifting with cardio, Crotty explained that these individuals benefit from the combination of quantity and varied quality of the immune response they build. And that could indicate promising signs for boosters.
Scientists are seeking to replicate that strong protection, but without people having to contract COVID-19, as it’s universally agreed that infection is not an optimal immunization course.
Instead, they’re hoping booster doses of vaccines could convey a similar effect.
But timing is key when it comes to additional doses, whichever vaccine is given. Researchers say that exact right interval when immune response has matured — but before protection begins to wane — is the ideal target.
“Our immune system is built to have repeated exposures to the same antigen,” which will “substantially” enhance immune protection, Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center said.
Experts are still gleaning what exactly is the benefit of this enhanced immunity, though it’s not novel to coronavirus.
Flu vaccines, for example, are “boosted” for children receiving them, while adults receive one dose, yearly.
“This is because of hybrid immunity. Adults have already been exposed to influenza and have primed their immune response,” Goepfert said.
“What we have seen is that waiting six months does mount a better immune response later,” he added. “It seems that our immune system likes to rest and develop antibodies, and then mount a stronger response when it sees the same pathogen again later on.”
There is not enough data yet to say if the mix-and-match approach of priming one vaccine and boosting with another is going to offer better or more durable protection. But while the jury remains out, experts are hopeful.
“The mix-and-match approach in vaccine administration has been studied for decades, but unfortunately not for COVID,” Barouch said. “while larger studies are underway, it is best to stay with the same vaccine for the booster, if approved.”
(WASHINGTON) — When President Joe Biden visited Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, he promised a key form of federal aid to those dealing with the lingering effects of the storm, but weeks after landfall getting that financial help has been easier said than done.
The money would go straight into survivors’ bank accounts “so that they can deal immediately with emergencies,” Biden said Sept. 3.
Ida roared ashore near Port Fourchon as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 29, wiping out homes and flooding entire neighborhoods. At least 26 people died in Louisiana.
But access to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s critical needs assistance program, designed to provide $500 checks for individuals with lifesaving needs, has been difficult in many of the affected areas.
FEMA defines critical needs as “life-saving and life-sustaining items including, but not limited to: water, food, first aid, prescriptions, infant formula, diapers, consumable medical supplies, durable medical equipment, personal hygiene items and fuel for transportation.”
But weeks after the storm, getting access to those items is still a challenge, and has left some residents who say they have urgent needs confused about why they have not received the federal aid mentioned by Biden.
Melinda Bernard, 34, is among the Ida survivors who has not received the $500 deposit, despite requesting it.
Her family stayed at their home in Houma, Louisiana, when Ida hit as they couldn’t find safe lodging to accommodate them and their pets. They were without power for 15 days, she said.
“Everything was booked. We refused to leave our animals so we stayed home,” she said.
Bernard said she wasn’t anticipating the burden of Ida’s lasting effects, and in an effort to be honest, marked “no” on the FEMA application when asked if she was in immediate need. But as power outages lingered, Bernard was forced to run her generator to power her home, especially because her son, who has asthma, sometimes needs a nebulizer, particularly in hot weather.
Costs added up. Her generator failed and she was forced to replace it.
“Due to the difficulty of finding available gas, we chose to ration the fuel we had,” she said.
In a phone call to a FEMA disaster assistance hotline, a representative told her she couldn’t amend her application, and that she should visit a local food bank for assistance.
A Sept. 14 tweet from FEMA read, in part, “if you are not eligible, this program does not have an appeal process.”
When asked to confirm whether an application marked ineligible can be appealed, FEMA Public Affairs Director Jaclyn Rothenberg said she stood by the agency’s tweet.
Rothenberg said there had been more than 640,000 applications in Louisiana in connection with Ida, and 65% had received critical needs assistance funding.
“Most people are getting the funds they apply for,” she said.
In the Louisiana parish of Tangipahoa, parish President Robby Miller said he applied for the $500 promoted by Biden in the wake of Ida, like many others there. He said on Sept. 15 that he still hadn’t received it, and wasn’t alone.
“I’ve only heard of a handful that have gotten it,” he said.
Miller added that the process of applying for the various forms of aid offered by FEMA confounded him and other parish residents.
“I would say that the messaging and the communication of what is actually available to our citizens, when it will be available, has been rather confusing,” he said.
Danielle Craig, 45, lives in Hammond, on the border of Tangipahoa and Livingston parishes, and was among those displaced by Ida. She and her husband fled their home for nearly two weeks. She said the damage to her community was “unlike anything I have ever seen.”
The widespread destruction in Hammond included roofs ripped from buildings and downed trees lining the streets.
Craig’s husband is diabetic, and needed refrigeration for his insulin, so they stayed with friends for nearly two weeks — wherever they could find electricity.
Water leaked into their damaged home, then black mold began to line the walls and ceilings.
Craig said she tried to apply online for aid from FEMA, but couldn’t confirm her address in its system. When she called, she said a representative told her their home would need to be inspected first. Nobody has showed up, Craig said.
And while she was told she’d receive the $500 promised by Biden, the money hasn’t appeared. After hours on hold, a FEMA representative told her to be patient.
FEMA officials have committed to an equitable process in terms of the allocation of federal aid, and have encouraged applicants who were not offered critical needs assistance to explore other options, including individual assistance.
Rothenberg said FEMA is “improving access to disaster assistance for underserved communities,” including by expanding the criteria for applicants to show they have expenses related to their homes.
Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., announced Sept. 10 that FEMA had granted a 10-day extension to the original deadline to apply for assistance after, his spokesperson said, constituents reported difficulty accessing aid due to long hold times on FEMA phone lines. The new deadline to apply for Critical Needs Assistance is Sept. 22.
But despite the extension, some, like Craig, are still waiting for aid they say they urgently need.
“You can only be so patient after weeks of damage and nobody’s done anything,” she said.
