New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday a decision will be made by Christmas on whether to hold the event as in previous years before the pandemic, now that the omicron variant is spreading rapidly through the city and officials are scrambling to increase testing capacity amid heightened demand.  

Last year’s New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square was a socially distanced affair, attended by small groups of essential workers. This November, de Blasio announced the event would come back “full strength” with a requirement that attendees show proof of vaccination and those unable to be vaccinated because of a disability show proof of a negative COVID-19 test.

De Blasio called omicron a “fast, temporary phenomenon” that is expected to surge in the next few weeks then likely dissipate. He noted that most city residents are vaccinated, making the recent outbreak more manageable than when COVID-19 first appeared in early spring 2020.

According to city statistics, about 90% of adults and about 80% of all residents have received at least one vaccine dose.  

“It’s important not to fight yesterday’s war,” de Blasio said. “It’s important to not think we are back in the spring of 2020 or even the winter of 2020. This is a highly vaccinated city where people have much more protection than ever before.”  

The mayor and health officials announced Thursday the city would give out 1 million free N95 masks and 500,000 free at-home tests, to be distributed through community organizations. On Sunday they said eight new fixed-site testing sites and 17 new mobile units would be opened by this week, bringing the city’s totals to 36 fixed sites and 93 mobile units, with more anticipated.
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Johnny Isakson, an affable Georgia Republican politician who rose from the ranks of the state legislature to become a U.S. senator known as an effective, behind-the-scenes consensus builder, died Sunday. He was 76.

Isakson’s son John Isakson told The Associated Press that his father died in his sleep before dawn at his home in Atlanta. John Isakson said that although his father had Parkinson’s disease, the cause of death was not immediately apparent. 

“He was a great man and I will miss him,” John Isakson said. 

Johnny Isakson, whose real estate business made him a millionaire, spent more than four decades in Georgia political life. In the Senate, he was the architect of a popular tax credit for first-time home buyers that he said would help invigorate the struggling housing market. As chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, he worked to expand programs offering more private health care choices for veterans.

Isakson’s famous motto was, “There are two types of people in this world: friends and future friends.” That approach made him exceedingly popular among colleagues. 

“Johnny was one of my very best friends in the Senate,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Sunday. “But the amazing thing about him was that at any given time, approximately 98 other Senators felt the same way. His infectious warmth and charisma, his generosity, and his integrity made Johnny one of the most admired and beloved people in the Capitol.” 

In 2015, while gearing up to seek a third term in the Senate, Isakson disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, a chronic and progressive movement disorder that had left him with a noticeably slower, shuffling gait. Soon after winning reelection in 2016, he underwent a scheduled surgery on his back to address spinal deterioration. He frequently depended on a cane or wheelchair in later years. 

In August 2019, not long after fracturing four ribs in a fall at his Washington apartment, Isakson announced he would retire at year’s end with two years remaining in his term. 

In a farewell Senate speech, he pleaded for bipartisanship at a time of bitter divisions between Republicans and Democrats. He cited his long friendship with U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat and civil rights hero, as an example of two men willing to put party aside to work on common problems.

“Let’s solve the problem and then see what happens,” Isakson said. “Most people who call people names and point fingers are people who don’t have a solution themselves.”

Lewis, who died last year, saluted Isakson on the House floor in 2019, saying, “We always found a way to get along and do the work the people deserve.” 

After the speech, Lewis walked over to hug a hobbling Isakson, saying, “I will come over to meet you, brother.” 

An Atlanta native, Isakson failed in his first bid for elected office: a seat on the Cobb County Commission in 1974. Two years later, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, becoming the only Republican to beat a Democratic incumbent in Georgia the same year Jimmy Carter was elected president. Isakson served 17 years in the state House and Senate. Always in the minority in Georgia’s General Assembly, he helped blaze the path toward the GOP ascendancy of the 2000s, fueled by Atlanta’s suburban boom. By the end of Isakson’s career, some of those same suburbs were swinging back toward Democrats.

“As a businessman and a gifted retail politician, Johnny paved the way for the modern Republican Party in Georgia, but he never let partisan politics get in the way of doing what was right,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said in a statement. 

Isakson suffered humbling setbacks before ascending to the Senate. In 1990, he lost the race for governor to Democrat Zell Miller. In 1996, Guy Millner defeated him in a Republican primary for Senate before Millner lost to Democrat Max Cleland. 

Many observers chalked up the loss to Isakson not being tough enough on abortion. In the primary race, Isakson ran a television advertisement in which he said that while he was against the government funding or promoting abortion, he would “not vote to amend the Constitution to make criminals of women and their doctors.” 

“I trust my wife, my daughter and the women of Georgia to make the right choice,” he said.

He later changed his mind on the contentious issue.

Isakson’s jump to Congress came about in 1998, when U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich decided not to seek reelection. Isakson won a 1999 special election to fill the suburban Atlanta seat. 

He finally made it to the U.S. Senate in 2004 when he defeated Democrat Denise Majette with 58% of the vote. He served with Georgia senior Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a close friend and classmate from the University of Georgia. 

Isakson was viewed as a prohibitive early favorite to succeed Republican Sonny Perdue in the governor’s mansion in 2010. But he opted instead to seek a second term in the Senate. While there, he developed a reputation as a moderate, although he rarely split with his party on key votes. 

He was a lead negotiator in 2007 on immigration legislation that President George W. Bush backed but ultimately abandoned after it met strong resistance from the right. Chambliss and Isakson were booed at a Georgia Republican Party convention that year over their immigration stance. 

Isakson supported limited school vouchers and played a major role in crafting Bush’s signature education plan, the No Child Left Behind Act. He also pushed an unsuccessful compromise bill on the politically charged issue of stem cell research that would have expanded research funding while also ensuring that human embryos weren’t harmed.

That deal-making approach has fallen out of favor for many voters, but Isakson’s lineage remains a presence in Georgia politics. State Attorney General Chris Carr was the former senator’s chief of staff. “When I was a young man just getting started in politics, I wanted to be like Johnny Isakson,” Carr said Sunday. 

Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock said “all of Georgia” grieves Isakson’s death. Warnock, who took over Isakson’s old seat after defeating Republican Kelly Loeffler in a January runoff, had a special connection to Isakson, who attended an annual service in honor of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. The church’s pulpit was King’s and later became Warnock’s. Warnock also has continued Isakson’s tradition of an annual barbecue lunch for all senators. 

Isakson’s “model of public service is an example to future generations of leaders on how to stand on principle and make progress while also governing with compassion and a heart for compromise,” Warnock said Sunday. 

Isakson graduated from the University of Georgia in 1966 and joined his family-owned company, Northside Realty in Cobb County, a year later. It grew to one of the largest independent residential real estate brokerage companies in the country during his more than 20 years at the helm. Isakson also served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966 to 1972. 

He is survived by his wife, Diane, whom he married in 1968; three children and nine grandchildren. 

 
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Frank Hardy, 18, has been homeless for the past eight years, moving in and out of shelters with his mom, or staying with his sister’s family while his mom has been in jail.

As part of an economic stimulus package to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Congress voted in March to fast-track $800 million and urged educators to move quickly to aid the estimated 1.5 million students like Hardy who are homeless across America.

But the cash has yet to reach the Los Angeles Unified School district, which oversees Hardy’s high school. Some states and school districts rushed their millions to those in need. But California has only begun disbursing the first quarter of its allotment of $98.7 million.

The federal government authorized sending out a first $200 million in April followed by the rest last summer.

Other big states such as New York and Florida are even further behind, having yet to deliver a dime to the districts, because of bureaucratic logjams or because some districts are ill-equipped even to find students in need.

“In the early part of the pandemic, the most stable place in the lives of homeless students – school – disappeared,” said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a Washington-based non-profit that addresses student homelessness.

Even with the return to in-class learning that followed initial moves to remote tuition, Duffield said, “We know we’re missing tons of students.”

SchoolHouse Connection and the University of Michigan conducted a survey in October of 700 school districts and found a 4% increase in student homelessness, compared to the same period the year before the pandemic.

 

A story of perseverance

Hardy is on track to graduate in June from the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, even after losing most of his junior year to the pandemic, living in a motel without a proper internet connection and trying to work off a faulty laptop.

“I was never going to let being homeless stop me from achieving what I want to achieve,” said Hardy, who dreams of becoming a professional singer.

Only 68% of homeless students graduated high school in 2019, some 18 percentage points below the national average.

Hardy currently lives with his mother Cherie Hardy, 51, at a People Assisting the Homeless shelter in Los Angeles.

Cherie Hardy said she has a record for robbery, theft and other offenses, but has straightened her life out in part because “I have a son that needs me.”

Many other homeless students have slipped through the cracks.

At least 420,000 homeless students lost contact with their schools during the pandemic, according to Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who along with Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia championed the last-minute amendment that provided the $800 million.

Schools are using the funds to buy food, clothes and school supplies. In some cases they are paying for car repairs or car insurance to get kids get to school, or cell phones so counselors can check in with students. Cincinnati and Nashville schools have hired Spanish-speaking social workers.

Cherie Hardy said she would have welcomed help buying her son clothes or a laptop.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s homeless liaison, Angela Chandler, said the district is exploring hiring staff to identify and reach out to homeless students, and she would like to help high school students continue their education by funding college tours that might inspire kids who otherwise would never visit a campus.

“The possibilities are endless,” Chandler said.

 

But the second largest district in the country has yet to receive any of the nearly $8 million it is due. Funds from the first tranche of $883,000 should be sent out “shortly,” a California Department of Education spokesperson said on Wednesday. A second tranche of $7.1 million will be received in January. The spokesperson did not address why the process has taken so long.

Florida school districts could only begin applying for their share of $43.8 million as of Dec. 2, a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Education said.

New York state has yet to issue any of its $58.9 million from the new funds. The application period of the first tranche was opened on Dec. 1 and closes on Dec. 22, its Education Department said.

Even Murkowski’s state Alaska “is a little bit overwhelmed with all this money,” said Dave Mayo-Kiely, a program coordinator for homeless students and families in Anchorage.

Elsewhere some states were applying time-consuming rules the federal government had said were unnecessary, while in others state legislative or local school board approvals were slow to come, according to the education news site Chalkbeat.

“There are a million things that go wrong, things you don’t expect to happen,” said Phyllis Jordan, associate director of the FutureEd independent think tank at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., describing schools failing to find tutors to hire.

Some states have moved more quickly.

Lisa Phillips, North Carolina’s coordinator for the education of homeless children and youth, said her state followed federal guidelines and set up an approval process before districts made requests. Districts are getting funding within 10 days of making a valid application, she said.

More than half of North Carolina school districts have received their share of funds in the second phase of the program, with another 25% being processed.
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In the months since President Joe Biden warned Russia’s Vladimir Putin that he needed to crack down on ransomware gangs in his country, there hasn’t been a massive attack like the one last May that resulted in gasoline shortages. But that’s small comfort to Ken Trzaska.

Trzaska is president of Lewis & Clark Community College, a small Illinois school that canceled classes for days after a ransomware attack last month that knocked critical computer systems offline.

“That first day,” Trzaska said, “I think all of us were probably up 20-plus hours, just moving through the process, trying to get our arms around what happened.”

Even if the United States isn’t currently enduring large-scale, front-page ransomware attacks on par with ones earlier this year that targeted the global meat supply or kept millions of Americans from filling their gas tanks, the problem hasn’t disappeared. In fact, the attack on Trzaska’s college was part of a barrage of lower-profile episodes that have upended the businesses, governments, schools and hospitals that were hit.

The college’s ordeal reflects the challenges the Biden administration faces in stamping out the threat — and its uneven progress in doing so since ransomware became an urgent national security problem last spring.

Smaller-scale attacks continue

U.S. officials have recaptured some ransom payments, cracked down on abuses of cryptocurrency, and made some arrests. Spy agencies have launched attacks against ransomware groups and the U.S. has pushed federal, state and local governments, as well as private industries, to boost protections.

Yet six months after Biden’s admonitions to Putin, it’s hard to tell whether hackers have eased up because of U.S. pressure. Smaller-scale attacks continue, with ransomware criminals continuing to operate from Russia with seeming impunity. Administration officials have given conflicting assessments about whether Russia’s behavior has changed since last summer. Further complicating matters, ransomware is no longer at the top of the U.S.-Russia agenda, with Washington focused on dissuading Putin from invading Ukraine.

The White House said it was determined to “fight all ransomware” through its various tools but that the government’s response depends on the severity of the attack.

“There are some that are law enforcement matters and others that are high impact, disruptive ransomware activity posing a direct national security threat that require other measures,” the White House statement said.

Ransomware attacks — in which hackers lock up victims’ data and demand exorbitant sums to return it — surfaced as a national security emergency for the administration after a May attack on Colonial Pipeline, which supplies nearly half the fuel consumed on the East Coast.

The attack prompted the company to halt operations, causing gas shortages for days, though it resumed service after paying more than $4 million in ransom. Soon after came an attack on meat processor JBS, which paid an $11 million ransom.

Biden met with Putin in June in Geneva, where he suggested critical infrastructure sectors should be “off limits” for ransomware and said the U.S. should know in six months to a year “whether we have a cybersecurity arrangement that begins to bring some order.”

He reiterated the message in July, days after a major attack on a software company, Kaseya, that affected hundreds of businesses, and said he expected Russia to take action on cybercriminals when the U.S. provides enough information to do so.

Since then, there have been some notable attacks from groups believed to be based in Russia, including against Sinclair Broadcast Group and the National Rifle Association, but none of the same consequence or impact of those from last spring or summer.

‘Whole-of government’ effort

One reason may be increased U.S. government scrutiny, or fear of it.

The Biden administration in September sanctioned a Russia-based virtual currency exchange that officials say helped ransomware gangs launder funds. Last month, the Justice Department unsealed charges against a suspected Ukrainian ransomware operator who was arrested in Poland and has recovered millions of dollars in ransom payments. Gen. Paul Nakasone, the head of U.S. Cyber Command, told The New York Times his agency has begun offensive operations against ransomware groups. The White House says that “whole-of-government” effort will continue.

“I think the ransomware folks, the ones conducting them, are stepping back like, ‘Hey, if we do that, that’s going to get the United States government coming after us offensively,'” Kevin Powers, security strategy adviser for cyber risk firm CyberSaint, said of attacks against critical infrastructure.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, have shared a small number of names of suspected ransomware operators with Russian officials, who have said they have started investigating, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.

It’s unclear what Russia will do with those names, though Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov insisted the countries have been having a useful dialogue and said “a working mechanism has been established and is actually functioning.”

It’s also hard to measure the impact of individual arrests on the overall threat. Even as the suspected ransomware hacker awaits extradition to the U.S. following his arrest in Poland, another who was indicted by federal prosecutors was later reported by a British tabloid to be living comfortably in Russia and driving luxury cars.

Some are skeptical about attributing any drop-off in high-profile attacks to U.S. efforts.

“It could have just been a fluke,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, former chief technology officer of the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. He said asking Russia to crack down on large-scale attacks won’t work because “it’s way too granular of a request to calibrate criminal activity they don’t even fully control.”

Top American officials have given conflicting answers about ransomware trends since Biden’s discussions with Putin. Some FBI and Justice Department officials say they’ve seen no change in Russian behavior. National Cyber Director Chris Inglis said there’s been a discernible decrease in attacks but that it was too soon to say why.

It’s hard to quantify the number of attacks given the lack of baseline information and uneven reporting from victims, though the absence of disruptive incidents is an important marker for a White House trying to focus its attention on the most significant national security risks and catastrophic breaches.

Victims of ransomware attacks in the past few months have included hospitals, small businesses, colleges like Howard University — which briefly took many of its systems offline after discovering a September attack — and Virginia’s Legislature.

Not if, but when

The attack at Lewis & Clark, in Godfrey, Illinois, was discovered two days before Thanksgiving when the school’s IT director detected suspicious activity and proactively took systems offline, said Trzaska, the president.

A ransom note from hackers demanded a payment, though Trzaska declined to reveal the sum or identify the culprits. Though many attacks come from hackers in Russia or Eastern Europe, some originate elsewhere.

With vital education systems affected, including email and the school’s online learning platform, administrators canceled classes for days after the Thanksgiving break and communicated updates to students via social media and through a public alert system.

The college, which had backups on the majority of its servers, resumed operations this month.

The ordeal was daunting enough to inspire Trzaska and another college president who he says endured a similar experience to plan a cybersecurity panel.

“The stock quote from everyone,” Trzaska said, “is, ‘Not if it’s going to happen, but when it’s going to happen.’” 
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The Dutch government is holding an emergency meeting Saturday with health advisers about the fast-spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus before an expected announcement of more lockdown measures to stem its spread.

The government proposed new measures Friday to curb the alarming spread of the new variant, as other European countries are moving to reimpose restrictions to contain the variant’s spread. 

The health experts have recommended the government order a “strict” lockdown, according to Dutch media reports, just days after a partial lockdown closing non-essential businesses was extended through January 14. Primary schools also were closed early for the winter holidays because of high infection rates among children.

The new variant has fueled infections in Britain close to the peak levels of early 2021, while other European countries and the United States are also experiencing surges.

Scientists are warning the British government needs to go further to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed amid the surge. The warning comes after the government previously reimposed an indoor mask requirement and ordered people to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative coronavirus test when entering night clubs or large venues.

Britain’s Health Security Agency said Friday that 65 patients were hospitalized in England with omicron. 

In France, the government said it would start inoculating children between ages 5 and 11 beginning Wednesday. As he declared Friday the Omicron variant was spreading like “lightning,” Prime Minister Jean Castex proposed requiring proof of vaccination for those entering public establishments. 

The measure, which requires parliamentary approval, has triggered plans for protests Saturday in Paris, where the New Year’s Eve fireworks display has been canceled.

 

Anti-lockdown protests also are planned for Saturday in Turin, Italy.

Egypt has detected its first three cases of the new variant, according to the country’s health ministry. The ministry said Friday the three infected people were among 26 travelers who tested positive for coronavirus at Cairo International Airport. 

The ministry did not say where the three came from, but the Masrawy news outlet reported they were among travelers from South Africa, which announced the discovery of the variant on November 25.

In China, Beijing will maintain its relatively strict containment measures, while the rest of the country will remain flexible. “There is no one-fit-for-all policy” for local governments, a Chinese government said Saturday at a news conference.

China has identified two cases of the omicron variant and has mostly contained the spread of COVID-19 since it was first discovered in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

A recent study has found the risk of reinfection with omicron is more than five times higher compared to the delta variant, and it has shown no sign of causing milder ill effects.

“We find no evidence of omicron having different severity from delta,” said the study by Imperial College London. The study noted, however, that data on hospitalizations is still limited.

The study, conducted in England between November 29 and December 11, was based on 333,000 cases of infections involving different variants of the coronavirus.

More than 5.3 million people have died of COVID-19 globally since the coronavirus emerged two years ago, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

Administering vaccines

The center reported more than 8.6 billion doses of vaccines had been administered worldwide as of mid-day Saturday, a massive logistical campaign complicated by omicron’s surge.

Several countries are racing to accelerate vaccination campaigns as mounting evidence supports the need for booster doses to combat the omicron variant.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that his country would send 15 million doses of vaccines to Africa, where infections are surging and vaccination rates are low. Erdogan made the announcement at a summit of African heads in Istanbul.

“It is disgraceful for humanity that only 6% of Africa’s population has been vaccinated,” Erdogan said.

A vaccine developed in India, Covovax, was granted emergency approval Friday by the World Health Organization. WHO vaccines chief Mariangela Simao said the approval “aims to increase access particularly to lower-income countries.”

In Europe, European Union governments agreed to order more than 180 million doses of a BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine adapted for omicron, the head of the European Commission said Friday.

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday the government plans to accelerate booster shots to around 31 million vulnerable people. He also said he spoke Friday with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla about oral treatments.

South Africa, which first identified the omicron variant, said Friday it would donate about 2 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine to other African countries next year via a medical supplies platform established by the African Union.

Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Although his birthday is still a few days away, 60-year-old Harley Kelso knows what he’s getting from his sister.

The retired truck driver, whose home and car were battered by last week’s tornado — one of dozens that ripped across the South and Midwest, killing at least 90 people — said his sister is bringing chainsaws and her two sons to his home in hard-hit Mayfield to cut apart a tree that’s resting on his family’s minivan.

“I lost my car and the corner of my porch,” Kelso said, sporting a T-shirt that read World’s Greatest Papa. “I’m just glad everyone in the neighborhood survived.”

Such gratitude may sound odd in the aftermath of a long-track tornado that demolished huge parts of Mayfield, but it’s a common refrain these days in this tight-knit community of 10,000 people.

Even with his minivan crumpled under a giant tree, most of his front yard hanging from its roots, smashed windows and a home with no power or running water, Kelso says he’s well aware that things could have been worse — and resolute if not downright upbeat about the task ahead.

“I’m going to bring a hot breakfast to my daughter,” he said with a smile, clutching a bag of breakfast tacos dropped off by one of the dozens of volunteers combing the neighborhood, offering a hot meal or a cold drink.

President Joe Biden, who visited the community Wednesday and described the damage as some of the worst he’s seen, vowed the full support of the federal government to help the town rebuild.

 

“I intend to do whatever it takes as long as it takes to support your state, your local leaders, as you recover and rebuild, and you will recover and rebuild,” the president said, standing before a decimated town center.

Among the biggest and most pressing challenges facing Mayfield and other devastated communities is removing the mountains of debris that the storms turned homes and businesses into, Kentucky Emergency Management Director Michael Dossett said.

 

“This is going to be one of the largest pieces of the recovery,” Dossett said Thursday during a press conference at the state Capitol in Frankfort. “Debris removal is one of the most important pieces because it is part and parcel to rebuilding not just the city infrastructure, but for all of our homeowners.”

In neighborhoods across the city, yards and streets are filled with debris: downed tree limbs, shingles, mangled children’s toys, mud-caked clothes. Trees that haven’t been uprooted completely have had upper branches shorn off. Others have crashed into cars or homes.

Many houses have had roofs torn off or been pulled from their foundations. Others have been reduced to nothing more than a massive pile of bricks, insulation and splintered lumber.

In the center of town, heavy equipment operators rumbled through the back-and-forth task of clearing piles of rubble that covered entire blocks. At what was once a steam-cleaning business, volunteers sifted through piles of debris to salvage what they could. Several steam cleaners stood at the edge of the pile.

The damage and devastation in Mayfield is so severe that it could take years before the community returns to normal, said Chris Chiles, disaster response coordinator for the Danville, Virginia-based God’s Pit Crew, which has been aiding storm-ravaged communities for more than two decades.

“There’s a ton of work that needs to be done,” Chiles said. “I’ve been doing this for 14 years all over the country, and it’s hard to get much worse than this.

“It’ll take a long time. Years, unfortunately.”

When a town that has lived through such a catastrophic event does finally get rebuilt and back on its feet, Chiles said, it’s often stronger and more close-knit than before.

“The loss of life is horrific, but sometimes neighbors don’t know each other and things like this bring people together,” he said.

Still, not everyone is prepared to rebuild.

Chris Eigenrauch, 49, whose home was among those badly battered by the storm, said the prospect of rebuilding an entire community is simply too daunting. He said he’s considering moving to neighboring Illinois, where several of his relatives live.

“It’s going to take months, if not years,” he said. “I just plan on leaving. For the ones who are staying, I hope God helps them rebuild.”

Kelso, who works 20 hours a week as a short-order cook, isn’t sure how long it will take to get his own home back to normal, let alone the devastated community. But his confidence is unwavering.

“This is a tough community,” he said. “We’ll come together.”
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