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ENTERPRISE, Ala. (AP) — The transition from the bustling Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to a small Alabama city on the southernmost tip of the Appalachian mountain range was challenging for Sarah Jacques. But, over the course of a year, the 22-year-old got used to the quiet and settled in. Jacques got a job at a manufacturing plant that makes car seats, found a Creole-language church and came to appreciate the ease and security of life in Albertville after the political turmoil and violence that’s plagued her home country. Recently, though, as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate began promoting debunked misinformation about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, causing crime and “eating pets,” Jacques said there have been new, unforeseen challenges. “When I first got here, people would wave at us, say hello to us, but now it’s not the same,” Jacques said in Creole through a translator. “When people see you, they kind of look at you like they’re very quiet with you or afraid of you.” Amid this mounting tension, a bipartisan group of local religious leaders, law enforcement officials and residents across Alabama see the fallout in Springfield as a cautionary tale — and have been taking steps to help integrate the state’s Haitian population in the small cities where they live. As political turmoil and violence intensify in Haiti, Haitian migrants have embraced a program established by President Joe Biden in 2023 that allows the U.S. to accept up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela for two years and offers work authorization. The Biden administration recently announced the program could allow an estimated 300,000 Haitians to remain in the U.S. at least through February 2026. In 2023, there were 2,370 people of Haitian ancestry in Alabama, according to census data. There is no official count of the increase in the Haitian population in Alabama since the program was implemented. The immigration debate is not new to Albertville, where migrant populations have been growing for three decades, said Robin Lathan, executive assistant to the Albertville mayor. Lathan said the city doesn’t track how many Haitians have moved to the city in recent years but said “it seems there has been an increase over the last year, in particular.” A representative from Albertville’s school system said that, in the last school year, 34% of the district’s 5,800 students were learning English as a second language — compared to only 17% in 2017. In August, weeks before Springfield made national headlines, a Facebook post of men getting off a bus to work at a poultry plant led some residents to speculate that the plant was hiring people living in the country illegally. Representatives for the poultry plant said in an email to The Associated Press that all its employees are legally allowed to work in the U.S. The uproar culminated in a public meeting where some residents sought clarity about the federal program that allowed Haitians to work in Alabama legally, while others called for landlords to “cut off the housing” for Haitians and suggested that the migrants have a “smell to them,” according to audio recordings. To Unique Dunson, a 27-year-old lifelong Albertville resident and community activist, these sentiments felt familiar. “Every time Albertville gets a new influx of people who are not white, there seems to be a problem,” Dunson said. Dunson runs a store offering free supplies to the community. After tensions boiled over across the country, she put up multiple billboards across town that read, in English, Spanish and Creole, “welcome neighbor glad you came.” Dunston said the billboards are a way to “push back” against the notion that migrants are unwelcome. When Pastor John Pierre-Charles first arrived in Albertville in 2006, he said the only other Haitians he knew in the area were his family members. In 14 years of operation, the congregation at his Creole-language church, Eglise Porte Etroite, has gone from just seven members in 2010 to approximately 300 congregants. He is now annexing classrooms to the church building for English language classes and drivers’ education classes, as well as a podcast studio to accommodate the burgeoning community. Still, Pierre-Charles describes the last months as “the worst period” for the Haitian community in all his time in Albertville. “I can see some people in Albertville who are really scared right now because they don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Pierre-Charles. “Some are scared because they think they may be sent back to Haiti. But some of them are scared because they don’t know how people are going to react to them.” After the fallout from the initial public meetings in August, Pierre-Charles sent a letter to city leadership calling for more resources for housing and food to ensure his growing community could safely acclimate, both economically and culturally. “That’s what I’m trying to do, to be a bridge,” said Pierre-Charles. He is not working alone. In August, Gerilynn Hanson, 54, helped organize the initial meetings in Albertville because she said many residents had legitimate questions about how migration was affecting the city. Now, Hanson said she is adjusting her strategy, “focusing on the human level.” In September, Hanson, an electrical contractor and Trump supporter, formed a nonprofit with Pierre-Charles and other Haitian community leaders to offer more stable housing and English language classes to meet the growing demand. “We can look at (Springfield) and become them in a year,” Hanson said, referring to the animosity that’s taken hold in the Ohio city, which has been inundated with threats. “We can sit back and do nothing and let it unfold under our eyes. Or we can try to counteract some of that and make it to where everyone is productive and can speak to each other.” Similar debates have proliferated in public meetings across the state — even in places where Haitian residents make up less than 0.5% of the entire population. In Sylacauga, videos from numerous public meetings show residents questioning the impact of the alleged rise in Haitian migrants. Officials said there are only 60 Haitian migrants in the town of about 12,000 people southeast of Birmingham. In Enterprise, not far from the Alabama-Florida border, cars packed the parking lot of Open Door Baptist Church in September for an event that promised answers about how the growing Haitian population was affecting the city. After the event, James Wright, the chief of the Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe, was sympathetic to the reasons Haitians were fleeing their home but said he worried migrants would affect Enterprise’s local “political culture” and “community values.” Other attendees echoed fears and misinformation about Haitian migrants being “lawless” and “dangerous.” But some came to try to ease mounting anxieties about the migrant community. Enterprise police Chief Michael Moore said he shared statistics from his department that show no measurable increase in crimes as the Haitian population has grown. “I think there was quite a few people there that were more concerned about the fearmongering than the migrants,” Moore told the AP. Moore said his department had received reports of Haitian migrants living in houses that violated city code, but when he reached out to the people in question, the issues were quickly resolved. Since then, his department hasn’t heard any credible complaints about crimes caused by migrants. “I completely understand that some people don’t like what I say because it doesn’t fit their own personal thought process,” said Moore. “But those are the facts.” ___ Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. 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WASHINGTON (AP) — On the last day of August, President Joe Biden was asked about his fall campaign plans. He promised a Labor Day appearance in Pittsburgh and said he would be “on the road from there on.” Biden did campaign with Vice President Kamala Harris on Labor Day, but he largely has been a campaign no-show since. Beyond that, sometimes his official events push hers to the background. Case in point: After Hurricane Helene, Harris scrapped campaign events in Las Vegas to hurry back to Washington for a briefing at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But as Harris stepped to a podium in the command center, Biden was delivering his own storm response comments from the Oval Office, pulling the political spotlight away from his intended successor. The lack of presidential campaigning and occasional schedule clashes could matter not just for Harris but as Democrats try to hold control of the Senate and retake the House and compete in races further down the ballot. Even former President Barack Obama announced he will campaign for Harris. Obama will appear in Pittsburgh on Thursday and plans to spend the remaining time before the Nov. 5 election traveling to battleground states. He also recorded ads promoting Democratic Senate candidates in Michigan, Maryland and Florida. It is not uncommon for a lame-duck president to struggle with finding the right balance between fulfilling the job and carving out a role in a would-be successor’s campaign. Biden’s situation is unusual because he was seeking a second term until his dramatic departure from the race left Harris with a condensed time frame for her own run. “I think he’s doing his job as president,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday. “I think that’s the most important thing.” Hurricane Helene has complicated matters in the short term. Biden canceled a campaign stop in Pennsylvania this past week and he and Harris made separate trips Wednesday to the Carolinas and Georgia, respectively, to survey the damage and offer support. That time, their remarks did not overlap. But on Friday, while Harris was speaking about the importance of unions outside Detroit, Biden caused a stir by making a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room. It was the first of his presidency. Biden has taken official trips to battleground states and he will be in suburban Philadelphia on Tuesday to campaign for Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. The Harris team had no comment on its hopes for Biden’s campaign role. The president was born in Pennsylvania and maintains a strong connection to its union leaders and blue-collar voters, and former Democratic National Committee chief Donna Brazile said she would “put him on a bus” to campaign there. “I would make sure he is out there in the closing weeks and days of the campaign,” Brazile said. “He connects with people she will need.” Biden and Harris have appeared together at several other official events, including a recent one at the White House on combating gun violence, and at a health care-related event in August where Biden said, “We cannot let Kamala lose.” Both have been in the Situation Room frequently to discuss the growing conflict in the Middle East. On Labor Day, when Biden and Harris made their lone joint political appearance since the vice president took over the top on the ticket, the White House asked that Biden introduce Harris. The break with protocol was meant to highlight her record of supporting union workers. “If you elect Kamala Harris as president it will be the best decision you will have ever made,” Biden told the crowd. But when he finished speaking, Biden began shaking hands with those around him — an awkward moment because Harris had yet to have her turn at the podium. It is an open question whether Harris really wants Biden’s help, given that Democratic voters say they are far happier with her than they were with Biden as their nominee. Harris has praised the administration and her work in it, while also seeking to show distance on some key issues. That includes her call for raising long-term capital gains taxes for wealthy Americans when Biden had pushed to lower them, getting tougher on the U.S.-Mexico border by potentially further stiffening limits for immigrants seeking asylum and talking up being a gun owner in ways Biden does not. Biden’s campaign absence could now be compounded as his administration deals with the recovery effort after Helene and the expanding conflict in the Mideast. “You don’t need to campaign when you’re just doing your job,” said Nikki Fried, chair of the Democratic Party in Florida. Biden visited parts of the state on Thursday, demonstrating, as Fried put it, that “the full force of the federal government stands with the people during times of heartbreak and uncertainty.” But then there are always big demands on a president’s time — from the U.N. General Assembly meetings last month in New York to Biden’s upcoming travel to Germany and Angola. Though the White House says there will be more political events after that, the trip means he will not have time to turn his attention to campaigning for Harris until at least mid-October — just three weeks before Election Day, Fried thinks Biden will make it work. “Joe Biden loves being on the campaign trail,” she said. “You can see him walking around and talking to voters and to communities, and it certainly puts an extra lift in his step and a smile on his face.” There are times when a president’s absence can be helpful to that party’s candidate. In 2008, the financial crisis sent President George W. Bush’s approval ratings crashing. Republican nominee John McCain distanced himself from the White House on the economy after criticizing the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. “If my showing up and endorsing him helps him — or if I’m against him and it helps him — either way, I want him to win,” Bush said. In 2000, when Democratic Vice President Al Gore was seeking the White House, he criticized President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal and took other steps to distance himself from Clinton. Some Democrats later speculated that was the reason Gore lost an exceedingly close race to Bush. Paul Begala, a key architect of Clinton’s 1992 campaign, does not see a lot of parallels between Clinton and Biden. “In 2000, Clinton was broadly popular,” Begala said. “Biden is not.” Begala said Biden would do best to “focus on governing, and leave the campaigning to Kamala” and her top supporters. “Lots of people can campaign for her: the Obamas, the Clintons, Oprah, Taylor Swift,” Begala said. “But only Joe Biden can be president.” __ Barrow reported from Evans, Georgia. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz said on Friday he will make a “significant donation” to entities supporting the Democratic presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris who faces Republican former President Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election. WHY IT’S IMPORTANT The co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz had thrown support behind Trump in July. At the time he backed Trump, President Joe Biden was the Democratic candidate. Biden later stepped aside in the aftermath of a disastrous debate against Trump and Harris took over.  Trump had built a lead over Biden in battleground states, according to polls, which have become tight since Harris entered the race.  KEY QUOTES “As I mentioned before, (his wife) Felicia and I have known Vice President Harris for over 10 years and she has been a great friend to both of us during that time,” the venture capitalist said on X. “As a result of our friendship, Felicia and I will be making a significant donation to entities who support the Harris Walz campaign,” he added, without giving an amount or an entity’s name. He added the firm he co-founded has not endorsed Harris officially because Harris has not yet given a detailed tech policy platform. He reiterated his frustration with the “exceptionally destructive” tech policies of the Biden administration, in which Harris serves as vice president. “Although I have had several conversations with Vice President Harris and her team on their likely tech policies and am encouraged by my belief in her, they have not yet stated what their tech policy will be, so the firm will not be updating its position in that regard,” he said. CONTEXT Harris’ campaign has been raising way more funds than Trump’s, giving her a clear cash advantage as both sides bombard battleground states with television ads. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington, Editing by Franklun Paul) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The facts emerging from Hurricane Helene’s destruction are heartrending: Businesses and homes destroyed, whole communities nearly wiped out, hundreds of lives lost, hundreds of people missing. Yet this devastation and despair is not enough for the extremist groups, disinformation agents, hucksters and politicians who are exploiting the disaster to spread false claims and conspiracy theories about it and the government’s response. According to former President Donald Trump, the federal government is intentionally withholding aid to Republican disaster victims. Far-right extremist groups warn on social media that officials plan to bulldoze affected communities and seize the land from residents. A tale straight from science fiction asserts that Washington used weather control technology to steer Helene toward Republican voters in order to tilt the presidential election toward Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. The claims, according to experts and local officials dealing with disaster response, say less about the reality of the widespread damage from Helene than they do about America’s fractured politics and the fear and distrust shadowing an election year marked by assassination attempts and escalating global tension. As rescue work continues and authorities try to separate fact from fiction, the conspiracy theories are not helping. Elected leaders from both parties have had to set the record straight and urge people not to give into fear and rumor. “If everyone could maybe please put aside the hate for a bit and pitch in to help, that would be great,” posted Glenn Jacobs, the retired professional wrestler known as Kane, who is now the Republican mayor of Knox County, Tennessee. Jacobs’ post was intended to rebut rumors that workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were seizing relief supplies from private citizens. Many of the conspiracy theories focus on hard-hit North Carolina, a state key to winning the White House. Rumors circulated that FEMA was raiding storm donations and withholding body bags, forcing local hospitals to stack the bodies of victims. One claim suggested federal authorities would condemn the entire town of Chimney Rock and prohibit resettlement in order to commandeer a valuable lithium mine nearby. Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, X and SpaceX, posted that private relief flights to North Carolina were being blocked by the Federal Aviation Administration, a claim dismissed as false by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Despite the tradition of Democrats and Republicans putting aside politics for disaster response, many conspiracy theories suggest Democrats such as President Joe Biden or North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper are intentionally withholding aid from Republicans. Trump has pushed the claim, as has North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, the embattled GOP nominee for governor. “They’re being treated very badly in the Republican areas,” Trump told Fox News, ignoring reports and photo and video evidence of recovery efforts underway throughout the region. “They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones endorsed Trump’s fact-free allegation. Jones, the founder of InfoWars, popularized the idea that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut that killed 20 children in 2012 was faked. “Exclusive: Victims of Hurricane Helene Confirm The Federal Government is Purposely Blocking Rescuers and Stealing Aid In an Attempt to Keep Deep Red Areas From Voting,” Jones posted Thursday on X. State-run media and disinformation campaigns run by China and Russia have amplified false and misleading claims about the response to the storm. Both countries have used social media and state news stories to criticize responses to past U.S. natural disasters, part of a larger effort to stoke division and distrust among Americans. State and local officials from both parties have condemned the conspiracy theories as rumors, saying the focus should be on recovery, not political division and hearsay. Responding to the hoaxes is taking up time that should go toward assisting victims, said North Carolina state Sen. Kevin Corbin, a Republican who urged his constituents not to give into hoaxes. “Friends can I ask a small favor?” Corbin posted Thursday on Facebook. “Will you all help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet… Please don’t let these crazy stories consume you.” After Robinson, the GOP candidate for North Carolina governor, posted that state officials had not prepared for the storm, a spokesman for the governor accused Robinson of mounting “an online disinformation campaign.” North Carolina officials say the response to Helene is the largest in state history, including thousands of members of the National Guard and other recovery workers, millions of meals, dozens of aircraft and more than 1,000 chainsaws. Trump has tried to tie the hurricane’s aftermath to immigration, a leading issue of his campaign. He falsely claimed that FEMA had run out of money because all of it had gone to programs for undocumented immigrants. The agency’s funding for disaster aid is stretched, but that is because of the many parts of the country dealing with the effects of hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities. Disaster aid is funded separately from other Department of Homeland Security programs that support immigration-related spending. Bizarre stories proposing that the government used weather control technology to aim the hurricane at Republican voters quickly racked up millions of views on X and other platforms. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., endorsed the idea, posting Wednesday on X: “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” Far-out tales of space lasers, fake snow and weather control technology — sometimes tinged with antisemitism — have spread after recent natural disasters, including a snowstorm in Texas and last year’s wildfire in Maui. Experts who study conspiracy theories say big events like disasters — or the Sept. 11 attacks or the COVID-19 pandemic — create perfect conditions for conspiracy theories to spread because large numbers of anxious people are eager to find explanations for shocking events. Responding to the volume of false claims about Helene, the Red Cross urged people to consult trustworthy sources of information and to think twice before reposting conspiracy theories. “Sharing rumors online without first vetting the source and verifying facts ultimately hurts people — people who have just lost their homes, neighborhoods, and, in some cases, loved ones,” the organization wrote in a public plea. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

CHIMNEY ROCK VILLAGE, N.C. (AP) — The stone tower that gave this place its name was nearly a half billion years in the making — heated and thrust upward from deep in the Earth, then carved and eroded by wind and water. But in just a few minutes, nature undid most of what it has taken humans a century and a quarter to build in the North Carolina mountain town of Chimney Rock. “It feels like I was deployed, like, overnight and woke up in … a combat zone,” Iraq War veteran Chris Canada said as a massive twin-propped Chinook helicopter passed over his adopted hometown. “I don’t think it’s sunk in yet.” Nearly 400 miles (644 kilometers) from where Hurricane Helene made landfall Sept. 26 along Florida’s Big Bend, the hamlet of about 140 souls on the banks of the Broad River has been all but wiped from the map. The backs of restaurants and gift shops that boasted riverfront balconies dangle ominously in mid-air. The Hickory Nut Brewery, opened when Rutherford County went “wet” and started serving alcohol about a decade ago, collapsed on Wednesday, nearly a week after the storm. The buildings across Main Street, while still standing, are choked with several feet of reddish-brown muck. A sign on the Chimney Sweeps souvenir shop says, “We are open during construction.” In another section of town, the houses that weren’t swept away perch precariously near the edge of a scoured riverbank. It is where the town’s only suspected death — an elderly woman who refused entreaties to evacuate — occurred. “Literally, this river has moved,” village administrator Stephen Duncan said as he drove an Associated Press reporter through the dust-blown wreckage of Chimney Rock Village on Wednesday. “We saw a 1,000-year event. A geological event.” About eight hours after Helene made landfall in Florida, Chimney Rock volunteer firefighter John Payne was responding to a possible gas leak when he noticed water spilling over US 64/74, the main road into town. It was just after 7 a.m. “The actual hurricane hadn’t even come through and hit yet,” he said. Payne, 32, who’s lived in this valley his entire life, aborted the call and rushed back up the hill to the fire station, which was moved to higher ground following a devastating 1996 flood. Former chief Joseph “Buck” Meliski, who worked that earlier flood, scoffed. “There’s no way it’s hitting that early,” Payne recalled the older man saying. But when Payne showed him a video he’d just shot — of water topping the bridge to the Hickory Nut Falls Family Campground — the former chief’s jaw dropped. “We’re in for it, boys,” Meliski told Payne and the half dozen or so others gathered there. Suddenly, the ground beneath them began shaking — like the temblors that sometimes rock the valley, but much stronger. By then, muddy water was seeping under the back wall of the firehouse. Payne looked down and saw what he estimated to be a 30-foot-high (nine-meter-high) wall of water, tossing car-sized boulders as it raced toward the town. It appeared as if the wave was devouring houses, then spitting them out. “It’s not water at that point,” Payne said. “It’s mud, this thick concrete-like material, you know what I mean? And whatever it hits, it’s taking.” A house hit the bridge from which he’d been filming not 20 minutes earlier. The span just “imploded.” Payne later found its steel beams “bent in horseshoe shapes around boulders.” At the firehouse, some business owners among the group began “crying hysterically,” Payne said. Others just stood in mute disbelief. The volunteers lost communications during the storm. But when the winds finally began to quiet down around 11 a.m., Payne said, the radios began “blowing up with calls.” The pieces of what had been Chimney Rock Village were now on their way to the neighboring town of Lake Lure, which played a starring role as stand-in for a Catskills resort in the 1987 Patrick Swayze summer romance film, “Dirty Dancing.” Tracy Stevens, 55, a bartender at the Hickory Nut, took refuge at the Lake Lure Inn, where she also worked. She watched as the detritus from Chimney Rock and beyond came pouring into the marina, tossing aside boats and thrusting the metal sections of the floating Town Center Walkway upward like the folds of a map. “It looked like a toilet bowl flushing,” she said. “I could see cars, tops of houses. It was the craziest.” Some of the debris coalesced into a massive jam between the two bridges linking the towns — a utilitarian concrete affair carrying Memorial Highway across the Broad River, and an elegant three-arched span known as the Flowering Bridge. After 85 years carrying traffic into Chimney Rock, the 1925 viaduct was converted into a verdant walkway festooned with more than 2,000 species of plants. Now partially collapsed, the bridge’s remains are draped in a tangled mass of vines, roots and tree branches. Canada, 43, who co-owns a stage rental and event production company, was at a Charlotte music festival when the storm hit. Returning to uniformed troops and armored personnel carriers kicking up dust in the streets awakened memories of his three combat tours in the Middle East. “I saw the whole war and I’ve been through many hurricanes,” said Canada, an Army airborne veteran. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Canada and his wife, Barbie, moved here with their two daughters in October 2021 from South Carolina, in part to get away from hurricanes. Barbie had vacationed here as a child, and it was close to the Veterans Administration hospital in Asheville. As he walked the banks of the Broad on Wednesday, Chris Canada found himself sniffing at the warm air for the telltale odor of death. And yet, all around are signs of hope. Payne — who climbs the rock in full gear each Sept. 11 to honor first responders who died in the Twin Towers attacks — was heartened to see members of the New York City Fire Department in his town helping with door-to-door searches. “We’re more hard-headed than these rocks are,” said Payne, whose day job is as a site coordinator for a fast-food chain. “So, it’s going to take more than this to scare us off and run us out. It’ll be a while, but we’ll be back. Don’t count us out.” Outside the Mountain Traders shop, someone has leaned a large wooden Sasquatch cutout against a utility pole, the words “Chimney Rock Strong” painted in bright blue. When park employees cut their way to the top of the mountain and raised the American flag on Monday, Duncan says the people below cheered, and some wept. “It was spectacular,” he said. The flag is flying at half staff. But Mayor Peter O’Leary said it’s that spirit that will bring Chimney Rock Village back. The town’s legacy of hospitality and entrepreneurial spirit dates back to the late 1800s, when a local family began charging visitors 25 cents for a horseback ride up the mountain, according to brief online history by village resident R. J. Wald. It soon became one of North Carolina’s first bona fide tourist attractions. O’Leary came to town in 1990 to take a job as park manager, before it became part of the state parks system. Two years later, he and his wife opened Bubba O’Leary’s General Store, named for their yellow Labrador retriever. “Most of these people here, if you look around, almost all of them are from somewhere else,” he said as he stood outside the firehouse, the waters of the 404-foot (123-meter) Hickory Nut Falls gushing forth from the ridge high above. “Why’d they come here? They came here and fell in love with it. It gets ahold of you. … “It got ahold of me.” The 1927 portion of the general store has caved in, but O’Leary believes the larger addition built in 2009 is salvageable. Duncan, who drafted the village charter back in 1990, sees this as an opportunity to “take advantage of the new geography” and build a better town. But for some, like innkeeper and restaurateur Nick Sottile, 35, the path forward is hard to see. When Helene hit, Sottile and wife Kristen were vacationing in the Turks and Caicos Islands — their first break since October 2020, when they opened their Broad River Inn and Stagecoach Pizza Kitchen in what’s believed to be the village’s oldest building. In photos taken from the street, things looked remarkably intact. But when Sottile returned home and walked around to the river side, his heart sank. “The back of the building is, like, a whole section of it is gone,” the South Florida native said Friday. “It’s not even safe to go in there right now.” About all that’s left of the adjacent Chimney Rock Adventure miniature golf course is the sign. “You can’t even rebuild,” Sottile said. “Because there’s no land.” Sottile has been hearing horror stories from fellow business owners about denied insurance claims. Without help, he said he has no money to rebuild. But for now, he’s just volunteering with the fire department and trying not to think too far into the future. “This is a small town, but this is, this is HOME,” he said. “Everybody helps everybody, and I know we’ll get through this. I know we’ll rebuild. I’m just praying that we can rebuild with US here to see it.” ___ AP National Writer Tim Sullivan contributed from Minneapolis. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com