Tropical Storms and Hurricanes

FILE - In this May 24, 2006 file photo, David Halstead, chief of the Florida Bureau of Preparedness and Response, right, listens to a question from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, second from left, during a briefing during a hurricane preparedness exercise at the Camp Blanding Joint Training Center near Starke, Fla. More than two weeks after Haiti's 2010 quake, Florida officials warned they could not treat any more victims. In response, the American military abruptly halted medical airlifts, saying Florida had refused to take additional patients and provoking a bitter exchange over who was responsible for the delays. 'I have advised the federal government that until we see a plan for the future transportation and care of these patients that Florida could not agree to accepting more patients,' the state emergency management chief, David Halstead, wrote in a Jan. 28 e-mail. 'We have been forced to daily react to last-minute requests to accept large number of long-term care patients.'