Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council via a video link in Moscow, Russia May 27, 2022. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Kremlin via REUTERS
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ZURICH, May 27 (Reuters) – Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Russian President Vladimir Putin told him on Friday that Moscow would meet its natural gas delivery commitments to Austria and was ready to discuss a prisoner swap with Ukraine.
Nehammer made the comments to reporters after the two leaders held a 45-minute telephone call that Nehammer described as a chance to confront Putin with the realities of the war in Ukraine and discuss prospects for humanitarian solutions.
Asked what Putin had told him about gas deliveries, the Austrian conservative said: “He also raised the subject (and said) that all deliveries would be completed in full.”
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In a separate statement, the Kremlin said Russia had reaffirmed its commitment to supply natural gas to Austria, which gets 80% of its gas from Russia.
Nehammer, who visited Russia last month for talks with Putin, said the Russian leader had expressed readiness to discuss a prisoner swap with Ukraine.
“Whether he is really ready to negotiate is a complex question,” he added.
Russia describes the three-month-old incursion as a special military operation to disarm its neighbour and remove dangerous nationalists from power. The Kyiv and its allies in the West say the charge is bogus and says the invasion of Ukraine is an unprovoked attack.
Nehammer said Putin had repeatedly defended Moscow’s actions and blamed Western sanctions for economic disruptions that ensued. He said he thought Putin was creating facts on the group to take into negotiations.
Putin was “entirely aware” of the issue of food security, Nehammer said of the conversation, adding Putin “gave signals” that he was ready to allow exports over seaports but had linked progress to the lifting of Western sanctions.
The Kremlin statement said Putin had discussed work to ensure the safety of navigation in the Azov and Black Seas, saying Ukraine should clear ports of mines to allow the free passage of blocked ships.
The United States and others accuse Russia of blockading Ukraine’s ports. read more
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Reporting by Michael Shields, editing by Thomas Escritt and Jon Boyle
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Army vehicles were so decrepit that repair crews were stationed roughly every 15 miles. Some officers were so out of shape that the military budgeted $1.5 million to re-size standard uniforms.
That was the Russian military more than a decade ago when the country invaded Georgia, according to the defense minister at the time. The shortcomings, big and small, were glaring enough that the Kremlin announced a complete overhaul of the military to build a leaner, more flexible, professional force.
But now, almost three months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is clear the Kremlin fell woefully short of creating an effective fighting machine. Russian forces in Ukraine have underperformed to a degree that has surprised most Western analysts, raising the prospect that President Vladimir V. Putin’s military operation could end in failure.
By any measure, despite capturing territory in the south and east, the Russian military has suffered a major blow in Ukraine. It has been forced to abandon what it expected would be a blitzkrieg to seize the entire country in a few days. Its forces were driven from around Kyiv, the capital. The flagship of its Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, was sunk; it has never controlled the skies; and by some Western estimates, tens of thousands of Russians have died.
The burned-out remnants of as many as nine Russian tanks and armored fighting vehicles along a road leading out of the town of Dmytrivka, Ukraine, in April.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
This war has exposed the fact that, to Russia’s detriment, much of the military culture and learned behavior of the Soviet era endures: inflexibility in command structure, corruption in military spending, and concealing casualty figures and repeating the mantra that everything is going according to plan.
The signs of trouble were hiding in plain sight. Just last summer, Russia held war games that the Ministry of Defense said showed its ability to coordinate a deployment of 200,000 men from different branches of the military in a mock effort to combat NATO. They would be among the largest military exercises ever, it said.
Lt. General Yunus-Bek Evkunov, the deputy defense minister, told reporters the exercises demonstrated Russia’s ability to rapidly deploy joint forces in a manner that would “make sober any enemy.’’
The whole exercise was scripted. There was no opposing force; the main units involved had practiced their choreography for months; and each exercise started and stopped at a fixed time. The number of troops participating was probably half the number advertised, military analysts said.
“It is the Soviet army, basically,” said Kamil Galeev, an independent Russian analyst and former fellow at The Wilson Center in Washington. “The reforms increased the efficiency of the army, but they only went halfway.”
This photo released by the Russian Ministry of Defense shows joint Russian-Belarusian military exercises last year in Russia.Credit…Vadim Savitskiy/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service
When, after the Georgia conflict in 2008, Russia tried to revamp its military, the idea was to jettison the rigidly centralized, Soviet-era army that could supposedly muster four million troops in no time. Instead, field officers would get more responsibility, units would learn to synchronize their skills and the entire arsenal would be dragged into the computer age.
Many traditionalists resisted change, preferring the old model of a huge, concentrated force. But other factors also contributed to the military’s inability to transform. Birthrates plunged in the 1990s, leading to a shrinking pool of men that could be conscripted. That, and persistent low salaries, delayed recruitment targets. Endemic corruption handicapped the efforts.
But the basic problem was that the military culture of the Soviet Union endured, despite the lack of men and means to sustain it, analysts said.
“The Soviet military was built to generate millions of men to fill lots and lots of divisions that had endless stockpiles of equipment,” said Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va. “It was designed for World War III, the war with NATO that never came.”
Ultimately, the push for change stalled, leaving a hybrid version of the military somewhere between mass mobilization and a more flexible force, analysts said. It still favors substantial artillery over infantry troops who can take and hold land.
The scripted way the military practices warfare, on display in last summer’s exercises, is telling. “Nobody is being tested on their ability to think on the battlefield,” said William Alberque, the Berlin-based director of the arms control program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Instead, officers are assessed on their ability to follow instructions, he said.
Russia would like the world to view its army as it appears during the annual Victory Day parade — a well-oiled instrument of fit soldiers in dashing uniforms marching in unison and bristling with menacing weapons.
Russian soldiers marching in the Victory Day parade this month in Moscow.Credit…Yuri Kochetkov/EPA, via Shutterstock
“They use the military forces as a propaganda machine,” said Gleb Irisov, 31, a former air force lieutenant who left the military in 2020 after five years. He then worked as a military analyst for the official TASS news agency before quitting and leaving the country because he strongly opposed the invasion.
Senior military commanders argue that recent expeditionary forces, especially in Syria, provided real combat training, but analysts call that claim inflated.
Russian troops faced no real adversary in Syria; the war was mostly an air force operation where the pilots could hover over targets at will. Russia has not fought a large land war since World War II.
Yet Russia’s leaders exaggerated the country’s success. In 2017, Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, bragged at a meeting of fellow ministers in the Philippines that Russia had “liberated’’ 503,223 square kilometers in Syria. The problem is that the area Mr. Shoigu claimed to have freed from militants is more than twice the size of the entire country, reported Proekt, an independent news outlet.
This photo released by the Russian military shows Russian pilots with a Sukhoi Su-34 strike fighter, in 2015, in Latakia, Syria.Credit…Russian Defense Ministry Press Service
With about 900,000 people overall, a little over one third of them ground forces, the Russian military is not that large, considering that it must defend a vast country covering 11 time zones, analysts said. But the goal of recruiting 50,000 contract soldiers every year, first stated a decade ago, has not been met, so there is still a yearly draft of 18- to 27-year olds.
Mr. Putin has not resorted to a mass military draft that would muster all able-bodied adult males for the war. But even if he did, the infrastructure required to train civilians en masse no longer exists. The consensus is that the bulk of Russia’s available ground forces have already been deployed in Ukraine.
Rampant corruption has drained resources. “Each person steals as much of the allocated funds as is appropriate for their rank,” said retired Maj. Gen. Harri Ohra-Aho, the former Chief of Intelligence in Finland and still a Ministry of Defense adviser.
The corruption is so widespread that some cases inevitably land in court.
In January, Col. Evgeny Pustovoy, the former head of the procurement department for armored vehicles, was accused of helping to steal more than $13 million by faking contracts for batteries from 2018 to 2020, according to TASS.
In February, a Moscow military court stripped Maj. Gen. Alexander Ogloblin of his rank and sentenced him to 4.5 years in prison for what the charges called fraud on an “especially large scale.” The authorities accused him of embezzling about $25 million by vastly overstating the expenses in state contracts for satellite and other equipment, the business news website BFM.RU reported.
Members of Yunarmiya, or Youth Army, an organization associated with the Russian Defense Ministry, practicing assembling rifles, first-aid skills and martial arts in December at the Youth Pre-Recruitment training center in Noginsk, near Moscow.Credit…Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Huge contracts are not the only temptation. The combination of low salaries — a senior officer earns roughly $1,000 per month — and swelling budgets is a recipe for all sorts of theft, analysts said, leading to a chain reaction of problems.
Commanders disguise how few exercises they hold, pocketing the resources budgeted for them, said Mr. Irisov, the analyst. That exacerbates a lack of basic military skills like navigation and shooting, although the air force did maintain flight safety standards.
“It is impossible to imagine the scale of lies inside the military,” Mr. Irisov said. “The quality of military production is very low because of the race to steal money.”
One out of every five rubles spent on the armed forces was stolen, the chief military prosecutor, Sergey Fridinsky, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the official government newspaper, in 2011.
Mr. Irisov said he had encountered numerous examples of subpar equipment — the vaunted Pantsir air defense system unable to shoot down a small Israeli drone over Syria; Russian-made light bulbs on the wings of SU-35 warplanes melting at supersonic speeds; new trucks breaking down after two years.
In general, Russian weaponry lags behind its computerized Western counterparts, but it is serviceable, military analysts said. Still, some new production has been limited.
For example, the T-14 Armata, a “next generation” battle tank unveiled in 2015, has not been deployed in Ukraine because there are so few, they said.
A T-14 Armata main battle tank during a Victory Day military parade in Red Square in 2020.Credit…Ramil Sitdikov/Host Photo Agency, via Getty Images
Russia has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into its military, producing under the State Armament Program a stream of new airplanes, tanks, helicopters and other matériel. Military spending has not dipped below 3.5 percent of gross domestic product for much of the past decade, according to figures from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, at a time when most European nations struggled to invest 2 percent of G.D.P. And that is only the public portion of Russia’s military budget.
This kind of financial investment has helped Russia make what gains it has in Ukraine.
Johan Norberg, a Russia analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, said Russia and its military are too sprawling to expect them to fix every problem, even in a decade. The war in Ukraine exposed the fact that the Russian military is “not 10 feet tall, but they are not two feet tall, either,” he said.
Alina Lobzina and Milana Mazaeva contributed reporting.
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Clipper Realty Inc. (NYSE: CLPR) (the “Company”), a leading owner and operator of multifamily residential and commercial properties in the New York metropolitan area, today announced financial and operating results for the three months ended December 31, 2021.
Highlights for the Three Months Ended December 31, 2021
Achieved quarterly revenues of $30.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2021
Achieved quarterly income from operations of $4.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, or $6.8 million exclusive of a non-recurring $2.7 million charge for a litigation settlement
Achieved quarterly net operating income (“NOI”)1 of $16.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2021
Recorded quarterly net loss of $6.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, or $3.5 million exclusive of a $2.7 million charge for a litigation settlement
Achieved quarterly adjusted funds from operations (“AFFO”)1 of $4.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2021
Declared a dividend of $0.095 per share for the fourth quarter of 2021
David Bistricer, Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented,
“We continue to see improvements in our operations as New York City further recovers from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are experiencing strong rental demand at all our properties and consistently increasing rental rates as New York City continues to open and employees return to offices. We remain focused on efficiently operating our portfolio, with the safety of our tenants and employees our highest priority. Our properties are 95% leased and our fourth quarter rent collection rate was over 98%. We have a strong liquidity position with $52.2 million of cash on the balance sheet, consisting of $34.5 million of unrestricted cash and $17.7 million of restricted cash, and have no debt maturities on any operating properties until 2027, providing further support in the current environment. We remain committed to executing our strategic initiatives to create long-term value.”
Financial Results
For the fourth quarter of 2021, revenues increased by $0.5 million, or 1.6%, to $30.8 million, compared to $30.3 million for the fourth quarter of 2020; the change was primarily attributable to the commencement of new leases at the Tribeca House, Aspen and Clover House properties partially offset by a decline in occupancy at the Flatbush Gardens property.
For the fourth quarter of 2021, net loss was $6.2 million, or $0.16 per share, or $3.5 million, or $0.09 per share exclusive of a non-recurring charge for a litigation settlement, compared to net loss of $3.8 million, or $0.10 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2020; the change was primarily attributable to the revenue change discussed above and lower property operating expenses (including a decrease in the provision for bad debt), substantially offset by increases in insurance expense, depreciation and amortization expense, general and administrative expense (including LTIP amortization expense) and interest expense (primarily resulting from the refinancing of the 141 Livingston Street property in February 2021). Lastly, as a result of NY court decisions made in March 2022 that established probability and ability to calculate amounts, the Company has recorded a charge of $2.7 million for the settlement of claims of tenant overcharges at the Tribeca House property.
For the fourth quarter of 2021, AFFO was $4.4 million, or $0.10 per share, compared to $3.0 million, or $0.07 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2020; the change was primarily attributable to the revenue change discussed above, and lower property operating expenses (including decreases in staffing, repairs and maintenance and the provision for bad debt), partially offset by increases in insurance expense, interest expense, and cash general and administrative expenses.
Balance Sheet
At December 31, 2021, notes payable (excluding unamortized loan costs) was $1,144.1 million, compared to $1,089.7 million at December 31, 2020; the increase primarily reflected the refinancing of the 141 Livingston Street property in February 2021, partially offset by scheduled principal amortization.
Dividend
The Company today declared a fourth quarter dividend of $0.095 per share, the same amount as last quarter, to shareholders of record on March 25, 2022, payable March 31, 2022.
Conference Call and Supplemental Material
The Company will host a conference call on March 15, 2022, at 5:00 PM Eastern Time to discuss the fourth quarter 2021 results and provide a business update. The conference call can be accessed by dialing (800) 346-7359 or (973) 528-0008, conference entry code 826656. A replay of the call will be available from March 15, 2022, following the call, through March 29, 2022, by dialing (800) 332-6854 or (973) 528-0005, replay conference ID 826656. Supplemental data to this press release can be found under the “Quarterly Earnings” navigation tab on the “Investors” page of our website at www.clipperrealty.com. The Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) are filed at www.sec.gov under Clipper Realty Inc.
About Clipper Realty Inc.
Clipper Realty Inc. (NYSE: CLPR) is a self-administered and self-managed real estate company that acquires, owns, manages, operates and repositions multifamily residential and commercial properties in the New York metropolitan area, with a portfolio in Manhattan and Brooklyn. For more information on the Company, please visit www.clipperrealty.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Various statements contained in this press release, including those that express a belief, expectation or intention, as well as those that are not statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements may include estimates concerning capital projects and the success of specific properties. Our forward-looking statements are generally accompanied by words such as “estimate,” “project,” “predict,” “believe,” “expect,” “intend,” “anticipate,” “potential,” “plan” or other words that convey the uncertainty of future events or outcomes. The forward-looking statements in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release.
We disclaim any obligation to update these statements unless required by law, and we caution you not to rely on them unduly. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and assumptions about future events. While our management considers these expectations and assumptions to be reasonable, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, regulatory and other risks, contingencies and uncertainties (including uncertainties regarding the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and measures intended to curb its spread, on our business, our tenants and the economy generally), most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control and which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of these and other important factors that could affect our actual results, please refer to our filings with the SEC, including the “Risk Factors” section of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and other reports filed from time to time with the SEC.
_____________________________________
1 NOI and AFFO are non-GAAP financial measures. For a definition of these financial measures and a reconciliation of such measures to the most comparable GAAP measures, see “Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Measures” at the end of this release.
Clipper Realty Inc.
Consolidated Balance Sheets
(In thousands, except for share and per share data)
December 31, 2021
December 31, 2020
ASSETS
Investment in real estate
Land and improvements
$
540,859
$
540,859
Building and improvements
649,686
630,662
Tenant improvements
3,406
3,121
Furniture, fixtures and equipment
12,500
12,217
Real estate under development
97,301
36,118
Total investment in real estate
1,303,752
1,222,977
Accumulated depreciation
(158,002
)
(132,479
)
Investment in real estate, net
1,145,750
1,090,498
Cash and cash equivalents
34,524
72,058
Restricted cash
17,700
16,974
Tenant and other receivables, net of allowance for doubtful accounts
of 12.5% Series A cumulative non-voting preferred stock),
zero shares issued and outstanding
Common stock, $0.01 par value; 500,000,000 shares authorized,
160
160
16,063,228 shares issued and outstanding
Additional paid-in-capital
88,089
87,347
Accumulated deficit
(61,736
)
(48,045
)
Total stockholders’ equity
26,513
39,462
Non-controlling interests
43,436
64,652
TOTAL EQUITY
69,949
104,114
TOTAL LIABILITIES AND EQUITY
$
1,233,657
$
1,207,866
Clipper Realty Inc.
Consolidated Statements of Operations
(In thousands, except per share data)
Three Months Ended December 31,
Year Ended December 31,
2021
2020
2021
2020
(unaudited)
REVENUES
Residential rental income
$
21,253
$
21,198
$
85,771
$
90,543
Commercial rental income
9,523
9,139
36,958
32,307
TOTAL REVENUES
30,776
30,337
122,729
122,850
OPERATING EXPENSES
Property operating expenses
6,450
8,008
28,997
29,902
Real estate taxes and insurance
7,921
7,181
30,449
28,286
General and administrative
2,791
2,404
10,570
9,728
Transaction pursuit costs
–
–
60
–
Depreciation and amortization
6,794
6,266
25,762
23,630
TOTAL OPERATING EXPENSES
23,956
23,859
95,838
91,546
Gain on termination of lease
–
–
–
838
Litigation settlement and other
(2,730
)
–
(2,730
)
–
INCOME FROM OPERATIONS
4,090
6,478
24,161
32,142
Interest expense, net
(10,326
)
(10,254
)
(41,284
)
(40,228
)
Loss on extinguishment of debt
–
–
(3,034
)
(4,228
)
Gain on involuntary conversion
–
–
139
85
Net loss
(6,236
)
(3,776
)
(20,018
)
(12,229
)
Net loss attributable to non-controlling interests
3,873
2,283
12,431
7,323
Net loss attributable to common stockholders
$
(2,363
)
$
(1,493
)
$
(7,587
)
$
(4,906
)
Basic and diluted net loss per share
$
(0.16
)
$
(0.10
)
$
(0.51
)
$
(0.31
)
Weighted average common shares / OP units
Common shares outstanding
16,063
17,080
16,063
17,629
OP units outstanding
26,317
26,317
26,317
26,317
Diluted shares outstanding
42,380
43,397
42,380
43,946
Clipper Realty Inc.
Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows
(In thousands)
Year Ended December 31,
.
2021
2020
CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES
Net loss
$
(20,018
)
$
(12,229
)
Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by operating activities:
Depreciation
25,536
23,148
Amortization of deferred financing costs
1,247
1,212
Amortization of deferred costs and intangible assets
707
963
Amortization of above- and below-market leases
(104
)
(390
)
Loss on extinguishment of debt
3,034
4,228
Gain on involuntary conversion
(139
)
(85
)
Gain on termination of lease
–
(838
)
Deferred rent
(202
)
(1,180
)
Stock-based compensation
2,611
1,805
Bad debt expense
1,850
2,543
Transaction pursuit costs
60
–
Changes in operating assets and liabilities:
Tenant and other receivables
(5,108
)
(5,358
)
Prepaid expenses, other assets and deferred costs
(2,639
)
3,228
Accounts payable and accrued liabilities
3,456
(1,602
)
Security deposits
127
(587
)
Other liabilities
404
1,132
Net cash provided by operating activities
10,822
15,990
CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES
Additions to land, buildings and improvements
(35,531
)
(31,811
)
Insurance proceeds from involuntary conversion
150
111
Sale and purchase of interest rate caps, net
–
(14
)
Acquisition deposit
(2,015
)
–
Cash paid in connection with acquisition of real estate
(40,548
)
–
Net cash used in investing activities
(77,944
)
(31,714
)
CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES
Repurchase of common stock
–
(10,002
)
Payments of mortgage notes
(97,432
)
(249,630
)
Proceeds from mortgage notes
151,764
329,919
Dividends and distributions
(16,758
)
(17,243
)
Loan issuance and extinguishment costs
(7,260
)
(5,220
)
Net cash provided by financing activities
30,314
47,824
Net (decrease) increase in cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash
(36,808
)
32,100
Cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash – beginning of period
89,032
56,932
Cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash – end of period
$
52,224
$
89,032
Cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash – beginning of period:
Cash and cash equivalents
$
72,058
$
42,500
Restricted cash
16,974
14,432
Total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash – beginning of period
$
89,032
$
56,932
Cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash – end of period:
Cash and cash equivalents
$
34,524
$
72,058
Restricted cash
17,700
16,974
Total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash – end of period
$
52,224
$
89,032
Supplemental cash flow information:
Cash paid for interest, net of capitalized interest of $1,740 and $1,456 in 2021 and 2020, respectively
$
40,227
$
39,592
Non-cash interest capitalized to real estate under development
343
1,060
Additions to investment in real estate included in accounts payable and accrued liabilities
8,566
4,189
Non-GAAP Financial Measures
We disclose and discuss funds from operations (“FFO”), adjusted funds from operations (“AFFO”), adjusted earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization (“Adjusted EBITDA”) and net operating income (“NOI”), all of which meet the definition of “non-GAAP financial measures” set forth in Item 10(e) of Regulation S-K promulgated by the SEC.
While management and the investment community in general believe that presentation of these measures provides useful information to investors, neither FFO, AFFO, Adjusted EBITDA, nor NOI should be considered as an alternative to net income (loss) or income from operations as an indication of our performance. We believe that to understand our performance further, FFO, AFFO, Adjusted EBITDA, and NOI should be compared with our reported net income (loss) or income from operations and considered in addition to cash flows computed in accordance with GAAP, as presented in our consolidated financial statements.
Funds From Operations and Adjusted Funds From Operations
FFO is defined by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (“NAREIT”) as net income (computed in accordance with GAAP), excluding gains (or losses) from sales of property and impairment adjustments, plus depreciation and amortization, and after adjustments for unconsolidated partnerships and joint ventures. Our calculation of FFO is consistent with FFO as defined by NAREIT.
AFFO is defined by us as FFO excluding amortization of identifiable intangibles incurred in property acquisitions, straight-line rent adjustments to revenue from long-term leases, amortization costs incurred in originating debt, interest rate cap mark-to-market adjustments, amortization of non-cash equity compensation, acquisition and other costs, transaction pursuit costs, loss on modification/extinguishment of debt, gain on involuntary conversion, gain on termination of lease and non-recurring litigation-related expenses, less recurring capital spending.
Historical cost accounting for real estate assets implicitly assumes that the value of real estate assets diminishes predictably over time. In fact, real estate values have historically risen or fallen with market conditions. FFO is intended to be a standard supplemental measure of operating performance that excludes historical cost depreciation and valuation adjustments from net income. We consider FFO useful in evaluating potential property acquisitions and measuring operating performance. We further consider AFFO useful in determining funds available for payment of distributions. Neither FFO nor AFFO represent net income or cash flows from operations computed in accordance with GAAP. You should not consider FFO and AFFO to be alternatives to net income (loss) as reliable measures of our operating performance; nor should you consider FFO and AFFO to be alternatives to cash flows from operating, investing or financing activities (computed in accordance with GAAP) as measures of liquidity.
Neither FFO nor AFFO measure whether cash flow is sufficient to fund all of our cash needs, including loan principal amortization, capital improvements and distributions to stockholders. FFO and AFFO do not represent cash flows from operating, investing or financing activities computed in accordance with GAAP. Further, FFO and AFFO as disclosed by other REITs might not be comparable to our calculations of FFO and AFFO.
The following table sets forth a reconciliation of FFO and AFFO for the periods presented to net loss, computed in accordance with GAAP (amounts in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31,
Year Ended December 31,
2021
2020
2021
2020
FFO
Net loss
$
(6,236
)
$
(3,776
)
$
(20,018
)
$
(12,229
)
Real estate depreciation and amortization
6,794
6,266
25,762
23,630
FFO
$
558
$
2,490
$
5,744
$
11,401
AFFO
FFO
$
558
$
2,490
$
5,744
$
11,401
Amortization of real estate tax intangible
120
121
481
481
Amortization of above- and below-market leases
(8
)
(32
)
(104
)
(390
)
Straight-line rent adjustments
(77
)
(494
)
(202
)
(1,180
)
Amortization of debt origination costs
313
302
1,247
1,212
Amortization of LTIP awards
665
556
2,611
1,805
Transaction pursuit costs
–
–
60
–
Loss on extinguishment of debt
–
–
3,034
4,228
Gain on involuntary conversion
–
–
(139
)
(85
)
Gain on termination of lease
–
–
–
(838
)
Litigation settlement and other
2,730
–
2,730
–
Non-recurring litigation-related expenses
100
114
299
724
Recurring capital spending
(46
)
(72
)
(205
)
(514
)
AFFO
$
4,355
$
2,985
$
15,556
$
16,844
AFFO Per Share/Unit
$
0.10
$
0.07
$
0.37
$
0.38
Adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Income Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization
We believe that Adjusted EBITDA is a useful measure of our operating performance. We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) before allocation to non-controlling interests, plus real estate depreciation and amortization, amortization of identifiable intangibles, straight-line rent adjustments to revenue from long-term leases, amortization of non-cash equity compensation, interest expense (net), acquisition and other costs, transaction pursuit costs, loss on modification/extinguishment of debt and non-recurring litigation-related expenses, less gain on involuntary conversion and gain on termination of lease.
We believe that this measure provides an operating perspective not immediately apparent from GAAP income from operations or net income (loss). We consider Adjusted EBITDA to be a meaningful financial measure of our core operating performance.
However, Adjusted EBITDA should only be used as an alternative measure of our financial performance. Further, other REITs may use different methodologies for calculating Adjusted EBITDA, and accordingly, our Adjusted EBITDA may not be comparable to that of other REITs.
The following table sets forth a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA for the periods presented to net loss, computed in accordance with GAAP (amounts in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31,
Year Ended December 31,
2021
2020
2021
2020
Adjusted EBITDA
Net loss
$
(6,236
)
$
(3,776
)
$
(20,018
)
$
(12,229
)
Real estate depreciation and amortization
6,794
6,266
25,762
23,630
Amortization of real estate tax intangible
120
121
481
481
Amortization of above- and below-market leases
(8
)
(32
)
(104
)
(390
)
Straight-line rent adjustments
(77
)
(494
)
(202
)
(1,180
)
Amortization of LTIP awards
665
556
2,611
1,805
Interest expense, net
10,326
10,254
41,284
40,228
Transaction pursuit costs
–
–
60
–
Loss on extinguishment of debt
–
–
3,034
4,228
Gain on involuntary conversion
–
–
(139
)
(85
)
Gain on termination of lease
–
–
–
(838
)
Litigation settlement and other
2,730
–
2,730
–
Non-recurring litigation-related expenses
100
114
299
724
Adjusted EBITDA
$
14,414
$
13,009
$
55,798
$
56,374
Net Operating Income
We believe that NOI is a useful measure of our operating performance. We define NOI as income from operations plus real estate depreciation and amortization, general and administrative expenses, acquisition and other costs, transaction pursuit costs, amortization of identifiable intangibles and straight-line rent adjustments to revenue from long-term leases, less gain on termination of lease. We believe that this measure is widely recognized and provides an operating perspective not immediately apparent from GAAP income from operations or net income (loss). We use NOI to evaluate our performance because NOI allows us to evaluate the operating performance of our company by measuring the core operations of property performance and capturing trends in rental housing and property operating expenses. NOI is also a widely used metric in valuation of properties.
However, NOI should only be used as an alternative measure of our financial performance. Further, other REITs may use different methodologies for calculating NOI, and accordingly, our NOI may not be comparable to that of other REITs.
The following table sets forth a reconciliation of NOI for the periods presented to income from operations, computed in accordance with GAAP (amounts in thousands):
ZARANJ, Afghanistan —From their hide-out in the desert ravine, the migrants could just make out the white lights of the Iranian border glaring over the horizon.
The air was cold and their breath heavy. Many had spent the last of their savings on food weeks before and cobbled together cash from relatives, hoping to escape Afghanistan’s economic collapse. Now, looking at the border they saw a lifeline: work, money, food to eat.
“There is no other option for me, I cannot go back,” said Najaf Akhlaqi, 26, staring at the smugglers scouring the moonlit landscape for Taliban patrols. Then he jolted to his feet as the smugglers barked at the group to run.
Since the United States withdrew troops and the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan has plunged into an economic crisis that has pushed millions already living hand-to-mouth over the edge. Incomes have vanished, life-threatening hunger has become widespread and badly needed aid has been stymied by Western sanctions against Taliban officials.
Aid organizations estimate that around 4,000 to 5,000 people are crossing into Iran each day.
European Union last fall pledged over $1 billion in humanitarian aid for Afghanistan and neighboring countries hosting Afghans who have fled.
“We need new agreements and commitments in place to be able to assist and help an extremely vulnerable civil population,” Jonas Gahr Store, the Norwegian prime minister, said in a statement at the U.N. Security Council’s meeting on Afghanistan last month. “We must do what we can to avoid another migration crisis and another source of instability in the region and beyond.”
But Western donors are still wrestling with complicated questions over how to meet their humanitarian obligations to ordinary Afghans without propping up the new Taliban government.
As the humanitarian situation worsened, the United States also issued some exemptions to sanctionsand committed $308 million in aid last month — bringing the total U.S. assistance to the country to $782 million since October last year.
But aid can only go so far in a country facing economic collapse, experts say. Unless Western donors move more quickly to release their chokehold on the economy and revive the financial system, Afghans desperate for work will likely continue to look abroad.
Crouching among the migrant group in the desert, Mr. Akhlaqi steeled himself for the desperate dash ahead: A mile-long scramble over churned-earth trenches, a 15-foot-high border wall topped with barbed wire and a vast stretch of scrubland flush with Iranian security forces. Over the past month, he had crossed the border 19 times, he said. Each time, he was arrested and returned over the border.
A police officer under the former government, Mr. Akhlaqi went into hiding in relatives’ homes for fear of Taliban retribution. As the little savings that fed his family ran dry, he moved from city to city looking for a new job. But the work was scarce. So in early November, he linked up with smugglers in Nimruz Province determined to get to Iran.
asylum claims in Europe, after Syria, and one of the world’s largest populations of refugees and asylum seekers — around 3 million people — most of whom live in Iran and Pakistan.
Many fled through Nimruz, a remote corner of southwest Afghanistan wedged between the borders of Iran and Pakistan that has served as a smuggling haven for decades. In its capital, Zaranj, Afghans from around the country crowd into smuggler-run hotels that line the main road and gather around street vendors’ kebab stands, exchanging stories about the grueling journey ahead.
At a parking lot at the center of town known as “The Terminal,” men pile into the backs of pickup trucks bound for Pakistan while young boys hawk goggles and water bottles. On a recent day, their sales pitches — “Who wants water?” — were nearly smothered by the sounds of honking cars and the angry shouts of haggling men exchanging tattered Afghani bank notes for Iranian toman.
Standing in line to climb into the back of a pickup, Abdul, 25, had arrived the day before from Kunduz, a commercial hub in northern Afghanistan that was wracked with fighting last summer during the Taliban’s blitz offensive. As the thuds of mortar fire engulfed the city, his business sputtered to a halt. After the takeover, his shop stood empty as people saved the little money they had for basics like food and medicine.
As the months dragged on, Abdul borrowed money to feed his own family, plunging further and further into debt. Finally, he decided leaving for Iran was his only option.
“I don’t want to leave my country, but I have no other choice,” said Abdul, who asked that The Times use only his first name, fearing that his family could face retaliation. “If the economic situation continues like this, there will be no future here.”
As the economic crisis has worsened, local Taliban officials have sought to profit off the exodus by regulating the lucrative smuggling business. At the Terminal, a Taliban official sitting in a small silver car collects a new tax — 1,000 Afghanis, or about $10 — from each car heading to Pakistan.
At first, Taliban officials also taxed the city’s other main migrant route, a smuggler-escorted journey across the desert and over the border wall directly into Iran. But after accusations in September that a smuggler had raped a girl, the Taliban reversed course, cracking down on this desert route.
Still, such efforts have done little to deter smugglers.
Speeding through a desert road around midnight, one smuggler, S., who preferred to go by only his first initial because of the illegal nature of his work, blasted Arabic pop music from his stereo. A music video with a woman swaying in a tight black dress played on the car’s navigation screen. As he neared his safe house, he cut the back lights to avoid being followed.
Moving people each night requires a delicate dance: First, he strikes a deal with a low-ranking Iranian border guard to allow a certain number of migrants to cross. Then, he tells other smugglers to bring migrants from their hotel to a safe house in the desert and coordinates with his business partner to meet the group on the other side of the border. Once the sun sets, he and others drive for hours, scoping the area for Taliban patrols and — once the route is clear — take the migrants from the safe house to the border.
“We don’t have a home, our home is our car, all night driving near to the border — one day my wife will kick me out of home,” S. said, erupting in laughter.
Crossing the border is just the first hurdle that Afghans must overcome. Since the takeover, both Pakistan and Iran have stepped up deportations, warning that their fragile economies cannot handle an influx of migrants and refugees.
In the last five months of 2021, more than 500,000 who entered these countries illegally were either deported or voluntarily returned to Afghanistan, likely fearing deportation, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration.
Sitting on the ragged blue carpet of one hotel was Negar, 35, who goes by only one name. She had climbed over the border wall into Iran with her six children two nights before desperate to start a new life in Iran. For months, she had stretched out her family’s meager savings, buying little more than bread and firewood to survive. When that cash ran out, she sold her only goat to make the journey here.
But once she touched Iranian soil, a pack of border guards descended on the group of migrants and fired shots into the pre-dawn darkness. Lying on the ground, Negar called out to her children and had a horrifying realization: Her two youngest sons were missing.
After two agonizing days, smugglers in Iran found her sons and sent them back to her in Zaranj. But shaken by losing them, she was at a loss over whether to attempt to cross again.
“I’m worried,” she said. “What if I can never make it to Iran?”
saying local officials expected “the possibility of flooding and even spinoff tornadoes in portions of Alabama.” In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves also issued a state of emergency on Saturday, allowing for the use of state resources for response and recovery.
Research over the past decade has found that, on average, such rapid intensification of hurricanes is increasing, in part because the oceans, which provide the energy for hurricanes, are getting warmer as a result of human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases.But Ida will also strengthen quickly because the Gulf, as is usual at the end of the summer, is very warm.
The hurricane center defines rapid intensification as at least a 35-m.p.h. increase in sustained winds over 24 hours. In the extremely active 2020 season, Hurricane Laura intensified by 45 m.p.h. in the 24 hours before making landfall in Louisiana as a Category 4 storm in late August.
The National Hurricane Center said Ida was likely to produce heavy rainfall late Sunday into Monday from southeast Louisiana to coastal Mississippi and Alabama. Tropical storm force winds will arrive along the coast as early as Saturday night, according to the National Weather Service, before the storm makes landfall on Sunday afternoon or evening. After moving inland, the storm could contribute to flooding in Tennessee, where flash flooding killed 20 people last weekend.
“Based upon current track and strength of Ida, this storm will test our hurricane protection systems in a way they haven’t been tested before,” Chip Kline, executive assistant to the governor of Louisiana for coastal activities, said on Twitter. “It’s times like these that remind us of the importance of continuing to protect south Louisiana.”
Correction:
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified the location of Tropical Storm Ida. It was in the Caribbean Sea early Friday, not the Gulf of Mexico.
Bella Witherspoon, left, and Sara Marriott prepare their boat ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Ida in Ocean Springs, on the Mississippi coast.Credit…Hannah Ruhoff/The Sun Herald, via Associated Press
Hurricane Ida will produce “life-threatening” weather conditions in Louisiana and batter parts of Mississippi, the National Weather Service said, urging people to evacuate inland.
Here is a breakdown of how various parts of the region could be affected when the hurricane makes landfall on Sunday afternoon or evening , according to the Weather Service.
Baton Rouge, La.
River Parishes and Northshore in Louisiana
New Orleans
Residents in the metro area can expect winds of 110 m.p.h. and, potentially, more than 20 inches of rain.
Coastal Louisiana
Southwest Mississippi
Coastal Mississippi
Inundation could reach as high as 11 feet. Residents can also expect winds of 74 m.p.h. and up to 12 inches of rain.
Tornadoes are possible in all of these areas, the Weather Service said.
Jawan Williams shoveled sand for a sandbag held by his son Jayden Williams, before landfall of Hurricane Ida at the Frederick Sigur Civic Center in Chalmette, La., on Saturday.Credit…Matthew Hinton/Associated Press
Hurricane Ida is expected to make landfall Sunday, threatening to bring dangerous wind, storm surge and rain to the Gulf Coast exactly 16 years after the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, one of the most costly natural disasters in American history, which left more than 1,800 dead and produced more than $100 billion in damages.
The overall impact of storm surge from Ida is predicted to be less severe than during Katrina. Because that storm began as a Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico before weakening as it approached landfall, it generated enormous storm surge, which brought over 20 feet of water to parts of the Mississippi coast. Current projections put the storm surge of Ida at 10 to 15 feet.
“Fifteen-foot sure can do a lot of damage,” said Barry Keim, a professor at Louisiana State University and Louisiana State Climatologist. “But it’s going to be nothing in comparison with Katrina’s surge.”
Improvements to the levee system following Katrina have better prepared the New Orleans metro area for the storm surge.
However, the areas likely to receive the most severe surge from Ida may be less equipped to handle it than the area hit by Katrina, said Dr. Keim.
Ida is expected to make landfall to the west of where Katrina struck, bringing the most severe storm surge impacts to the Louisiana coast west of the Mississippi River rather thaneast of the river along coastal Mississippi, as Katrina did.
“We are testing a different part of the flood protection in and around southeast Louisiana than we did in Katrina,” said Dr. Keim. “Some of the weak links in this area maybe haven’t been quite as exposed.”
While the impacts of Ida’s storm surge are expected to be less severe than Katrina’s, Ida’s winds and rain are predicted to exceed those that pummeled the Gulf Coast in 2005.
Ida is expected to make landfall on the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm with peak winds of 130 mph, while Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 with peak winds of 125 mph.
“It could be quite devastating — especially some of those high rise buildings are just not rated to sustain that wind load,” said Jamie Rhome, acting deputy director of the National Hurricane Center.
The severe damage from Hurricane Laura, which struck southwest Louisiana last year as a Category 4 storm, was caused primarily by high winds peaking at 150 mph. The storm caused 42 deaths and damage costing more than $19 billion.
Ida’s rainfall also threatens to exceed Katrina’s highs.
The National Hurricane Center estimates that Ida will drench the Gulf Coast with 8 to 16 inches of rain and perhaps as much as 20 inches in some places. Katrina brought 5-10 inches of rain with more than 12 inches in the most impacted areas.
“That is a lot of rainfall,” said Mr. Rhome. “Absolutely the flash flood potential in this case is high, very high.” Especially combined with storm surge, he said, such intense levels of rainfall could have a “huge and devastating impact to those local communities.”
A wedding party marches by boarded-up buildings in the French Quarter in New Orleans on Saturday.Credit…Dan Anderson/EPA, via Shutterstock
NEW ORLEANS — When a hurricane comes roaring toward New Orleans out of the Gulf of Mexico, there is a discernible mood shift on Bourbon Street, the city’s famed strip of iniquity and conspicuous alcohol consumption.
It goes from tawdry to tawdry with a hint of apocalypse. On Friday afternoon, the street was half alive. Daiquiri bars were open and daiquiri bars were boarded up. The doors to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club were locked. Nearby, a man lay on his back on the sidewalk, a plastic bag at his side, yelling the name “Laura.” Or maybe “Lord.”
Six happy women from New York ambled toward Canal Street in matching black T-shirts that said, “Birthday, beignets and booze.” The birthday girl declined to give her name. They went past the club called The Famous Door, where a listless bar band played “Fat Bottomed Girls.”
The riffs poured out into the street. A member of the birthday team raised a glass of something alcoholic and sugary and shouted out the chorus.
Another of the New York women, Jessika Edouard of Long Island, said that most of her group had been trying to get out of town before the storm’s arrival, to no avail. It was all cancellations and unresponsive airline customer service. “The flights are terrible,” she said.
What choice did they have but to keep the party going? Ms Edouard thought she and some of the others might be able to leave on Monday, after Ida hit.
In the meantime, she said, they had bought a ton of booze in the French Quarter. In the morning they had beignets. They had just met a crew from the Weather Channel. They seemed more excited than scared.
Ms. Edouard even had words for the storm, which she delivered like a threat from one pro wrestler to another.
“If Hurricane Ida thinks she is going to ruin my friend’s 30th birthday, then Ida has another thing coming,” she said.
New Orleans residents prepared to leave after the mayor asked for voluntary evacuations in anticipation of Hurricane Ida.Credit…Max Becherer/NOLA.com, via The Advocate, via Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — With Hurricane Ida likely to bring powerful winds and heavy rain to their city, residents of New Orleans faced a familiar choice: flee or hunker down for the duration.
The storm was expected to make landfall by Sunday afternoon or evening and officials urged people who intended to evacuate to do so by Saturday. Residents came to a variety of decisions on the matter.
Lacy Duhe, 39, and Jeremy Housely, 42, opted to hunker down in their second-story apartment on Deslonde Street in New Orlean’s Lower Ninth Ward. If they evacuated and ended up in a shelter, they said, they worried about the risk of their unvaccinated children contracting Covid-19. They also had just paid their monthly bills and could not afford to go anywhere.
“It feels serious,” said the couple’s 11-year-old daughter, Ja-nyi. “I wasn’t born during Katrina time. But I know it knocked down a lot of places.”
Mary Picot, 71, walked out the door on Saturday afternoon carrying bags of snacks and medicine. She wasn’t worried about flooding and believed the levees would hold. It was the threat of power outages that convinced her to leave.
“My husband is diabetic,” she said. “We have to keep his medicine cold.”
Donald Lyons, 38, was packing up a silver Nissan sedan Saturday afternoon under a cloud-filled sky in Hollygrove, one of the traditionally Black working class neighborhoods that flooded badly when Katrina hit. The car, carrying his wife, three children and mother-in-law, was full of bags and bedding. They were heading to Sugar Land, Texas, 27 miles southwest of Houston, where they had family that had left after Katrina, 16 years ago, and never come back.
“I’m just trying to get somewhere safe,” Mr. Lyons said.
Down the block, Barbara Butler, 65, a housekeeper, said she thought the city was safer now with all of the new flood protection. She intended to ride out the storm at home.
“It gave us some relief,” she said. “It’s better than no relief.”
She was sitting on the porch with her husband, Curtis Duck, 63, and her brother, Ray Thomas, in a house that Ms. Butler said was flooded with eight feet of water after Katrina.
Mr. Duck said he was sick of evacuating time and again.
“We listen to the news,” he said. “People telling us to go, go, go.”
Victor Pizarro, a health advocate, and his husband decided to ride out the storm in their home in the Gentilly Terrace neighborhood, although they said they would leave town if they lost power for an extended period.
“It’s definitely triggering to even have to think about this and make these decisions,” Mr. Pizarro said in a telephone interview while he drove across town in search of a spare part for his generator. “It’s exhausting to be a New Orleanian and a Louisianian at this point.”
Andy Horowitz and his familydecided to vacate their home in the Algiers Point neighborhood, which sits directly across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter. Mr. Horowitz is the author of“Katrina: A History, 1915-2015,” and he is among those scholars and Louisiana residents who fear that the city’s new flood protection system, as massive as it is, may prove to be inadequate for a sinking city in the likely path of more frequent and powerful storms in the age of climate change.
“Every summer, New Orleans plays a game of Russian roulette, and every summer we pull the trigger,” Mr. Horowitz said.
Video
transcript
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transcript
New Orleans Mayor Urges Evacuations Ahead of Hurricane Ida
Hurricane Ida is expected to make landfall as a Category 4 storm on Sunday, which is also the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Mayor LaToya Cantrell warned residents to either evacuate immediately or bunker down in a safe place ahead of the hurricane.
What we know is today, right now, everyone has to make a decision to leave voluntarily, which I’m recommending, do that, prepare yourselves. If you’re going to leave, you need to do that now. We need to make sure that you are in a safe place, everyone, whether you’re going to leave voluntarily or stay onsite, hunkered down. Wherever that is, hopefully that’s your home, in our city, but in a safe space. Prepare for damaging wind, power outages, heavy rain, tornadoes. What I am told is that this storm in no way will be weakening. There will be and there are no signs, again, that this storm will weaken, and there’s always an opportunity for the storm to strengthen. This continues to remain a very fluid situation. And we know, again, that time is not on our side. It’s just, it’s rapidly, it’s growing, it’s intensifying.
Hurricane Ida is expected to make landfall as a Category 4 storm on Sunday, which is also the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Mayor LaToya Cantrell warned residents to either evacuate immediately or bunker down in a safe place ahead of the hurricane.CreditCredit…Matthew Hinton, via Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — With tracking maps for Hurricane Ida consistently showing an expected pathway toward southeast Louisiana, Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans issued a stern warning on Saturday that city residents who intend to leave should do so immediately.
“In no way will this storm be weakening, and there’s always an opportunity for the storm to strengthen,” Ms. Cantrell said at a news briefing. “Time is not on our side. It’s rapidly growing, it’s intensifying.”
City officials are asking that residents who plan to stay in the city prepare for extended power outages, limited emergency services and several days of high temperatures after the storm passes.
“The first 72 is on you,” said Collin Arnold, director of the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. “The first three days of this will be difficult for responders to get to you.”
Forecasters are predicting that Hurricane Ida will be a Category 4 storm upon landfall on Sunday, the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which left more than 1,800 dead.
“What we learned during Hurricane Katrina is we are all first-responders,” Ms. Cantrell said. “It’s about taking care of one another.”
— Chelsea Brasted
Delery Street in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans was flooded after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Credit…Nicole Bengiveno/ New York Times
NEW ORLEANS — On Saturday afternoon, the Rev. Willie L. Calhoun Jr., a 71-year-old resident of the Lower Ninth Ward, was in his Lincoln Continental on the brink of getting out of town. He was not quite sure where. Somewhere in Alabama, he figured.
Rev. Calhoun remembers his father smashing a hole in the roof of his family’s home in the Lower Ninth in 1965, when Hurricane Betsy put 10 feet of water in his house. When Katrina came, he and his family made sure to get out of the neighborhood before the storm destroyed their homes — unlike many of his neighbors, some of whom perished when the levees failed.
The pain from Katrina was now an indelible fact of life in the neighborhood. He had hoped to take part in a 16th anniversary commemoration on Sunday, with a high school marching band and a theme, he said, of “healing, unifying and strengthening our communities.”
“The trauma, and the hurt that’s there,” he said. “I have one friend who lost his mother and his granddaughter in Katrina. For that trauma to be revisited every year is a tough thing.”
But his perspective on the neighborhood 16 years on was somewhat nuanced. He felt confident that the improvements to the city’s storm protection system — with its mammoth flood walls and new gates and levees — would keep the Ninth Ward safe. His worry, he said, was the damage from the wind that comes with a Category 4 hurricane.
And yet it was difficult not to be disappointed. The jobs for Black men seemed to have dried up in the city. A revamped post-Katrina educational system, heavily reliant on charter schools, did not seem, in Rev. Calhoun’s opinion, to have done much good. The neighborhood was in need of economic stimulus. Still full of empty lots, and ghostly foundations of homes, many of them owned by Black families, long washed away.
After $20 billion in infrastructure improvements, it felt, at best, like partial progress, and like survival with an asterisk.
Credit…Adrees Latif/Reuters
LAKE CHARLES, La. — Not again. That was the widespread sentiment among residents of Lake Charles, a city of about 76,000 residents some 200 miles from New Orleans, on Saturday.
A year after Hurricane Laura left many here without power — and some without homes — for long periods of time, residents were preparing for perhaps yet another weather catastrophe.
When Laura, a powerful Category 4 storm, barreled through Lake Charles last August, it shattered the windows of the home that Juan Jose Galdames, 55, a construction worker, shared with his five children. On Saturday, he was at Home Depot, buying plywood to protect the windows and other vulnerable parts of his house ahead of the storm.
“Yes, I am a little afraid,” Mr. Galdames said. “I don’t want a repeat of that day. It was scary. I want my children to feel safe. I’m trying to get everything ready before nightfall.”
Water and bread were in short supply at an area Target store, and traffic stretched for miles as residents sought safety elsewhere.
Tracy Guillory, 57, a carpenter, tried to prepare by stocking up on supplies and staying on top of weather reports. She said she and her family were weary after a long year of weather crises that included Hurricane Delta and a winter storm that caused pipes to burst and knocked out water systems throughout the region.
Ms. Guillory said her neighborhood was still recovering from flooding in May, which left her SUV beyond repair. She plans to hunker down with her 83-year-old father and 21-year-old daughter.
Josue Espinal, 34, who also works in construction, was trying to reassure his 4-year-old son, Anderson, that everything would be all right. The boy sat on top of a generator box as his father loaded a cart with bottles of water at a Home Depot. Truth was, Mr. Espinal admitted, he too was worried. He and his family live in a mobile home near a lake, and he was looking for a better option to spend the next two nights.
A medical worker monitored a Covid-19 patient in the intensive care unit at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital in Louisiana earlier this month.Credit…Mario Tama/Getty Images
In Louisiana, where daily deaths from Covid reached their highest levels this week, stretched hospitals are having to modify the intense preparations they would normally make ahead of an expected strike from Hurricane Ida.
Louisiana’s medical director, Dr. Joseph Kanter, asked residents on Friday to avoid unnecessary emergency room visits to preserve the state’s hospital capacity, which has been vastly diminished by its most severe Covid surge of the pandemic.
And while plans exist to transfer patients away from coastal areas to inland hospitals ahead of a hurricane, this time “evacuations are just not possible,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference.
“The hospitals don’t have room,” he said. “We don’t have any place to bring those patients — not in state, not out of state.”
The governor said officials had asked hospitals to check generators and stockpile more water, oxygen and personal protective supplies than usual for a storm. The implications of a strike from a Category 4 hurricane while hospitals were full were “beyond what our normal plans are,” he added.
Mr. Edwards said he had told President Biden and Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to expect Covid-related emergency requests, including oxygen.
The state’s recent wave of Covid hospitalizations has exceeded its previous three peaks, and staffing shortages have necessitated support from federal and military medical teams. On Friday, 2,684 Covid patients were hospitalized in the state. This week Louisiana reported its highest ever single-day death toll from Covid — 139 people.
Oschner Health, one of the largest local medical systems, informed the state that it had limited capacity to accept storm-related transfers, especially from nursing homes, the group’s chief executive, Warner L. Thomas, said. Many of Oschner’s hospitals, which were caring for 836 Covid patients on Friday, had invested in backup power and water systems to reduce the need to evacuate, he said.
The pandemic also complicated efforts to discharge more patients than usual before the storm hits. For many Covid patients who require oxygen, “going home isn’t really an option,” said Stephanie Manson, chief operating officer of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, which had 190 Covid inpatients on Friday, 79 of them in intensive care units.
The governor said he feared that the movement of tens or hundreds of thousands of evacuees in the state could cause it to lose gains made in recent days as the number of new coronavirus cases began to drop. Dr. Kanter urged residents who were on the move to wear masks and observe social distancing. Many of the state’s testing and vaccination sites were slated to close temporarily.
The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Surge Barrier was constructed after Hurricane Katrina to prevent tidal surges from hurricanes from reaching New Orleans.Credit…Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — As Hurricane Ida heads toward a possible Sunday landfall on Louisiana’s coastline, the National Weather Service’s storm surge forecast has local officials warning about the potential for water to overtop some of the levees that protect parts of New Orleans.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans noted at a news briefing on Friday evening that water overtopping the levees “is as it was structured to do.” That reflects the updates to the local system of earthen and reinforced levees that protects much of southeast Louisiana in the years after Hurricane Katrina stretched it to a breaking point.
The system, officials said, was rebuilt to defend against a so-called “100-year-storm,” or a storm that has a 1 percent chance in happening every year, but to remain reinforced up to a 500-year-event. It includes armoring, splash pads — concrete areas designed to keep the ground behind an overtopped wall from being washed away — and pumps with backup generators, officials said.
Heath Jones, an emergency operation manager with the Army Corps of Engineers, said that some levees protecting New Orleans on the western side of the Mississippi River were at risk of overtopping in line with the Weather Service’s forecast calling for between 10 and 15 feet of storm surge. A federal levee database shows sections of levee there as low as 10 feet.
Levees in this part of the state have rarely been challenged since they were shored up in the years after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“The previous big tests were (hurricanes) Isaac and Gustav,” said Matt Roe, a public affairs specialist with the Army Corps of Engineers, which occurred in 2012 and 2008, “but it’s important to note that each storm is different.”
Ida’s strength, according to Chip Cline, chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, “will test our hurricane protection system in a way they haven’t been tested before.”
— Chelsea Brasted
Homes in Lake Charles, La., were covered with blue tarps after being hit by Hurricane Laura. Then Hurricane Delta swept through, knocking down trees and scattering debris from the previous storm.Credit…William Widmer for The New York Times
Hurricane Ida threatens to be the first major storm to strike the Gulf Coast during the 2021 season, hitting a region in many ways still grappling with the physical and emotional toll of a punishing run of hurricanes last year.
The Atlantic hurricane season of 2020 was the busiest on record, with 30 named storms, 13 of which reached hurricane strength. There were so many storms that forecasters ran through the alphabet and had to take the rare step of calling storms by Greek letters.
Louisiana was dealt the harshest blow, barraged repeatedly by storms, including Hurricane Laura, which was one of the most powerful to hit the state, trailed six weeks later by Delta, which was weaker than Laura but followed a nearly identical path, inflicting considerable pain on communities still gripped by the devastation from the earlier storm.
The state is still struggling to claw its way back. Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana said the state had $3 billion in unmet recovery needs. In Lake Charles, which was ravaged by direct hits from both hurricanes followed by a deadly winter storm and flooding in May, local officials recently renewed a plea for federal aid as the city has failed to regain its footing; much of it has yet to recover and many residents, unable to find adequate or affordable housing, have fled.
The looming impact of Ida underscores the persisting danger imperiling coastal communities as a changing climate stands to intensify the destructive force of the storms that have always been a seasonal part of life.
President Biden cited the growing danger in May when he announced a significant increase in funding to build and bolster infrastructure in communities most likely to face the wrath of extreme weather.
A fallen tree and electricity pole were cleared as Hurricane Nora approaches Manzanillo, Mexico, on Sunday.Credit…Reuters
Hurricane Nora formed in the eastern Pacific on Saturday morning, threatening much of Mexico’s western coastline as the storm strengthens and barrels its way toward Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco and the tip of the Baja California Peninsula, forecasters said.
As of 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nora was about 425 miles from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and had maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour as it moved north, according to the National Hurricane Center.
A hurricane warning was in effect for parts of western Mexico.
Forecasters said the storm was expected to cause flooding, mudslides and perilous surf along much of Mexico’s central and northern Pacific Coast.
The remnants of the storm are expected to produce heavy rainfall in parts of the southwestern U.S. and central Rockies toward the middle of next week, forecasters said.
A forecast track from the National Hurricane Center showed Nora skirting close to Mexico’s coastline by Sunday morning before moving toward the Gulf of California a day later.
“Some additional strengthening is forecast through tonight if Nora’s center does not make landfall,” the National Hurricane Center said in an update. “Some gradual weakening is expected to begin by Sunday night or Monday, but Nora is forecast to remain as a hurricane through Tuesday.”
Nora is expected to produce rainfall totals of up to 12 inches this weekend along Mexico’s western coast.
It has been a dizzying few weeks for meteorologists who are monitoring Hurricane Ida this weekend after having monitored three named storms that formed in quick succession in the Atlantic, bringing stormy weather, flooding and damaging winds to different parts of the United States and the Caribbean.
The links between hurricanes and climate change are becoming more apparent. A warming planet can expect to see stronger hurricanes over time, and a higher incidence of the most powerful storms — though the overall number of storms could drop because factors like stronger wind shear could keep weaker storms from forming.
Hurricanes are also becoming wetter because of more water vapor in the warmer atmosphere; scientists have suggested that storms like Hurricane Harvey in 2017 produced far more rain than they would have without the human effects on climate. Also, rising sea levels are contributing to higher storm surges — the most destructive element of tropical cyclones.
FRANZ JOSEF LAND, Russia — Chunky green trucks carry Bastion anti-ship missiles that can be prepared for launch in just five minutes. A barracks building, sealed off from the elements like a space station, accommodates 150 or so soldiers. And a new runway can handle fighter jets, two of which recently buzzed the North Pole.
Franz Josef Land, a jumble of glacier-covered islands in the Arctic Ocean named after a Austro-Hungarian emperor, was until a few years ago mostly uninhabited, home to polar bears, walruses, sea birds and little else. But thanks to a warming climate, all that is changing, and quickly.
Nowhere on Earth has climate change been so pronounced as in the polar regions. The warming has led to drastic reductions in sea ice, opening up the Arctic to ships during the summer months and exposing Russia to new security threats.
Arctic Council, a diplomatic club of nations, including the United States, that share interests in the region.
National Snow and Ice Data Center said last year. The ocean has lost nearly a million square miles of ice and is expected to be mostly ice-free in the summertime, including at the North Pole, by around the middle of the century.
wrote of Russia’s problem of disappearing ice.
Lt. Col. Balabeg A. Eminov is the commander of the anti-ship battery and other facilities on Franz Josef Land, called the Trefoil Base. “The main question in the Arctic is the limited accessibility for ships, because of ice,” he said. “Now the area of open water is increasing, and with it the area for ship activity.”
published last year. The latest U.S. military strategy for the Arctic, published in 2019, refers euphemistically to vanishing ice as the “changing physical environment.”
father of the Russian Navy, and oil paintings of sailing ships in battle.
Moored at its base in Murmansk Fjord, the Peter the Great was also visited by flocks of sea gulls, which flapped around its gray-painted radar masts and over the 20 launch tubes for anti-ship missiles. Sailors with side arms stood watch by the gangplank, seemingly oblivious to the cold rain lashing their faces.
Elsewhere in Murmansk Fjord, and not shown to reporters, is another dimension of the Russian military buildup: a secretive program to train seals and beluga whales for as-yet unknown missions. Satellite images have revealed their sea pens at a special operations site. Two years ago, a trained beluga wearing a mysterious harness, possibly an escapee, turned up in Norway and was nicknamed Whaldimir.
posted the footage online. The United States this month sailed the U.S.S. New Mexico, a Virginia-class submarine, into Tromso, Norway, for a rare call at a civilian port.
In the same vein, the tour for foreign journalists to some of Russia’s most remote and secretive military facilities in the Arctic Ocean seemed intended to highlight the country’s capabilities.
“Inviting journalists to come look at these modernized, reinvigorated Cold War sites is all about signaling,” said Marisol Maddox, an Arctic analyst at the Polar Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center, a research organization in Washington.
Russia, she said, wants to keep up its “strongman persona” in an era of climate change.
Chad Kalepa Baybayan, a revered Hawaiian seafarer who was a torchbearer for the art of “wayfinding,” which ancestral Polynesian sailors used to navigate the Pacific Ocean by studying the stars, trade winds and flight patterns of birds,died on April 8 at a friend’s home in Seattle. He was 64.
His daughter Kala Tanaka said the cause was a heart attack. He suffered from diabetes and had had a quadruple bypass over a year ago.
Many centuries ago, oceanic tribes sailed the waters between the islands and atolls of Polynesia in double-hulled canoes. They plotted their course by consulting the directions concealed within sunrises and sunsets, ocean swells, the behaviors of fish and the reflections of land in clouds. As Polynesia was colonized and modernized, the secrets of celestial navigation were nearly forgotten.
Mr. Baybayan (pronounced “bay-BAY-an”) was a teenager when he joined the crew of the fabled Hokule’a (“Star of Gladness”), a voyaging canoe in which he learned to become a wayfinder under the tutelage of the Micronesian master navigator Mau Piailug.
At the time, traditional Hawaiian culture was in peril. Usage of the native language was declining, sacred lands were being desecrated and fewer ceremonies were being held. In 1973 the Polynesian Voyaging Society was formed in hopes of preserving the region’s seafaring heritage, and it built Hokule’a, a replica of an ancient deep-sea voyaging canoe.
In 1976, the vessel embarked on a historic trip from Hawaii to Tahiti without the aid of navigational tools, in what was intended as a display of wayfinding’s technical sophistication. The trip, which was led by Mr. Piailug and documented by National Geographic, also sought to disprove theories that Polynesia was settled accidentally by hapless sailors lost in an aimless drift. (Mr. Baybayan was too young to go on that famous voyage, although he served ceremonial drinks made from awa root to his crewmates before their departure.)
When Hokule’a finally made landfall in Tahiti, thousands of people had gathered on shore to greet the canoe, and the occasion was declared an island-wide celebration. The voyage’s success galvanized a revival of native culture, known as the Hawaiian renaissance, that included a celebration of slack-key guitar music and the hula.
told National Geographic in 2014, “I will never be a ‘master’ because there will always be more to learn.”
“What it truly does is sharpen the human mind, intellect and ability to decipher codes in the environment,” he added. “It’s also incredibly rewarding to navigate and make a distant landfall. For me, it’s the most euphoric feeling that I have ever felt.”
Pwo. The ritual commenced with the blowing of a conch shell, and Mr. Baybayan was given a bracelet of stinging coral to mark his new status. In 2014, he helped lead Hokule’a on a three-year circumnavigation of the globe.
In his late 30s, while raising a family and juggling jobs as a hotel porter and a ramp agent for United Airlines, Mr. Baybayan decided to pursue a higher education. He graduated with a B.A. in Hawaiian studies from the University of Hawaii at Hilo in 1997. He then earned a master’s degree in education from Heritage University in Toppenish, Wash.
Mr. Baybayan became an educator at the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, using its planetarium to teach visitors about celestial navigation. He also traveled to classrooms across the country to talk about wayfinding with the aid of an interactive star compass floor mat. In 2013, he gave a TEDx Talk that recounted the history of Hokule’a.
“There are only a few people in the world who can really navigate properly, and Kalepa was one of them,” Nainoa Thompson, a fellow Hokule’a master navigator, said in a phone interview. “But where Kalepa separates himself is how far he took things with education. He broke the rules.
said in an interview in 2000. “I knew that if there was anything in my life that I wanted to do it was sail on her.”
His daughter elaborated: “For him, seeing Hokule’a was like seeing this thing he’d only heard about in stories and history books, but then there it was and it was real. It wasn’t just a story anymore.”
When Mr. Baybayan first joined the crew, he was charged with tasks like washing and scrubbing the vessel. He began learning the techniques of wayfinding in his 20s, and he went on to guide voyages that took the canoe to Cape Town, Nova Scotia, Cuba and New York.
supporter of the construction of a $1.4 billion telescope on the dormant volcano Mauna Kea, a sacred site considered the resting place of gods. Called the Thirty Meter Telescope, it is expected to be one of the most powerful telescopes ever made, but activists have protested its construction for years.
“I’ve heard the comment that the protesters want to be on the right side of history,” Mr. Baybayan told The Associated Press in 2019. “I want to be on the right side of humanity. I want to be on the right side of enlightenment.”
In addition to his daughter Kala, Mr. Baybayan is survived by his wife, Audrey (Kaide) Baybayan; another daughter, Pukanala Llanes; a son, Aukai Baybayan; his mother, Lillian Suter; two brothers, Clayton and Lyle Baybayan; a sister, Lisa Baybayan, who now goes by Sister Ann Marie; a half brother, Theodore Suter; and six grandchildren.
Last month, Mr. Baybayan was in Seattle with his wife to visit some of his grandchildren when he collapsed suddenly one evening.
The night after he died, a group of his crewmates, including Mr. Thompson, gathered aboard Hokule’a for a moonlight passage in his memory. Mr. Thompson, who had studied celestial navigation alongside Mr. Baybayan as a young man, looked toward the stars as he honored his fellow wayfinder.
“I think Kalepa has gone to where the spirits go,” Mr. Thompson said. “Now he is up there with our ancestors who dwell in the black of the night.”
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