What to know about red tide after Florida's back-to-back hurricanes

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Residents of Florida’s Gulf Coast who weathered back-to-back hurricanes now have something else to keep an eye on -– a possible plume of harmful algae in the waters off the state’s southwest coast.

Satellite imagery shows a bloom of algae extending along Florida's western coastline near Tampa, though researchers caution that Hurricanes Helene and Milton have delayed regular sampling to confirm the findings. Federal officials say there is currently “no risk of respiratory irritation” from red tide in Florida.

Red tides occur when algae — plant-like organisms that live in salt and freshwater — grow out of control and produce harmful toxins that can kill fish and sicken people and pets.

“It’s so dense that it actually discolors the water, right? Hence the red tide name,” said Beth Stauffer, a professor of biology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

According to researchers, the main species responsible for the blooms along Florida’s Gulf Coast is Karenia brevis, a single-celled organism that produces a potent neurotoxin that can be suspended in the air near beaches and make people sick when they breathe it in.

“(It) not only impacts some of the fish and manatees and some of the other marine mammals, but can impact human health through the toxin being aerosolized and hurting folks who have respiratory or autoimmune issues,” Stauffer said.

Scientists say Florida’s back-to-back hits from Hurricanes Helene and Milton could be fueling the growth of toxic algae that was already present before the storms slammed the coast.

Here’s what to know about red tide — and how hurricanes could affect it.

Red tides, which scientists refer to as harmful algae blooms, occur when aquatic microorganisms grow out of control, producing toxins that can kill fish, make shellfish unsafe to eat and leave the air difficult to breathe.

Many different kinds of microorganisms cause toxic blooms in fresh and saltwater around the world, but researchers say the culprit behind southwest Florida’s cyclical blooms is a species known as Karenia brevis.

Florida typically sees red tide off the state’s southwest coast every year in late summer or early fall when warmer temperatures and wind conditions are more favorable to algae growth.

Experts say there are a lot of factors that can influence a harmful algae bloom, from the availability of nutrients to wind conditions to the powerful underwater currents that help power the ocean’s food chains.

While the researchers who spoke with The Associated Press didn’t agree on whether hurricanes can disrupt a harmful algae bloom, they did say that these powerful storms can make them worse by churning up nutrient-rich water that fuels the growth of the microorganisms.

“Hurricanes do bring up deeper water in the Gulf of Mexico, which has more nutrients. They also could produce a lot of rain. You have runoff from the land, which also adds nutrients,” said Richard Stumpf, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It tends to intensify a bloom that’s already there."

Hurricanes can also steer blooms ashore, even pushing them hundreds of miles up the coast, according to Stumpf.

“We saw an extreme case with Katrina, which of course didn’t really affect Florida, but it was such a big storm, it actually took a bloom that was off southwest Florida and put it on the Panhandle,” he said.

Harmful algae blooms can pose a deadly threat to aquatic animals, with some causing massive die-offs that choke beaches with rotting fish. People who breathe in the toxins may experience symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath or dizziness.

“It’s like an instant cold. Go down to the beach, start coughing just as you cross over the dune and then eyes start watering and nose running,” Stumpf said.

“Once I leave and 10 minutes later, I'm fine," he said. “It's so odd.”

Those with asthma or other respiratory issues may experience more serious health effects or even need medical attention. Some pets that have come into contact with harmful algae have become seriously ill or even died.

According to a red tide monitoring map maintained by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, medium and high levels of Karenia brevis concentrations were detected in some coastal locations near Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, between Sept. 26 and Oct. 3 – just as Hurricane Helene crashed ashore in the Big Bend region and in the week that followed.

A NOAA forecasting tool shows there is currently “no risk of respiratory irritation” from red tide algae in Florida.

Researchers say that some efforts to gather and analyze data have been delayed due to the storms.

“It looks like the hurricane actually helped facilitate what is an evolving red tide bloom along the coastline,” said Robert Weisberg, an emeritus professor of physical oceanography at the University of South Florida. “The caveat is we have not gone out to sample it yet so we don’t know exactly what’s out there.”

FILE - A health alert sign warns visitors to Sand Key Park of the presence of Red Tide in the surrounding water, March 9, 2023, in Pinellas County, Fla. (Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times via AP, File)

PHOENIX (AP) — Divorce records for Arizona Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego and his ex-wife, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, were made public Thursday after an Arizona court unsealed most of the seven-year-old case file.

The records offer little insight into the high-profile marriage or the reasons it fell apart. There are no allegations of abuse or infidelity that could have upended Arizona's closely watched Senate race, one of a handful that will determine control of the upper chamber of Congress.

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site, petitioned to release the records, which Ruben and Kate Gallego both opposed, saying they wanted to protect their child's safety and privacy. They were unsealed a day after the Arizona Supreme Court declined the Gallegos' request for an emergency order keeping them private.

GOP nominee Kari Lake has hyped the release of the records as part of a broader attack on Ruben Gallego's character, suggesting in interviews and social media posts that they would be a “massive story" and that the Gallegos' fight to keep the record sealed showed they had something big to hide.

“I hope everybody who says they're going to vote for him will hold off until we get the details about why he ran off on his wife when she was nine months pregnant," she said on KTAR-FM this week, adding, “We don't know if it was spousal abuse.”

The divorce decree, signed by both Gallegos, includes a declaration that “the parties acknowledge and agree that there was no domestic violence during the marriage or that significant domestic violence did not occur."

In a joint statement Thursday, the Gallegos blasted Lake for hyping the divorce and said they have always prioritized the interests of their son, who is now 7.

“We demand an apology from Kari Lake for lying about our family and the circumstances of our divorce,” the statement said. “She will stop at nothing to score a cheap political point — even if it means endangering the privacy and well-being of our young son."

Caroline Wren, a senior adviser to Lake, said Lake had “nothing to do with this lawsuit."

“It’s bizarre that Ruben Gallego would demand an apology from Kari Lake for his appalling behavior,” Wren said, questioning how Gallego could claim he wants to protect women after divorcing his pregnant wife.

The divorce file spells out the shared parenting and custody plan for their son, who was born while the divorce case was pending, and how the couple’s assets would be divided, but most of those details were redacted from the publicly released records.

The case was finalized four months after it was filed without any indication of wrangling over assets or custody.

Yavapai County judge John Napper, who ordered the case unsealed, predicted after reviewing the file that “everyone’s going to be rather deflated.” He called it “one of the most garden variety divorce files I have ever seen.”

The breakup of the Gallego marriage shortly before the birth of their first child shocked the Arizona political community when it was announced in 2016. Speculation about the reasons and the secrecy surrounding the divorce records has been one of the biggest challenges Ruben Gallego has confronted in his Senate campaign.

Both Gallegos have called their separation a “private matter" and have said little publicly about it, though Ruben Gallego, a retired U.S. Marine, has suggested post-traumatic stress disorder he got from a deployment to Iraq contributed.

Kate Gallego endorsed her ex-husband’s Senate campaign last year, and they routinely appear together in public, often with their son.

The Gallegos went to extraordinary lengths to keep the records private. Ruben Gallego filed the petition for divorce in Yavapai County, 100 miles from Phoenix and where neither has ever lived, and asked a judge to take the rare step of sealing the entire case file.

Napper, the judge now overseeing the case, ruled the case was improperly sealed and rejected many of the Gallegos' requested redactions.

The Arizona Court of Appeals sided with the Free Beacon last week and ordered the files unsealed on Thursday. The state Supreme Court declined to step in late Wednesday.

U.S. Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., speaks during a debate with Republican challenger Kari Lake, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, in Phoenix. (Cheryl Evans/Arizona Republic via AP)