The Department of Veterans Affairs has closed dozens of clinics in Florida through Friday and is taking steps to ensure hospital patients are safe ahead of Hurricane Helene, which is forecasted to make landfall Thursday night along the state’s Gulf Coast.

Fast-moving Hurricane Helene was advancing Thursday across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida, threatening an “unsurvivable” storm surge in northwestern parts of the state.

House lawmakers on Wednesday urged the swift passage of legislation to better support family caregivers and home health aides who help veterans with serious disabilities continue to live at home and stay out of institutional care.

Placed on permanent display earlier this month at the museum in Austin, Panel 44 is the only one from the 1982-installation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial available to view outside of the National Mall in Washington.

The Air Force evacuated aircraft from several Florida and Georgia bases on Wednesday, and some 3,300 Florida National Guard troops prepared to respond as Hurricane Helene bared down on the state’s Gulf Coast.

There were significant increases in the number of complaints about credit reporting, debt collection, credit cards, bank accounts and mortgages.

Elmer Calvin Smith, who as an 18-year-old soldier stationed at an Army airfield survived the Japanese surprise attack on Hawaii in 1941, died Friday at age 101. Smith was among fewer than two dozen still-living veterans who survived the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Oahu, although the exact number is unknown.

More than 675 people were affected by dropped calls, texts and chats, according to the VA, because of service outages for a suicide hotline for veterans.

After the war ended in 1945, Hibray flew over Hiroshima to view the devastation and into Osaka, where he purchased an Arisaka Japanese military rifle with a bayonet as a souvenir and had it shipped back to the United States.