Big wildfires create their own weather, and can even spawn tornadoes swirling with smoke and flame. Researchers are trying to determine how often they occur.
Flooding in rural areas took out roads, cellphone towers and telephone lines, leaving families uncertain about whether their loved ones survived the unprecedented deluge.
With Tropical Storm Henri strengthening, resort areas such as Martha's Vineyard, Block Island and Nantucket are in the watch zone this weekend, as are parts of Long Island and Connecticut.
The soccer stadium in the Haitian seaside town of Les Cayes is now a tent city of people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the earthquake. Aid continues to arrive, but slowly.
"There's nothing more eerie than walking into a half-destroyed building and seeing yesterday's lesson on the blackboard as if nothing had changed," says Christy Delafield of Mercy Corps.
Activists and relief workers can't help but respond to mounting disasters in Haiti, even though they are fatigued from the constant churn of relief efforts.