Army Sgt. Samuel Valdez has been missing since he fell overboard in a Feb. 22 training exercise, but he will never be forgotten, friends, family members and fellow soldiers say. ...more

July 20, 2009

The Coast Guard is monitoring the cleanup of a 1,000-gallon oil spill in the Port of Tampa. ...more

April 1, 2009

For Lynda Valdez, the emotions were too much Thursday when she toured the Army tugboat from which her soldier husband disappeared off the North Carolina coast. ...more

March 4, 2009

For Lynda Valdez, the emotions were too much Thursday when she toured the Army tugboat from which her soldier husband disappeared off the North Carolina coast. Lynda Valdez said she broke down when she and other family members visited the Major General Winfield Scott as they struggled to understand the Sunday accident that left 22-year-old Spc. Samuel Valdez of Plant City missing and presumed dead. ...more

February 27, 2009

A soldier from Plant City who survived a 15-month tour in Iraq was lost overboard and presumed dead while on a tugboat doing a training mission off North Carolina. ...more

February 25, 2009

A soldier from Plant City stationed out of Fort Eustis, Va., is missing and presumed dead after he reportedly fell overboard Sunday during an Army exercise off the North Carolina coast. A 40-hour search by the Coast Guard was suspended. ...more

February 24, 2009

From Southern California to Maine, the foundering economy, high fuel prices and poor fishing have driven boat owners to abandon perhaps thousands of vessels on the waterfront, where they are beginning to break up and sink, leaking oil and other pollutants. ...more

November 13, 2008