A FRANTIC caller told authorities he had just come home to find several family members beaten to death and another barely breathing, according to a 911 call released yesterday following the weekend attack at a mobile home park in south-eastern Georgia.

US firefighters battled huge blazes early today, including one that burned homes and forced residents and visitors on Santa Catalina Island to flee the resort off the southern California coast.

Windows were boarded up and the streets on Cedar Key in the Gulf of Mexico were desolate as the first tropical storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season started moving over Florida early today, but forecasters said they did not expect Alberto to strengthen into a hurricane.

Florida’s Atlantic coast braced for the arrival of a tropical storm today, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina first hit the state.