Grace Potter is staying safe amid the fires in California.

In an Instagram Reel shared on Wednesday, Jan. 8, the “Mother Road” singer spoke about evacuating the Los Angeles fires after recently being in New Orleans during the terror attack on Jan. 1 and losing her Vermont home amid the flooding in July 2024.

“We are safely evacuated from Topanga Canyon but many are still in harms way,” Potter, 41, wrote. “Just now we discovered that the place we evacuated to is also under evacuation orders. They just announced the schools are shut.”

Potter said that she had just arrived in L.A. after a cross-country trip after being in New Orleans “amid the terror attack.” She also mentioned that last summer her Fayston, Vt. farm was “devastated by the floods.”

“Life is wildly unpredictable and it’s important [to] keep your heart strong and your mind clear. If you see smoke, don’t wait for cell signal,” Potter continued.

“Trust your gut. Pack the necessities & GET OUT. I’m feeling deep gratitude for family, friends, the firefighters and for community. We are lucky. Stay safe out there folks.”

Her Jan. 8 video showed her driving away from the smoke. “Am I a storm chaser, or do I just like being places where really bad things happen? Or is this just happening everywhere? I don’t know,” she said in the clip, adding that she would pick up her son Sagan, 7 this week, from school and found a hotel to stay at.

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On Jan. 1, Potter was in New Orleans celebrating the New Year when a truck intentionally drove through the crowd on Bourbon Street leaving at least 14 people dead and dozens injured.

“We were standing at the corner of the intersection where only hours later a car came crashing through in a terrifying & violent act,” Potter’s joint Instagram post with husband Eric Valentine read.

“Then this morning, as we were in our room packing our bags to leave, a bomb was detonated less than a block away from our hotel in the quarter.”

Valentine added: “I am grateful my family is safe. I am grateful for the brave people who put their lives on the line to do their best to keep us safe. Our hearts go out to those who were injured and to the families and friends of those who were lost.”

In July, the singer posted pictures and videos of the damage from the floods with water overflowing rivers and roadways. Following the flooding, Potter said that the annual Grand Point North Festival would also serve as a benefit for those affected by the Vt. floods.

“Vermont, my heart is with you. I’ll be home soon, and we will rebuild as we always do,” she wrote.

Potter also shared a picture of a map of the blaze on her Instagram Stories on Jan. 8, pointing out where her home was. “Emotionally preparing to lose our home,” she wrote. “All i can do now is hope for a miracle & send love to the Canyon that brought me back into the daylight.”

The L.A. fires began on Tuesday, Jan. 7. Thousands of structures have been affected by the disastrous blaze.

Click here to learn more about how to help the victims of the L.A. fires.

Vermont basketball scored the game’s first seven points and built multiple 10-point leads early in the first half of Saturday’s America East Conference showdown at Bryant.

But everything unraveled after the Catamounts’ roaring start.

The Bryant Bulldogs seized control by the halftime horn and rolled in the second half for a 73-53 victory, handing Vermont its biggest conference defeat in two decades.

The Catamounts (9-9, 2-1) haven’t loss by at least 20 points to a league opponent in the regular season since the 2004-05 finale at Maine, 87-66, when stars Taylor Coppenrath and T.J. Sorrentine did not play. They also suffered a 22-point setback to Stony Brook in the 2011 America East semifinals.

More: Anna Olson’s legacy continues to grow for Vermont women’s basketball

Vermont opened a 24-14 lead on a Shamir Bogues 3-pointer with 8 minutes, 21 seconds before the break. Then the Bulldogs unleashed a 20-6 spurt to close the half. Bryant, though, kept momentum on its side, scoring 20 of the first 22 points of the second half.

The advantage ballooned to 57-32 by the 12-minute mark. All told, Bryant had a 43-8 run spanning the two halves to carve out the insurmountable advantage.

More: How UVM sports teams fared Jan. 10-11: Schedule, scores, results

Connor Withers, who started Bryant’s comeback in the first half with a 3-pointer, paced the hosts with 19 points. Rafael Pinzon and Barry Evans each had 13 points, and Early Timberlake added a dozen points for Bryant’s first win over Vermont since joining America East ahead of the 2022-23 campaign.

For Vermont, Bogues totaled 17 points and six rebounds, and Ileri Ayo-Faleye collected 15 points. Sam Alamutu picked up 11 rebounds.

The Bulldogs scored 22 points off Vermont’s 17 turnovers. Bryant also made 11 3-pointers.

The Catamounts return to action for the league home opener Thursday night vs. Binghamton.

Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter: @aabrami5.

SMITHFIELD — Bryant men’s basketball’s addition to the America East three years ago didn’t alter the traditional powers.

Vermont captured the last two league titles to finish off a stretch of five crowns in six years for the Burlington program. Bryant, before joining the conference, largely had no history with its northern neighbors outside of a home-and-home series in 2013-14.

The Bryant-Vermont matchup was reintroduced in January of 2023 with Vermont winning all four meetings since they became conference foes. Bryant halted that run and redirected the league’s authority on Saturday night at the Chace Center.

Bryant (8-9, 2-0) blistered the Catamounts with an early run and thumped Vermont in the second half for a 73-53 triumph behind Connor Withers’ 19 points. The six-year guard caught fire at the end of the first half and shot 8-14 for the game. Bryant only kept that potent scoring going in the second half.

“I don’t even know my record against them,” Withers said of Vermont. “I’ve lost a lot more than I’ve won against them. And then losing in the championship, I’ve got a lot of respect for that team. They’re top of the conference every year, the team to beat every year. It does feel good.”

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Withers transferred to Bryant from UMass Lowell last season. The guard lost to Vermont, 72–59, in the 2022-23 conference championship. Saturday’s win can’t erase that feeling, but his shooting can pace a conference run for Bryant this winter.  

“It’s just another win and it’s just one win,” Withers said. “As good as it feels to beat them, it only counts for one win. It doesn’t count for five wins in the conference, it counts for one win. As good as it feels, it doesn’t mean too much if we don’t handle business next week and the next game that we play.”

The Bulldogs trailed, 15-5, before trading 3s with Vermont on six straight possessions. They withstood Vermont’s best punch through the first 12 minutes of the game and trailed just 24-17 on Withers’ second 3-pointer.

The shot from the wing got Withers going as he added his third trey of the contest just a few minutes later to give Bryant its first lead, 28-26, with 4:20 to play in the frame. He added another long jumper and a layup high off the glass for a personal 7-0 run.

“It’s the discipline,” Bryant coach Phil Martelli Jr. said of Vermont’s success. “I would bet there’s not a lot of games where they’ve turned it over that much (17 turnovers) and haven’t turned the opponent over. The game was played on our terms, outside of those first minutes, which is hard to do against them. They usually play it on their terms and then you get into that game trying to beat them at their game. That’s hard to do, as we’ve seen.”

Withers’ sequence started a Bryant run, 23-6, that ended only from the halftime horn. But the Bulldogs didn’t stop, and out of the break scored 20 of the first 22 points. All told, Bryant’s supremacy was a 43-8 run over 17 minutes of play.

“I was concerned about us settling,” Martelli said. “And then we came out, we got to the rim, we scored, and we’re able to get some layups and do some things. … And that goes to, we have guys that have the ability to do multiple things.

“That was key for us. I think being able to start that half and getting some layups, obviously, getting the stops along with it.”

More: Why is Earl Timberlake still playing basketball at Bryant? What you need to know

Barry Evans and Rafael Pinzon both chipped in 13 points. Earl Timberlake added a dozen with six rebounds, four assists and four steals as Bryant shot 44.6% from the field and was 11-for-27 from beyond the arc.

“I get it, we haven’t beaten them,” Martelli said. “They are the standard. They are flat-out the standard. But it’s [only the second conference win].

“It’s good we beat Vermont because that’s who we played today. We got number two, now let’s get number three.”

Bryant vs. Vermont all-time

Nov. 16, 2013: Bryant 87, Vermont 64

Nov. 26, 2014: Vermont 73, Bryant 47

Jan. 5, 2023: Vermont 74, Bryant 64

Feb. 25, 2023: Vermont 70, Bryant 66

Jan. 27, 2024: Vermont 67, Bryant 57

Feb. 24, 2024: Vermont 65, Bryant 48

jrousseau@providencejournal.com

On X: @ByJacobRousseau