Deadly storms and tornadoes sweep through US; death toll rises to 24

WASHINGTON -- The death toll from a major storm system that has lashed the south-central and eastern United States with devastating winds and powerful tornadoes rose to at least 24 by Sunday, officials said.

Tennessee, one of the hardest-hit states since the storms began Friday, initially had seven weather-related fatalities, but it later rose to nine, according to Memphis-based news channel WREG.

Scenes of devastation were left in the path of the Tennessee tornado, which twisted trees, flattened homes into piles of wooden boards, and ripped walls from still-standing structures.

"The whole house, you can feel it shaking," said Janice Pieterick, whose house doors and glass windows blew out when the tornado swept through Lewis County.

"We just all hunkered down."

The toll in Tennessee came on top of the 15 deaths reported in Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama in the south, Indiana and Illinois in the Midwest, and Delaware in the mid-Atlantic.

The storm system, which left dozens injured, was bearing down on the US east coast on Saturday, with thunderstorms, hail and powerful winds predicted through late Sunday.

It had sent multiple tornadoes -- some of exceptional size and power -- sweeping through Arkansas, where they killed at least five people, the state's governor said.

Daylight revealed extensive damage, with several homes torn apart, cars overturned, power lines toppled and trees ripped out of the ground.

Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has declared a state of emergency and activated the national guard to help with recovery efforts.

She said she had spoken to President Joe Biden, who promised to expedite federal aid.

The city of Wynne, in northeastern Arkansas, was "cut in half by damage from east to west," Mayor Jennifer Hobbs told CNN.

The National Weather Service had issued tornado warnings for several other states, from as far north as Iowa to the southern state of Mississippi, where a twister last week killed 25 people and caused extensive property damage.

- Concert tragedy -

Calamity struck in the Illinois town of Belvidere, outside of Chicago, on Friday when severe weather caused the roof and part of the facade of the Apollo Theater to collapse while a heavy metal band played inside.

TV footage showed emergency personnel carrying out injured concert-goers on stretchers, while video posted on social media showed waist-high rubble on the floor of the venue and a gaping hole in the roof.

Belvidere Fire Chief Shawn Schadle reported one death and 28 injuries, including five people hospitalized with serious injuries.

In Crawford County, in southern Illinois, three people died when a house collapsed, likely from a tornado hit, said Kevin Sur, spokesman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

In the neighboring state of Indiana, three people were killed by a storm in Sullivan County, on the border with Illinois, several US media outlets reported, citing local authorities.

Overnight tornadoes also claimed one life in Pontotoc County, Mississippi, and one in Madison County, Alabama, emergency officials reported Saturday.

More than 610,000 homes were without power Saturday, according to the poweroutage.us website.

- Storm moving north -

As the storm tracked northeastward, the highest number of outages on Saturday afternoon were in the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Neighboring Delaware suffered one fatality from a "collapsed structure" in Sussex County on Saturday evening, according to the county's emergency operations center, while several mid-Atlantic states were under high wind warnings.

"Maximum wind gusts could approach 60 miles (100 kilometers) per hour throughout much of the Appalachians, upper Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic today," the National Weather System warned.

Tornadoes are common in the United States, especially in the center and south of the country.

Biden on Friday visited the Mississippi city Rolling Fork, one of the worst-hit areas in last week's tornado.

In December 2021, tornadoes killed about 80 people in Kentucky.

Agence France-Presse

Weeks without power or water ahead as Laura cleanup begins

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — The destructive storm surge has receded, and the clean up has begun from Hurricane Laura, but officials along this shattered stretch of Louisiana coast are warning returning residents they will face weeks without power or water amid the hot, stifling days of late summer.

The U.S. toll from the Category 4 hurricane stood at 16 deaths, with more than half of those killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from the unsafe operation of generators.

President Donald Trump plans to tour the damage in Louisiana and neighboring Texas on Saturday.

Across southwestern Louisiana, people were cleaning up from the hurricane that roared ashore early Thursday, packing 150 mph (240 kph) winds. Many were deciding whether they wanted to return home to miserable conditions or wait until basic services are finally restored.

At First United Methodist Church in Lake Charles, a work crew was battling water that continued to pour into the church building as it rained Friday.

“This roof blew off. There’s some of it over there,” said Michael Putman, owner of Putman Restoration, pointing to part of the roof resting near the side of the building. A pile of black garbage bags sat outside the church, filled with insulation and ceiling tile.

Putman lives in Shreveport, which also got damage from the storm. But he said he drove down to Lake Charles to help the minister, who was his high school pastor.

“We slept in our truck in the parking lot last night,” he said.

Simply driving was a feat in Lake Charles, a city of 80,000 residents hit head on. Power lines and trees blocked paths or created one-lane roads, leaving drivers to negotiate with oncoming traffic. Street signs were snapped off their posts or dangling. No stoplights worked, making it an exercise in trust to share the road with other motorists.

Mayor Nic Hunter cautioned that there was no timetable for restoring electricity and that water-treatment plants “took a beating,” leaving barely a trickle of water coming out of most faucets. “If you come back to Lake Charles to stay, make sure you understand the above reality and are prepared to live in it for many days, probably weeks,” Hunter wrote on Facebook.

Caravans of utility trucks were met Friday by thunderstorms in the sizzling heat, complicating recovery efforts.

The Louisiana Department of Health estimated that more than 220,000 people were without water. Restoration of those services could take weeks or months, and full rebuilding could take years.

Forty nursing homes were relying on generators, and assessments were underway to determine if more than 860 residents in 11 facilities that had been evacuated could return.

The much weaker remnants of the hurricane continued to move across the Southern U.S., unleashing heavy rain and isolated tornadoes. North Carolina and Virginia could get the brunt of the worst weather Saturday, forecasters said.

When the storm moves back over the Atlantic Ocean, forecasters said it could become a tropical storm again and threaten Newfoundland, Canada.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards called Laura the most powerful hurricane to strike the state, meaning it surpassed even Katrina, which was a Category 3 storm when it hit in 2005. He said Friday that officials now believe the surge was as high as 15 feet (4.5 meters).

Saturday marks the 15th anniversary of Katrina.

Hurricane Laura also killed nearly two dozen people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic en route to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

In Lake Charles, chainsaws buzzed and heavy machinery hauled tree limbs in the front lawn of Stanley and Dominique Hazelton, who rode out the storm on a bathroom floor. A tree punctured the roof not far from where the couple was taking cover.

They regretted staying.

“There’s people without homes,” Stanley Hazelton said. “So it was dumb. We’ll never do it again. We’ll never stay through another hurricane again.”

Associated Press

Devastated Venice braced for third major flood

Venice was braced Saturday for an unprecednted third major flooding in less than a week, with sea water due to swamp the already devastated historic city where authorities have declared a state of emergency.

Mayor Luigi Brugnaro ordered the iconic St Mark’s Square closed on Friday as the latest sea surge struck with strong storms and winds battering the region.

After a brief respite on Saturday, the city forecast a high water of 160 centimetres (over five feet) for just after midday on Sunday, lower than Tuesday’s high of 187 centimetres but still dangerous.

Churches, shops and homes in the city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, have been inundated by unusually intense “acqua alta”, or high water, which on Tuesday hit its highest level in half a century.

“We’ve destroyed Venice, we’re talking about one billion (euros) in damage,” Brugnaro said after the second major flooding of around 160 centimetres hit on Friday.

The Italian football team travelled to Venice on Saturday to show solidarity with the stricken city.

“On behalf of the whole team, we stand close to the city of Venice,” said Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.

The Italian football federation delegation visited several businesses damaged by the flooding, and chatted with Venetians, volunteers and police.

“Venice will overcome this too. Like an athlete who suffers a serious injury and then gets up again,” said delegation chief and former Azzurri international Gianluca Vialli.


The crisis has prompted the government to release 20 million euros ($22 million) in funds to tackle the devastation.

Surveying the damage, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini warned the task of repairing the city would be huge. More than 50 churches had suffered damage, he said.

Hotel reservations cancelled

Residents whose houses have been hit are eligible for up to 5,000 euros in immediate government aid, while restaurant and shop owners can receive up to 20,000 euros and apply for more later.

Most of the city’s cash machines were no longer working because of the water, making life even more difficult for tourists and Venetians.

Despite being used to the inconvenience of their city’s rising waters, some inhabitants expressed frustration.

“All the stock in the basement is lost,” lamented Luciano, a worker at a shop along St. Mark’s Square.

He said he remembered well the infamous “acqua alta” of 1966, when the water rose to a level of 1.94 metres, the highest since records began in 1923.

“These so frequent high waters have never happened before…this time there’s so much more damage than in the past,” he said.

Hotels reported cancelled reservations, some as far ahead as December, following the widespread diffusion of images of Venice underwater.

Tuesday’s high waters submerged around 80 percent of the city, officials said.

Many, including Venice’s mayor, have blamed the disaster on global warming and warned that the country prone to natural disasters must wake up to the risks posed by ever more volatile seasons.

The Serenissima, as the floating city is called, is home to 50,000 residents but receives 36 million visitors each year.

A massive infrastructure project called MOSE has been under way since 2003 to protect the city, but it has been plagued by cost overruns, corruption scandals and delays.

The speaker of Italy’s Senate, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, visited Venice on Saturday and called for the MOSE project to be completed.

“Once the emergency is over, the light on Venice should not go out,” Italian media reported.

“Venice needs attention. Now is the time to do it and if the MOSE serves as it should to avoid such disasters, then it must be finished.”

cjo/har

Agence France-Presse

Dorian topples crane, knocks out power in eastern Canada

TORONTO — Dorian arrived on Canada’s Atlantic coast Saturday with heavy rain and powerful winds, toppling a construction crane in Halifax and knocking out power for more than 300,000 people a day after the storm wreaked havoc on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Residents of Nova Scotia braced for heavy rainfall and potential flooding along the coast, as officials in Halifax urged people to secure heavy objects that might become projectiles. Businesses were encouraged to close early.

“We do not want the citizens of Halifax roaming downtown as the water is coming in,” said Erica Fleck, assistant chief of community risk reduction in Halifax, the provincial capital and home to 400,000 people.

A crane toppled and crashed into the side of a downtown apartment building under construction. In the city’s south end, a roof was ripped off an apartment complex, and firefighter Jeff Paris said several apartment buildings were being evacuated. With the collapsed crane and all the down trees and power lines, it’s fortunate there are no significant injuries or deaths, he said.

“The power went out hours ago, but we were well prepared,” said Tim Rissesco, who lives on the east side of Halifax harbor in Dartmouth. “We’ve got snacks and food and we’re hunkered down in the house playing board games and watching the rain and the wind.”

As Canada prepared for Dorian, floodwaters receded Saturday from North Carolina’s Outer Banks, leaving behind a muddy trail of destruction. The storm’s worst damage in the U.S. appeared to be on Ocracoke Island, which even in good weather is accessible only by boat or air and is popular with tourists for its undeveloped beaches. Longtime residents who waited out the storm described strong but manageable winds followed by a wall of water that flooded the first floors of many homes and forced some to await rescue from their attics.

“We’re used to cleaning up dead limbs and trash that’s floating around,” said Ocracoke Island resident and business owner Philip Howard. “But now it’s everything: picnic tables, doors, lumber that’s been floating around.”

Howard said by phone Saturday that flooding at his properties on the North Carolina island is 13 inches higher than the levels wrought by a storm in 1944, which he said had long been considered the worst. He raised his home higher than the 1944 flood level and still got water inside.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Howard, who owns the Village Craftsmen, a store that sells handcrafted pottery, glass and kitchen items. He said much of the merchandise on the lower shelves is ruined. Pieces of pottery were floating around inside.

Inside his house, the floorboards were buckling and curling up after being warped by the water, he said.

Gov. Roy Cooper said about 800 people had remained on the island to wait out Dorian. The storm made landfall Friday morning over the Outer Banks as a far weaker storm than the monster that devastated the Bahamas . Yet despite having been downgraded to a Category 1 storm, it still sent seawater surging into homes on Ocracoke, many for the first time in memory.


More than 1,100 Bahamians arrived in Palm Beach, Florida, after being evacuated by cruise ship from their hurricane-battered islands.

The Grand Celebration cruise ship returned to its home port after setting sail Thursday for Freeport, Grand Bahama, to deliver more than 112 tons of supplies and ferry dozens of health workers and emergency crews.

The storm made landfall Saturday evening near Sambro Creek, about 24 kilometers south of Halifax with maximum sustained winds of 161 kph.

Forecasters said the center of Dorian was expected to move across Nova Scotia, pass near or over Prince Edward Island, and then move to Newfoundland and Labrador on Sunday.

Canadian officials prepared for the possibility of flooding, washouts and storm surges, and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the military was mobilizing to assist Nova Scotia.

Novia Scotia Power Inc. reported more than 300,000 customers were in the dark by 7 p.m., with power out in parts of Halifax, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Karen Hutt, the utility’s chief executive, said Dorian is the largest weather event the company had ever responded to, and 1,000 workers were ready to restore power once it’s safe.

Hurricanes in Canada are somewhat rare in part because once the storms reach colder Canadian waters, they lose their main source of energy. Canadian Hurricane Centre meteorologist Ian Hubbard said the last hurricanes to make landfall in Canada were Hurricane Igor and Hurricane Earl in September, 2010.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Dorian was officially a post-tropical cyclone, not a hurricane, though it still packed hurricane-force winds.

Dorian lashed the eastern tip of Maine with heavy rain, strong winds and high surf as the storm passed offshore. Several hundred homes and businesses lost power.

In North Carolina, the governor said officials were aware of no serious injuries on the Outer Banks from the storm. About 200 people were in shelters and 45,000 without power as of mid-day Saturday, according to the governor’s office. Emergency officials transported fuel trucks, generators, food and water to Okracoke.

At least five deaths in the Southeast were blamed on Dorian. Four were men in Florida or North Carolina who died in falls or by electrocution while trimming trees, putting up storm shutters or otherwise getting ready for the hurricane. North Carolina officials said a 67-year-old man died Friday in Pamlico County after he collapsed while cleaning storm debris.

Dorian slammed the Bahamas at the start of the week with 295 kph winds, killing at least 43 people and obliterating countless homes. From there, it swept past Florida and Georgia, then sideswiped the Carolinas on Thursday, spinning off tornadoes that peeled away roofs and flipped recreational vehicles.

Ocracoke resident and restaurant owner Jason Wells said he lost three vehicles and a golf cart to floodwaters, and he has $5,000 worth of food in a freezer on an island that still lacks power. He said by text message Saturday that he and family members were already bleaching and disinfecting their houses, but he feared weeks could pass before electricity returned to most houses because of wiring problems caused by floodwaters.

“We are a close knit community. We will power on,” Wells wrote. “We will persevere. We are family. Time to get to work.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Hurricane Dorian: Shocking Images of Teen Almost Drowning

Practically parking over the Bahamas for a day and a half, Hurricane Dorian pounded away at the islands Tuesday in a watery onslaught that devastated thousands of homes, trapped people in attics and crippled hospitals. At least five deaths were reported, with the full extent of the damage far from clear.

The United Nations and the International Red Cross began mobilizing to deal with the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the wake of the most powerful hurricane on record ever to hit the Bahamas.

Dorian’s punishing winds and torrential rain battered the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama, which have a combined population of about 70,000 and are known for their marinas, golf courses,

and all-inclusive resorts. The Grand Bahama airport was under 6 feet (2 meters) of water.

Bahamian officials received a “tremendous” number of calls from people in flooded homes, and desperate callers trying to find loved ones left messages with local radio stations.

One station said it got reports of a 5-month-old baby stranded on a roof and a woman with six grandchildren who cut a hole in a roof to escape rising floodwaters.

At least two designated storm shelters flooded. The U.S. Coast Guard airlifted at least 21 people injured on Abaco. Rescuers also used jet skis to reach some people.

“We will confirm what the real situation is on the ground,” Health Minister Duane Sands said. “We are hoping and praying that the loss of life is limited.”

Red Cross spokesman Matthew Cochrane said more than 13,000 houses, or about 45% of the homes in Grand Bahama and Abaco, were believed to have been severely damaged or destroyed. U.N. officials said more than 60,000 people on the hard-hit islands will need food, and the Red Cross said some 62,000 will need clean drinking water.

The Red Cross authorized a half-million dollars for the first wave of disaster relief, Cochrane said.

“What we are hearing lends credence to the fact that this has been a catastrophic storm and a catastrophic impact,” he said.

As of 11 a.m. EDT, Dorian’s winds had dipped to 110 mph (177 kph), making it a Category 2 hurricane, down from a terrifying Category 5 when it struck. The storm was centered about 45 miles (70 kilometers) north of Freeport and 105 miles (170 kilometers) east of Fort Pierce, Florida.

After standing still for nearly a day, it was on the move again, but just barely, pushing northwest at 2 mph (3 kph), or about as fast as a person walks.

Hurricane-force winds extended up to 60 miles (95 kilometers) from its center.

NASA satellite imagery through Monday night showed spots in the Bahamas where Dorian had dumped as much as 35 inches (89 centimeters) of rain, said private meteorologist Ryan Maue.

The Bahamas’ health minister said that Dorian devastated the health infrastructure on Grand Bahama and that severe flooding rendered the main hospital there unusable.

Sands said the main hospital in Marsh Harbor in the Abaco islands was intact and sheltering 400 people but in need of food, water, medicine, and surgical supplies.

He said crews were trying to airlift five to seven kidney failure patients from Abaco who had not received dialysis since Friday.

To the south, the Bahamas’ most populous island, New Providence, which is the site of the capital, Nassau, and has over a quarter-million people, suffered little damage.

Dorian was on track to approach the Florida coast later Tuesday and begin moving up the shoreline, but the threat to the state eased significantly, with forecasters not expecting a direct hit after all. The forecast instead showed North Carolina in the crosshairs toward the end of the week.

As Labor Day weekend drew to a close, over 2 million people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were warned to evacuate for fear Dorian could bring life-threatening storm-surge flooding even if the hurricane’s center stayed offshore, as forecast. Several large airports announced closings, and hundreds of flights were canceled.

Having seen storms swamp his home on the Georgia coast in 2016 and 2017, Joey Spalding of Tybee Island decided to empty his house rather than take any chances with Dorian.

He packed a U-Haul truck with tables, chairs, a chest of drawers, tools virtually all of his furnishings except for his mattress and a large TV and planned to park it on higher ground.

He also planned to shroud his house in the plastic wrap up to shoulder height and pile sandbags in front of the doors.

“In this case, I don’t have to come into a house full of junk,” he said. “I’m learning a little as I go.”

Leaving one person dead in its wake in Puerto Rico, Dorian hit the Bahamas on Sunday with sustained winds of 185 mph (295 kph) and gusts up to 220 mph (355 kph).

It tied the record for the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever to hit land, matching the Labor Day hurricane that struck Florida Gulf Coast in 1935, before storms were given names.

Scientists say climate change generally has been fueling more powerful and wetter storms, though they say linking any specific hurricane to global warming would require more detailed study.

In the Bahamas, choppy brown floodwaters reached roofs and the tops of palm trees.

Parliament member Iram Lewis said he feared waters would keep rising and stranded people would lose contact with officials as their cellphone batteries died.

“It is scary,” he said, adding that people were moving from one shelter to another as floodwaters kept surging. “We’re definitely in dire straits.”

Forecasters said that the storm had come to a near standstill because the steering currents in the atmosphere had collapsed, but that Dorian would resume moving later in the day, getting “dangerously close” to the Florida coast through Wednesday evening, very near Georgia and South Carolina coasts Wednesday night and Thursday, and near or over the North Carolina shoreline late Thursday.

Walt Disney World in Orlando planned to close in the afternoon, and SeaWorld shut down.

In South Carolina, Interstate 26 was turned into a one-way evacuation route away from Charleston on the coast, and Georgia officials likewise reversed lanes on I-16 on Tuesday to speed the flow of traffic away from the danger zone.

“We’re taking the ‘better safe than sorry’ attitude,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said.

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Weissenstein from Nassau, Bahamas. Associated Press reporters Tim Aylen in Freeport and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.

source: usa.inquirer.net

Maui hunkers down for Tropical Storm Olivia nearing Hawaii

HONOLULU — Maui hunkered down for heavy rains and powerful winds as a gradually weakening tropical storm barreled toward Hawaii, while Honolulu hoped it would be spared the worst.

Forecasters said Tropical Storm Olivia could dump 5 to 10 inches (12 to 25 centimeters) of rain, with some places getting as much as 15 inches.


Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa urged residents to store drinking water and warned that they should plan for power outages, landslides, high surf, fallen trees and flooded roads.

“Nature has a real funny way of not giving us advance notice,” Arakawa said.

Olivia was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Maui and packing winds of 50 mph (85 kph) late Tuesday. The storm, which was a hurricane earlier in the week, has been slowly losing power as it nears the state.

Schools, courts and government offices will be closed in Maui County on Wednesday in preparation for the storm.

Scott Zaffram, a senior response official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said emergency teams and supplies were ready on Maui.

The National Guard has mobilized personnel and trucks to the east side of Maui, said Herman Andaya, administrator of the county’s emergency management agency.

Hawaiian Airlines cancelled flights by its commuter airline, Ohana by Hawaiian.

Officials were worried about landslides in west Maui because brushfires during Hurricane Lane three weeks ago wiped out vegetation, Maui County spokesman Rod Antone said.

Maui’s Costco was a “packed house” all day Monday, but the stream of customers slowed by Tuesday afternoon, said general manager Tony Facemire. Lines at the gas pumps remained long Tuesday, he said.

The store was well-stocked with most items, but was out of lanterns, flashlights and generators, he said.

The owner of the only hardware store in the small town of Hana on the east side of Maui said he was determined to stay open so residents could buy tarps, screws or other supplies for their homes.

“I think it’s important for us to try to stay open as much as possible, without jeopardizing the well-being of our staff,” said Neil Hasegawa, owner of Hasegawa General Store.

The storm was expected to affect Hana starting Tuesday night, and residents were bracing for Hana, with a population of 1,200 people, to take the brunt of the storm, Hasegawa said.

Those who prepared for Hurricane Lane have largely left those preparations in place for Olivia, he said.

“I think they’re even taking it more seriously than Lane,” Hasegawa said. “You can see the track going … it’s like barreling down on this eastern end.”

Hana is a popular day-trip destination for travelers staying in Maui’s resort towns. But Hasegawa urged people who don’t need to be in Hana to stay away because they could become trapped and take up limited shelter space.

Visitors Aaron Huston and his girlfriend Selena Palamides weren’t letting Olivia spoil their Maui vacation.

The Seattle couple stocked their hotel room mini-fridge with munchies and bottled water, “just in case we can’t go out,” Huston said.

They tried to get more sightseeing done Tuesday in case they’re stuck at their resort in Wailea on Wednesday.

“It sucks but there’s nothing we can do about it,” Huston said. “It’s better than Seattle rain.”


Resort workers were preparing for the storm by taking down beach cabanas, he said.

Public schools on the Big Island, Oahu and Kauai will be open.

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said his city’s offices will be open as usual. City buses also will be running normally unless winds exceed 40 mph (64 kph).

“We don’t want to overreact and tell everyone to stay home when maybe it’s not going to be as bad,” said Caldwell. /atm

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

5 tourists rescued from flooded home as storm hits Hawaii

HONOLULU — Sirens wailed while workers piled sandbags in front of hotels and police blasted warnings to tourists to leave the world-famous Waikiki Beach as hurricane “Lane” barreled north after dumping nearly two feet of rain on Hawaii’s mostly rural Big Island.

Emergency crews rescued five California tourists from a home they were renting in Hilo after a nearby gulch overflowed and it flooded Thursday.

Suzanne Demerais said a tiny waterfall and small stream flowed near the home when she first arrived with four of her friends from the Los Angeles area. But the stream turned into a torrent and the river rose rapidly over 24 hours.


Hawaii County firefighters, who were in touch with the home’s owner, decided to evacuate the group before the water rose further. They floated the five out on their backs, Demerais said.

“It was quite an experience because we weren’t planning to have a hurricane during our vacation time,” Demerais said.

The hurricane, whose center was still offshore, lashed the Big Island with nearly 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain in about 24 hours. It had maximum sustained winds near 120 mph (193 kph), making it a Category 3 hurricane.

Forecasters said the center of the storm will move close to or over parts of Hawaii’s main islands late Friday, bringing dangerous surf of 20 feet (6 meters).


About 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of Hilo, on the state’s most populated island of Oahu, employees of the Sheraton Waikiki resort filled sandbags to protect the oceanfront hotel from surging surf.

Stores along Waikiki’s glitzy Kalakaua Avenue stacked sandbags along the bottom of their glass windows to prepare for heavy rain and flash flooding.

Police on loudspeakers told surfers and swimmers to get out of the water, saying the beach would be closed until further notice.

The Marriott Resort Waikiki Beach in Honolulu designated a ballroom on the third floor as a shelter for guests and began removing lounge chairs from around the pool and bar area.


At the Hilton Hawaiian Village, guest Elisabeth Brinson said hotel staff left a notice that the rooms will still have water and phone service, and a backup generator would power one elevator per building in the event of a power outage.

Brinson, a native of the United Kingdom now living in Denver, said many shops were closed, and those still open were frantic with people buying food, beer and water to take back to their rooms.

“We knew it was coming, so I tried to just cram as much as I could into the last few days in anticipation so we could cross things off of our list,” said Brinson, who is accustomed to hurricanes after living in Florida.



Lane was not projected to make a direct hit on the islands, but officials warned that even a lesser blow could do significant harm. Some areas could see up to 30 inches (about 80 centimeters) of rain.

United Airlines canceled its Friday flights to and from Maui. The airline added two additional flights from Honolulu to San Francisco on Thursday to help transport people off the islands.

Hawaiian Airlines canceled all Friday flights by its commuter carrier, Ohana by Hawaiian.

Hawaii’s biggest hotels are confident they can keep their guests safe as long as they stay inside, said Mufi Hannemann, CEO of Hawaii Tourism and Lodging Association.

“The only concern is those that venture outside of the properties, that would like to hike on a day like this or who would like to still go into the ocean and see what it’s like to take a swim or surf in these kind of waters,” Hannemann said.

Honolulu shopping malls and office buildings closed early on Thursday and planned to shut their doors Friday.

Shelters were open throughout the islands, with 350 people in them in Oahu. Aid agencies were also working to help Hawaii’s sizable homeless population, many of whom live near beaches and streams that could flood.

Because there’s not enough shelter space statewide, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Tom Travis urged people who were not in flood zones to stay home.

The National Weather Service downgraded the Big Island to a tropical storm warning, meaning it expects sustained winds of 39 mph (62 kph) to 73 mph (117 kph) on the island instead of stronger hurricane force winds.

But a hurricane warning remains in effect for Oahu and Maui County.

The central Pacific gets fewer hurricanes than other regions, with about only four or five named storms a year. Hawaii rarely gets hit. The last major storm to hit was Iniki in 1992. Others have come close in recent years.

Because people in Hawaii are confined to the islands, they have to make sure they have enough supplies to outlast power outages and other potential emergencies.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency moved several barges packed with food, water, generators and other supplies into the region ahead of Hurricane Hector, which skirted past the islands more than a week ago, FEMA Administrator Brock Long said.   /kga

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

More than 10,000 feared dead in typhoon-ravaged Philippines

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — The death toll from a supertyphoon that decimated entire towns in the Philippines could soar well over 10,000, authorities warned Sunday, making it the country’s worst recorded natural disaster.

The horrifying estimates came as rescue workers appeared overwhelmed in their efforts to help countless survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which sent tsunami-like waves and merciless winds rampaging across a huge chunk of the archipelago on Friday.


Police said they had deployed special forces to contain looters in Tacloban, the devastated provincial capital of Leyte, while the United States announced it had responded to a Philippine government appeal and would send military help.

“Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are losing their minds from hunger or from losing their families,” high school teacher Andrew Pomeda, 36, told AFP, as he warned of the increasing desperation of survivors.

“People are becoming violent. They are looting business establishments, the malls, just to find food, rice and milk… I am afraid that in one week, people will be dying from hunger.”

Authorities were struggling to even understand the sheer magnitude of the disaster, let alone react to it, with the regional police chief for Leyte saying 10,000 people were believed to have died in that province alone.






“We had a meeting last night with the governor and, based on the government’s estimates, initially there are 10,000 casualties (dead),” Chief Superintendent Elmer Soria told reporters in Tacloban.

“About 70 to 80 percent of the houses and structures along the typhoon’s path were destroyed.”

On the neighboring island of Samar, a local disaster chief said 300 people were killed in the small town of Baser.

He added another 2,000 were missing there and elsewhere on Samar, which was one of the first areas to be hit when Haiyan swept in from the Pacific Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 315 kilometers an hour.

Dozens more people were confirmed killed in other flattened towns and cities across a 600-kilometer (370-mile) stretch of islands through the central Philippines.

Deadliest natural disaster

The Philippines endures a seemingly never-ending pattern of deadly typhoons, earthquakes, volcano eruptions and other natural disasters.

This is because it is located along a typhoon belt and the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many of Earth’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

However, if the feared death toll of above 10,000 is correct, Haiyan would be the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded in the Philippines.

Until Haiyan, the deadliest disaster in the Philippines was in 1976, when a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated the Moro Gulf on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, killing between 5,000 and 8,000 people.

Haiyan set other apocalyptic-style records with its winds making it the strongest typhoon in the world this year, and one of the most powerful ever recorded.

Witnesses in Tacloban recalled waves up to five meters (17 feet) high surging inland, while aerial photos showed entire neighborhoods destroyed with trees and buildings flattened by storm surges that reached deep inland.

“The effects are very similar to what I have seen in a tsunami rather than a typhoon,” the Philippine country director of the World Food Program, Praveen Agrawal, who visited Tacloban, told AFP.

“All the trees are bent over, the bark has been stripped off, the houses have been damaged. In many cases they have collapsed.”

In Washington, the Pentagon announced that US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had responded to a request from the Philippines for military aid.

“Secretary Hagel has directed US Pacific Command to support US government humanitarian relief operations in the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan,” it said.

“The initial focus includes surface maritime search and rescue, medium-heavy helicopter lift support, airborne maritime search and rescue, fixed wing lift support and logistics enablers.”

United Nations leader Ban Ki-moon also pledged that UN humanitarian agencies would “respond rapidly to help people in need.”

Ban is “deeply saddened by the extensive loss of life” and devastation caused by Haiyan, said UN spokesman Martin Nesirky in a statement.

Haiyan moved out of the Philippines and into the South China Sea on Saturday, from where it tracked towards Vietnam.

Although it weakened out at sea, more than 600,000 people were evacuated in Vietnam ahead of its expected landfall on Monday morning.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Worst storm in decade lashes Britain, France

LONDON — Britain faced travel chaos on Monday and some 75,000 homes were without electricity in northern France as one of the worst storms in years battered the region, sweeping at least one person out to sea.

Britain’s national weather center the Met Office warned of falling trees, damage to buildings and disruption to power supplies and transport as the storm hit England’s southwest coast late Sunday.

Between 20 and 40 millimeters of rain were predicted to fall within six to nine hours as the storm tracked eastwards across Britain, with a chance of localized flooding.

Wind gusts of up to 99 miles per hour whipped across southern England and south Wales on Monday, forecasters said.

The Met Office issued an “amber” wind warning for the region, the third highest in a four-level scale, and urged people to delay their Monday morning journeys to work to avoid the worst of the bad weather.

In northern France the storm left some 75,000 homes without power early Monday, according to the ERDF distribution network, after wind gusts reached 139 kilometers in some areas knocking down power lines.

The rough conditions led to rescuers suspending the search for a 14-year-old boy who was washed out to sea from a beach in East Sussex on England’s south coast.

London looked set for a chaotic rush-hour after train companies First Capital Connect, C2C, Greater Anglia, Southern and Gatwick Express services all said they would not run services on Monday until it was safe to do so. That is unlikely to be before 9:00 am (0900 GMT), according to forecasts.

Robin Gisby from line operator Network Rail warned commuters to expect severe disruption.

“If we get through this in the morning, restore the service during the afternoon and are able to start up a good service on Tuesday morning, in the circumstances I’ll be pretty pleased,” he added.

Major airports also warned of disruption to flights with London hub Heathrow expecting approximately 30 cancellations.

Cross-channel train service Eurostar said it would not be running trains on Monday until 7:00 am, meaning delays to early services.

Several ferry operators said they had cancelled some cross-Channel services and Irish Sea crossings.

Forecaster Helen Chivers told AFP the expected damage was likely to be comparable with a storm seen in October 2002.

Prime Minister David Cameron received an update from officials on contingency planning in a conference call on Sunday, amid fears of similar damage wrought by the “Great Storm” of October 1987.

That left 18 people dead in Britain and four in France, felled 15 million trees and caused damages worth more than £1 billion ($1.6 billion or 1.2 billion euros at current exchange rates) as winds blew up to 115 miles an hour.

Martin Young, chief forecaster at the Met Office, said: “While this is a major storm for the UK, we don’t currently expect winds to be as strong as those seen in the ‘Great Storm’ of 1987 or the ‘Burns Day storm’ of 1990.

“We could see some uprooted trees or other damage from the winds and there’s a chance of some surface water flooding from the rainfall — all of which could lead to some disruption.”

Veteran weather forecaster Michael Fish also said Sunday’s storm was unlikely to be as severe as 26 years ago, although his comments will be taken with a pinch of salt in Britain.

Fish was the BBC’s main television weatherman in 1987 but famously denied that a major storm was on its way just hours before it hit.

This year’s storm has been named St. Jude after the patron saint of lost causes, whose feast day is on Monday.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net