Tag Archives: Extreme Weather

Hermine hammers Florida, leaving thousands without power

Three storm systems

(Updates with Hermine being downgraded to tropical storm)

By Letitia Stein

TAMPA, Fla., Sept 2 (Reuters) – Wind and rain from Hurricane
Hermine slammed Florida’s northern Gulf Coast before it weakened
to a tropical storm and ploughed its way overland towards the
Atlantic Coast on Friday.

Hermine made landfall early on Friday, bringing heavy rains
and packing winds of 80 mph (130 km/h), causing damage and
leaving tens of thousands of households without power along
Florida’s Gulf Coast.

“It is a mess…we have high water in numerous places,”
Virgil Sandlin, the police chief in Cedar Key, Florida, told the
Weather Channel.

Strong gusts downed power lines and trees as widespread
flooding inundated communities in Florida before the hurricane
weakened into a tropical storm as it reached Georgia and South
Carolina, where conditions deteriorated early on Friday morning.

“The combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide
will continue to cause normally dry areas near the coast to be
flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline,”
the National Hurricane Center said.

The center warned that some areas along Florida’s northern
Gulf Coast may experience 9 feet (3 m) of flooding.

Florida Governor Rick Scott said the storm could lead to
deaths and told residents to stay indoors until it had passed.

Pasco County reported crews rescued 18 people and brought
them to shelters after their homes were flooded in Green Key and
Hudson Beach early on Friday.

“Stay indoors even if it calm outside. The eye of Hermine
may be passing through. Let it pass completely before surveying
any damage,” Governor Scott advised residents in a Twitter post.

Hermine became the fourth hurricane of the 2016 Atlantic
storm season. By 11 p.m. EDT, maximum winds were listed at 80
mph (130 kph), with hurricane-force winds extending up to 45
miles (75 km) from the storm’s center.

Hermine could dump as much as 20 inches (51 cm) of rain in
some parts of the state. Ocean storm surge could swell as high
as 12 feet (3.6 meters).

Scott declared a state of emergency in 51 of Florida’s 67
counties, and at least 20 counties closed schools.

Mandatory evacuations were ordered in parts of five counties
in northwestern Florida, with voluntary evacuations in at least
three more counties. Twenty emergency shelters were opened
across the state for those displaced by the storm.

“This is life-threatening,” Scott told reporters on
Thursday.

In coastal Franklin County, people were evacuated from
barrier islands and low-lying shore areas.

“Those on higher ground are stocking up and hunkering down,”
Pamela Brownlee, the county’s emergency management director,
said.

The National Weather Service issued tornado and tropical
storm watches and warnings for communities throughout northern
Florida and north along Atlantic Coast, where it posed a Labor
Day weekend threat for tens of millions of people.

On its current path, the storm also could dump as much as 10
inches (25 cm) of rain on coastal areas of Georgia, which was
under a tropical storm watch, and the Carolinas. Forecasters
warned of “life-threatening” floods and flash floods there.

The governors of Georgia and North Carolina on Thursday
declared emergencies in affected regions. In South Carolina, the
low-lying coastal city of Charleston was handing out sandbags.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Laila
Kearney in New York and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Editing by
Angus MacSwan)

Deaths from U.S. lightning strikes this year at highest since 2010

Lightning strikes

By Chris Prentice

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A pair of fatalities from lightning strikes over the weekend lifted the U.S. death toll from such accidents this year to 29, the most since 2010, the National Weather Service said on Monday.

The latest lightning-related deaths occurred in Colorado and Michigan on Friday, the NWS said in a report. With four months left in the year, the 2016 toll has already surpassed last year’s 27.

Eight people have died from lightning this month, making it the deadliest August since 2007. In July, typically the month with the most fatalities, 12 people were killed by lightning.

“People are outside, enjoying beaches in the summer time,”

said John Jensenius, an NWS lightning safety specialist based in Gray, Maine.

“There’s not much variance in lightning activity,” he told Reuters, saying the rise was due more to behavior.

Fridays have been the deadliest day of the week this year, which Jensenius said was unusual. Typically, the highest number of incidents occur on Saturdays and Sundays, when Americans are outside barbecuing and enjoying other weekend activities.

This year, as is typical, Florida has posted the highest number of lightning deaths, with six. Louisiana and New York were next, with four and three fatalities, respectively.

Deaths from lightning have fallen sharply from the hundreds reported each year in the 1940s and 1950s, when there were more farmers riding tractors in open fields, Jensenius said.

The odds of being struck in a lifetime remain relatively low, about 1 in 12,000, NWS statistics showed. There is about one death for every 10 people hit by lightning.

But Jensenius advised caution, saying people should get inside during thunderstorms.

“If you can hear thunder, you’re close enough to be struck,” he said.

(Editing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Louisiana assesses flood damage as residents return to soaked homes

Flooding in Louisiana clean up

By Sam Karlin

GONZALES, La. (Reuters) – Ron Allen set out electric fans at his rental property in southeastern Louisiana on Wednesday, hoping to dry floors that had been swamped by nearly a foot of water.

“We’ve got to pull out the wood, pull out the vinyl. But first we gotta get the water out,” said Allen, 66. “This has never happened before.”

Record floods have been blamed for at least 13 deaths and damage to about 40,000 homes. Authorities have only begun assessing the devastation.

Rains that started last Thursday have dumped more than 2-1/2 feet (0.76 meters) of water on parts of Louisiana.

The American Red Cross has called the flooding the worst disaster in the United States since Super Storm Sandy hit the U.S. East Coast in 2012.

“Thousands of people in Louisiana have lost everything they own and need our help now,” Brad Kieserman, vice president of disaster services operations and logistics for the Red Cross, said in a statement.

As of Wednesday afternoon, shelters across the state were housing 5,435 people, according to the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services.

U.S. President Barack Obama signed a Louisiana disaster declaration on Sunday and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local efforts.

The White House said on Wednesday that Obama had directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to “utilize all resources available” in responding to the flooding.

Swollen creeks and bayous were still overflowing on Wednesday in downstream communities such as Gonzales, as recovery efforts were beginning around Baton Rouge.

In Livingston Parish, east of Baton Rouge, at least 75 percent of homes were flooded, the sheriff’s office said on Facebook. The parish includes Denham Springs, where about 90 percent of the homes and every local school took in water, Mayor Gerard Landry told local radio station Talk 107.3.

Landry said he thought it could take two to three months to reopen schools.

“These folks that have flooded, they don’t have shoes. They don’t have underwear. They don’t have shirts. They don’t have toilet paper,” he said in the radio interview on Wednesday. “All the basic essential needs, they don’t have.”

For Terry Lyon, 56, the devastation was all too familiar. His trailer was destroyed 11 years ago in Hurricane Katrina, which struck the U.S Gulf Coast and left more than 1,800 people dead.

Lyon’s apartment in Baton Rouge flooded on Saturday, and he and his wife drove to stay with relatives on dry ground in Ascension Parish. By Monday evening, many there were underwater.

“I’ve never seen water come up like this and come after us,” said Lyon, standing outside a shelter in Gonzales, Louisiana. “I never dreamed it could get this bad.”

(Reporting by Sam Karlin; Additional reporting by Bryn Stole in Baton Rouge, La.; Writing by Letitia Stein; Editing by Tom Brown, Toni Reinhold)

Eleven dead, thousands of homes ravaged in Louisiana floods

Residents use a boat to navigate through the floods in Louisiana

By Sam Karlin

BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) – Search-and-rescue operations were still underway on Tuesday in Louisiana, where at least 11 people have died in severe floods that damaged about 40,000 homes, state officials said.

Emergency crews had already plucked more than 20,000 people and 1,000 pets from flooded areas after a storm that broke records for 24-hour rainfall in multiple locations, Governor John Bel Edwards told reporters.

Rain-swollen rivers are receding in much of the state, but state officials warned of remaining dangers. Some communities in southern Louisiana could see waters crest later in the week, according to national forecasters.

More than 8,000 people slept in emergency shelters on Monday night, unable to return to their homes, Edwards told a news conference. The state planned to impose curfews on Tuesday night in the parishes with widespread damage.

“This is a historic flooding event,” Edwards said. “It’s unprecedented.”

The storm dumped more than 2-1/2 feet (76 cm) of rain near Watson, Louisiana, from Thursday to Monday morning, the highest total reported, according to the National Weather Service.

In Abbeville, Louisiana, a 125-year-old record for 24-hour rainfall was shattered with 16.38 inches (41.61 cm) reported from Friday to Saturday, the weather service reported.

In some water-ravaged areas, houses flooded to rooflines, and coffins floated away. Motorists were trapped on highways. U.S. President Barack Obama issued a disaster declaration on Sunday, with a total of 20 parishes approved by Tuesday for federal assistance.

Already, 40,000 residents have registered for disaster aid, Edwards said.

In hard-hit Denham Springs, residents were gutting waterlogged homes, dumping soaked carpets and mattresses.

Sonya Mayeux was still in disbelief. On Saturday, she awoke at 9 a.m. to rising, knee-deep water in her backyard. By 11:30 a.m., the water was nearly above her white SUV.

A neighbor rescued her family by boat. Ultimately, her house flooded nearly to the roof.

“The water just came up so fast,” she said.

“VERY LARGE DISASTER”

Craig Fugate, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told reporters the “very large disaster” was affecting more people than flooding in March that left at least four dead and thousands of homes damaged in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Louisiana will mark the 11th anniversary this month of Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people when floods overwhelmed levees and broke through flood walls protecting New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005.

Louisiana’s confirmed death toll from the latest flooding rose to 11 on Tuesday, the state Health Department said. By parish, it reported five fatalities in East Baton Rouge, three in Tangipahoa, two in St. Helena, and one in Rapides.

Among those killed was Bill Borne, the founder and former chief executive of Amedisys Inc, a provider of home health and hospice care. Officials said he drowned near his home in East Baton Rouge Parish.

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Bryn Stole in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Writing by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Editing by Tom Brown)

Typhoon Nida shuts Hong Kong, more than 150 flights canceled

Typhoon Nida uproots trees

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Typhoon Nida swept through Hong Kong on Tuesday, shutting down most of the financial hub and disrupting hundreds of flights with gale-force winds, while low-lying areas were put on flood alert.

Hong Kong’s first major typhoon this year brought gusts of more than 100 km per hour (62 mph) and prompted authorities to issue an amber warning, signifying heavy rain, at 5.20 a.m. Hong Kong time.

More than 150 flights were canceled, the Airport Authority said, with Cathay Pacific and Dragonair warning none of their flights would be operating until 2 p.m. at the earliest.

Thousands of passengers were stranded at the airport and about 325 flights are expected to be rescheduled.

The city’s ferry, tram and bus services gradually resumed in the afternoon after the Hong Kong Observatory lowered the tropical cyclone warning to 3 from 8, shortly after midday.

Trading in Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx), including Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect trading, and the derivatives market, would be suspended for the rest of the day.

The Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society suspended trading on Tuesday morning.

Streets had been largely deserted and shops shuttered since Monday evening when the typhoon signal 8 was hoisted, prompting many people to leave work early.

Nida was moving inland and winds near its center had showed signs of weakening, the Hong Kong Observatory said.

Across the border, part of Guangdong province closed offices, factories and schools as the typhoon swept across the southern part of the metropolis of Guangzhou.

Airports in the southern part of the province, including Shenzhen and Zhuhai, canceled most flights while more than 35,000 people were evacuated, state media reported.

Last month, Typhoon Nepartak drove at least 420,000 people from their homes and caused more than 7.1 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) in losses in China’s Fujian province alone.

(Reporting By Anne Marie Roantree; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Yimou Lee in Hong Kong; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel)

Firefighters work to suppress California wildfire near Big Sur coast

Firefighters taking care of july 2016 wildfires

By Mike Fiala

CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA, Calif. (Reuters) – Firefighters on Friday were working to suppress a deadly wildfire near California’s famed Big Sur coast that has burned more than 40 homes, forced hundreds of residents to flee and closed popular parks at the height of the summer travel season.

The so-called Soberanes Fire erupted last Friday just south of the upscale oceanside town of Carmel-by-the-Sea and has raged through nearly 30,000 acres (12,000 hectares) of drought-parched chaparral, tall grass and timber into the Los Padres National Forest.

Efforts by 4,200 firefighters to hack buffer lines through dense vegetation around the perimeter of the blaze have been complicated by worsening weather conditions – super-low humidity and gradually rising temperatures – officials said.

Containment stood at 15 percent on Friday morning, even as the overall size of the fire zone continued to expand, leaving another 2,000 structures threatened and about 350 people displaced.

Flames have already destroyed 41 homes and 10 outbuildings, with at least two other dwellings damaged by fire, officials said. Firefighters however managed to save a number of large homes in the hills above the exclusive Carmel Highlands community.

The fire threat has also prompted authorities to close a string of heavily visited California campgrounds and recreation areas along the northern end of the Big Sur coastline, including Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and Point Lobos Natural Reserve.

Highway 1, the scenic route that winds along the famed seaside cliffs overlooking the Pacific, remained open, though motorists were advised to allow for traffic delays due to a heavy volume of fire-fighting equipment entering and existing the roadway.

The blaze took a deadly turn on Tuesday when a bulldozer operator hired by private property owners to help battle the flames was killed when his tractor rolled over, marking the second California wildfire fatality in a week.

He was identified on Thursday as 35-year-old Robert Oliver Reagan III, from the town of Friant, California.

On Thursday, California Office of Emergency Services received a federal grant to help pay for firefighting efforts.

About 300 miles (485 km) away, a 67-year-old man was found dead in a burned-out car last Saturday after refusing to heed evacuation orders in a separate fire that destroyed 18 homes in a mountainous area north of Los Angeles.

That blaze, dubbed the Sand Fire, was listed as 65-percent contained on Thursday after charring more than 38,000 acres (15,400 hectares).

Lingering smoke and soot spewed by the Erskine Fire have prompted air-quality regulators to warn residents in parts of the Los Angeles region to avoid outdoor activities for the time being.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Alison Williams)

Natural disasters in China kill more than 800 since June

Flooding in China one of the many natural disasters

BEIJING (Reuters) – More than 800 people have died and about 200 are missing in a series of natural disasters that have struck China since June, the worst casualty figures since a similar period in 2011, state media said on Tuesday.

Large parts of central, eastern and northern China have been hit by flooding this summer, while a typhoon left a wave of destruction this month and a freak tornado killed at least 98 in the eastern province of Jiangsu in June.

Since the year began, 1,074 people have died in natural disasters, 833 of them since June, with 270 missing, Xinhua news agency cited the Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying.

Direct economic losses have reached 298 billion yuan ($44.63 billion) this year, with about 400,000 houses destroyed and 6.24 million residents relocated, the ministry added.

Separately, the government on the southern island province of Hainan issued a typhoon warning for a tropical storm that is expected to hit in the early hours of Wednesday.

($1=6.6769 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Nine dead in China as remnants of super typhoon Nepartak strike

Road heavily damaged by Typhoon Nepartak

BEIJING (Reuters) – Nine people were killed and 18 are missing after wind and driving rain bought by the remains of super typhoon Nepartak swept into China over the weekend, the government said on Monday.

The deaths were all in the southeastern province of Fujian, where the typhoon made landfall, the civil affairs ministry said in a statement on its website.

Total economic damage has been put at 900 million yuan ($134.60 million), with 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) of crops destroyed and more than 900 houses wrecked, the ministry said.

In Taiwan, the storm caused at least three deaths and more than 300 injuries.

The storm is expected to worsen already severe flooding in parts of central and eastern China as its remnants slowly make their way inland.

Typhoons are common at this time of year in the South China Sea, picking up strength over warm waters and dissipating over land.

Typhoons used to kill many people in China but the government now enforces evacuations and takes precautions well in advance, which has helped save many lives.

($1 = 6.6864 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Super typhoon hits Taiwan, cutting power and transport

Damage from Typhoon Nepartak

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Super typhoon Nepartak hit Taiwan on Friday, driving thousands of people from their homes, disrupting power supplies and grounding more than 600 flights, authorities said.

Television showed toppled motorcycles and signboards being ripped from buildings and swept across roads in southeast Taiwan, where the year’s first typhoon made landfall.

By afternoon, the typhoon had moved into the Taiwan Strait, weakening as it headed towards China’s southeastern province of Fujian, but flooding and strong winds continued to lash the island’s central and southern areas.

More than 17,300 people were evacuated from their homes, and over 517,000 households suffered power outages, emergency officials said.

“The wind is very strong,” said a resident of Taitung, the eastern Taiwan city where the typhoon landed.

“Many hut roofs and signs have been blown off.”

Three deaths and 172 injuries were reported, bullet train services were suspended and over 340 international and 300 domestic flights canceled, an emergency services website showed.

The typhoon halted work in most of Taiwan. There were no reports of damage at semiconductor plants in the south.

Tropical Storm Risk had rated the typhoon as category 5, at the top of its ranking, but it was weakening and should be a tropical storm by the time it hits Fujian on Saturday morning.

More than 4,000 people working on coastal fish farms in Fujian were evacuated and fishing boats recalled to port, the official China News Service said.

The storm is expected to worsen already severe flooding in parts of central and eastern China, particularly in the major city of Wuhan.

Typhoons are common at this time of year in the South China Sea, picking up strength over warm waters and dissipating over land.

In 2009, Typhoon Morakot cut a swathe of destruction through southern Taiwan, killing about 700 people and causing damage of up to $3 billion.

(Reporting by Faith Hung and J.R. Wu; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Four dead in West Virginia floods as rain-swollen rivers crest

(Reuters) – West Virginia declared a state of emergency amid the worst flooding in more than a century that killed at least four people and prompted rescues of hundreds of others forced to evacuate swamped homes, officials said on Friday.

The mountainous state was pummeled by up to 10 inches of rain in a single day on Thursday, causing rivers and streams to overflow, National Weather Service meteorologist Frank Pereira said.

“The flooding we experienced Thursday and into today is among the worst in a century for some parts of the state,” Governor Earl Ray Tomblin said.

The governor declared a state of emergency in 44 of 55 counties and deployed up to 150 members of the West Virginia National Guard to help rescue efforts on Friday.

“Rivers hopefully are going to crest sometime today between noon and tonight,” said Tim Rock, spokesman for the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

“Recovery and rescue is expected to last through the weekend,” he said.

Three people died in the flooding in Kanawha County, the most populous in the state, including a woman in her car, a senior citizen and another person, as well as one person in Ohio County in the state’s northern Panhandle, Rock said.

“There have been towns that have been completely surrounded by water,” Rock said. “People say there is 8 to 9 feet of water in their house.

“It’s at least into the hundreds forced to get emergency shelter,” he said. “Even if you can get back into your home, who knows what kind of shape it’s in.”

West Virginia received one-quarter of its annual rainfall in a single day, Pereira said.

“It was multiple rounds of thunderstorms that continued to move across the same area, a relatively small area, and the mountainous terrain exacerbated the flooding,” Pereira said.

Rains eased on Friday with only scattered showers expected, he said.

The storms that drenched West Virginia were part of a severe weather system that has swept through the U.S. Midwest, triggering tornadoes.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)