The Jim Bakker Show

Hurricane Irma churns through Caribbean islands, possibly en route to Florida

By Scott Malone

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, churned across northern Caribbean islands on Wednesday with a potentially catastrophic mix of fierce winds, surf and rain, en route to a possible Florida landfall at the weekend.

Irma is expected to become the second powerful storm to thrash the U.S. mainland in as many weeks but its precise trajectory remained uncertain. Hurricane Harvey killed more than 60 people and caused damaged estimated as high as $180 billion when it hit Texas late last month.

The eye of Irma, a Category 5 storm packing winds of 185 miles per hour (295 km per hour), moved away from the island of Barbuda and toward the island of St. Martin, east of Puerto Rico, early on Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami reported. It could hit Florida on Saturday.

“We are hunkered down and it is very windy … the wind is a major threat,” said Garfield Burford, the director of news at ABS TV and Radio on the island of Antigua, south of Barbuda. “So far, some roofs have been blown off.”

Men cover the windows of a car parts store in preparation for Hurricane Irma in San Juan, Puerto Rico September 5, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez

Most people who were on Antigua and Barbuda were without power and about 1,000 people were spending the night in shelters in Antigua, according to Burford.

“It’s very scary … most of the islands are dark so it’s a very, very frightening,” he said.

The eye of the hurricane went over Barbuda, which has a population of about 1,600 people, according to ABS radio.

“All hearts and all prayers and all minds go out to the Barbudans at this time because they experienced the full brunt,” a radio host said on the station early on Wednesday.

Public relations professional Alex Woolfall said on Twitter he was hiding underneath a concrete stairwell as the storm neared St. Maarten.

“Still thunderous sonic boom noises outside and boiling in stairwell. Can feel scream of things being hurled against building,” he said. “Okay I am now pretty terrified so can every non-believer, atheist & heretic please pray for me.”

The amount of damage and the number of casualties were not known early on Wednesday. A 75-year-old man died while preparing for the storm in Puerto Rico’s central mountains, police said.

Several other Leeward Islands, including Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, as well as the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic were under a hurricane warning.

“Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the Hurricane Center said, warning that Irma “will bring life-threatening wind, storm surge and rainfall hazards” to those islands.

Along the beachfront of Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan, work crews scrambled to cover windows with plywood and corrugated metal shutters along Avenida Ashford, a stretch of restaurants, hotels and six-story apartments.

“I am worried because this is the biggest storm we have seen here,” said Jonathan Negron, 41, as he supervised workers boarding up his souvenir shop.

Customers walk near empty shelves that are normally filled with bottles of water after Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello declared a state of emergency in preparation for Hurricane Irma, in San Juan, Puerto Rico September 4, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez

The NHC said Irma ranked as one of the five most powerful Atlantic hurricanes during the past 80 years and the strongest Atlantic basin storm ever outside the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello urged the 3.4 million residents of the U.S. territory to seek refuge in one of 460 hurricane shelters in advance of the storm and later ordered police and National Guard troops to begin evacuations of flood-prone areas in the north and east of the island.

“This is something without precedent,” Rossello told a news conference.

U.S. President Donald Trump approved emergency declarations for Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, mobilizing federal disaster relief efforts, the White House said.

Authorities in the Florida Keys called for a mandatory evacuation of visitors to start at sunrise on Wednesday, and public schools throughout South Florida were ordered closed, some as early as Wednesday.

Residents of low-lying areas in densely populated Miami-Dade County were urged to move to higher ground by Wednesday as a precaution against coastal storm surges, three days before Irma was expected to make landfall in Florida.

Several tiny islands in the resort-heavy eastern Caribbean were the first in harm’s way.

Hurricane watches were in effect for Guadeloupe, Haiti, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas.

Airlines canceled flights to the region, and American Airlines added three extra flights to Miami from San Juan, St. Kitts and St. Maarten.

Residents of Texas and Louisiana were still recovering from Harvey, which struck Texas as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 25. It dumped several feet of rain, destroying thousands of homes and businesses, and displaced more than 1 million people.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Nick Macfie and Catherine Evans)

Trump to visit flooded Texas as Harvey deluges region

By Mica Rosenberg and Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump planned to visit Texas on Tuesday to survey the response to devastating Tropical Storm Harvey, the first major natural disaster of his White House tenure, even as the lingering storm pushed floodwaters higher.

The slow-moving storm has brought catastrophic flooding to Texas, killed at least nine people, led to mass evacuations and paralyzed Houston, the fourth most-populous U.S. city. Some 30,000 people were expected to seek emergency shelter as the flooding entered its fourth day.

Harvey had also roiled energy markets and wrought damage estimated to be in the billions of dollars, with rebuilding likely to last beyond Trump’s current four-year term in office.

“My administration is coordinating closely with state and local authorities in Texas and Louisiana to save lives, and we thank our first responders and all of those involved in their efforts,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.

Trump was scheduled to arrive on Tuesday morning in Corpus Christi, near where Harvey came ashore on Friday as the most powerful hurricane to strike Texas in more than 50 years. The president will later go to the Texas capital Austin to meet state officials, receive briefings and tour the emergency operation center, the White House said.

Much of the Houston area remained underwater on Tuesday, and dangerous rescues went on through the night as police, firefighters and National Guard troops in helicopters, boats and trucks pulled stranded residents from flooded homes.

Officials believed about 1,000 households remained to be rescued, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“We keep getting wave after wave after wave of rain and so that’s not calming the situation,” Pena said.

Forecasters drew comparisons to Hurricane Katrina, which lay waste to New Orleans and killed 1,800 people in 2005.

The administration of then-President George W. Bush drew accusations that his response was slow and inadequate – criticism that dealt a serious blow to his presidency.

Some who fled the rising floodwaters found they had few options, as roads were washed out and emergency services overloaded.

Emely Gonzalez, 21, said she took her wheelchair-bound mother to a hospital but was turned away because doctors determined her condition was not an emergency. Having left the woman’s oxygen tank at home, her friend Chris Pastor had to head back to the flooded home by kayak to retrieve it and had to swim back.

“It was just a very delicate situation,” Pastor said. The group later made it to safety in a hotel.

Before Harvey, the last Category 4 hurricane to make landfall in Texas was Carla in 1961. Its high winds and torrential rains destroyed about 1,900 homes and nearly 1,000 businesses, the National Weather Service said.

Residents use boats to evacuate flood waters from Tropical Storm Harvey along Tidwell Road east Houston, Texas, U.S. August 28, 2017. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

RUNWAYS TURNED INTO LAKES

Among the most recent deaths from Harvey was a man who drowned on Monday night while trying to swim across flooded Houston-area roads, the Houston Chronicle quoted the Montgomery County Constable’s Office as saying.

The storm center was in the Gulf of Mexico about 115 miles (185 km) southeast of Houston on Monday morning. It was likely to remain just off the coast of Texas through Tuesday night before moving inland over the northwestern Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

Since coming ashore, Harvey has virtually stalled along the Texas coast, picking up warm water from the Gulf of Mexico and dumping torrential rain from San Antonio to Louisiana.

The Houston metro area has suffered some of the worst precipitation with certain areas expected to receive more than 50 inches (127 cm) of rain in a week, more than it typically receives for a year.

Harvey was expected to produce another 7 to 13 inches (18-33 cm) of rain through Thursday over parts of the upper Texas coast into southwestern Louisiana, the National Weather Service said.

“These stationary bands of tropical rain are very hard to time, very hard to place and are very unpredictable,” said Alek Krautmann, a weather service meteorologist in Louisiana.

Schools and office buildings were closed throughout the Houston metropolitan area, where 6.8 million people live.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency director Brock Long estimated that 30,000 people would eventually be housed temporarily in shelters.

Houston and Dallas have set up shelters in convention centers and Austin was preparing to house as many as 7,000 evacuees. More than 9,000 people packed into an overcrowded shelter in Houston, a Red Cross spokesman told CNN.

Hundreds of Houston-area roads were blocked by high water. The city’s two main airports were shut as the floods turned runways into ponds and more than a quarter million customers were without power as of Tuesday morning.

The Gulf of Mexico is home to half of U.S. refining capacity. The reduction in supply led gasoline futures to hit their highest level in two years this week as Harvey knocked out about 13 percent of total U.S. refining capacity, based on company reports and Reuters estimates.

The floods could destroy as much as $20 billion in insured property, making the storm one of the costliest in history for U.S. insurers, according to Wall Street analysts.

The Brazos River, one of the longest in the country, was forecast to crest at record highs well above flood levels on Tuesday about 30 miles (49 km) southwest of Houston, prompting authorities in Fort Bend County to order the evacuation of about 50,000 people.

For a graphic on storms in the North Atlantic, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/STORM-HARVEY/010050K2197/index.html

A family arrives to high ground after they fled their home due to floods caused by Tropical Storm Harvey along Tidwell Road in east Houston, Texas, U.S. August 28, 2017. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

(Additional reporting by Peter Henderson, Mica Rosenberg, Erwin Seba, Nick Oxford and Ruthy Munoz in Houston, Andy Sullivan in Rockport, Texas, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Steve Holland and Jeff Mason in Washington and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Scott Malone and Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Chizu Nomiyama)

Flood threat rises as Harvey dumps torrential rains on Texas

A storm chaser films himself on a camera phone as Hurricane Harvey approaches, on the boardwalk in Corpus Christi, Texas. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

By Brian Thevenot

ROCKPORT, Texas (Reuters) – The most powerful hurricane to hit the U.S. state of Texas in more than 50 years moved slowly inland on Saturday, dumping torrential rain expected to cause catastrophic flooding after battering the coast with 130 miles per hour (209 km per hour) winds.

Texas utility companies said just under a quarter of a million customers were without power. Wind and rain continued to lash the coast as residents began to assess the damage.

Harvey is the strongest storm to hit Texas, the center of the U.S. oil and gas industry, since 1961.

The seaside town of Rockport, 30 miles (48 km) north of the city of Corpus Christi, was hit hard.

Several homes had collapsed, and many more buildings suffered damage. Roofs had been ripped off some, and windows blown in.

The streets were flooded and strewn with power lines and debris. At a recreational vehicle sales lot, a dozen vehicles were flipped over and one had been blown into the middle of the street outside.

“It was terrible,” resident Joel Valdez, 57, told Reuters. The storm ripped part of the roof from his trailer home at around 4 a.m., he said. “I could feel the whole house move.”

Valdez said he stayed through the storm to look after his animals.

“I have these miniature donkeys and I don’t know where they are,” he said, as he sat in a Jeep with windows smashed by the storm.

Resident Frank Cook, 56, also stayed through the storm.

“If you have something left of your house, you’re lucky,” he said, surveying the damage from his vehicle.

Before the storm hit, Rockport’s mayor told anyone staying behind to write their names on their arms for identification purposes in case of death or injury.

A high school, hotel, senior housing complex and other buildings suffered structural damage, according to emergency officials and local media. Some were being used as shelters.

The coastal city of Port Lavaca, farther north on the coast, had no power and some streets were flooded.

“There is so much tree damage and debris that the cost of cleanup will be enormous,” Mayor Jack Whitlow told Reuters, after touring the city earlier Saturday.

The hurricane came ashore near Port Lavaca late on Friday with maximum winds of 130 mph (209 km/h). That made it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the second-highest category and the most powerful storm in over a decade to hit the mainland United States.

The streets of Corpus Christi, which has around 320,000 residents, were deserted early on Saturday, with billboards twisted and strong winds still blowing.

City authorities asked residents to reduce use of toilets and faucets because power outages left waste water plants unable to treat sewage.

The city also asked residents to boil water before consumption.

A drill ship broke free of its mooring overnight and rammed into some tugs in the port of Corpus Christi, port executive Sean Strawbridge said. The crews on the tugs were safe, he added.

The city was under voluntary evacuation ahead of the storm.

Children sleep in a hotel lobby waiting out Hurricane Harvey in Victoria, Texas, August 26, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

HEADING INLAND, STORM WEAKENS

The storm weakened to Category 1 early on Saturday and was expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm later in the day, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Harvey was about 150 miles (241 km) west-southwest of Houston, moving at about 2 mph (4 km/h), the center said in a morning update.

Harvey was expected to linger for days over Texas and bring as much as 40 inches (101.6 cm) of rain to some parts of the state.

The latest forecast storm track has Harvey looping back toward the Gulf of Mexico coast before meandering north again on Tuesday. (http://tmsnrt.rs/2g9jZ0W)

Nearly 10 inches (25 cm) of rain had already fallen in a few areas in southeastern Texas, the center said. Flash floods have already hit some areas, the National Weather Service said.

As many as 6 million people were believed to be in Harvey’s path, as is the heart of America’s oil-refining operations. The storm’s impact on refineries has already pushed up gasoline prices. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency eased rules on gasoline specifications late on Friday to reduce shortages.

U.S. President Donald Trump, facing the first big natural disaster of his term, said on Twitter he signed a disaster proclamation that “unleashes the full force of government help” shortly before Harvey made landfall.

“You are doing a great job – the world is watching,” Trump said on Saturday in a tweet referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which coordinates the response to major disasters.

Utilities American Electric Power Company Inc and CenterPoint Energy Inc reported a combined total of around 237,000 customers without power.

While thousands fled the expected devastating flooding and destruction, many residents stayed put in imperiled towns and stocked up on food, fuel and sandbags.

Stewart Adams, of San Marcos, Texas, plays in the winds from Hurricane Harvey in Corpus Christi, Texas, U.S. August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

HOUSTON PREPARES FOR FLOODS

The size and strength dredged up memories of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that made a direct hit on New Orleans as a Category 3 storm, causing levees and flood walls to fail in dozens of places. About 1,800 died in the disaster made worse by a slow government emergency response.

Texas and Louisiana declared states of disaster before Harvey hit, authorizing the use of state resources to prepare.

Residents of Houston, the nation’s fourth most populous city, were awakened early on Saturday by automatic cell phone warnings of flash floods.

The city warned of flooding from close to 20 inches (60 cm) of rain over several days.

A collapsed overhead gantry lies across Interstate 37, blocking the highway due to damage caused by Hurricane Harvey in Corpus Christie, Texas, U.S., August 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Khursheed?

GASOLINE PRICES SPIKE

U.S. gasoline prices spiked as the storm shut down several refineries and 22 percent of Gulf of Mexico oil production, according to the U.S. government. Many fuel stations ran out of gasoline before the storm hit.

More than 45 percent of the country’s refining capacity is along the U.S. Gulf Coast, and nearly a fifth of the nation’s crude is produced offshore.

Ports from Corpus Christi to Texas City, Texas, were closed to incoming vessels and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Anadarko Petroleum Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp and others have evacuated staff from offshore oil and gas platforms.

Disruptions to fuel supply drove benchmark gasoline prices to their highest level in four months.

The U.S. government said it would make emergency stockpiles of crude available if needed to plug disruptions. It has regularly used them to dampen the impact of previous storms on energy supplies.

For a graphic on Hurricanes in the North Atlantic, click tmsnrt.rs/2gcckz5

(Additional reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York, Liz Hampton, Ernest Scheyder and Gary McWilliams in Houston; Writing by Brendan O’Brien and Simon Webb; Editing by Helen Popper and Matthew Lewis)

Two girl scouts, three other people die in storms in Poland

WARSAW (Reuters) – Five people, including two teenage girl scouts, died and more than 30 were injured as a result of falling trees in a series of severe storms that hit Poland overnight.

The girls, 13 and 14, were crushed by falling trees while sleeping in a tent when a storm hit their campground late on Friday in the Tuchola Forest in northern Poland, according to the Regional Crisis Management Team office in Gdansk.

Some 20 scouts were injured and taken to local hospitals.

Adam Kralisz, chairman of the Lodz Region of the Scouting Association of the Republic (Poland), where the scouts were from, told the private Polsat television that evacuation was ordered immediately, but conditions were horrendous.

“We had to force our way for kilometers through the forest, among falling trees,” he said.

Three other victims also died as a result of falling trees and 10 people were injured in separate incidents in Poland’s north.

More than 170,000 people were left without power and 800 buildings were damaged in storms that hit mostly Poland’s north and west, according to the Regional Crisis Management Team in Gdansk.

More storms were expected on Saturday and warnings of severe weather conditions were issued for a number of regions amid unusually high for Poland temperatures that on Friday reached 35 to 38 Celsius.

An emergency meeting of the government’s Crisis Management Team was called on Saturday and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo promised to help all those in need.

Grzegorz Nowik, head of the Scouting Association of the Republic (Poland), ordered a month of mourning for the organization.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Tropical Storm Emily weakens as it crosses central Florida

Tropical Storm Emily is shown over the west coast of Florida in this satellite image taken July 31, 2017. Courtesy NOAA GOES/Handout via REUTERS

By Bernie Woodall

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Emily dumped heavy rain over much of Florida on Monday but caused no injuries or major property damage as it moved eastward across the state, the National Hurricane Center and state officials said.

Emily was expected to weaken to a tropical depression before it enters the Atlantic Ocean early Tuesday morning, according to the Miami-based hurricane center.

Emily, the fifth named storm of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, made landfall Monday morning on Anna Maria Island near the Tampa-St. Petersburg area and moved across the central part of the state.

At 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT), the storm had maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour (64 kph), down from 45 mph (72 kph) three hours earlier.

Several school districts curtailed summer programs and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, part of a major north-south interstate freeway, was closed for several hours because of high winds.

Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency in 31 of the state’s 67 counties to allow for easier cooperation between agencies. By mid-afternoon, no evacuation orders had been given, Scott said at a press conference.

Along Florida’s west coast from the Tampa-St. Petersburg area south to Naples, rainfall of 2 to 4 (5 to 10 inches) was expected, with isolated areas getting as much as 8 inches (20 cm), the National Hurricane Center said. Other areas in southern and central Florida were to get 1 to 2 inches of rain, it said.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Jonathan Allen in New York and Eileen Soreng in Bengaluru; Editing by Grant McCool and James Dalgleish)

Floods kill 120 in India’s Gujarat, with industry, cotton hit

People use boats as they try to move to safer places along a flooded street in West Midnapore district, in West Bengal. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

By Amit Dave

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – Widespread flooding in India’s western industrial state of Gujarat has killed more than 120 people and paralyzed infrastructure, officials said on Friday, with tens of thousands of cotton farmers also suffering heavy damage.

Torrential monsoon rain and flooding in recent weeks have killed at least 300 people in western and eastern states, an official in the National Disaster Management Authority told Reuters in New Delhi.

“Our teams are working in different parts of India with soldiers to ease the situation,” said Deepak Ghai, an emergency room control officer.

More than a million households had been affected and losses to farmlands were being assessed.

The airport in Ahmedabad, the main commercial hub of Gujarat, was partially flooded, forcing airlines to divert flights. More than 150 factories were forced to shut down, said A.R. Raval, a district administrator.

The floods have come at a particularly bad time for cotton farmers in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state.

Raval said more than 50,000 were struggling to drain water from their land and homes.

Recent downpours have hit cotton and millet in Gujarat and Rajasthan, where farm experts now fear pest infestations.

“Cotton and millet harvests are expected to suffer in about three districts each in Gujarat and Rajasthan, but the biggest worry is that the extra moisture could lead to pest attacks in these areas,” Devinder Sharma, an independent farm expert, said.

Rains have been 4 percent above average since the four-month monsoon season began in June, according to the state-run India Meteorological Department.

(Additional reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj Writing by Rupam Jain)

Massive wildfire destroys 29 structures in California

A firefighter walks near a home as flames from the fast-moving Detwiler fire approach in Mariposa, California U.S. July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

(Reuters) – More than 3,000 firefighters on Thursday battled a raging wildfire in central California that has destroyed 29 structures and forced thousands to flee their homes as it threatened a picturesque gold rush town outside Yosemite National Park.

Just seven percent of the Detwiler Fire has been contained as it threatens the town of Mariposa and tiny communities in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Cal Fire state agency said on its website.

“Everybody’s heart is in the game,” Battalion Chief Jeremy Rahn told a community meeting on Wednesday night, noting that about 3,100 firefighters from across the region were battling the blaze, according to the Fresno Bee newspaper. “We are totally invested in this.”

The blaze has mushroomed to 48,000 acres (19,424 hectares), an increase of about 23,000 acres (9,307 hectares) compared to the day before. The fire has destroyed 29 structures and damaged five others as it threatens some 1,500 more structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

The small communities of Coulterville and Greeley Hill were ordered evacuated on Wednesday.

Mariposa’s 2,000 residents were told to leave town on Tuesday after its power and water links were damaged. In total, nearly 5,000 people are under orders to vacate their homes, officials said.

The town’s hospital, called the John C. Fremont Healthcare District, and its 14 patients did not evacuate, at the advice of fire officials, said the facility’s interim CEO Matthew Matthiessen.

The California blaze was among 37 active large fires spread across 12 western states as of Wednesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center’s website.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Mariposa County on Tuesday, dispatching resources to the area.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Body of missing man believed found after deadly flash flood in Arizona

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – The remains of a 27-year-old man were believed to have been recovered on Wednesday, four days after a flash flood rushed down a rain-swollen canyon in central Arizona killing his wife and eight other family members, a local sheriff said.

Authorities said the body of Hector Miguel Garnica was spotted by a state helicopter surveying the area on Wednesday afternoon during a search near Payson, Arizona, about 90 miles northeast of Phoenix.

“We have located remains that we believe to be involved in this tragic flooding incident,” said Gila County Sheriff Adam Shepherd, during a news conference at the search site.

Sheperd said family members have been notified and a formal confirmation is pending a DNA analysis by state officials.

The remains were recovered on the fifth day of an intense search launched on Saturday, when a group of family members were swept away by what authorities described as a wall of water that crashed down the canyon at a popular swimming spot in the Tonto National Forest.

The 14-member group was celebrating Garnica’s wife’s birthday, authorities said.

Five children and five adults were killed in the incident ranging from two to 57 years old, sheriff’s officials said. Four family members were rescued.

Authorities said the group was engulfed by a sudden flash flood when a thunderstorm dumped as much as 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) of rain in 20 to 30 minutes about 8 miles (13 km) away from an area that had been burned by a nearly 7,200-acre (2,914 hectares) wildfire last month.

A video posted on social media showed the muddy, debris-filled torrent rushing down a canyon on Ellison Creek where the family was taking in the cool waters at a swimming spot frequented by dozens that day.

Some 130 searchers from 24 agencies took part in the search at its peak, including divers and cadaver dogs, authorities said.

(Reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

Windy, dry weather forecast in U.S. West, threatens to stoke wildfires

A USFS bulldozer cuts a line through vegetation to create a safety line below West Camino Cielo while fighting the Whittier Fire near Santa Barbara, California, U.S. July 15, 2017. Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department/Handout via REUTERS

(Reuters) – More than 800,000 residents in the U.S. West were told to be ready to evacuate on Tuesday as windy, dry conditions threatened to stoke wildfires, forecasters said.

A red flag warning was issued for southern Oregon, northern California and northern Nevada as 35 mph (55 kph) wind gusts and humidity hovering around 10 percent were seen, the National Weather Service said in an advisory.

“Strong winds could rapidly push fire into close proximity of local communities Tuesday afternoon and evening. Heed any evacuation orders. React quickly, you may not have much time to leave,” the service said.

More than a half a dozen fires have started up over the last two days in California including the Detwiler Fire, which forced some residents in Mariposa County to evacuate on Monday.

The fire destroyed one structure and threatened 300 more after swelling to 11,200 acres since it began burning brush and tall grass on Sunday afternoon. Five percent of the fire was contained as of Monday night, the Cal Fire website reported.

“I haven’t seen these conditions in a long time, it’s a wind driven, slope driven, fuel-driven fire,” Jerry Fernandez with Cal Fire told an ABC affiliate in Fresno.

Ten new large blazes ignited on Monday as a total of 35 wildfires burned across the U.S. West, the National Interagency Coordination Center said.

Flames have charred more than twice as much land in California so far in 2017 compared with the same time last year, according to Cal Fire.

(This story has been refiled to delete extraneous word in headline.)

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Tropical Depression Cindy still packs a punch after landfall on Thursday

Radar from the continued threat of Tropical Storm Cindy

By Kami Klein

In the wake of the landing of Tropical Depression Cindy, there is extensive flooding in many states, the death of a 10 year old boy from debris in Fort Morgan, Alabama as well as the damage and injuries from an F2 tornado that plowed through Birmingham, Alabama on Thursday, From reports by the National Weather Service, this was just the beginning of problems that will be arising from this intense storm system.

The F2 Tornado that hit a heavily populated area in Birmingham, Alabama Thursday afternoon left extensive structural damage and injured four people. The Weather Channel also reported that Mayor Tim Kerner of the town of Lafitte, Louisiana (located south of New Orleans) said the rising water may impact homes and vehicles, and he issued a voluntary evacuation for all residents.

The AP has reported that more than a foot of rain has fallen in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Residents are concerned with the damages and hazards brought by the immense amount of water, including the dangers of alligators that are prevalent in many ponds and will now move into more populated areas.

Mississippi residents are not the only people concerned about frightening impacts in nature caused by the flooding. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System warned of floating colonies of fire ants in the flood waters. In a statement, the agency said the fire ants may resemble ribbons, streamers or large balls of ants floating on the water and that residents should be on the lookout when maneuvering in or being near flooded areas.

So far the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee and even southern Arkansas have been affected by the torrential rains contained in Tropical Depression Cindy. Officials in all states have warned that there is a strong possibility for more flash flooding and tornadoes.

In a report by The Weather Channel, remnants of the storm moved into Tennessee on Friday, knocking down trees and prompting power outages. According to Memphis Light Gas and Water, nearly 10,000 customers were without power Friday morning. Kentucky and West Virginia are bracing themselves for Heavy rainfall and flooding and reports from the weather service show that portions of Michigan and Indiana are also being affected by this storm system as well.

The National Weather Service says that the path of Tropical Storm Cindy will spread heavy rain into the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys today – and into the Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic tonight. Flash flooding is possible in these areas as well as strong to severe thunderstorms.

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show