More than 100,000 homes and businesses in Maine were without electricity at the storm’s peak, and residents were warned that it could take days to restore service. The National Weather Service received reports of snow falling at up to 6 inches per hour.
“It went from just a garden-variety, low-pressure system to a turbocharged storm,” meteorologist Eric Schwibs said.
Hundreds of cars slid off roads from the beginning of the storm on Thursday through Friday morning, when the sun appeared, killing at least one person.
In Maine, Portland received 7.7 inches of snow while Standish was buried under 27 inches of snow, Schwibs said. Other big snow totals in Maine included 27 inches in Naples, 25 inches in Parsonsfield and 22.7 inches in Hollis.
More snow was forecast for New Year’s Eve, providing incentive for people to get busy cleaning up before more snow began falling.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Meanwhile, in parts of the South, unseasonably warm temperatures were raising the risk of tornadoes and damaging thunderstorms. About 3 million people in parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee were warned they could see damaging wind gusts and isolated tornadoes Monday, the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said.
The National Weather Service’s blizzard warning for western and central North Dakota expired Monday afternoon, but the agency warned snow drifts still blocked some roads.
Severe whiteout conditions led to the closure of Minot International Airport, and the facility wasn’t expected to reopen until 3 a.m. today. The airports serving Fargo and Bismarck also listed flight cancellations on their websites.
Interstate 94 remained closed west of Jamestown, N.D. Interstate 90, which had been closed for 260 miles between the Wyoming border and Chamberlain, S.D., was reopened to traffic Monday.
Winds gusting 40 mph to 50 mph also led to delays and cancellations at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The storm also caused power outages in the Dakotas and Nebraska.
The South Dakota Rural Electric Association said roughly 16,400 customers were without power Monday evening. In Nebraska, strong winds were cited for hundreds of power outages in central and eastern portions of the state Sunday, but by Monday morning, utilities reported power had been restored to most customers.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.6 quake struck at 11:22 a.m. local time near the southern tip of Chiloe Island, about 25 miles south-southwest of Puerto Quello and at a depth of 22 miles. The area, some 800 miles south of the capital of Santiago, is relatively sparsely populated. National emergency director Ricardo Toro told a news conference that some 4,000 people were evacuated for fear of a possible tsunami following the quake, but the alert was eased about 90 minutes after the temblor.
“There is no information of loss of life,” Toro said, though he said some highways were damaged. The local electric company reported that power was cut to about 22,000 customers.
Taxi driver Luis Ramirez told The Associated Press by telephone from the town of Ancud that he was washing his car when the quake hit. “I’m 48 years old and I’ve never felt anything so strong,” he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Most of the Dakotas and southwest Minnesota turned into an “icy, slippery mess” due to freezing rain Sunday morning that changed into snow later in the day when temperatures fell, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Greg Gust in Grand Forks, North Dakota. His advice to holiday travelers: “Stay put.” “Between the ice and snow, and winds howling like crazy, there will be nothing moving” until late afternoon today, he said. “Then it’s dig-out time.”
A blizzard warning was in effect for most of North Dakota, western South Dakota and a small section of eastern Montana through today, with expected snow totals of 8 to 15 inches and winds up to 55 mph.
The North Dakota Transportation Department closed a 240-mile stretch of Interstate 94 Sunday night, from the Montana border to Jamestown. A 100-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 83 between Bismarck and Minot also was closed because of drifting snow and near-zero visibility. Up to a half-inch of ice could accumulate in central Minnesota, and the weather service has said anyone who “must travel” should have an extra flashlight, food and water.
Rain and storms moved through parts of Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska on Sunday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Forecasters cautioned drivers to keep alternate routes in mind and prepare for possible delays.
A powerful storm forced the closure of Interstate 5 in both directions in the Grapevine area north of Los Angeles for nearly four hours Saturday due to snow, said California Highway Patrol Lt. Sven Miller.
The CHP reported several collisions and trucks stuck in snow. Traffic was snarled well after the road reopened.
In Arizona, parts of Interstate 40 and other highways in the state’s high country were closed after winter weather hit, leading to multiple crashes. A winter storm warning was issued for much of northern Arizona for elevations above 6,000 feet.
In the coming days, a large swath of the Dakotas is under a blizzard warning, with the National Weather Service forecasting heavy snow and strong winds today and Monday. The Dakota Access pipeline protest encampment in southern North Dakota will be affected. Though many left during a blizzard earlier this month, Morton County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Rob Keller said, there could be at least 500 people still at the camp.
To the east, parts of central Minnesota are under an ice storm warning. To the west, snow is forecast for much of Idaho, Montana, Utah and northeast Colorado.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The second storm of the week is expected to arrive in San Diego County tonight and then drop 4 to 6 inches of snow above the 4,500-foot elevation by noon Saturday — Christmas Eve.
The National Weather Service said locations that are slightly lower than that elevation, including Julian, should get an inch or two of snow. Most of the white stuff should still be on the ground Sunday — Christmas Day.
Meteorologists also predict that the same storm system, which is heading into greater San Diego from the northwest, will deposit at least an inch of rain along the coast and 1.5 to 2 inches across the eastern foothills.
Driving could become especially difficult on the eastern end of Interstate 8, where water could pool up on the roadway.
The anticipated weekend storm would follow a smaller, warmer, but still potent moisture front that dropped more than an inch of rain on many parts of the county between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon. Forecasters initially thought it would move out of the county more quickly, but it may actually linger in the region through much of today.
This first system developed in the subtropics, so it has brought a lot of warm air along with the rain.
The second storm will likely be far cooler. It will prevent daytime highs from rising above the mid-50s along the coast today and
Saturday, the weather service said.
By Christmas Day, there could still be isolated showers and daytime highs could be in the 50s along the coast— 5 to 7 degrees cooler than normal.
Since Wednesday evening, the precipitation has contributed to the seemingly inevitable mix of rain-related traffic accidents across the county.
For example, a single-vehicle crash left the 23-year-old driver dead along Interstate 8 in Lakeside late Wednesday night, according to the California Highway Patrol.
She apparently was going too fast on the rain-slicked highway and lost control of her Toyota Solara while changing lanes at 65 mph, CHP Officer Kevin Pearlstein said. The white sedan crashed through the left guard rail on eastbound lanes east of Los Coches Road about 11:50 p.m. The car rolled down a grassy ravine and landed on its roof. The driver, from San Diego, died before she could be taken to a hospital, Pearlstein said.
Outside of the county, a similar combination of rain and snow is set to descend on other parts of Southern California.
Overall, many portions of the state have received promising amounts of precipitation in the past few months after enduring years of drought. Meteorologists had raised concerns about the emergence of La Ni&nitlde;a in the equatorial Pacific, a phenomenon that historically increases the chance of Southern California getting less rainfall than usual. With winter having just entered its inaugural week, they caution that it’s still too soon to assess how the rest of the wet season will shape up.
(Gary Robbins, S. D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The national weather authority forecast that nighttime winds will push out much of the pollution that has left Beijing and dozens of other cities under a five-day “red alert,” the highest level in China’s four-tiered warning system. Schools were closed, flights canceled and factories and highways shut down in attempts to improve the air quality. But the prolonged red alert disrupted the lives of many in Beijing’s capital.
A grandmother and her grandson ventured outside their home on Wednesday for the first time in several days. The boy had stayed home from school since Monday and was getting bored inside, said the woman, who would only give her surname of Yang. “The pollution is rather scary, so we don’t go out or go very far,” she said.
By the calculations of Greenpeace East Asia, the red alert affects 460 million people, with about 200 million people living in areas where the air was polluted more than 10 times above the guideline set by the World Health Organization.
Beijing’s air pollution readings remained many times above safe levels. WHO designates the safe level of PM2.5, the tiny, poisonous particles that are easily inhaled and damage lung tissue, at 25 micrograms per cubic meter. Those readings exceeded 400 throughout Beijing, with nearby cities worse, on Wednesday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Computer models project that today, three days before Christmas, the temperature near the North Pole will be an astronomical 40-50 degrees warmer than normal and approaching 32 degrees, the melting point.
On some forecast maps simulating Arctic temperatures, the color bar does not even go as high as predicted levels.
The warmth will be drawn into the Arctic by a powerhouse storm east of Greenland. The European weather model estimates its lowest pressure will be around 945 millibars, which is comparable to many category 3 hurricanes.
“That’s pretty intense,” said Ryan Maue, a meteorologist with WeatherBell Analytics.
Maue explained that depleted sea ice cover east of the Nordic Sea helps create a passageway for warm air to surge north uninhibited. “You have more real estate available to advect the warm and moist air northward,” he said.
Arctic sea ice levels are at a record lows. In November, the Arctic usually gains ice, but over a period of five days it saw 19,000 square miles of ice cover vanish, which NOAA called “almost unprecedented.”
Zachary Labe, a doctoral student researching the Arctic at the University of California, Irvine, said that the lack of ice in this region has allowed ocean temperatures to warm to levels well above normal.
“The warm ocean acts as a buffer to keep the air temperatures from getting colder,” Labe said. Air temperatures in the Arctic above 80 degrees north (latitude) have been much warmer than normal since roughly September.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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“The air is horrible. The taxis stop right here, and when they take off, boom, you can taste it,” says the 67-year-old as the aroma of the caramel peanuts he hawks from a humble street stall mingles with the sickly stench of diesel. “I’m on the worst corner in London.”
In at least one important respect, it may be the worst in the world.
London has come a long way since the days when its infamous coal-fired pollution shrouded Sherlock in a permanent haze or struck at least 4,000 residents dead in less than a week.
But the city’s over-reliance on diesel-powered vehicles has given it a dubious distinction: a global leader in nitrogen dioxide, a noxious pollutant that shortens the lives of thousands of Londoners a year.
Here and in cities across environmentally minded Europe, NO2 levels are substantially higher than in North America, or even in Asian and African mega-cities whose names have become bywords for dirty air. And that is all because of decades of government incentives designed, ironically, to spur the purchase of supposedly cleaner diesel cars and trucks. “It’s a complete policy failure,” said Gary Fuller, who directs an air-quality study center at King’s College London. “No one could defend this.” Now, rather than try, European mayors are declaring war on diesel, hoping to give their cities a clean start.
This month, mayors of three major European capitals, plus Mexico City, announced ambitious plans to ban all diesel vehicles within the next decade.
“We can no longer tolerate air pollution and the health problems and deaths it causes, particularly for our most vulnerable citizens,” said Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who was joined in the pledge by the mayors of Athens and Madrid.
London’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, has not gone as far — yet. But he has made reducing air pollution a central pillar of his young administration, more than doubling funding for clean-air campaigns with a billion-dollar commitment and announcing plans that will radically transform the city’s fleet of diesel-dependent taxis and buses. “With nearly 10,000 Londoners dying early every year due to air pollution, tackling poor air quality is a public health emergency,” Khan said.
For years, officials have batted around the idea of pedestrianizing Oxford Street, London’s blinged-out central shopping district. There is just one problem. “There’s nowhere else for the traffic to go,” said Conquest, the sidewalk peanut vendor. Instead of a walker’s paradise, Oxford Street remains a vehicle-clogged dystopia, with some of the world’s worst NO2 levels.
Conquest, a spry man who has been selling his wares on Oxford Street for 50 years, said he has been lucky. He stays in shape and has been spared the health effects that have hobbled so many others. But he says he does not doubt that decades spent breathing toxic air have taken their toll.
“I run marathons,” he said. “I would have won a few of them if I hadn’t been standing on this corner.”
(Griff Witte, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The National Weather Service forecast a warming trend to start early in the week in many spots as a quieter weather pattern was expected to develop. On Sunday, temperatures plunged to minus 20 degrees and lower across much of the northern Plains with a fresh surge of bitter arctic air reaching into the Midwest.
A church in Lincoln, Neb., canceled its living nativity scene. Patti Crittenden, Trinity United Methodist Church’s director of youth ministries, told the Lincoln Journal Star, “In my opinion, this is too cold for anyone to be standing outside — bundled up or not.” In suburban Chicago, an arboretum canceled its holiday light show planned for Sunday night, and a holiday gift market was canceled in the Chicago suburb of Naperville.
Travelers were stranded and delayed as a blizzard shut down Interstate 90 in parts of Montana on Sunday. Authorities urged people to stay home to avoid endangering themselves and possible rescuers.
Weather-related delays at Indianapolis International Airport caused about 100 passengers to spend the night in the terminal, but most travelers were on their way Sunday morning.
Chicago police said a commercial plane slid off a runway early Sunday at O’Hare International Airport. There were no injuries reported from the incident just after 1 a.m.
Bismarck, N.D., posted a new record low for the date of Dec. 17 with 31 degrees below zero on Saturday before midnight, said National Weather Service meteorologist Zachary Hargrove. Linton, N.D., was even colder at minus 33 degrees early Sunday.
In South Dakota, the city of Huron set a new low for Sunday’s date of minus 31 degrees. Another record fell in Marshall, Minn., where it was 31 below zero. Spencer, Iowa’s negative 27 degrees was also a record-breaker. Colorado residents were digging out after up to 16 inches of snow fell across the state on Saturday, stranding motorists and leaving some areas of the state with subzero temperatures on Sunday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Dangerous wind chills of 20- to 30-below in parts of the region made for some crippling conditions Friday.
“You are talking about 30 degrees below normal highs. That is pretty darn cold,” said National Weather Service meteorologist James Brown in Maine. “This is pretty much a piece of Arctic air that came off the North Pole and came into New England.”
Forecasters said a storm will follow the frigid weather, bringing chances for snow, sleet and freezing rain across much of the country.
Some schools closed early Thursday and many others delayed opening Friday to avoid a bone-chilling wait at the bus stop.
“We’re not strangers to these sorts of bitter temperatures on Mount Washington’s summit,” senior weather observer Mike Carmon said in the weather observatory’s blog at the highest peak in the Northeast. “However, over the last few winters, it’s generally late January or February before we experience this sort of polar air outbreak.”
The wind chill was down to 85-below at the summit early Friday.
Utility workers were prepared for power outages due to fallen trees. Lake-effect snow was accompanied by winds of up to 50 mph, causing whiteout conditions in places across the Northeast.
Below-normal temperatures are expected into Monday across the entire northern half of the country, from the Pacific Northwest to Maine and as far south as Oklahoma, Arkansas and Virginia, according to the Climate Prediction Center.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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As the frustrations grew late Thursday night— a day after the spill — the mayor said he didn’t think the release of the chemical extended beyond the industrial district. He said though that officials were still waiting for results from testing by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, known as TCEQ.
“We are pushing very hard to get our water turned on as soon as we can,” Mc-Queen said.
City spokeswoman Kim Womack told KRIS-TV that officials did not find a “backflow preventer” at the site. “They’re saying there is one and we’re telling them ‘show us,” ’ she said.
“In the simplest terms, someone was careless when they were injecting chemicals with a pump and when the injection occurred it crossed over into our water system,” she told KRIS-TV.
Womack told the station that they were not releasing the name of the company leasing the plant because they are still trying to work with it.
“We feel like if we release their name, they will shut down and not work with us,” she said.
McQueen said that the “third party” responsible for the spill will be held “accountable.”
Anywhere from three to 24 gallons of the chemical got into the water system. It is an asphalt emulsifier that can burn the skin in concentrated amounts. “We haven’t confirmed that this product is even in the flow system,” McQueen said.
During a short news briefing, angry residents scolded city leaders for not fully explaining how the water supply might have been contaminated. After Womack briefly spoke and talked about an anonymous donor providing the city 27,000 cases of bottled water, a group of residents began chanting,“ What do we want? Clean water! When do we want it? Now!”
City officials warned in a statement that “Boiling, freezing, filtering, adding chlorine or other disinfectants, or letting the water stand will not make the water safe.” They didn’t indicate when they might lift the order not to use the water.
City Councilman Michael Hunter told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times early Thursday that it was unlikely that the leaked chemicals were concentrated enough to do harm, but that officials must take every precaution.
He said the problem was first reported by a local company that said the water coming from its faucets had a sheen. He did not identify that company.
The discovery of the leak led to the closure of schools, disrupted businesses and led to long lines at grocery stores, as residents stocked up on bottled water. At least two large retailers, H-E-B and Wal-Mart, sent for more bottled water to be shipped in.
The TCEQ said it has initiated “multiple measures,” including sampling “to determine the extent of potential impact.” TCEQ said agencies it’s coordinating with include the Environmental Protection Agency.
Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott said his office is coordinating with the TCEQ, the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the Department of State Health Services on the issue. The Texas Division of Emergency Management is coordinating shipments of drinking water to the city.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A strong Arctic cold front moved across the region with temperatures falling throughout the day and commuters, schools and outdoor workers slowing down, girding up and taking precautions. Vermont public safety officials warned residents to limit their time outdoors at least through today with dangerous wind chills of minus 35 in the forecast.
Some schools and government offices closed early in upstate New York ahead of lake-effect snow expected to bring 1 to 2 feet. In western Pennsylvania, lake-effect snow bands were blamed for slick roads and poor visibility. Fifty-nine vehicles crashed in a snowy pileup and three people were hurt. The crash was one of three that shut down different stretches of Interstate 80.
Blowing snow in Syracuse, N.Y., slowed the morning commute on Interstate 81 to a crawl.
“It doesn’t bother me as long as I go slow,” commuter Dawn Coyer, who lives north of Syracuse, told Time Warner Cable News. “But I wasn’t driving and she (a friend) said ‘No, we’re not doing this.“’ Parts of the Adirondack Northway, north of Albany, were closed for more than four hours after a crash involving a tractor-trailer and a snowplow. No injuries were reported.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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People in North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin were under a wind-chill advisory Wednesday from the National Weather Service, as were parts of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
Wednesday’s highs ranged from 20 to 30 degrees below average in the northern U.S., according to the weather service. The temperature was 4 below in Fargo, N.D., early Wednesday, and a daylight reprieve in the single digits was short-lived, with lows this morning forecast to be around minus 12. Duluth, Minn., was forecast for an overnight low of minus 5.
With the arctic air tracking northeast, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said he would activate the state’s severe cold-weather protocol today, calling for state police and other agencies to work with shelters and community groups to protect vulnerable residents. Malloy also encouraged communities to open warming centers.
Vermont public safety officials warned residents to limit their time outdoors today and Friday due to dangerous wind chills forecast at 35 below. In upstate New York, some schools and government offices were closing early ahead of lake-effect snow expected to dump 1 to 2 feet.
Much of the northern Mid-Atlantic and Northeast will stay cold for the next couple of days.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The report removes a finding from a draft issued last year indicating that fracking has not caused “widespread, systemic” harm to drinking water in the United States. Industry groups hailed the draft EPA study as proof that fracking is safe, while environmentalists seized on the report’s identification of cases where fracking-related activities polluted drinking water.
The final report, completed at a cost of $29 million over six years, takes pain to avoid conclusions.
“The report provides valuable information about potential vulnerabilities to drinking water resources but was not designed to be a list of documented impacts,” the EPA said.
Fracking involves pumping huge volumes of water, sand and chemicals underground to split open rock formations so oil and gas will flow. The practice has spurred an ongoing energy boom but has raised widespread concerns that it might lead to groundwater contamination, increased air pollution and even earthquakes.
Tom Burke, EPA’s science adviser and a deputy assistant administrator, said in an interview that the removal of the phrase about “widespread, systemic” impacts came at the urging of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board.
“Data gaps did not allow us to quantify how widespread the impacts are,” Burke said. Environmental groups have claimed that the finding of no widespread harm was inserted into the draft report at the insistence of the White House. President Barack Obama supports fracking as part of a wide-ranging energy strategy.
An EPA spokeswoman denied any political pressure. “This is an EPA document, not a White House document,” said spokeswoman Monica Lee.
Fracking opponents said the report confirmed what they have long argued — that fracking threatens drinking water.
“We are glad EPA resisted oil and gas industry spin, followed the science and delivered the facts,” said John Noel, national oil and gas campaigns coordinator for Clean Water Action, an advocacy group. “EPA must take action to address these threats now.”
But the oil industry called the report an “absurd” reversal as the Obama administration leaves office.
“The agency has walked away from nearly a thousand sources of information from technical reports and peer-reviewed scientific reports demonstrating that hydraulic fracturing does not lead to widespread, systemic impacts to drinking water resources,” said Erik Milito of the American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobbying group.
Like the draft study, the final report found specific instances where poorly constructed drilling wells or improper wastewater management affected drinking water. Impacts generally occurred near drilling sites “and ranged in severity, from temporary changes in water quality to contamination that made private drinking wells unusable,” the EPA statement said.
The number of contamination cases was small compared to the large number of wells that are fracked nationwide, the EPA said.
The EPA assessment tracked water used throughout the fracking process, from acquiring the water to mixing chemicals at the well site and injecting so-called “fracking fluids” into wells, to collection of wastewater, wastewater treatment and disposal.
The report identified several vulnerabilities to drinking water resources, including fracking’s effect on drought-stricken areas; inadequately cased or cemented wells resulting in below-ground migration of gases and liquids; inadequately treated wastewater discharged into drinking water resources; and spills of hydraulic fluids and wastewater.
Congress ordered the long-awaited report in 2010, as a surge in fracking fueled a nationwide boom in production of oil and natural gas. Fracking rigs have sprouted up in recent years in states from California to Pennsylvania, as energy companies take advantage of improved technology to gain access to vast stores of oil and natural gas under much of the continental U.S.
(Matthew Daly, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The 500 pages of transcripts provide a new glimpse at the final hours for the crew of 33, all of whom died when El Faro sank in October 2015. Some of those on board questioned the captain’s decision to sail closer to Hurricane Joaquin, which took an erratic path as it swirled in the Atlantic.
Audio recovered last summer from the ship’s resting place 15,000 feet deep near the Bahamas recorded conversations on the ship’s bridge, along with weather and positioning data. “Nobody in their right mind would be drivin’ into it,” one crew member said of the hurricane, the afternoon before the ship sank.
“We are. Yaaay,” second mate Danielle Randolph responded with a sarcastic
laugh.
Instead of rerouting or returning to Jacksonville, Capt. Michael Davidson decided to watch the storm closely through the night. He thought the storm would be worse on the journey back to Jacksonville from Puerto Rico and emailed officials at the company that owned the ship, Tote Maritime Inc., to ask if he could take what he thought would be a safer route on that return trip.
Davidson said he hadn’t heard back. “It’s 160 more miles. That’s more fuel. You know?” he replied.
Eventually, a Tote official did respond “authorized.” U.S. Coast Guard investigators have raised questions about whether Davidson was under time pressure and chose the more dangerous, direct route. In a statement to The Associated Press, Tote denied having any say in Davidson’s voyage planning.
Back on the ship, Davidson left the bridge around 8 p.m. to get some rest, telling his crew to monitor the weather. As the night progressed, some crew questioned why Davidson didn’t take a safer, longer route to San Juan.
“Guess I’m just turnin’ into a Chicken Little, but I have a feeling like something bad is gonna happen,” third mate Jeremie Riehm said at about 10:40 p.m.
As the clock ticked past midnight, the crew steering the ship started discussing their survival suits and whether their emergency beacons were working.
The El Faro had dipped south a bit to try to skirt the storm, but “every time we come further south the storm keeps trying to follow us,” Randolph said.
Then, a news alert came over the radio: Joaquin had grown into a major Category 3 storm.
“Oh my God,” she said.
Three minutes later, at 1:15 a.m., the ship rolled hard from a big wave.
At 2:47 a.m., the ship continued getting battered by large waves. The second mate called Davidson in his state room; it took him a few rings to pick up.
He appeared on the bridge at 4:09 a.m., according to the transcripts. He immediately set out to calm nerves.
“Well, this is every day in Alaska,” he told chief mate Steven Shultz and another able seaman. About a half hour later, Shultz said the engineer called because the ship was tilting and oil levels were problematic. A crew member said El Faro had never listed like that, but Davidson replied things would get better.
They didn’t. At 5:43 a.m., one of the ship’s cargo holds began flooding. Davidson sent Shultz to pump it out. He also tried turning the ship to get the wind to help stabilize things.
A half-hour later, the ship lost propulsion. Davidson called Tote to report the situation as water continued pouring into the hold.
At 7:24, Davidson says: “We’re definitely not in good shape right now.” Five minutes later, the high frequency ringing of the abandon ship alarm is heard. The captain, Randolph and another crew member discuss grabbing their life vests. But within moments, the captain says: “Bow is down.” Davidson tells everyone to get off the ship, but a seaman is paralyzed by fear and says to Davidson: “Help me. Help me.”
“Don’t panic,” Davidson says.“Work your way up here.”
“I’m a goner,” the seaman says.
“No you’re not,” Davidson replies. Moments later, at 7:39 a.m., only yelling is heard before the recording stops.
(Jason Dearen, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“California is blessed with hundreds of miles of spectacular coastline; home to scenic state parks, beautiful beaches, abundant wildlife and thriving communities,” Brown wrote the president. “Clearly, large new oil and gas reserves would be inconsistent with our overriding imperative to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and combat the devastating impacts of climate change.”
Obama last month released a plan that bans until 2022 any new drilling off the coasts of California, Oregon or Washington. The White House declined to comment on Brown’s request to make the ban permanent.
The request was one of a series of actions that position California as an independent actor in climate policy, and potentially at odds with the incoming administration.
Brown announced it Tuesday at the Hotel del Coronado, where he joined other government and nonprofit leaders to launch the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification. The alliance — which includes California, Oregon, Washington, France, Chile and a host of environmental groups — wants to fast-track the fight against ocean acidification, saying that profound changes to the ocean demand swift action.
Referred to as the “evil twin” of climate change, ocean acidification occurs when carbon is absorbed in the sea, lowering the pH and harming shellfish and other marine life. The damage could affect the ocean’s role as the primary protein source for 2.6 billion people and undermine the $2.5 trillion in economic activity that it generates, according to the alliance.
The coalition is taking shape against a backdrop of uncertainty over environmental policy as President-elect Trump has vowed to scuttle some existing regulations, withdraw from the Paris accord on climate change, and renew oil and gas production. Brown said, however, that California should take its own steps to tackle climate change and reverse deteriorating ocean conditions, seeking allies at home and abroad. “I’m not waiting for what Washington (D.C.) may or may not do,”Brown said. “I’m doing whatever I can for the resources of California, and any other state or country that will join with us. This is not about politics. It’s about survival within the lifetime of the people of this room.”
As atmospheric carbon dissolves in the ocean, it forms a weak acid that sours the sea. Ocean acidity is up by 30 percent over pre-industrial levels, and the concentration of carbonate ions that marine animals need to build shells has declined.
“The health of the ocean is at great risk,” said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. “The food security of the planet is at risk. Whether my grandkids can fish for salmon when they grow up is at great risk.”
Shellfish production in the Pacific Northwest is already suffering, as oyster larvae wither before maturing, and mussel shells weaken, said Bill Dewey, director of public affairs for the Taylor Shellfish Company in Washington. The increased acidity can disrupt behavior and physiology of clownfish, rockfish and other species as well. “Ocean acidification is arguably the biggest challenge we face in trying to sustain a healthy ocean,” said Francis Chan, an associate professor of marine ecology at Oregon State University.
The alliance members will promote research into ocean acidification to determine which regions are most at risk, and what local officials and fishermen can do to counter it. For instance, controlling water chemistry in hatcheries can help keep aquatic farming operations afloat, Chan said. Cultivating sea grass can help sponge some carbon from the water, lowering pH [this should be RAISING, not lowering] in local bays.
The alliance also plans to study which land-based pollutants cause acidification, and how to reduce runoff of those compounds. And they’ll support ways to cut carbon emissions, to keep acidification from worsening. Brown, a veteran of four decades of California politics, downplayed questions about the policy reversals expected under the incoming presidential administration, saying he’s less concerned with political change than with consequences of ocean acidification and climate change.
“On the track (we’re on) now we’re going to have a very disrupted, violent world,” Brown said. “Much worse than we see today. The challenges are so huge, that I don’t think we should overstate the next four years.”
(Deborah Sullivan Brennan, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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A segment of the Belle Fourche Pipeline near Belfield, N.D., began leaking earlier this month, contaminating nearly 6 miles of the Ash Coulee Creek before cleanup workers contained it, Bill Suess, an environmental scientist from the North Dakota Department of Health, told the Associated Press. An estimated 130,200 gallons of oil spilled into the creek, and 46,200 more gallons leaked onto a hillside, Suess told Forum News Service in a separate interview.
The spill dirtied private and federal land along the waterway, but no drinking water sources were affected, Seuss said. About 37,000 gallons of oil have been recovered, he said, and a crew of about 60 workers were averaging 100 yards of cleanup per day, though snow and single-digit temperatures have complicated the response.
“It’s going to take some time,” Suess told the AP.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Speeds were reduced on snow-packed roads and there were many school delays and closures from Michigan to Maine. Authorities said there were numerous crashes on the Maine Turnpike, and crashes on local roads in Gorham and New Portland, Maine, resulted in two fatalities.
Portland, Maine, got about 4 inches of snow, but that wasn’t enough to close down the Portland Fish Exchange, an auction house that was preparing for the arrival of day boat scallops later Monday.
“We’ve got a crew in here doing snow removal and repairs and what not,” said auction house general manager Bert Jongerden. “It’s pretty rare that we happen to close here. This is just a little bit of nuisance snow, really.”
Pats Peak Ski Area in Henniker, N.H., had received 6 to 8 inches by midmorning. Spokeswoman Lori Rowell said the ski area that opened Saturday with about half its trails saw more children Monday, thanks to school closures.
“We love it,” Rowell said. “There are lots kids there that took advantage of that opportunity.”
But it wasn’t all fun and games.
Brian Audet, of Epsom, said he saw one car off the road as he drove into Concord early Monday. “It was slow going, but they stayed ahead of it, and it was pretty decent,” he said.
David Holden, owner of Hair Biz Salon in Concord, was among those spending the morning shoveling the city’s newly expanded sidewalks.
“The roads are really slippery this morning. It’s a first big snow for us in New Hampshire, we probably have 6 or 7 inches, and so they were a little slippery and people were moving slow,” he said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The wintry weather mostly moved out of the Plains Sunday night, leaving parts of Minnesota with up to a foot of snow as it pushed into Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.
It’s a “slap of reality” after a mild November, National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Schmidt in La Crosse, Wis., said. The Chicago area received 3 to 4 inches of snow as of Sunday morning, and could see another 3 to 5 inches before today.
More than 1,390 flights were canceled in Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports — about half of arrivals and half of departures, flight-tracking website FlightAware reported.
Passengers took to Twitter to vent their frustrations over one of the first winter storms to snarl air traffic in the region this season.
“To all our fans in Vegas — we are stuck in Chicago from the snowstorm, we are so so sorry. Winter weather is (sic) wrecked our plans. This sucks,” wrote the rock band One Republic in a Twitter post. The group had a show scheduled on Sunday night at the Hard Rock Hotel& Casino in Las Vegas, Nev.
Michigan could see the heaviest snowfall, up to 10 inches. It caused problems Sunday when a Delta plane with 70 passengers and crew landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport but then ended up in snowy grass while it was turning from the runway to a taxiway. No injuries were reported.
The aftermath of the snowstorm promises more icy roads, flurries today and bone-chilling temperatures later this week, according to the National Weather Service.
“It’s just a trough of low pressure bringing cooler air into the region,” National Weather Service meteorologist Heather Orow said. “This isn’t too unusual. It’s December. It’s about time for this to start happening.”
To the east, Cleveland could see up to 6 inches, while parts of Vermont could see up to a foot.
The Ohio River valley and Mid-Atlantic will see a mix of snow, freezing rain and rain.
“For the rest of the day the best advice is just to stay off the road if you can, and otherwise go slow and give yourself more time to reach your destination,” National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Steinwedel said. “If you don’t have to drive or go somewhere, stay home.”
In Chicago, today is expected to be partly sunny, with temperatures falling to around 21 degrees by 9 a.m. and winds of up to 15 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
By Thursday afternoon, however, highs will reach only 8 degrees with overnight lows in the negative digits.
Temperatures 15 to 30 degrees below average will follow the cold rain and snow in the coming days through much of the Midwest and East.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said waves of up to 10 feet were still possible along the coast of the Solomon Islands, and smaller tsunami waves could hit Papua New Guinea.
There were reports of some power outages in the Solomon Islands, although there were no immediate reports of widespread damage or injuries from the quake.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit about 120 miles southeast of Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. The epicenter was relatively deep at 30 miles below the surface. Deeper quakes generally cause less damage on the ground.
The Solomon Islands are in the Pacific’s geologically active “Ring of Fire.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Volunteers and nearly 1,500 rescue personnel concentrated their search on the hard-hit town of Meureudu in Pidie Jaya district near the epicenter of the magnitude 6.5 quake that hit before dawn Wednesday. But the small number of heavy excavators on the scene meant progress was slow. Humanitarian assessment teams fanned out to other areas of the district.
National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll had risen to 102 and warned it could increase. Search teams were using devices that detect mobile phone signals within a 100-yard radius to help guide their efforts as they scoured the rubble. The disaster agency said more than 750 people were injured.
“We have to move faster to search and rescue possible survivors,” said Iskander Ali, a Pidie Jaya official.
Those killed included very young children and the elderly. Mohammad Jafar, 60, said his daughter, granddaughter and grandson died in the quake but he was resigned to it as “God’s will.”
He was getting ready for morning prayers when the earthquake hit. He said he and his wife managed to push their way out through the debris. Another man said he found his 9-year-old daughter alive beneath a broken wall at his neighbor’s house.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Officials offered few other specifics about how they think the two started a fire that leveled buildings into charred scraps, carving a deadly path through the Gatlinburg area.
People scrambled in terror to try to flee on foot or drive out of the inferno that often cloaked them from all sides, shooting hot embers through the winds. Some spent days hoping for good news about their missing loved ones. Many learned they would soon be planning funerals.
The juveniles face aggravated arson charges in the fire in the Chimney Tops area of Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Nov. 23. That fire grew amid drought conditions and ultimately rode winds exceeding 87 miles per hour into the Gatlinburg area early last week. Authorities have not yet announced a dollar amount on the damaged caused by the wildfire.
The two are being held in the Sevier County juvenile detention center.
“Our promise is that we will do every effort to help bring closure to those who have lost so much,” said Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn.
The juveniles are from Tennessee, but not Sevier County, where the fires spread. Otherwise, officials said state law prevents releasing more information about them. Karyssa Dalton, a 19-year-old whose grandmother Pamela Johnson remains missing in the blaze, said the two should be held accountable, even though they’re young. “I mean, what if somebody came through their town, and set their town on fire, and lost their loved ones, and lost all their homes?” Dalton said. “It’s not fair.”
Great Smoky Mountains National Park Chief Ranger Steve Kloster said the public was “critical” in offering investigators information through a tip line. Previously, the National Park Service said it believed the fire was human caused and set up a tip line for people to call if they hiked that trail on Nov. 23, or knew anyone who did.
The investigation is ongoing, and more charges could come. It’s also possible that the case could be transferred to an adult criminal court, said local District Attorney General James Dunn. The juveniles are entitled to a detention hearing within 72 hours in which a juvenile court judge will decide to hold them without bond, hold them with bond, or release them, Dunn said.
Dunn constantly said everything was “part of the investigation” when asked for details.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Nearly 100 people died in the shallow and powerful quake that struck northeast Sumatra before dawn on Wednesday. Hundreds were injured and dozens of buildings were destroyed. The worst damage appears to be in Pidie Jaya district near the epicenter, but assessments of the region are still under way.
Some people spent the night outdoors while thousands of others took refuge in mosques and temporary shelters.
Many were homeless after the magnitude 6.5 quake destroyed or damaged their homes, and others were too scared to return home. Killer quakes occur regularly in the region, where many live with the terrifying memory of a giant Dec. 26, 2004, earthquake that struck off Sumatra. The magnitude 9.1 quake triggered a devastating tsunami that killed more than 100,000 Acehnese.
Aceh’s disaster mitigation agency said today the death toll had risen by one to 98, and more than 8,000 displaced people were at several shelters in Pidie Jaya. The Indonesian government has declared a two-week emergency period in Aceh, and some aid was already reaching hard-hit areas.
The rescue effort involving thousands of search officials, villagers, soldiers and police is concentrated on Meureudu, a severely affected town in Pidie Jaya. Members of one rescue team told The Associated Press they hadn’t given up hope of finding survivors.
Humanitarian organization CARE said it would was leading a joint assessment mission of four international aid organizations.
“It will take several more days to get a full picture of the impact,” CARE’s Indonesia director Helen Vanwel said in a statement. “We know from experience that after an earthquake of such a scale, people urgently need water, shelter, food and medicine,” she said.
The Indonesian Red Cross deployed emergency response teams and announced bank accounts for donations. Five water trucks have been sent into the quake area. Aid, including hygiene kits, tarpaulins, jerry cans, blankets and family assistance kits, is being distributed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. Geological Survey said the shallow 6.4 magnitude earthquake that struck at 5:03 a.m. local time was centered about 6 miles north of Reuleut, a town in northern Aceh, at a depth of 11 miles.
Indonesia's Climate, Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said the quake had no potential to trigger a tsunami.
The chief of the district nearest to the epicenter said 25 people were been killed in that district alone.
Pidie Jaya District chief Aiyub Abbas also said hundreds of people in the district have been injured and more than 40 buildings were flattened.
Abbas said there is an urgent need for excavation equipment to move heavy debris and emergency supplies.
The world's largest archipelago, Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake off Sumatra island triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries. More than 160,000 people died in Indonesia alone, and most of those deaths occurred in Aceh.
NB: The particular location of this earthquake region is in the Indian Ocean, not in the Pacific Ocean as the narrative may suggest. Only the easternmost part of the Indonesian arc reaches into the Pacific.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The newly designated Pacific Islands Biosphere Reserve, located along the Baja California peninsula, is one of three new marine biosphere reserves decreed as Mexico hosted the United Nations Convention Biodiversity Conference in Cancun. “Conservationists around the world are very happy,” said Serge Dedina, mayor of Imperial Beach and executive director of the environmental group Wildcoast. “Traditionally, conservationists have focused on the Gulf of California, but what we’re learning is that the Pacific is equally important.”
The Pacific Islands Biosphere Reserve covers more than 2.8 million acres, an area that includes 21 islands and 97 islets and the surrounding marine areas that serve as a habitat for marine mammals and seabirds, as well as commercially important fish and shellfish.
Imperial Beach-based Wildcoast and other environmental groups — including the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy and the Mexican organizations Pronatura Noroeste and Conservacin de Islas — worked with the Mexican government to establish the reserve.
Biosphere reserves promote sustainable growth and protect ecosystems through the establishment of strongly protected core zones, together with buffer zones and transition zones.
The Pacific Islands Biosphere Reserve complements protections already in place off the California coast. “Now we have a chain of island conservation that extends from the U.S. all the way to Mexico,” Dedina said.
A separate designation was made for the Pacific Biosphere Reserve, a 143 million-acre area that include the Revillagigedo Archipelago off the tip of Baja California Sur.
(S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The report, which first appeared in the British tabloid The Daily Mail and was summarized in Breitbart News, the right-wing opinion and news site, cited incomplete data and drew incorrect conclusions, the scientists said.
Federal and international agencies have said that 2016 will likely be the hottest year on record. In its report, The Daily Mail cited a recent decline in temperatures over land since the weather phenomenon known as El Niño ended this year and said that suggested that El Niño, and not climate change, was responsible for the record heat.
But scientists said that while the recent El Niño did contribute to the record warmth, climate change played a major role, too.
“Nobody said the record temperatures were exclusively the result of climate change,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center.
Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch at the NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, said that the longterm warming trend was quite clear, and that the impact of El Niño was in addition to what were already higher temperatures. In an El niño, water temperatures increase in the eastern equatorial Pacific, affecting air temperatures and weather worldwide. Sea surface temperatures have declined since their peak this year, and now the opposite condition — La Niña, with water temperatures lower than normal — prevails.
Scientists are not surprised that some global temperatures are falling and expect that temperatures next year will be below those of the past two years because of La Niña. “But it’s still likely to be quite a bit warmer than average,” Halpert said.
Scientists said the news reports were also faulty in that they cited only temperatures over land, which account for about 30 percent of Earth’s surface. Temperatures over land are much more variable than those over water because land stores relatively little heat.
“If you’re going to be making global-scale assessments,” Arndt said, “you need to be looking at global-scale data.”
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech, a scientist who revealed Flint’s alarming lead levels in 2015, said the “public health crisis” is nearing an end, although he firmly urged residents to continue to use filters on kitchen faucets— perhaps for as long as it takes to replace the old steel lines that bring water into homes.
“It’s very likely folks will never be told the water is safe as long as those lead pipes are there,” Edwards said during a news conference at Virginia Tech that was streamed online.
Edwards, along with state and federal authorities, has repeatedly recommended filters or bottled water. Those continue to be distributed for free to Flint’s roughly 100,000 residents.
Flint has a lead problem because it used water from the Flint River for 18 months without treating it to prevent pipe corrosion. As a result, the water caused lead to leach from old pipes and through home taps. But since fall 2015, Flint has been getting water from a regional system that uses corrosion controls. That treatment is coating the pipes again and helping the system heal.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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They hugged each other and promised that they would stay in touch.
“We love it up here so much,” said Gary Moore, his voice trembling. “We lost everything. But we’re alive, thank goodness. Our neighbors are alive, most of them. And we’re just so thankful for that.”
A county mayor raised the death toll to 13 and said the number of damaged buildings now approached 1,000.
After days of waiting to see their homes, some of the shock began to give way to anger, and local authorities bristled when asked why they waited so long to order the evacuation.
“The city sure could have done a better job of getting us out of here,” said Delbert Wallace, who lost his home. “When they got up that morning, when they seen that fire, we should have been on alert right then.”
Sevier County Mayor Larry Williams and other officials noted the fire moved such a great distance so quickly it gave officials little time to react. Once they did, it was nearly too late.
Waters said it was not the time for “Monday morning quarterbacking” and promised a full review later.
John Matthews of the Sevier County Emergency Management Agency said a text alert telling people to evacuate went out around 9 p.m. Monday. But by that time, wildfires were raging in the area.
Matthews said some people did not receive the message due to power outages and loss of cellphone reception.
Local officials, bowing to pressure from frustrated property owners, allowed people back into most parts of the city Friday.
“This is all that’s left of our house,” said Tammy Sherrod, standing with her husband in front of the rubble. “We had five minutes to get off this mountain. We got off with the clothes on our back. We got off with a few pictures.”
She found a coaster in the rubble that her 27-year-old daughter had made as a child. Half of it had bright colors and the other half was charred black. It still had her name, Brianna, written on the bottom in black marker.
The dead included a Memphis couple separated from their three sons during the wildfires. The sons — Jared, Wesley and Branson Summers — were recovering in the hospital when they learned that their parents had died.
“The boys, swaddled in bandages with tubes hanging out and machines attached, were allowed to break quarantine, and were together in the same room, briefly, when I confirmed their parents’ death,” their uncle Jim Summers wrote on a Facebook page set up for the family. Their injuries “pale in comparison with their grief.”
Other fatalities included a couple from Canada, 71-year-old Jon Tegler and 70-year-old Janet Tegler, and May Vance, who died of a heart attack after she was exposed to smoke. Officials said at a news conference that she was vacationing in Gatlinburg, but an obituary posted online said she was from the area.
The Associated Press was allowed into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — the most visited national park in the country — on Thursday. Soot, ash and blackened trees covered the forest floor, and the gorgeous vistas of tree-topped mountain ranges were scarred by large areas of blackened soil and trees. Small plumes of smoke smoldered from hot spots.
Deputy Park Superintendent Jordan Clayton said the initial fire started Nov. 23 near the end of a popular hiking trail. Authorities urged anyone who hiked the trial to give them a call.
“Whether it was purposefully set or whether it was a careless act that was not intended to cause a fire, that we don’t know,” Clayton said. “The origin of the fire is under investigation.”
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are helping investigate the cause.
(Adam Beam & Jonathan Mattise, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fine is the largest criminal penalty ever paid involving a deliberate dumping by a cruise ship, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, which said such illegal dumping had been committed by the same ship since 2005.
Jan Swartz, president of Princess Cruise Lines, apologized for the dumping and said the Santa Clarita-based company had adopted new employee training, environmental procedures and equipment to prevent such incidents in the future.
“We are very sorry for the inexcusable actions of our employees,” she said in a video. “We also deeply regret that our oversight was inadequate. We take full responsibility.”
The fine and the guilty plea stem from an August 2013 incident when the Caribbean Princess dumped 4,227 gallons of oily waste about 23 miles off the coast of England, according to the Department of Justice. Investigators who reviewed the ship later determined that the crew had used an illegal bypass system, dubbed a magic pipe, to discharge the waste.
Princess is a subsidiary of Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise company.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The mea culpa, which Secretary-General Ban Kimoon delivered before the General Assembly, was an implicit acknowledgment that cholera was not present in Haiti until U.N. peacekeepers arrived in the country from Nepal, where a cholera outbreak was underway.
The peacekeepers lived on a base that often leaked waste into a river, and the first cholera cases in the country appeared in Haitians who lived nearby. Numerous scientists have long argued that the base was the source of the outbreak, but for years U.N. officials refused to accept responsibility.
Over the summer, Ban’s office acknowledged that the U.N. did, in fact, play a role in the initial outbreak, with Ban only recently accepting “moral responsibility” for the disease and the suffering that it caused.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Authorities set up a hotline for people to report missing friends and relatives, and after following up on dozens of leads, they said many of those people had been accounted for. They did not say whether they believe anyone else is still missing or may have died.
“I think it’s fair to say that the search is winding down,” Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters said. “And hopefully we will not find any more.”
He said the searches would likely be completed today.
Nearly 24 hours of rain on Wednesday helped dampen the wildfires, but fire officials struck a cautious tone, saying people shouldn’t have a false sense of security because months of drought have left the ground bone-dry, and wildfires can rekindle.
The trouble began Monday when a wildfire, likely caused by a person, spread from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park into the tourist city of Gatlinburg as hurricane-force winds toppled trees and power lines, blowing embers in all directions.
“We had trees going down everywhere, power lines, all those power lines were just like lighting a match because of the extreme drought conditions. So we went from nothing to over 20-plus structure fires in a matter of minutes. And that grew and that grew and that grew,” Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said.
More than 14,000 residents and visitors in Gatlinburg were forced to evacuate, and the typically bustling tourist city has been shuttered ever since. At least 700 buildings in the county have been damaged.
“Gatlinburg is the people, that’s what Gatlinburg is. It’s not the buildings, it’s not the stuff in the buildings,” Mayor Mike Werner said. “We’re gonna be back better than ever. Just be patient.”
Starting today, homeowners, business owners, renters and lease holders will be allowed to go see most of their Gatlinburg properties, said City Manager Cindy Cameron Ogle. The city is hoping to open main roads to the general public on Wednesday.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash has said the fires were “likely to be human-caused,” but he has refused to elaborate, saying only that the investigation continues. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are helping investigate the cause.
About 10,000 acres, or 15 square miles, burned inside the country’s most visited national park. Another 6,000 acres were scorched outside of the park.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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In a proposal on Wednesday, the agency said it continues to want a company’s fleet of new cars and light trucks to range between 49.9 and 53.3 miles per gallon by 2025, on average, depending on the mix of cars and trucks sold. That amounts to about 40 mpg in real-world driving and is a significant increase from the 24.8 mpg that cars sold in October get.
The EPA had until April 2018 to finalize its fuel economy standards, but its decision to issue a proposal this week was seen by some as a hasty attempt to get those standards on the books before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. The proposal is now open for public comments until the end of the year.
Fuel economy has been a thorny issue between the federal government and carmakers. President Barack Obama first introduced the plan in 2012, when gas prices were significantly higher. Now, gas is hovering at about $2 a gallon nationally, and car buyers have shifted their preferences toward larger and less fuel-efficient SUVs and trucks.
So carmakers have pushed for the EPA to reconsider its fuel efficiency targets, and were hoping for a rollback. Instead, Wednesday’s proposal angered several auto groups. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers called the EPA move “an extraordinary and premature rush to judgment.”
Peter Welch, president of the National Automobile Dealers Association, said: “Washington today decided to make new cars and trucks more expensive for America’s working men and women.”
On the other side, environmental and consumer groups were pleased. “What’s not to like about a plan, agreed to by automakers, that cuts oil use, saves money at the pump and reduces pollution?” said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign.
The proposal has been years in the making. In 2011, in the wake of the federal auto industry bailout, the Obama administration and industry executives agreed to lift mileage goals from 30.2 mpg for cars and 24.3 mph for light trucks to a goal of 54.5 mpg across their fleets by 2025. That figure was reduced in July to 50.8 mpg. Because of testing variations, experts say the mpg number that shows up on a window sticker is about 20 percent to 30 percent lower.
The agreement required a “mid-term review” where technological progress and consumer demand would be considered to determine whether the goal was reachable.
Now the EPA is saying yes, it is reachable. In its lengthy “proposed determination” on Wednesday, the agency explained that while it was required to make a final determination “no later” than April 1, 2018, nothing stops it from moving sooner.
Once the public comment period is over Dec. 31, the agency could issue its final ruling.
“I can’t imagine there won’t be litigation that says ‘That’s not long enough,’ ” said Patrick Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the free-market think tank Cato Institute.
He’s not sure though— so far, no one is— how Trump or his incoming administration will react.
“They have said they want to rein in the EPA; they’ve been crystal clear on that,” he said. “This is a real interesting litmus test for the new administration.”
It’s also unclear whether automakers will pressure Trump to loosen such regulations. Many have been retooling their manufacturing plans in anticipation of the ramp-up and may be too far along to scale back. And, some analysts say, global markets are pushing automakers toward higher-mileage vehicles anyway.
“Automakers are global, and markets outside of the U.S. — as well as California— are demanding more fuel-efficient and lower-emitting vehicles,” said Michelle Krebs, senior analyst at Autotrader. “Automakers will still be on the hook to develop and produce these vehicles and will need economies of scale to make them profitable.”
Krebs notes that if the new administration gutted the standards, the administration after that might add a new set, making planning difficult.
Furthermore, the regulations were written to give the so-called Detroit 3 automakers more flexibility in meeting the standards with their large trucks and SUVs.
Upending the standards could also risk the return of patchwork regulations around the U.S., analysts said.
The mileage standards were first created by Congress in 1975. California later set tougher standards for vehicles sold in the state, which forced automakers to customize their California cars and trucks. To their relief, the standards were harmonized into national regulations in 2009. But California could go its own way again.
The Obama EPA’s move “provides solid support for continuation of the single national program to produce a new generation of clean vehicles to address the air quality challenges facing California and other states,” California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary D. Nichols said.
Whatever happens with federal mileage standards, California’s Zero Emission Vehicle program is likely to remain in place. It requires that 15 percent of new vehicles sold in 2025 be zero emission — practically speaking, that means all-electric cars.
(Russ Mitchell, CALIFORNIA NEW GROUP)
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Search-and-rescue missions continued, and Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters said they had found three people who had been trapped since the fires started spreading wildly in high winds on Monday night. The mayor said the three were OK.
“That is some good, positive news for a change,” he said. The mayor said authorities are still working to identify the dead and did not release any details about how they were killed. State law enforcement set up a hotline for people to report missing friends and family. Officials have not said how many people they believe are missing.
Three brothers being treated at a Nashville hospital said they had not heard from their parents since they were separated while fleeing the fiery scene during their vacation.
Gatlinburg Police Chief Randall Brackins said they have searched about 30 percent or less of the city so far.
More than 14,000 people were evacuated from Gatlinburg on Monday night.
Meanwhile, storms moved through the area Wednesday as part of a system ravaging the Southeast, spawning suspected tornadoes in parts of Alabama and Tennessee, killing five people and injuring more than a dozen.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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About two-thirds of the shallow-water coral on the reef’s previously pristine, 430-mile northern stretch was dead, the scientists said. Only a cyclone that lowered water temperatures by up to 3 degrees Celsius in the south saved the lower reaches of the 1,400-mile reef from damage, they added.
On some atolls in the north, all the coral had died, said professor Terry Hughes, the director of the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Townsville, in the eastern state of Queensland. Hughes and a team of scientists drew their findings from about 900 dive surveys.
The U.N. in May last year stopped short of putting the reef on an “in danger” list, but it warned that climate change, water pollution and the effects of coastal development were all detrimental.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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He approved Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline to Burnaby, British Columbia, but rejected Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, B.C. These are the first major pipeline decisions for Trudeau, whose Liberal government is trying to balance the oil industry’s desire to tap new markets in Asia with environmentalists’ concerns.
“The project will triple our capacity to get Canadian energy resources to international markets beyond the UnitedStates,”Trudeaus aid at an Ottawa news conference. “We took this decision today because we believe it is in the best interests of Canada.” He added that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion “meets the strictest of environmental standards.”
Alberta, which has the world’s third largest oil reserves, needs infrastructure in place to export its growing oil sands production. Approving Trans Mountain helps diversify Canada’s oil exports. Ninety-seven percent of Canadian oil exports now go to the U.S. Houston-based Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to Vancouver Harbour in Burnaby will increase the capacity of an existing pipeline from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day.
Trudeau rejected the Northern Gateway project. About 220 large oil tankers a year would have visited the Pacific coast town of Kitimat. The fear of oil spills is especially acute in the pristine corner of northwest British Columbia.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire has killed at least three people and injured at least 14 others, officials said Tuesday. The victims have not yet been identified.
Search and rescue efforts were under way throughout Sevier County as dusk arrived in the charred, smoke-choked mountains, but some areas remained unreachable, authorities said late Tuesday afternoon. The blaze forced more than 14,000 people to flee the area and left “in excess of 150” buildings in ruin, officials said.
“People were basically running for their lives,” Gatlinburg Mayor Mike Werner said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
The “unprecedented” fire — which started on the Chimney Tops mountain, one of the most popular hiking destinations in the Smokies — was still burning Tuesday afternoon, emergency officials said. Strong winds and dry ground had carried the flames into the resort cities of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, moving too fast and too far to contain.
“This is a fire for the history books,” Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said at a news conference Tuesday.
Miller said that the Chimney Tops fire, which was reported Sunday, started to rage Monday night when winds climbed to 87 mph, carrying away fiery embers and knocking trees and power lines to the ground.
Officials at Great Smoky Mountains National Park said Tuesday morning that the extensive fire and fallen trees had forced the temporary closure of the most-visited national park in America. In the surrounding towns, the sky was smoky and the ground wet with rain. Officials said the wind had died down, but a handful of buildings continued to burn.
Residents evacuated the area as trees caught fire on the low slope of the hills and mountains on either side of the road — the flames’ orange tendrils licking at the asphalt and black smoke obscuring the sky.
“Fire was coming over the mountains, and the smoke was so bad we could barely breathe as we were trying to pack up,” Mike Gill, who was evacuating with his wife, Betty, told NBC News.
In Gatlinburg, flames began engulfing private structures, including the 300-room Park Vista hotel. Inside the hotel, dozens of guests were trapped Monday by a wall of flames around the building. Logan Baker told NBC affiliate WBIR that the firefighters initially told guests that they would be safe inside the building, but a short time later, “they saw flames coming down the hill.”
By the time guests had packed their cars with luggage, however, it was too late to escape, Baker told the station, noting that the only road out was covered in flames.
Baker told WBIR he helped bring people back inside the hotel; once inside, firefighters told them to remain in the lobby while they fought the fire outside.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Though water shortages have yet to drastically change most people’s lifestyles, Southerners are beginning to realize that they’ll need to save their drinking supplies with no end in sight to an eight-month drought.
Already, watering lawns and washing cars is restricted in some parts of the South, and more severe water limits loom if long-range forecasts of below-normal rain hold true through the rest of 2016.
The drought arrived without warning in Chris Benson’s bathroom last week in Griffin, Ga.
“My son noticed it when he went to take his bath for the evening,” said Benson, 43. “The water was kind of a light brown color and after we ran it for a while, it actually looked like a light-colored tea. A little disturbing.”
The problem was that Griffin’s reservoir is nearly 8 feet below normal, leaving “a high level of manganese” in the remaining water, but not making it unsafe, city officials told residents in a Nov. 16 “water discoloration update.”
Benson watched that water turn from brown to “kind of a light green tint” before clearing up, he said.
It’s no better in Tennessee, where about 300 of the state’s 480 water systems serve areas suffering moderate to exceptional drought, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said.
Across the South, communities relying on depleted watersheds can’t afford to waste what they’ve got left, said Denise Gutzmer at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb. “For some of these small communities, they are in trouble and they will need to be very careful about their water use to conserve,” Gutzmer said. “Just like when a bank account gets low, you become much more conscientious about how you spend the remaining dollars you have to spend.”
Gutzmer collects the most granular consequences of the nation’s weather for the Drought Impact Reporter. She logged the complaints of a hay producer in Winchester, Tenn., whose spring has run dry “for the first time in over a hundred years,” and the rescue of 64 endangered Barrens Topminnows, one of the world’s last remaining wild populations, from a drying stream in Coffee County, Tenn.
She also tracked a mass mussel die-off due to low water in southwestern Virginia, and described how hundreds of volunteers removed beer bottles and car parts from the bottom of Alabama’s Lake Purdy, which has 20 feet of water, three-fourths of its capacity. She even heard how workers dismantled beaver dams to increase water flow in west Georgia’s Tallapoosa River.
“That really underscores the desperation of the situation, like ‘OK, we’ve got to clear the beaver dams,’ ” Gutzmer said. In Beech Mountain, N.C., some 10,000 skiers take over the town on winter weekends when the slopes are open. But there’s been no snow this year and the drought has drained the town’s sole water source, Buckeye Lake. The surface is now about 6 feet below what town manager Ed Evans calls “full pond,” meaning he’s about 45 to 60 days from buying water from somewhere else.
Evans said the town’s 340 residents are being encouraged to conserve and car-washing is banned.
Similar rules are in effect in Georgia, on a much larger scale. Gov. Nathan Deal recently announced “level 2” water restrictions for about a third of the state’s 159 counties, limiting outdoor water uses to two days a week.
There’s no “doomsday clock” that could count down the days until taps run dry, says Kevin Chambers of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
“Stream flows are getting very low. Reservoirs are dropping,” Chambers said. “So we’re hoping our level 2 response will be sufficient to get us through the winter.”
The 15,000 residents of the west Georgia town of Villa Rica might soon have to pay a surcharge to cover the cost of purchased water.
(Jeff Martin, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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An unusually cold air mass brought wet snow to Japan’s capital. Above-freezing temperatures kept the snow from sticking in most places, though it did accumulate on sidewalks and cars in Tokyo’s far western suburbs.
Meteorologists forecast up to 1 inch would fall, and more in the mountains northwest of Tokyo.
The snow caused minor train delays during the morning commute.
The last time it snowed in central Tokyo in November was 1962. Prior to Thursday, the earliest time that snow had accumulated on the ground in the winter season was on Dec. 6, 1987, according to the agency.
The agency monitors various esoteric weather indicators, Japanese-style, such as announcing when cherry blossoms have started to bloom by observing a certain tree. The benchmark “sakura” tree for Tokyo grows in Yasukuni Shrine, which has drawn controversy because it honors all Japanese soldiers who died in war, including war criminals. The first snowfall is “hatsuyuki,” which literally translated to “first snow.” Snow on the ground is called “sekisetsu,” and declared when more than half a designated area in Tokyo, called Kitanomaru, turns white, the agency said.
Japanese culture is especially sensitive to the changing seasons. Haiku, for instance, must include words that denote spring, summer, fall or winter.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Five countries, including Russia and Turkey, sent firefighting planes to assist Israel in tackling the fires, which officials said may have been started intentionally. Israel’s internal security agencies are looking into the causes of the blazes, which started Monday night and have broken out in several other places around the country.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Haifa on Thursday evening to meet with fire and police chiefs. He said that if the fires were started by arsonists, those responsible “will be punished gravely.”
Officials said that about 10 firefighting planes from Croatia, Cyprus, Greece and Italy, as well as Russia and Turkey, had either arrived in Israel or were on their way. The Palestinian Authority also said it would send some fire crews.
Netanyahu spoke Thursday morning with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who agreed to send two massive firefighting planes that could drop water on the blazes. Local media reported that a supertanker firefighting plane would arrive from the United States in 24 hours. Weather experts said the fires, which began in bush areas, had spread widely because of gusty winds following the dry summer months.
In Haifa, authorities removed residents from at least 10 neighborhoods. Although no fatalities were reported, damage was said to be widespread and a few hundred people were treated for smoke inhalation. Several large buildings were engulfed by the fires.
In addition to calling for help from abroad and directing all its firefighting forces to Haifa, the Israeli military deployed two search-and-rescue battalions to the area, and reservists from the Homefront Command were brought in to assist in evacuating civilians.
Some witnesses said the city, Israel’s third-largest, resembled a “war zone.”
As the fire continued to burn, Haifa residents remembered a deadly brush fire in 2010 in which 44 prison guards were burned alive on a bus as they attempted to reach and evacuate a prison. Israel’s prison services said this time, too, that two prisons in the area would be emptied.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The revival is considered one of the major wildlife restoration success stories, even making it into wildlife management textbooks, said Mark Scott, director of wildlife for the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The revival of the birds in Vermont grew from the release of turkeys in Rutland County during the winters of 1969-70 and 1970-71. A total of 31 were released during that time. The state now has a population estimated at 45,000 to 50,000 birds, from one end of the state to the other, Scott said.
Vermont has also helped other states in the region and beyond restore or build their populations, sending turkeys to places including Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Canada and Germany. “I think people like to see turkeys whether they hunt them or not,” said Scott, whose agency oversees Vermont’s spring and fall turkey hunting seasons.
The turkey revival is not just a New England phenomenon.
Wild turkeys are now found in all U.S. states except Alaska, said Pete Muller, public relations manager for the National Wild Turkey Federation, which is trying to maintain and expand turkey habitats across the country.
“When you think about this particular time of year, Thanksgiving, most people will think of turkeys,” said Muller, who estimates the national turkey population is around 6 million.
He said it’s unclear whether turkeys were actually part of the original Thanksgiving held by the Pilgrims in what is now Plymouth, Mass.
“Whether there were actually turkeys there or not, the American wild turkey is cemented into this country’s history,” Muller said.
Now, not far from the site of that original Thanksgiving, in Foxborough, Mass., turkeys are so common some have turned aggressive toward people who feed them. In Vermont, flocks of 200 or 300 turkeys can damage farmers’ grain bunkers by eating the feed intended for cattle and fouling the rest with their droppings, Scott said.
Vermont’s native turkey population was wiped out in the 19th century because of habitat loss caused by farming practices that clear-cut forests from much of the state. In the 1850s, only about 25 percent of Vermont was forested.
Unsuccessful efforts to restore partially domesticated turkeys were made in the middle of the 20th century.
(Wilson Ring, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Otto was likely to gain strength as it headed for an expected Thursday afternoon landfall around the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border. It could become the first hurricane to make landfall in Costa Rica since reliable record-keeping began in 1851.
The storm caused heavy rains in Panama as it moved off that nation’s northern coast, and officials blamed Otto for three deaths. Jose Donderis, Panama’s civil defense director, said a landslide just west of Panama City early Tuesday trapped nine people. Seven were rescued but two were pulled from the mud dead. In the capital, a child was killed when a tree fell on a car outside a school.
The country "faces one of the worst meteorological situations, with imminent risk," Donderis said.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The move is in stark contrast to President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to revive the American coal industry.
Environment Minister Kathleen McKenna said the goal is to make sure 90 percent of Canada’s electricity comes from sustainable sources by that time — up from 80 percent today.
The announcement is one of a series of measures Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is rolling out as part of a broader climate change plan. Trudeau also has plans to implement a carbon tax.
Trump, in contrast, has also said he would “cancel” the Paris Agreement.
Trudeau told President Barack Obama this past weekend he would miss working with him because he shared so many values.
France, Britain, the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark have all announced accelerated coal phase outs, McKenna said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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There were reports of minor injuries and damage, Japanese broadcaster NHK said. The earthquake shook buildings in Tokyo, 150 miles southwest of the epicenter.
NHK also showed one person’s video of water rushing up a river or canal, but well within the height of the embankment. It was eerily reminiscent of the 2011 disaster, when much larger tsunamis rushed up rivers and overflowed, wiping away entire neighborhoods.
On Tuesday, tsunami waves were recorded along the coast. The highest one was 4.6 feet in Sendai Bay. A tsunami advisory for waves of up to 3 feet remained in effect along the coast.
The operator of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant said there were no abnormalities observed at the plant, though a swelling of the tide of up to 3 feet was detected offshore.
The plant was swamped by the 2011 tsunami, sending three reactors into meltdown and leaking radiation into the surrounding area. The plant is being decommissioned but the situation remains serious as the utility figures out how to remove still-radioactive fuel rods and debris and what to do with the melted reactor cores.
Plant operator TEPCO said a pump that supplies cooling water to a spent fuel pool at the nearby Fukushima Dai-ni plant stopped working, but that a backup pump had been launched to restore cooling water to the pool. Both plants are run by Tokyobased TEPCO.
Naohiro Masuda, head of TEPCO’s decommissioning unit, said he believes that the pump was shut off automatically by a safety system as the water in the pool shook.
He said decommissioning work at the destroyed Dai-ichi plant had been temporarily suspended because of the earthquake.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Officials said they were alarmed by the increase in dead trees, which they estimated to have risen by 36 million since the government’s last survey in May. The U.S. Forest Service, which performs aerial surveys of forest land, said in a study released Friday that 62 million trees have died this year alone.
“The scale of die-off in California is unprecedented in our modern history,” said Randy Moore, the forester for the region of the U.S. Forest Service that includes California. Trees are dying “at a rate much quicker than we thought.”
Scientists say five years of drought are to blame for much of the destruction. The lack of rain has put California’s trees under considerable stress, making them more susceptible to the organisms, such as beetles, that can kill them. Unusually high temperatures have added to the trees’ demand for water, exacerbating an already grim situation.
The majority of the dead trees are in the southern and central Sierra Nevada region, officials said, though they warned that high mortality levels are also creeping into forests in Northern California, notably Siskiyou, Modoc, Plumas and Lassen counties.
Adrian Das, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, needs only to step outside his office in Sequoia National Park to see the extent of the damage. “You look across the hillside on a side of the road, and you see a vast landscape of dead trees,” he said. “It’s pretty startling.”
Das said the parts of the forest at lower elevations — about 5,000 to 6,000 feet — continue to get hit the hardest. In the higher elevations, it can sometimes appear as if there is no drought and the trees are much healthier.
“We have sugar pines here — grand trees that can live for 500 years,” he said. “Everywhere you walk, through certain parts of these forests, at least half of these big guys are dead.”
Although California enjoyed a wet start to the water year in Northern California, the central and southern parts of the state remain locked in what federal officials classify as “extreme” and “exceptional” drought.
“This staggering and growing number of tree deaths should concerning for everyone,” said Max Gomberg, the climate and conservation manager at the State Water Resources Control Board. “It helps us realize just how intense and extreme this drought has been — particularly for Central and Southern California.”
A single year of average precipitation, which parts of the state got last year, would not end the drought or cause trees to stop dying, experts said.
Even with a historic deluge this winter, Moore said, die-off would continue for at least a year or two.
Dead trees create various hazards for Californians. For example, such trees are weak and can fall more easily than healthy trees. In October 2015, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency and formed a tree-mortality task force to help mobilize additional resources for the safe removal of fallen and dying trees.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service has reallocated $43 million in California this fiscal year to “conduct safety- focused restoration along roads, trails and recreation sites,” the agency said in a statement.
Then there is the wildfire danger.
California was struck this summer by a series of deadly wildfires that destroyed hundreds of homes and forced thousands to flee. Officials at the time said some of those fires were fueled by dead trees.
When a lot of dead fuel remains on the ground, fires burn hotter and causes damage to the soil. Whenever rain eventually arrives, the water cannot filter through the soil as easily, so it moves the top layer, creating the potential for mudslides and destroying root systems.
Once fires burn through the fuel on the ground, they can climb up a “ladder” of dry branches and timber until they get into the crown of the tree, McLean said. And once a fire gets to the top of a tree, it can spread quickly— hopping from tree to tree rather than winding more slowly across the ground.
The forest service said the dead trees, combined with hotter drier conditions, are likely to cause bigger forest fires and longer fire seasons for years to come. Officials also said this will probably drive up the cost of fighting fires. Some experts, however, have questioned whether there's a correlation between high levels of dead trees and fire severity.
(Matt Stevens, CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP)
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The move by the Interior Department, part of a new five-year plan for energy development in federal waters, would put a temporary end to exploration in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off the Alaskan coast. It also dropped plans to allow companies to drill for oil and natural gas in the Atlantic Ocean off of four southeastern states, including Virginia.
“The plan focuses on lease sales in the best places — those with highest resource potential, lowest conflict, and established infrastructure— and removes regions that are simply not right to lease,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a statement Friday. “Given the unique and challenging Arctic environment and industry’s declining interest in the area, forgoing lease sales in the Arctic is the right path forward.”
The areas off Alaska currently are considered by big oil companies to be too expensive to explore given low crude prices, the steep expenses of drilling in icy waters and the costly failure by Royal Dutch Shell to discover oil in 2015 after years of preparation. Shell spent more than $7 billion, and in the end the hole it drilled was virtually dry.
Even if the economics of Arctic drilling improve and a Trump administration wants to reopen the area to exploration, both oil company officials and environmental groups say, Trump would be unable to toss out the five-year plan immediately. To undo the Obama administration’s ban, a new administration would have to prepare a supplemental report, which could take as long as two years, depending on whether it needs to prepare a new environmental impact statement.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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“A carbon tariff against the United States is an option for us,” Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo, Mexico’s undersecretary for environmental policy and planning, said in an interview. He added, “We will apply any kind of policy necessary to defend the quality of life for our people, to protect our environment and to protect our industries.” Forcing U.S. industries to turn to cleaner energy sources with the hammer of an import tariff is not far-fetched. Countries imposing costs on their own industries to control carbon emissions could tell the World Trade Organization that U.S. industries are operating under an unfair trade advantage by avoiding any cost for their pollution.
The tax would be calculated based on the amount of carbon pollution associated with the manufacturing of each product. That would impose a painful cost on the heaviest industrial polluters, particularly on exporters of products containing steel and cement.
“The Paris Agreement is meant to get everyone on board in one structure where you can address climate change together,” said Dirk Forrister, the president and chief executive of the International Emissions Trading Organization, a nonprofit that consults with governments and companies. “But if one big country backs out it could trigger a whole wave of trade responses.”
He added: “There is no need to start a trade war over climate change. But it might happen.”
The Marrakech summit was expected to conclude late Friday or early today with a declaration that all governments will continue to carry out and strengthen the Paris accord, and a timetable for adopting the details of the pact, such as a global system to monitor and verify carbon emission reductions at the national level.
In Washington, the Obama administration has pressed forward with its environmental agenda as if Trump had not been elected. An offshore drilling plan unveiled Friday assumes continued bans on oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans — which the Trump administration could easily reverse.
But diplomats are quietly going off their agendas to begin planning how to react if Trump chooses to reject the Paris Agreement. The pact, as it stands, contains no enforcement measures, such as economic sanctions, for countries that do not comply. But individual governments could put trade sanctions in place on their own or in concert.
In Mexico, which is preparing for a newly adversarial relationship with a U.S. president who has threatened to build a wall along the border, government officials said they have begun considering the idea of a carbon tariff.
Canada, the largest U.S. trading partner, is also discussing a tariff. Some Canadian provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, already have carbon tax policies that include fees imposed on fossil-fueled energy generated across provincial borders.
“I see that extending across the Canadian border if the U.S. pulls out of Paris,” said Lisa DeMarco, a senior partner with DeMarco, Allan LLP, a Toronto-based climate law firm that advises Canadian provinces and international businesses.
“If you want to sell your goods in Canada, you’d have to meet the same emissions standards,” she said.
In France, Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president who is campaigning to hold that office again, suggested this week that the European Union impose a carbon tariff on U.S. imports if Washington withdraws.
With Congress unwilling to pass either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade program, President Barack Obama pushed for climate change regulations to limit carbon emissions while encouraging states to create their own cap-and-trade programs to comply.
Trump, who has called climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese, campaigned on a promise to dismantle the Obama administration’s climate rules. But since he was elected, he has not commented publicly on his climate plans.
While some politicians are already responding, other European officials are taking a wait-and-see approach. “In the European Union we have a strong climate policy,” said Miguel Arias Caete, the bloc’s commissioner on climate action. “But we don’t think it is appropriate yet to speak to a U.S. carbon tariff, because the new U.S. president has not yet taken a public position on climate.”
And a trade war may be a price too high for countries whose economies depend on American consumers and suppliers. Asked if Beijing would consider a carbon tariff against the United States, Liu Zhenmin, China’s lead climate negotiator, said, “Addressing climate change should not become an obstacle for trade. China will continue to promote free trade.”
(Coral Davenport, THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Pawnee residents filed the suit Thursday in district court against 27 companies, saying they operate wastewater injection wells even though they know the method causes earthquakes. The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount for property damage and reduced value, plus emotional distress.
A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck the town of about 2,200 in September, and the lawsuit claims 52 more have hit the area since. On Nov. 6, a magnitude 5.0 quake damaged dozens of buildings in nearby Cushing, a town that is home to one of the world’s largest oil hubs.
Oklahoma has had thousands of earthquakes in recent years, with nearly all traced to underground wastewater disposal. Some scientists say that the high-pressure injection of massive amounts of chemical-laced wastewater deep in the earth induces the quakes. Regulators have asked oil and gas producers to either close injection wells or reduce the volume of fluids they inject.
Residents and environmental groups in neighboring states have sued energy companies to curb or stop similar operations. Quakes in north central Arkansas all but stopped after the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission voted to ban wells for the disposal of natural gas drilling fluids in July 2011. In 2014, a Prague, Okla., resident sued two companies on the same grounds after a magnitude 5.6 temblor rattled her town in 2011.
Two of the companies identified in the Pawnee lawsuit, Eagle Road Oil LLC and Cummings Oil Co., did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday. The other 25 companies were not identified in the suit.
The lawsuit claims that companies are showing “reckless disregard for public or private safety,” by continuing to operate the injection wells in the area.
“We have clients who don’t allow their children to go upstairs because they’re afraid the roof will fall in on them,” said Curt Marshall, an attorney for the residents.
Marshall estimated that hundreds of homes in Pawnee have been affected by the quakes, sustaining damage ranging from cracks in walls, foundations and storm shelters to short-circuited electrical outlets.
A 2015 study by the U.S. Geological Survey suggested that Oklahoma’s industrial activities have caused the sharp rise in earthquakes in the past 100 years.
Despite criticism, Oklahoma oil and gas producers said Friday they are enthusiastic about new drilling opportunities in two recently discovered oil-and-gas rich sites in south-central Oklahoma that don’t produce large amounts of wastewater.
(Justin Juozapavicius&Tim Talley, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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It’s a constant reminder of the threat to many small mountain communities, where relentless drought and now persistent fires and smoke have people under siege.
Here, these fires don’t sleep. They burn through the night, through the now desiccated tinder of deciduous forests accustomed to wet, humid summers and autumns.
“It doesn’t die down after dark,” says fire Capt. Ron Thalacker, who came from Carlsbad, N.M., with a fire engine that now draws water from streams and ponds to spray on hotspots in Georgia’s Rabun County, near the epicenter of the southern fires.
Large, wind-driven fires that scorch pine forests in the West often burn in the tree tops and mellow out at night, but these fires are clinging to the ground and actively burning 24 hours a day, said firefighter Chad Cullum of Billings, Mont.
More than 5,000 firefighters and support personnel, including many veterans of wildfires in the arid West, and 24 helicopters are battling blazes in the fire zone, which has spread from northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee into eastern Kentucky, the western Carolinas and parts of surrounding states.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The announcement is no surprise to climate scientists— experts at NASA had already projected that 2016 would be a third year of record heat — and the record will not be definitive until early next year.
But the latest estimate of record-shattering heat comes as world leaders gather in Marrakesh, Morocco, for the annual United Nations talks on limiting the impact of climate change. The meeting is taking place in an atmosphere of alarm. President-elect Donald Trump has called human-caused climate change a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese; has vowed to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency “in almost every form”; and has named Myron Ebell of the business-backed Competitive Enterprise Institute, who has deep oil industry ties, to head his EPA transition team.
Preliminary data show that 2016’s global temperatures are approximately 2.16 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. The landmark climate deal reached by 195 nations near Paris last December commits them to holding the increase in temperature to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the point at which the world would be locked into irreversible and potentially devastating environmental changes.
Trump has vowed to withdraw from the Paris climate deal. It has entered into legal force — meaning that countries like the United States cannot legally withdraw for four years — but there are many actions the Trump administration could take to limit the execution of the agreement. That prospect has already stirred alarm among the world’s largest countries, and even a warning from China.
The meteorological organization found that global temperatures from January to September were about 1.58 degrees Fahrenheit above the average for the years from 1961 to 1990, a period the organization uses as a baseline. The organization also found that concentrations of major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to increase to record levels; that Arctic sea ice remained at very low levels; and that there was significant, earlier- than-usual melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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“The fact that I’ve been drinking that water for years, and my daughter’s been drinking and bathing in it, that’s shocking to me,” says Stuart Sachs, an artist who moved here from Brooklyn 14 years ago. “My daughter is 11. What diseases is she going to have to look forward to? It’s scary.”
PFOS, or perfluorooctane sulfonate, has been linked to cancer, thyroid problems and other serious health issues. Results of the blood testing, expected to be released early next year, won’t tell people whether they’re actually at increased risk for any specific health problem, but will show how their exposure compares to others.
Similar testing has been done in several smaller communities with water contaminated with PFOS or its close chemical cousin, PFOA, which is used in nonstick and stain-repellent coatings.
About 1,500 people were tested near an air base in Portsmouth, N.H., and found to have slightly elevated levels of the chemicals. In the rural villages of Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh, N.Y., where plastics plants are being held liable for PFOA in public and private wells, tests of about 3,000 residents that began in February have found PFOA blood levels as high as 500 times the national average.
For Newburgh, about an hour’s drive north of New York City, a potential health crisis was the last thing it needed. The city, which served as George Washington’s Revolutionary War headquarters, was humming with machine shops, clothing factories, shipyards and brickyards in the early 20th century.
But in the 1960s, a slow decline began after a new bridge over the Hudson River diverted traffic away from the city’s commercial center. Factories started shutting down or moving to the new highway corridor outside the city. Now the city is notorious for derelict abandoned buildings, drug gangs and violent crime.
In 2014, PFOS was detected in 175-acre Lake Washington, the city’s drinking water supply, at a level 170 parts per trillion, well below the 400 ppt limit then recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. When the EPA set a new level of 70 ppt for short-term exposure in May 2016, the city declared an emergency and shifted to a new water source.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Strong aftershocks continued to shake the country today, rattling the nerves of exhausted residents, many of whom had spent a sleepless night huddled outside after fleeing for higher ground to avoid tsunamis.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the South Island just after midnight in a mostly rural area that’s dotted with small towns. Near the epicenter, it opened up snaking fissures in roads and sparked landslides.
The quake caused damage in Wellington, the capital, more than 120 miles to the north. It was also strongly felt to the south in the city of Christchurch, which was devastated by an earthquake in 2011 that killed 185 people. Residents said the shaking went on for about three minutes.
Police said one person died in the small coastal town of Kaikoura and another in Mount Lyford, a nearby ski resort. Several other people reportedly suffered minor injuries in Kaikoura, police spokeswoman Rachel Purdom said. Prime Minister John Key flew over the destruction in Kaikoura by helicopter, as aftershocks kicked up dust from the landslides below. Cars could be seen lying on their sides and parts of the road were clearly impassable.
“It’s just utter devastation. That’s months of work,” Key told acting Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee as they hovered above the damage. Key and Brownlee estimated the clean-up would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and clearing the debris and blocked roads could take months.
Defense force personnel were planning to take food, water and other supplies to Kaikoura on Tuesday.
The prime minister said waves of about 6.6 feet hit the coast, but the tsunami threat had since been downgraded to coastal warnings.
The quake completely cut off road access to Kaikoura, said resident Terry Thompson, who added that electricity and most phones were also down in the town of 2,000.
New Zealand, with a population of 4.7 million, sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes are common.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Pier 3 was taking the last hits of a severe storm that had roared ashore a few days before. It flooded four buildings, tore up rooftops, knocked down trees and briefly cut electricity at the world’s largest naval station. Storms obviously aren’t new here, but they are worse than ever — and the Pentagon blames climate change.
“We see the rising sea levels and flooding events,” said Capt. Dean VanderLey, who oversees Navy infrastructure in the mid-Atlantic region. “We have a responsibility to prepare for the future. We don’t have the luxury of just burying our heads in the sand.”
President-elect Donald Trump has described global warming as a hoax, and Republicans in Congress who reject science showing that greenhouse gases have warmed the planet have blocked funding to help the Pentagon assess damage and plan for the future.
The House voted in June to bar the Defense Department from spending money to evaluate how climate change would affect military training, combat, weapons purchases and other needs.
“When we distract our military with a radical climate change agenda, we detract from their main purpose of defending America from enemies” like Islamic State, said Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., sponsor of the measure.
Partly as a result, the Pentagon says it does not keep figures on what climate change may mean for the military budget. Planners sometimes list upgrades to infrastructure as maintenance or repairs to avoid scrutiny from lawmakers.
But as far as the Pentagon is concerned, the debate is settled. Rising sea levels and temperatures have forced it to rebuild or relocate roads, housing, air fields and other facilities damaged by mudslides in Hawaii, floods in Virginia, drought in California and thawing permafrost in Alaska.
It also has led to a shift in strategic challenges around the globe.
The Pentagon doesn’t say that climate change alone will cause wars. But the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Defense Department’s major planning blueprint for the next four years, calls it an “accelerant of instability” and a “threat multiplier.”
“The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies and governance institutions around the world,” the document said.
In Africa, extended droughts have been a factor in several sub-Saharan and North African conflicts. When rising temperatures created food and water shortages, for example, increased poverty and migration created breeding grounds for terrorist groups in Mali, Nigeria and elsewhere.
Similarly, increasingly powerful typhoons spawned from warming seas have battered U. S. allies in the western and central Pacific. In the Asia Pacific region, rising sea levels could inundate island nations such as Fiji and Micronesia, push saltwater into groundwater supplies and croplands in Vietnam and Indonesia, and threaten major cities, including Jakarta, Indonesia, Manila, Philippines, and Shanghai.
Climate change is the “biggest long-term security threat” facing the region, Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, then head of U.S. Pacific Command, said in 2013. The Pentagon also expects to expand operations in the Arctic, the world’s fastest-warming region.
So much sea ice has melted that a northern shipping route over Russia and a northwest passage over Canada are now open to navigation and oil and gas exploitation for much of the year. Partly as a result, Russia is reopening Cold War-era military bases on its Arctic coastline.
(W.J. Hennigan, CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP, publisher of the U-T and L.A. Times)
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Trump has called human-caused climate change a “hoax.” He has vowed to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency “in almost every form.”
And in an early salvo against one of President Barack Obama’s signature issues, Trump has named Myron Ebell of the business-backed Competitive Enterprise Institute to head his EPA transition team. Ebell has asserted that whatever warming caused by greenhouse gas pollution is modest and could be beneficial. A 2007 Vanity Fair profile of Ebell called him an “oil industry mouthpiece.”
Global warming may indeed be the sharpest example of how policy in Washington will change under a Trump administration. Obama has said his efforts to establish the United States as the global leader in climate policy are his proudest legacy.
But if Trump makes good on his campaign promises, experts in climate change policy warn, that legacy would unravel quickly. The world, then, may have noway to avoid the most devastating consequences of global warming, including rising sea levels, extreme droughts and food shortages, and more powerful floods and storms.
Trump has already vowed to “cancel” last year’s Paris climate agreement, which commits more than 190 countries to reduce their emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution, and to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s domestic climate change regulations.
“If Trump steps back from that, it makes it much less likely that the world will ever meet that target, and essentially ensures we will head into the danger zone,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produces global reports on the state of climate science.
Trump cannot legally block other countries from fulfilling their Paris agreement commitments, nor can he quickly or unilaterally erase Obama’s climate rules.
But he can, as president, choose not to carry out the Paris plan in the United States. And he could so substantially slow or weaken the enforcement of Obama’s rules that they would have little effect on reducing emissions in the United States, at least during Trump’s term.
That could doom the Paris agreement’s goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions enough to stave off an atmospheric warming of at least 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the point at which, many scientists say, the planet will be locked into an irreversible future of extreme and dangerous warming.
Without the full participation of the United States, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter after China, that goal is probably unattainable, even if every other country follows through on its pledges.
And, the experts say, without the participation of the United States, other governments are less likely to carry out their pledged emissions cuts.
“That target is already extremely difficult to achieve, but it could be done with very hard, very diligent work by every single country,” Oppenheimer said.
The election of Trump is likely to cast a pall over Marrakech, Morocco, where global negotiators have gathered for a 12-day conference to hash out the next steps for the Paris accord: how to verify commitments are being met, and how to pay for enforcement by poor countries that cannot afford the technology or energy disruptions.
Traveling in New Zealand, Secretary of State John Kerry was asked if he still planned to attend the conference, given the results of the election. “I’m absolutely going to Marrakech, perhaps even more important,” he said. “And I look forward to being there very, very much.”
Pessimism appears to be warranted. Oppenheimer and other climate policy experts said all major emitters needed to take action in the near term to stave off the 3.6-degree increase.
Scientific reports released over the last two years have concluded that the measurable warming of the planet because of human activities has already begun. This year is on track to be the hottest on record, blasting past the previous records set in 2015 and 2014.
(Coral Davenport, The NEW YORK TIMES)
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More than 5,000 firefighters and support staff from around the nation have poured into the Southeast to try to suppress these fires, said Shardul Raval, director of fire and aviation management for the southern region of the U.S. Forest Service.
The effort includes about 40 aircraft, including three large air tankers flying out of Chattanooga, Tenn. Tens of thousands of acres of forest have burned, and about a dozen of the largest fires were uncontained, the forest service said.
High winds and temperatures and weeks without rain have combined to spark blaze after blaze in the unusually dry landscape. Numerous teams reported wind-driven fires racing up slopes and down ravines as they struggled to protect hundreds of threatened structures.
“It just smells like a campfire” along the Appalachian Trail in north Georgia, said Carlie Gentry, who works at the Mountain Crossings store at Walasi-yi, a popular stop for hikers.
“For weeks up here we’ve been having smoke, but it is getting more intense for sure,” Gentry said. Typically, the view stretches for miles, she said. Now, “you can hardly see to the next ridge.”
Thursday’s national drought report shows 41.6 million people in parts of 15 Southern states living in drought conditions. The worst is in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, but extreme drought also is spreading into the western Carolinas. Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina all have fierce fires.
“Right now we’re kind of holding our own,” said Jennifer Turner, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky’s state Division of Forestry. “We’ve been able to get control over some of the smaller fires.”
But with humidity so low in the normally lush Appalachians and Great Smoky Mountains, authorities are bracing for more. North Carolina’s Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency for a fourth of his state’s 100 counties, to help with evacuations and provide more firefighting assets.
More than 560 firefighters and staff from at least 40 states were battling 18 blazes in the Nantahala National Forest in western North Carolina, and state climatologist Rebecca Ward said some counties are having one of their driest years in 105 years of record-keeping.
“Additional crews, engines, helicopters and air tankers continue to arrive from all across the country to help with the firefighting effort,” fire managers told residents Thursday.
Kentucky authorities made two arson arrests and cited another man for causing a brush fire by defying a burn ban. Tennessee authorities also reported arrests for arson and burning violations.
Smoke blowing southward has blanketed Atlanta and other cities in haze. Alabama extended its ban throughout the state, where drought is choking 80 percent of the land, drying up streams and lakes and turning plants to tinder. Firefighters in Alabama have battled more than 1,100 fires that have charred nearly 12,000 acres in the last month.
Tuscaloosa and Birmingham have both tied or broken records for days without measurable rain; neither has had more than sprinkles since late September. And Noccalula Falls, a popular attraction on Lookout Mountain in northeast Alabama, has been bone dry for weeks. “The creek is dry. There’s not even a trickle going over the falls,” campground manager Kaila Fair said.
One of the largest blazes was spreading rapidly in the Cohutta Wilderness area just south of the Georgia-Tennessee line. Nearly 300 people are battling that fire, which already consumed 10,000 acres, the Forest Service said.
In the hills outside Chattanooga, firefighters were trying to save homes on both Signal Mountain and Mowbray Mountain. They may get reinforcements: The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it would reimburse most of one fire’s costs after a request from Tennessee.
Dai Harris, 29, was staying in a local firehouse after being evacuated from his home near Mowbray Mountain. “There’s a lot of smoke, and it’s covering a broad area, so I assume there’s still quite a bit of flames out there,” he said.
(Jeff Martin, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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On Monday, Earthlings will be treated to a so-called supermoon — the closest full moon of the year.
Monday’s supermoon will be extra super— it will be the closest the moon comes to us in almost 69 years. And it won’t happen again for another 18 years.
NASA says closest approach will occur at 3:21 a.m. PST when the moon comes within 221,523 miles. That’s from the center of the Earth to the center of the moon. Full moon will occur at 5:52 a.m. PST.
NASA planetary geologist Noah Petro is urging everyone to step outside and soak in the view. At the time of closest approach, the moon will be setting and the sun rising, at least on the U.S. East Coast, so prime viewing will be Sunday and Monday nights there.
“Ultimately, people should be more geared toward just getting outside and enjoying it,” Petro said.
Supermoons can appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter in the night sky. But it takes a real expert to notice the difference.
The last time the moon was so close — actually, 29 miles closer— was in January 1948. That’s the same year the Cleveland Indians last won the World Series, Petro noted, “a big year,” at least there.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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In a report released Tuesday at international climate talks in Morocco, the World Meteorological Organization said 2011-2015 was the hottest five-year period on record.
That comes as no surprise as WMO’s annual reports have showed record average temperatures in 2014 and 2015. But the agency said the five-year report provides a better overview of warming trends and extreme events such as prolonged droughts and recurrent heat waves.
"We just had the hottest five-year period on record, with 2015 claiming the title of hottest individual year. Even that record is likely to be beaten in 2016," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
The WMO’s preliminary climate assessment for 2016 is set to be released next week.
While it’s complicated to draw links between single weather events and climate change, the report found that many extreme events during the period were made more likely as a result of man-made climate change. In the case of some extreme high temperatures, the probability increased by a factor of 10 or more, the report said.
"Examples include the record high seasonal and annual temperatures in the United States in 2012 and in Australia in 2013, hot summers in eastern Asia and western Europe in 2013, heatwaves in spring and autumn 2014 in Australia, record annual warmth in Europe in 2014, and a heatwave in Argentina in December 2013," WMO said.
The report found no strong climate change link for extreme rainfall events.
Other highlights:
The national police unit charged with protecting cultural treasures said Monday that the 1631 painting “Pardon in Assisi” by French painter Jean Lhomme was stolen from a village church in Nottoria. The work was well-known among historians.
The parish priest, the Rev. Marco Rufini, told news agency ANSA that the thieves apparently ignored the risk of the church collapsing on them when they cut the painting from its frame.
The earthquakes on Oct. 26 and Oct. 30 collapsed buildings across a broad swath of a region already reeling from a deadly August quake. One of the iconic images of the devastation is the basilica of St. Benedict of Norcia, built over the birthplace of the patron saint of Europe, where only the facade remains standing.
While the main priorities have been tending to the estimated 30,000 people left homeless, authorities have also begun recovering artworks from the more than 182 quake-damaged or destroyed churches in the area, said the archbishop of Norcia and Spoleto, Monsignor Renato Boccardo.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Oklahoma has had thousands of earthquakes in recent years, with nearly all traced to the underground injection of wastewater left over from oil and gas production. Sunday’s quake was centered 1 mile west of Cushing and about 25 miles south of where a magnitude 4.3 quake forced a shutdown of several wells last week.
Some longtime Cushing residents said Monday they’ve become accustomed to the unsettled ground beneath their feet. Others shrugged it off as a cost of doing business living next to an oil hub. Fearing aftershocks, police cordoned off older parts of the city about 50 miles northeast of Oklahoma City to keep gawkers away late Sunday, and geologists confirmed that several small quakes have rumbled the area. Spears said an assisted living community had been evacuated after damage was reported. The Cushing Public School District canceled Monday classes.
The Oklahoma Department of Transportation reported Sunday night that no highway or bridge damage was found within a 15-mile radius of the earthquake’s epicenter.
The quake struck at 7:44 p.m. Sunday and was felt as far away as Iowa, Illinois and Texas. The U.S. Geological Survey initially said Sunday’s quake was of magnitude 5.3 but later lowered the reading to 5.0.
“I thought my whole trailer was going to tip over, it was shaking it so bad,” said Cushing resident Cindy Roe, 50. “It was loud and all the lights went out and you could hear things falling on the ground.
“It was awful and I don’t want to have another one.”
In recent years, Oklahoma regulators have asked oil and gas producers to either close wastewater injection wells or cut back on the volume of fluids injected. The reductions have generally led to a drop-off in quakes and their severity, though not always.
Regulators said Monday they would shut down some disposal wells near Cushing and restrict the volume that can be used in others, but said details would be released Tuesday.
Oklahoma’s strongest quake on record, a magnitude 5.8 temblor on Sept. 3, occurred in Pawnee, on the fringe of an area that had already restricted wastewater disposal. Shortly afterward, geologists speculated on whether the temblor occurred on a previously unknown fault.
(Justin Juozapavicius, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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But it is not easy: Open a window or a door, and the haze enters the room within seconds. Outside, the sky is white, the sun a white circle so pale that you can barely make it out. The smog is acrid, eye-stinging and throat-burning, and so thick that it is being blamed for a 70-vehicle pileup north of the city.
If in past years, Delhi’s roughly 20 million residents shrugged off wintertime pollution as fog, over the last week they viewed it as a crisis. Schools have been ordered closed for three days — an unprecedented measure, but not a reassuring one, since experts say the concentration of pollutants inside Indian homes is typically not much lower than outside.
Levels of the most dangerous particles, called PM 2.5, reached 700 micrograms per cubic meter on Monday, and over the weekend they soared in some places to 1,000, or more than 16 times the limit India’s government considers safe. The damage from sustained exposure to such high concentrations of PM 2.5 is equivalent to smoking more than two packs of cigarettes a day, experts say.
“There is so much smog outside that today, inside my house, I felt as someone had just burned a few sheets of paper,” said Amaan Ahuja, one of dozens who shared their families’ experiences in response to a request from The New York Times.
“You can literally see smoke in the air, and when you breathe, you can smell it, too,” he said. “We are trying to keep the kids indoors with all the windows closed.”
To understand the health consequences of the dense smog that settled over India’s capital during the past week, scientists are looking back decades in search of a historical precedent: to the 1952 Great Smog of London, which is believed to have caused as many as 12,000 premature deaths.
In that case, a layer of dense pollution — caused largely by emissions from burning coal — dissipated after four days, when the weather changed. But an uptick in deaths continued for weeks afterward, so shocking the public that it spurred a wave of environmental regulations.
Delhi’s chief minister on Sunday announced a series of emergency measures, including a five-day moratorium on construction, a 10-day closure of a power plant and a three-day closure of about 1,800 public schools.
On Monday, the city government released a list of health guidelines.
(Ellen Barry, THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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So far, 96 countries, accounting for just over two-thirds of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, have formally joined the accord, which seeks to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). More countries are expected to come aboard in the coming weeks and months.
Secretary General BanKi moon commemorated the event, talking with civil society groups at U.N. headquarters in New York to hear their concerns and visions for the future.
“Today we make history in humankind’s efforts to combat climate change,” Ban said before opening the meeting.
He praised the civil groups for mobilizing hundreds of millions of people to back fighting climate change, but warned the outcome remained uncertain.
"We are still in a race against time. We need to transition to a low-emissions and climate-resilient future," Ban said. "Now is the time to strengthen global resolve, do what science demands and seize the opportunity to build a safer more sustainable world for all."
While the Paris Agreement is legally binding, the emissions reductions that each country has committed to are not. Instead, the agreement seeks to create a transparent system that will allow the public to monitor how well each country is doing in meeting its goals in hopes that this will motivate them to transition more quickly to clean, renewable energy like wind, solar and hydropower.
The agreement also requires governments to develop climate action plans that will be periodically revised and replaced with new, even more ambitious, plans.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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With the roads cut off, almost all of the 300 inhabitants were evacuated by helicopter. They all survived after an earlier quake in August prompted them to move into safer housing like camper vans or containers.
But a small group of 13 hardy souls refuses to leave. Mostly farmers, they want to stay close to their cattle, sheep and horses — their livelihood, without which they would truly have nothing left to comeback for.
"Practically we’ve returned to the stone age," said Augusto Coccia, 65. He was among the farmers housed in containers in the town square, eating breakfast, when the earthquake struck. It bounced the containers about and filled the air with a thick fog of dust.
The 6.6-magnitude tremor, the country’s most powerful in 36 years, pulled down buildings and historic churches in villages across the Appenine mountains. In Castelluccio, the ground is now as much as 2 feet lower, according to the national geophysics institute.
This town’s plight was worsened by the fact that the roads were cut off. Rescue helicopters brought in the bare necessities — food and water — on Sunday but little else.
Coccia and the others who stayed behind cook under the open sky with gas canisters. They have no heating, electricity or constant water supply.
"The medical supplies were delivered to us today. It’s been three days since we requested them but it’s very hard to get them to us," he said.
Besides helicopter, the only way to get to Castelluccio is by four-by-four through an hour and a half of rough terrain. Some residents of the area made the trip, as did forest rangers, with whom The Associated Press traveled.
Among those making their way to Castelluccio on Tuesday was Vincenzo Brandimarte, 63. He had recently built an inn here using modern earthquake-resistant planning — and it was one of the very few buildings that did not collapse or crack.
"Today I began to cry when I saw the town with my own eyes," he said. "This is worse than war. If it had been a real war maybe the town wouldn’t have been destroyed to this extent."
As of Tuesday, 15,000 people from the region 60 miles north of Rome were being given shelter. That’s on top of 2,000 who remain displaced from a first quake in August, which left 300 dead.
Premier Matteo Renzi visited the town of Preci with his wife to survey the damage, meet some of the displaced people and participate in an open-air Mass for All Saints’ Day.
"We will rebuild everything in a timely manner," he said, according to news agency ANSA. He called on people to accept the offer of relocation, stressing the police presence had been beefed up to avoid looting and that tents are not a longterm solution in winter.
But farmers like Coccia argue it’s not an option, as they do not want to leave their herds alone. Wolves are a problem, in particular for sheep. There is a shortage of water and food for the animals. And the animals need barns within weeks to be able to withstand the cold.
As rescue operations proceeded Tuesday, aftershocks continued at a rate of several per hour, keeping people on edge. The strongest on Tuesday morning was felt as far away as Rome.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Journalists with The Associated Press saw protesters running through the streets of the southern coastal city of Les Cayes pushing a wooden cart with the boy’s body covered in a bloodstained white sheet.
“We want justice! We want justice!” they chanted as they gathered around the body.
Mayor Jean Gabriel Fortune said the boy was killed as police clashed with protesters when they tried to climb aboard a boat that had arrived from Puerto Rico days ago carrying supplies.
Fortune said an investigation is under way as a crowd once again tried to break into the boat on Tuesday.
Fortune said he was frustrated by what he called the inability and weakness of the central government of Port-au-Prince to act on aid streaming into Haiti after Hurricane Matthew hit the country’s southwest region nearly a month ago.
Roughly 141,500 people are still living in some 200 temporary shelters, officials said.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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By the end of the decade, we’re likely to have lost 67 percent loss of all vertebrate wildlife compared to 1970, it claims.
According to this year’s Living Planet Report, released by the WWF every two years, wildlife populations have already suffered tremendous losses in the last few decades.
Vertebrate populations have plunged by 58 percent overall since 1970, the report states.
And organisms living in freshwater systems, such as rivers and lakes, have fared even worse, declining by 81 percent in the last four decades.
“For decades, scientists have been warning that human actions are pushing life on our shared planet toward a sixth mass extinction,” wrote Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, in a foreword to the report. “Evidence in this year’s Living Planet Report supports this.”
The biennial report relies on data from the Living Planet Index, an ongoing project that monitors changes in more than 18,000 wildlife populations composed of nearly 4,000 animal species around the world. Habitat loss and overexploitation are the two biggest current threats to wildlife, the report suggests. And much of the problem has to do with the growing human population’s ever-increasing need to feed itself.
In the last century, the population has grown from about 1.6 billion people to more than 7 billion today, and it’s expected to exceed 9 billion by mid-century.
As a result, many of the problems facing wildlife involve being over-fished or hunted for food and losing their habitat as more and more land is cleared for agriculture. The WWF estimates that farmland already occupies more than a third of the planet’s surface. “Even though its environmental impacts are immense, the current food system is expected to expand rapidly to keep up with projected increases in population, wealth and animal-protein consumption,” the report notes. “Transitioning toward an adaptive and resilient food system that provides nutritious food for all within the boundaries of a single planet is a daunting but essential goal.”
Other growing threats to wildlife include pollution, competition from invasive species and the ever-increasing influence of climate change, which can change the temperature and precipitation patterns animals have evolved to tolerate, strain their food resources and force entire populations to migrate or face extinction.
What’s bad for wildlife is often bad for people, the report points out, noting that healthy ecosystems “provide us with food, fresh water, clean air, energy, medicine, and recreation. In addition, we depend upon healthy and diverse natural systems for the regulation and purification of water and air, climatic conditions, pollination and seed dispersal, and control of pests and diseases.”
To avoid the stunning losses projected by this year’s report, the authors recommend a variety of prevention tactics, including increasing the number of protected areas on Earth and committing to more sustainable energy and food systems.
The alternative, the report suggests, is a world in which unsustainable activities eventually exceed the planet’s ability to support both the natural and human systems it houses.
“The dominant worldview of infinite natural resources, of externalities and exponential growth, is at an end,” said Johan Rockstrom, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, in another foreword to the report. “We are no longer a small world on a big planet. We are now a big world on a small planet, where we have reached a saturation point.”
(Chelsea Harvey, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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But hours after the temblors hit, there were no reports of serious injuries or signs of people trapped in rubble, said the head of Italy’s civil protection agency, Fabrizio Curcio. A handful of people were treated for slight injuries or anxiety at area hospitals in the most affected regions of Umbria and Le Marche, he said. A 73year-old man died of a heart attack, possibly brought on by the quakes, local authorities told the ANSA news agency.
“All told, the information so far is that it’s not as catastrophic” as it could have been, Curcio said. The temblors were actually aftershocks to the Aug. 24 quake that struck a broad swath of central Italy, demolishing buildings in three towns and their hamlets, seismologists said. Several towns this time around also suffered serious damage, with homes in the epicenter of Visso spilling out into the street.
The first struck at 7:10 p.m. and carried a magnitude of 5.4. But the second one, two hours later, was eight times stronger at 6.1, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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“These situations should generate a greater sense of urgency,” Inspector General Arthur Elkins said in a statement Thursday. “Federal law provides the EPA with the emergency authority to intervene when the safety of drinking water is compromised. Employees must be knowledgeable, trained and ready to act when such a public health threat looms.”
Thursday’s findings come amid a broader inquiry into the federal agency’s actions in Flint. Elkins recommended the EPA update its 25-year-old internal guidance on the use of that emergency authority and require drinking-water staff to attend training on when to use it. In a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill this year, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy conceded that the agency was too slow to intervene in Flint’s water-contamination crisis.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Haima’s blinding winds and rain had rekindled fears and memories from the catastrophe wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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An annual, free event has been created to answer that question and raise overall awareness about earthquake preparation. This year, it is scheduled to take place Thursday [(Oct. 20)].
Started in Southern California in 2008 by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drill is expected to draw more than 17 million participants nationwide this year, including close to a million in San Diego County.
At 10:20 a.m. local time Thursday, students, seniors, troops and others registered for the drill are set to practice the mantra of “drop, cover and hold on.”
Taking a tumble or being struck with a falling object are perhaps the two greatest hazards during an earthquake.
It’s recommended that people who are indoors during a temblor drop onto their hands and knees, take cover under a desk or table and hold on. People outdoors should try to hunker down in an open area away from power lines, trees or buildings. Drivers should pull over to the side of the road, set the parking brake and remain in their cars. Taking shelter under bridges is not advised.
People can still register for the event by visiting shakeout.org.
(Joshua Smith, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Emergency crews in Oregon and Washington worked through the night to restore power lines and remove dozens of downed trees to clear roads that the storm had damaged over the past two days.
Meteorologists still expected rain and wind gusts as high as 30 mph throughout Sunday, but conditions were not expected to be as bad as predicted.
The storm was a remnant of Typhoon Songda, which had wreaked havoc in the western Pacific last week. Heavy rains and strong winds were expected when it hit land on Saturday.
Officials estimated 80 mph wind gusts in some regions but instead squalls of only 50 mph were reported.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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With floodwaters yet to recede in some communities, officials say the number could fluctuate.
“I do think that there may be more out there,” John Dorman, an assistant state emergency management director, said of whether the number could grow.
Dorman said the state’s computer modeling combines property records, topography and stream gauges to estimate how many feet of water have affected a given building — and how much damage that water caused. The state also used manned aircraft and drones to verify projections.
The system uses property tax values that are updated regularly and other calculations to estimate damage.
The figure released this weekend is one piece of the overall picture of how the storm affected the state. For example, it doesn’t include the cost of repairing damaged roads and bridges or replacing belongings inside damaged buildings, which are often covered by insurance policies.
(U-T NEW SERVICES)
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McCrory said that with water as deep as 10 feet in the town of 2,000 people, at least eight out of 10 houses have been damaged.
“I’d say about 80 to 90 percent have definite water to the floors, to the windows, including the mayor’s,” he said. The governor said National Guard troops have been sent to Princeville to prevent looting. The river has crested, but residents haven’t been allowed to return.
“The thing that’s so disconcerting to me is that a lot of these people who lost everything had very little to begin with,” he said. “We’re going to do everything we can to help them.”
The county is among about two dozen in the state where residents are eligible for FEMA disaster aid.
Upstream, flooding has eased in some communities. Yet for other cities, such as Kinston and Greenville to the south and east, more days of flooding are expected.
Wilmington, near where the Cape Fear River meets the coast, is bracing for downtown flooding this weekend.
North Carolina officials said late Friday that they were looking into a “possible coal ash release” at a Duke Energy plant in Wayne County. The H.F. Lee plant is near the Neuse River, one of the waterways overflowing from torrential rains during Matthew.
The company said some coal ash was carried away by floodwater, but testing in the river nearby didn’t show measurable coal ash constituents.
Matthew killed more than 500 people in Haiti and has left at least 41 dead in the U.S. North Carolina’s death toll grew to 24 and South Carolina reported an additional death Friday, the fifth fatality in the state.
For Princeville, the flooding is a sad replay of Hurricane Floyd’s aftermath in September 1999, when floodwaters rose as high as 20 feet in the town.
This time, water flowed around the town’s rebuilt dike. Princeville’s is one of the country’s first towns created by freed slaves in 1865.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The storm knocked down part the house where he lives with his wife and six children outside of Les Cayes, leaving only a small section of corrugated metal still intact. But that was the least of his problems. The field he had worked for 25 years was a scene of violent upheaval. His rice was swamped with river water; the mango and breadfruit trees were split like matchsticks; his corn flattened or torn from the ground by fierce winds.
“It is going to take us a long, long time to get back on our feet,” Jean-Baptiste said.
Haitian and international agricultural officials say it could be a decade or more before the southwestern peninsula recovers economically from Hurricane Matthew, which struck hard at the rugged region of more than 1 million people that is almost completely dependent on farming and fishing.
The Civil Protection agency said Friday that the death toll from Hurricane Matthew, which made landfall here on Oct. 4, had risen to 546, though it was likely to climb higher as reports continued to trickle in from remote areas. Likewise, the statistics about economic losses are still approximate, but appear to be catastrophic.
In the Grand-Anse region, nearly 100 percent of crops and 50 percent of livestock were destroyed, according to the World Food Program. On the outskirts of Les Cayes, where Jean-Baptiste lives, more than 90 percent of crops were lost and the fishing industry was “paralyzed” as material and equipment washed away, the organization said.
Replanting vegetable crops can be done relatively quickly and rice fields begin to recover as floodwaters recede, but the loss of mature fruit trees that families nurtured for a generation is a staggering blow. “It will take at least 10 years for nature to do what it needs to do to grow the trees back,” said Elancie Moise, an agronomist and senior agriculture ministry official in the south.
Grapefruit, banana and avocado trees were wiped out along with important root crops such as yams, which were inundated with water or damaged by the whipping wind, Moise said. Vetiver, a grass that is used to produce fragrances and is an important export for Haiti, appears to have sustained some root damage but may be one of the few crops to make it, he added.
There are widespread reports of rising prices in the outdoor markets that line the region’s rural roads and of people struggling to find food. “Already there are some people, if you ask them what they ate for dinner last night, they won’t be able to answer you,” Moise said.
This is a region that only recently began recovering from a drought that had decreased crop production by half. Now, farmers like Jean-Baptiste are wading through the ankle-deep water in their rice fields desperately searching for stalks that may have survived and can still be sold. Many have nothing to salvage.
Trees such as bread fruit and coconut palms can’t even be sold for charcoal because the wood isn’t suitable. People are also trying to save what fruit they can, but most wasn’t yet ripe.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The stubborn, drought-fueled wildfire burned for 83 days and charred 132,127 acres — an area about four times as large as San Francisco— near Big Sur, burning through Garrapata State Park and portions of the Los Padres National Forest.
The U.S. Forest Service announced the fire’s containment Thursday. Fire officials cautioned that although the fire is fully contained, some smoldering areas will continue to smoke and the potential for small-scale spread of flames remains, though significant fire growth is not expected.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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“Whatever happens, people are not going to go hungry,” resident Byron Trott said as he pushed a bulging shopping cart toward the checkout counter.
Bars in the capital of Hamilton remained busy, but most planned to close by late Wednesday night. Meanwhile, hotels reported an uptick in bookings as people sought shelters with power.
While Bermuda has sturdy infrastructure and is accustomed to storms, government officials urged people to prepare for the hurricane and remain indoors on Wednesday and today, when the storm is expected to hit.
“We have a long night in front of us,” Premier Michael Dunkley said. “We better be prepared for the onslaught of hurricane force winds, but if we heed the warnings, we will be in a strong position once the storm blows through.”
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Matthew’s death toll in the U.S. climbed to 34, more than half of them in North Carolina, in addition to the more than 500 feared dead in Haiti.
In Greenville, a city of 90,000, officials warned that the Tar River would overwhelm every bridge in the county by sundown, splitting it in half before the river crests late today. Evacuations were ordered there and in such communities as Goldsboro and Kinston, as rivers swelled to some of the highest levels ever recorded.
Tens of thousands of people, some of them as much as 125 miles inland, have been warned to move to higher ground since the hurricane drenched the state with more than a foot of rain over the weekend during a run up the East Coast from Florida.
An angry Gov. Pat Mc-Crory asked people to stop ignoring evacuation orders and driving around barricades on flooded roads: “That is unacceptable. You are not only putting your life danger, you are putting emergency responders’ lives in jeopardy.”
In the hard-hit town of Lumberton, along the bloated Lumber River, sporadic looting was reported, and a North Carolina trooper searching for people trapped by the floodwaters killed a man who confronted officers with a gun Monday night, police said.
Authorities gave few details, but McCrory said the shooting happened in “very difficult circumstances,” adding: “Tension can be high when people are going through very, very emotional circumstances.”
The full extent of the disaster in North Carolina was still unclear, but it appeared that thousands of homes were damaged.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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A community group that formed in the southern seaside community of Les Anglais began clearing tree limbs from streets and placing them into piles while others gathered scraps of wood to start rebuilding homes destroyed by Hurricane Matthew. Carpenter James Nassau donned a white construction helmet as he rebuilt a neighbor’s wall with recycled wood, hoping to earn a little money to take care of 10 children, including those left behind by his brother, who died in the storm.
The scene repeated itself across small seaside and mountain villages dotting the peninsula, where people pointed out helicopters buzzing overhead and questioned why they haven’t received any help.
Israel Banissa, a carpenter who lives near the small mountain town of Moron, said a Red Cross assessment team stopped outside his village to ask people questions but didn’t leave any supplies.
The U.N. humanitarian agency in Geneva has made an emergency appeal for nearly $120 million in aid, saying about 750,000 people in southwest Haiti alone will need “life-saving assistance and protection” in the next three months.
The National Civil Protection headquarters in Port-au-Prince raised the official nationwide death toll to 473, which included at least 244 deaths in Grand-Anse. But local officials have said the toll in Grand-Anse alone tops 500.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The meeting, held in La Jolla last week, offered a status update on the ancient marine species, in advance of California’s Pacific Leatherback Conservation Day this Saturday. With populations down by more than 90 percent since the 1980s, the animals are ranked as one of eight marine species at greatest risk of extinction, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
Fishermen and researchers say that U.S. fishing limits designed to keep leatherbacks from getting caught in nets may unintentionally lead to more ensnarement in countries where rules are looser. For the globally roaming species, it will take more than one country’s efforts to stave off extinction.
Leatherbacks are oceangoing leviathans that can weigh up to a ton and swim nearly 7,000 miles across the Pacific, devouring jellyfish.
“Movements by the leatherback are the longest migration of any air-breathing aquatic vertebrate,” Scott Benson, a marine ecologist with NOAA Fisheries, said at the conference. Born in nesting beaches of Indonesia, the animals travel to the California Current. It’s the richest foraging ground for jellies, Benson said, and also the safest haven for the turtles, thanks to stretches off Northern California, Oregon and Washington, where fishing is restricted.
Federal rules limit fishing methods and gear, require observers on fishing boats to report any leatherbacks snared in fishing nets, and set seasonal closures on drift gillnet fishing, which is used to catch swordfish but can also trap turtles, whales, dolphins and other animals.
As the U.S. has tightened protection for the turtles, however, access to locally caught swordfish has dropped. In its place on menus and fish markets is imported frozen swordfish, caught in parts of the world without such fishing restrictions.
That’s leading to a call among fishermen and conservationists alike to revive the U.S. swordfish industry.
“We want to see a healthy domestic fishery,” said Geoff Shester, California program manager for the conservation group Oceana. “Part of saving the leatherback is bringing back clean, sustainable fishing that we can control.” Some fishermen call for relaxing U.S. fishing restrictions, arguing that they could produce locally caught swordfish with less risk to turtles than imported fish. Real time monitoring of turtle movements could help fishermen steer clear of the reptiles while maximizing swordfish catch, they say.
Others are testing new gear that could help catch swordfish at times and depths that pose little risk to leatherbacks. And regulators are demanding that fish importers prove they’re safeguarding turtles. “Countries that export fish into our country will have five years to meet our standards for protecting leatherbacks,” said Tina Fahy, a fishery biologist for NOAA. “It’s a huge game changer.”
In the meantime, they’re encouraging consumers to pay more attention to what’s on their plates.
“There’s a growing percentage of the population that cares where their food comes from,” said Dave Rudie, owner of the San Diego fish distributing company Catalina Offshore Products. “Buy fish caught by American fishermen,” he said. “Ask your fishmonger; ask the server at the restaurant. The collaboration between scientists and fishermen is very, very powerful, and we should always be encouraging it.”
(Deborah Sullivan Brennan, SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE)
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The chance that the Southwest will experience a megadrought — a dry period lasting 35 years or more — is between 70 and 99 percent by the end of the century, according to the study, published Wednesday in Science Advances, an online, open-access academic journal.
“The kind of events that we were looking for, and the risk we were looking at, would be like extending the current California drought for another 30 years,” said Toby Ault, a climate scientist at Cornell University, who authored the paper with Justin Mankin, Benjamin Cook and Jason Smerdon of Columbia University.
The work expands on, and elevates, the warning Ault and his colleagues issued in work published in 2014, when they estimated the chance of a megadrought at 10 percent to 50 percent by the century’s end.
The difference, Ault said, is that the previous study looked only at projections for precipitation amid a changing climate. The current study also factored in the effect of increasing temperatures, which would increase the rate of evaporation.
Combining global climate models from research institutions around the world with their own statistical risk analysis, Ault and his colleagues found that the moisture loss from a warming planet would be a game-changer.
“Evaporation blows off more moisture, and that rolls the dice to make megadrought more probable,” he said.
So much more probable that there’s an overwhelming risk of megadrought even if precipitation increased slightly, the study found.
California is in the midst of a five-year drought that is one of the most severe— if not the most severe— in the last millennium, Ault said. Some climatologists say that despite a few wet years, the drought really began a decade and a half ago.
Current conditions are likely to become the new normal sometime this century if greenhouse emissions continue at their current rate, Ault said. Aggressive cuts in carbon emissions, however, could cut the risk in half, the study projected.
(Deborah Sullivan Brennan, SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE)
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Scientists have long theorized that climate change has contributed to the longer fire seasons, the growing number and destructiveness of fires and the increasing area of land consumed, though some experts suggest that the current fire phenomenon is not just a result of a changing climate, but also fire suppressing policies practiced by the government for the last century or more.
In a new study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from the University of Idaho and Columbia University have calculated how much of the increased scope and intensity of western wildfires can be attributed to human-caused climate change and its effects. They state that, since 1979, climate change is responsible for more than half of the dryness of western forests and the increased length of the fire season.
Since 1984, those factors have enlarged the cumulative forest fire area by 16,000 square miles, about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined, they found. The study uses “fuel aridity,” or dryness of the climate and the forests, as a way to measure the influence of climate change on forest fires. The combination of a long period of drought in the West and hot temperatures have caused trees and undergrowth to become particularly tinder-like. Warmer air can draw more moisture, in general, from trees and plants, turning them into kindling.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Matthew, the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2007, was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone on Sunday.
The hurricane killed around 1,000 people in Haiti, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday some Haitian towns and villages had just about been “wiped off the map.”
In the United States, the number of fatalities rose to at least 23, with nearly half in North Carolina.
After receiving as much as 18 inches of rain from Matthew over the weekend, North Carolina’s skies were clear on Monday, but raging rivers and breached levees posed major problems.
“This storm is not over in North Carolina,” Gov. Pat McCrory told reporters in Fayetteville. “It’s going to be a long, tough journey.”
Eleven people have died in the state, officials said. With rivers rising, the governor said he expected deaths to increase.
The flooding prompted President Barack Obama to declare a state of emergency in North Carolina on Monday, making federal funding available to affected individuals in 10 counties hit by the storm, the White House said in a statement.
Some 2,000 residents were stuck in their homes and on rooftops in Lumberton.
(REUTERS)
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The storm, which swept from the coast of Florida to Virginia Beach, Va., has entered a dangerous new phase, sparking record flooding in North Carolina and causing power outages for more than 2 million people across five states. The death toll in the United States has climbed to at least 19, but local authorities warned that it could rise as people attempt to return home and are met with contaminated water, downed power lines and flooded roadways. Five people are missing in North Carolina, which has seen the most deaths so far.
Even after the storm was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone on Sunday and it moved out to sea, officials warned that the worst is not over. It could be days before waters crest and repair crews are able to reach all of those who have been affected, they said. “Hurricane Matthew is off the map, but it’s still with us and it’s still deadly,” North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said at his second news conference of the day.
Significant flooding continues in parts of South and North Carolina, according to the National Weather Service. Up to 20 inches of rain have been reported in some areas, with more expected. Hurricane Matthew has been blamed for eight deaths in North Carolina, six in Florida, and three in Georgia. There was one death each in Virginia and South Carolina, according to local officials.
Hundreds of deaths in Haiti have been attributed to the storm, and contaminated water is causing an outbreak of cholera there.
Officials in North Carolina had feared a repeat of 1999’s Hurricane Floyd, the state’s worst natural disaster, a weeks-long event that destroyed whole communities. As with Floyd, Matthew followed a prolonged period of rain in eastern and central North Carolina.
“A day and a half ago, we warned that this was going to be like Hurricane Floyd,” McCrory said. “I was afraid we were exaggerating. Now, people in eastern North Carolina are telling us we may have underestimated it.”
By Sunday, strong winds had toppled trees through much of the central region of the state, knocking out power to about 770,000 homes. In Raleigh, the dam at Lake Benson was breached. Forty-three counties issued local states of emergency, and 4,200 people were in shelters. More than 1,700 people have been rescued in North Carolina. “We’re still rescuing people,” said Michael Martin, a battalion chief with the Fayetteville Fire Department, on Sunday. In the early hours of the storm, most of those rescued were motorists, he said, but as floodwaters rose, teams started evacuating people trapped in homes.
Local officials expect the wreckage to get worse through the next few days, following the pattern of Hurricane Floyd. A massive wall of water will flow east to the Atlantic, flooding the same towns and submerging the same low-lying communities along the creeks and rivers. It would be the second 500-year flood event in the region in two decades.
Communities along the Tar River, where Floyd’s floodwaters dealt their most serious blow, are facing the same or worse. The river is due to crest at record levels early this week in Princeton, a small, historic African American community that was almost completely submerged in 1999 and whose rebuilding was an emblem of recovery.
“Those towns and cities that are in the way of this massive water coming down are in danger as we speak,” McCrory said in a briefing Sunday afternoon.
On Sunday, the Cape Fear River at Manchester near Fayetteville stood at 31 feet, two feet above its record. By Friday, that water is expected to flood more than 200 structures in the town of Burgaw, about 75 miles downriver. Heavy flooding now in Raleigh is flowing into the Neuse River and is due in Kinston on Friday at a level one foot above the record set in 1999.
“Kinston is preparing for the worst flooding they’ve ever seen,” McCrory said.
Residents of the southeastern coast of North Carolina emerged shaken after two days of intense wind and rain.
Dave Sinclair, owner of the Ocean Grill and Tiki Bar at Carolina Beach, ventured out with his two children during a lull in the storm to survey the damage. As they watched the waves claw at the coastline, Sinclair said he told his children to respect Hurricane Matthew’s power even in its weakened state. “I told them, ‘Guys, this is barely a 1, keep this in mind,’ ” Sinclair said. “These are intensely powerful storms.”
In South Carolina, where nearly 650,000 people are without power, state and city officials are urging residents to stay away as authorities assess the damage to bridges and roadways. Communities such as Folly Beach and Sullivan’s Island remained closed to residents who had evacuated from their homes days earlier.
Nearly three feet of water threatened homes in downtown Charleston, and several streets were under about a foot of water as residents came out to start cleaning up. The flooding brought dirt, trash and debris into the carefully manicured lawns and front porches of homes of the historic city.
While Charleston is beginning to clean up, coastal communities to its south remain under evacuation orders, state officials said.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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It was the most powerful storm to threaten the U.S. Atlantic coast in more than a decade, and had already left hundreds dead in its wake across the Caribbean.
The coordinator for Haiti’s Interior Ministry in the area hit hardest by Hurricane Matthew said the confirmed death toll in that southwestern zone was 283. Emmanuel Pierre told the Associated Press late Thursday that he expects the toll to rise as authorities reach remote places that were left isolated by the storm.
Bodies have started to appear as waters recede in some areas two days after Matthew smashed concrete walls, flattened palm trees and tore roofs off homes.
In the Bahamas, authorities reported many downed trees and power lines but no immediate deaths.
“This storm’s a monster,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott warned as it started lashing the state with periodic heavy rains and squalls around nightfall. He added: “I’m going to pray for everybody’s safety.”
As it moved north in the evening, Matthew stayed about 100 miles or more off South Florida, sparing the 4.4 million people in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas from its most punishing effects.
But by Thursday night, more than 80,000 homes and businesses were without power. Streets in Vero Beach were partially covered with water, and hotel guests in Orlando were told to stay inside, though a few sneaked out to smoke or watch the rain.
The lobby of the Loews Sapphire Falls Resort was crowded with people and pets, including dogs occasionally snapping at each other. Some meals were served buffet style while other people waited more than 2 hours for a pizza delivery.
The hurricane was expected to blow ashore — or come dangerously close to doing so— early today north of Palm Beach County, which has about 1.4 million people, and then slowly push north for the next 12 hours along the Interstate 95 corridor, through Cape Canaveral and Jacksonville, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Forecasters said it would then probably hug the coast of Georgia and South Carolina over the weekend before veering out to sea — perhaps even looping back toward Florida in the middle of next week as a tropical storm.
Millions of people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were told to evacuate their homes, and interstate highways were turned into one-way routes to speed the exodus. Florida alone accounted for about 1.5 million of those told to clear out.
“The storm has already killed people. We should expect the same impact in Florida,” the governor warned.
Many boarded up their homes and businesses and left them to the mercy of the storm.
“We’re not going to take any chances on this one,” said Daniel Myras, who struggled to find enough plywood to protect his restaurant, the Cruisin Cafe, two blocks from the Daytona Beach boardwalk.
He added: “A lot of people here, they laugh, and say they’ve been through storms before and they’re not worried. But I think this is the one that’s going to give us awake-up call.”
The hurricane picked up wind speed as it closed in, growing from a possibly devastating Category 3 storm to a potentially catastrophic Category 4. Forecasters said it could dump up to 15 inches of rain in some spots and cause a storm surge of 9 feet or more.
They said the major threat to the Southeast would not be the winds — which newer buildings can withstand — but the massive surge of seawater that could wash over coastal communities along a 500-mile stretch from South Florida to the Charleston, S.C., area.
President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, freeing up federal money and personnel to protect lives and property.
The Fort Lauderdale airport shut down, and the Orlando airport planned to do so as well. The Palm Beach International Airport reported a wind gust of 50 mph with the center of the storm 70 miles offshore, the National Hurricane Center said. Airlines canceled more than 3,000 flights Thursday and today, many of them in or out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
Amtrak suspended train service between Miami and New York, and cruise lines rerouted ships to avoid the storm, which in some cases will mean more days at sea.
Orlando’s world-famous theme parks — Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and SeaWorld — all closed.
“I never get time off. I’m a little sad,” tourist Amber Klinkel, 25, of Battle Creek, Mich., lamented at Universal.
Patients were transferred from two Florida waterfront hospitals and a nursing home near Daytona Beach to safer locations.
Thousands of people hunkered down in schools converted to shelters, and inland hotels in places such as Charlotte, N.C., reported brisk business.
At the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, NASA no longer has to worry about rolling space shuttles back from the launchpad to the hangar because of hurricanes, since the shuttle fleet is now retired. But the spaceflight company SpaceX was concerned about the storm’s effect on its leased seaside pad. As evening fell, the winds picked up along Vero Beach, midway between West Palm Beach and Cape Canaveral, stripping away palm fronds, ripping awnings and blowing sand that stung the face. Waves crashed on the beach, and rain came in short bursts.
The last Category 3 storm or higher to hit the U.S. was Wilma in October 2005. It sliced across Florida with 120 mph winds, killing five people and causing an estimated $21 billion in damage.
As people hurried to higher ground, authorities in South Carolina said a motorist died on Wednesday after being shot by deputies in a gun battle that erupted when he sped away from a checkpoint along an evacuation route.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal ordered an evacuation of the entire Georgia coast, covering more than a half million people. It was the first hurricane evacuation along the Georgia coast since 1999, when the state narrowly escaped Floyd.
“We have a house that sits right here on the water and we kind of said goodbye to it thinking that, you know, the house might not be here when we get back,” said Jennifer Banker, a resident of Georgia’s dangerously exposed St. Simons Island. “You know, we pray a lot and trust God to provide.”
(Mike Schneider and Kelli Kennedy, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The aircraft carrier George Washington deployed Tuesday in preparation for providing post-storm relief, a defense official said.
The carrier — stationed in Norfolk, Va. — will be joined by the San Antonio-class amphibious transport ship Mesa Verde, which is scheduled to depart today.
The Navy hospital ship Comfort has been ordered to spin up for possible deployment today as well. That vessel, one of the Navy’s two floating hospitals made from former tankers, usually takes a few days to get ready for a departure.
As of Tuesday afternoon, all three ships hadn’t officially been assigned to relief activity in Haiti.
Hurricane Matthew delivered a significant blow to Haiti, a nation that still hasn’t fully recovered from the earthquake that killed 200,000 people in 2010.
Flood waters were up to people’s shoulders in the southern seaport of Les Cayes, according to new accounts Tuesday.
Matthew became the first Category 4 landfall hurricane in Haiti in 52 years. In addition, Cuba, the Bahamas and Florida are bracing for strong winds and flooding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development said it has positioned relief supplies for the targeted nations and is working to ship in more items to the Caribbean.
The agency has also released $400,000 in initial assistance for humanitarian organizations focused on helping victims of the hurricane.
In 2010, the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Carl Vinson was on the scene in Haiti after the devastating quake.
Sailors who participated in that humanitarian operation reported grim scenes on the ground and in the carrier’s operating rooms as Navy doctors treated injured Haitians.
The George Washington is scheduled to start a midlife overhaul next year. The ship is expected to shift to the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Newport News, Va., next summer, a company spokeswoman said.
(S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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By nightfall, at least 11 deaths had been blamed on the powerful storm during its week-long march across the Caribbean. But with a key bridge washed out, impassable roads and phone communication cut off with Haiti’s hardest-hit area, there was no way to know how many people might be dead or injured.
Matthew, slightly weakened but still a dangerous Category 4 storm with 130 mph winds, whipped at Cuba’s sparsely populated eastern tip Tuesday night, as it headed for a two-day run up the length of the Bahamas that would take it near the U.S. coast.
Twenty-foot waves pounded the seafront promenade in the Cuban town of Baracoa. Powerful winds rattled the walls of homes and heavy rain caused some flooding. But state media said late Tuesday there were no immediate reports of serious damage.
Hours after Matthew made landfall on Haiti’s now-marooned southwestern peninsula, government leaders said they couldn’t fully gauge the impact.
“What we know is that many, many houses have been damaged. Some lost rooftops and they’ll have to be replaced while others were totally destroyed,” Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph said.
At least five deaths were blamed on the storm in Haiti, including a 26-year-old man who drowned trying to rescue a child who fell into a rushing river, authorities said. The child was saved. The mayor in flooded Petit Goave reported two people died there, including a woman who was killed by a falling electrical pole.
Four deaths were recorded in the neighboring Dominican Republic and one each in Colombia and in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Forecasters said Matthew could be threatening Florida by Thursday night and would likely push its way up the East Coast through the weekend. The forecast triggered a rush by Americans to stock up on food, gasoline and other emergency supplies.
The storm— at one point the most powerful hurricane in the region in nearly a decade — blew ashore around dawn in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, hitting a corner of Haiti where many people live in shacks of wood or concrete blocks.
Mourad Wahba, U.N. secretary- general’s deputy special representative for Haiti, said at least 10,000 people were in shelters and hospitals were overflowing and running short of water. Wahba’s statement called the hurricane’s destruction the “largest humanitarian event” in Haiti since the devastating earthquake of January 2010.
Matthew left the peninsula that runs along the southern coast of Haiti cut off from the rest of the country. A bridge in the flooded town of Petit Goave was destroyed, preventing any road travel to the hard-hit southwest. Local radio said water was shoulder high in parts of the city of Les Cayes. Milriste Nelson, a 65-year-old farmer in the town of Leogane, said his neighbors fled when the wind ripped the corrugated metal roof from their home. His own small yard was strewn with the fruit he depends on for his livelihood.
“All the banana trees, all the mangos, everything is gone,” Nelson said as he boiled breadfruit over a charcoal fire in the gray morning light. “This country is going to fall deeper into misery.”
Haitian authorities had tried to evacuate people from the most vulnerable areas ahead of the storm, but many were reluctant to leave their homes. Some sought shelter only after the worst was already upon them.
Before cellular communications went out in the southwestern town of Jeremie, one resident described seeing panicked people who didn’t evacuate coastal homes and were frantically seeking shelter at dawn.
“Some people who lived by the sea are walking with their things through flooded streets looking for somewhere to go,” said Iralien St. Louis, a photographer who was hunkered down at his home.
Matthew was expected to drop 15 to 25 inches of rain, and up to 40 inches in isolated places of Haiti, along with up to 10 feet of storm surge and battering waves.
“They are getting everything a major hurricane can throw at them,” said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist with the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Matthew briefly reached the top classification, Category 5, as it moved across the Caribbean late last week, becoming the strongest hurricane in the region since Felix in 2007. In the U.S., Florida Gov. Rick Scott urged coastal residents to prepare for the possibility of a direct hit and line up three days’ worth of food, water and medicine. The Red Cross put out a call for volunteers in South Carolina. And the White House said relief supplies were being moved to emergency staging areas in the Southeast.
People raced to supermarkets, gas stations and hardware stores, buying up groceries, water, plywood, tarps, batteries and propane. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said she would issue an evacuation order Wednesday so 1 million people would have time to leave the coast.
In the storm-hardened Bahamas, Prime Minister Perry Christie voiced concern about the looming hurricane. “We’re worried because we do not control nature,” he said.
The Pentagon said Tuesday that it is ready to dispatch at least three Navy ships and a detachment of military helicopters to assist Caribbean countries hit by Matthew.
Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said Tuesday that the aircraft carrier George Washington, the hospital ship Comfort, and the amphibious ship Mesa Verde all may be called in to assist, potentially deploying thousands of sailors and Marines in the relief effort. The Pentagon also will move a detachment of nine U.S. military helicopters from Honduras to the Cayman Islands in anticipation of possible hurricane response efforts, Cook said. The move puts them within a few hundred miles of Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti. U.S. Southern Command, with headquarters in Miami, also will establish a joint task force commanded by Rear Adm. Cedric Pringle in anticipation of requests for help.
“This is a serious storm, and while we have not received any specific request for assistance at this point, we do stand ready to provide support in the region as needed,” Cook said.
A Marine Corps spokesman, Maj. Armando Daviu, said the helicopters are a mixture of CH-53E Super Stallions, CH-47 Chinooks and UH-60L Black Hawks. They departed Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras Tuesday carrying members of both a Marine Corps special-purpose task force and a joint task force run by U.S. Southern Command.
The movements were announced as the storm roared toward Cuba, east of where the Pentagon maintains a naval station at Guantanamo Bay. About 4,700 service members remained on the base, which also is home to a military prison that holds dozens of terrorism suspects captured in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries abroad.
The military evacuated about 700 military family members and more than 60 pets over the weekend from Guantanamo to Pensacola, Fla., in anticipation of the storm. Some service members were ordered to relocate to safer areas of the base and were preparing to ride out the storm in schools and other larger buildings.
(David McFadden, ASSOCIATED PRESS, with contributions from THE WASHINGTON POST)
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In the presence of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the lawmakers voted 610 to 38 with 31 abstentions for the 28 EU nations to simultaneously ratify the agreement to limit global warming.
The deal cannot take effect until 55 countries, accounting for at least 55 percent of global emissions, have adopted it. Sixty-two countries had done so as of Tuesday but they accounted only for about 52 percent of emissions. On Wednesday, New Zealand became the 63rd nation to ratify the Paris accord.
The EU’s fast-track ratification takes the Paris Agreement past the 55 percent threshold. The handover to the U.N. of a legal document formally doing that is expected to happen by Friday.
“With the action taken by the EU parliament, I am confident that we will be able to cross the 55 percent threshold very soon; in a matter of days,” Ban told reporters.
The Paris agreement commits rich and poor countries to take action to curb the rise in global temperatures that is melting glaciers, raising sea levels and shifting rainfall patterns. It requires governments to present national plans to reduce emissions to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). International momentum has been building to ensure that the deal could enter force by next U.N. climate conference, which starts Nov. 7 in Marrakech, Morocco.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The powerful Category 4 hurricane had winds of 145 mph at late afternoon, and the center was expected to pass across or very close to the southwestern tip of Haiti late today before reaching Cuba on Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
A hurricane warning was in effect for Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti. Forecasters said the southern Haitian countryside around Jeremie and Les Cayes could see the worst of it.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The wrecked walls and foundations of homes are half-buried in the mud. Abandoned shoes, toys, appliances and clothing litter what is, literally, a graveyard.
Despite two weeks of digging following the Oct. 1, 2015, disaster, when an unstable hillside collapsed on the squatter community, at least 70 people remain missing, presumably buried forever under soil considered too unstable for further digging.
Officials estimate there are 8,000 places in Guatemala where the threat of floods, mudslides and other disasters make it too risky to live.
Yet none of those communities has been successfully relocated in the year since the disaster. The government budgeted about $2.6 million to build homes for the survivors of Cambray II on land that was seized from a drug trafficker. But only about 30 of 181 planned homes have been constructed.
Despite a mandatory evacuation order, a half dozen families remain. They scattered when journalists approached, apparently fearful of losing the only place they could afford.
Sonia Ramos lives only about 50 yards from the edge of the mudslide, and has been told her house is unsafe.
“We have no place else to go,” Ramos said. One year ago, the yard of her home became an impromptu morgue. Now it’s a patch of dust or a pit of mud, depending on the rains.
“Sometimes, I’m afraid,” she said, but shrugged, as if to say there is nothing to be done.
Human solidarity seems to have replaced official response.
Ramos took in 18-year-old Carlos Cac Pedroza, whose mother and siblings died in the mudslide. She’d seen him go to the barren spot where his family’s house once stood, lie down and toss dirt on himself, saying he wanted to die.
Cac Pedroza could have stayed with other relatives, but didn’t want to leave. He stared at the ground when asked why.
“I would be lost if I left,” he said. “I don’t know how to live anywhere else.”
Officials blamed a current and former mayor for diverting a river that runs along the base of the hillside, saying it eroded the slope. Both have denied responsibility and are out on bail.
For survivors, the psychological scars have not faded. Samuel Morales, 43, lost his wife and three children in the mudslide.
Morales had buried his family, he thought, when the national forensic agency contacted him six months after the tragedy, saying that more pieces of his wife’s body had been found.
He buried those in a second grave niche, next to the first.
“It has been a very hard year, of crying and crying,” Morales said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The warning by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services follows a series of small temblors deep under the Salton Sea, which is located on the 800-mile-long San Andreas fault, the Orange County Register reported Saturday.
Such warnings are typically issued once or twice a year, said Kelly Huston, the deputy director of crisis communications for the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. The latest alert was issued after 142 temblors hit starting Monday near Bombay Beach at the southern end of the fault.
Scientists estimate the probability of a quake with a magnitude of 7.0 or higher on the southern San Andreas fault being triggered is as high as 1 in 100 and as low as 1 in 3,000. The average chance for such an earthquake striking on any given week is 1 in 6,000. That heightened probability will last through Tuesday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Matthew briefly reached the top hurricane classification, Category 5, and was the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Felix in 2007.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Matthew’s winds had slipped slightly from a peak of 160 mph to a still-potentially devastating 150 mph and it was expected to near eastern Jamaica and southwestern Haiti on Monday.
The latest forecast had Matthew’s path passing closer to Haiti than before and the center issued a hurricane warning for Jamaica and “much of Haiti,” and said life-threatening rainfall was expected in parts of the impoverished Caribbean nation.
The forecast track would also carry Matthew across Cuba and into the Bahamas, with an outside chance of a brush with Florida, though that would be several days away.
“It’s too early to rule out what impacts, if any, would occur in the United States and Florida,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman at the Hurricane Center.
As Matthew skimmed past the northern tip of South America, there were reports of at least one death — the second attributed to the storm.
Authorities in the area overall breathed a sigh of relief as the storm triggered heavy flooding in towns along the La Guajira peninsula of Colombia, but damage overall was minimal. Some officials were even grateful for the rain after a multi-year drought in the poverty-stricken area.
“Families that evacuated are returning to their homes,” said La Guajira Gov. Jorge Velez. “The dikes and wells filled up, the earth is moist, and this benefits agriculture in an area where it hasn’t rained for five years, benefiting the community.”
Authorities say that at least 27 houses were damaged and two roads were washed out. A 67-year-old indigenous man was carried away to his death by a flash flood in an area where it hadn’t rained in four years.
Elsewhere, all across Colombia’s Caribbean coastline, authorities have set up emergency shelters, closed access to beaches and urged residents living near the ocean to move inland in preparation for storm surges that they said would reach their peak sometime Saturday.
In Haiti, civil protection officials broadcast warnings of a coming storm surge and big waves, saying the country would be “highly threatened” from the approaching system. They urged families to prepare emergency food and water kits.
Emergency management authorities banned boating starting Saturday, particularly along the impoverished country’s southern coastline.
Forecasters said rainfall totals could reach 10 to 15 inches with isolated maximum amounts of 25 inches in Jamaica and southwestern Haiti.
The U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is also potentially in the path of the storm. A mandatory evacuation of non-essential personnel, including about 700 family members of military personnel, was under way and everyone remaining was being told to take shelter, said Julie Ann Ripley, a spokeswoman. There are about 5,500 people living on the base, including 61 men held at the detention center.
(Howard Campbell, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The office said 26 people had been evacuated from a hamlet known as Juan Barragan, 17 of whom went to a shelter in the nearby community of San Marcos.
The government of the neighboring state of Colima said 230 people had been evacuated from the hamlet of La Becerra and 80 from Yerbabuena. Civil defense officials said many went to a shelter in the town of Comala.
Eruptions Friday sent lava or glowing rocks down the volcano’s flanks and a column of ash and vapor into the air.
Also known as the Volcano of Fire, the 12,533-foot volcano is 430 miles west of Mexico City.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The discovery, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, whets the appetite of scientists who want to investigate whether the distant world could harbor life.
“If there are plumes emerging from Europa, they’re significant because it means we may be able to explore its ocean for organic chemicals or even signs of life, without having to drill through unknown miles of ice,” said team leader William Sparks, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Europa’s ocean holds about twice as much water as Earth’s oceans do. Like Saturn’s much-smaller moon Enceladus, it is one of the solar system’s frigid water worlds, both of which might have the chemical ingredients for life to exist beneath their surface. Scientists have already found evidence for hydrothermal vents on Enceladus, which on Earth provide fertile grounds for deep-sea microbial life.
Such plumes are well documented on Enceladus, spewing from “tiger stripe” cracks that are squeezed and stretched by tidal forces. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has even flown through the plumes, sampling their contents. On Europa, however, trying to find the plumes is much more of a challenge, scientists said.
In 2012, a team led by Lorenz Roth of the Southwest Research Institute found signs of water shooting out near the moon’s southern pole. Now, Sparks’ team found plumes by using essentially the same method that astronomers use to find planets around far-off stars.
As a planet transits in front of its star, a slice of starlight will filter through the world’s atmosphere. Scientists can look at what’s missing in that light to determine the composition of the planet’s atmosphere. Jupiter doesn’t make its own light, but it reflects quite a bit of the sun. Scientists realized they could study Europa’s atmosphere by watching how Jupiter’s reflected ultraviolet luminescence filtered through it.
(Amina Khan, CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP, publisher of the S.D. Union Tribune and L.A. Times)
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"When you look out through the windows in your house or apartment, you don’t see the tiny little particles that are suspended in the air, so the usual perception is that the air is clean," Rajasekhar Balasubramanian, an air quality expert at the National University of Singapore who was not involved in the study, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
“But the WHO report is a clear indication that even in the absence of air pollution episodes, the concentrations of particles suspended in the air do exceed what’s considered to be acceptable from a health viewpoint,” he said.
In previous studies, the WHO estimated that more than 8 in 10 people in urban areas that monitored air pollution were breathing unhealthy air and that about 7 million deaths a year were linked to indoor and outdoor pollution.
The new study reduced the second estimate to 6.5 million deaths. But Mara Neira, director of the WHO’s Department of Public Health and Environment, said in a telephone interview that “the trends are still going in the wrong direction.”
“Somebody has to pay for those health systems to sustain the treatment and the care for those chronic patients, and this is something that countries need to balance when they make decisions about the sources of energy they are selecting or the choices they make in terms of public transport,” Neira said. “These economic costs of health have to be part of the equation.”
The WHO study was conducted by dozens of scientists over an 18-month period and was based on data collected from satellites, air transport models and ground monitors in more than 3,000 urban and rural locations, agency officials said Tuesday.
The agency defined unhealthy air as having concentrations of fine particulate matter, known as PM 2.5, above 10 micrograms per cubic meter, or 35.3 cubic feet, but it did not measure concentrations of ozone, nitrous oxide or other harmful pollutants. The study said that major drivers of global air pollution included inefficient energy use and transportation but that nonhuman factors, such as dust storms, also played a role.
Balasubramanian said it was an open question whether countries in Southeast Asia, a region that has densely packed cities and struggles to combat cross-border pollution, would choose to improve urban air quality by switching to cleaner fuels in their power plants, as Western European countries did several decades ago. Prolonging the decisions will probably increase the health risk from air pollution, he said, because the region’s population is rising and demanding more energy.
“People think of air pollution as a respiratory disease,” said Carlos Dora, who heads the WHO’s air pollution team. “And in fact, it’s heart disease, strokes and cardiovascular. Because there’s very small particles that go into the blood . . . the damage air pollution does to the vessels is similar to the damage that cholesterol or high blood pressure do. That has changed (the picture) a lot.”
While China ranked sixth among countries with the highest number of deaths due to ambient air pollution, Dora said the country is doing “an amazing amount of stuff” to fight it, such as with clean cars. But coal-fired power plants, household burning of coal and wood to produce energy, and transportation remain big generators of pollution in China, he said. Turkmenistan has the highest rate of deaths per capita due to ambient air pollution in the WHO classification, followed by Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and China.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES, with contributions from WASHINGTON POST, NEW YORK TIMES)
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Crews scrambled to build the flood wall over the weekend to block the rapidly rising Cedar River because, despite years of discussions, officials haven’t been able to secure funding for permanent flood barriers following a devastating flood in 2008.
“The city had eight years to do this but decided to throw up a temporary system in three days,” said Jim Soukup, 30, who sat on a pile of sandbags outside his parents’ home in the Czech Village neighborhood, which was largely empty after thousands of residents heeded a voluntary evacuation ahead of the river’s anticipated crest today.
Soukup said he and his father would guard the home — which had several feet of flood water in 2008 — to avoid the prospect of looting.
The river is already in major flood stage, rising past 20 feet on Monday. It was expected to crest at 23 feet, which is eight feet below the 2008 flood that devastated wide swaths of the city of 130,000 people. Mayor Ron Corbett said 9.8 miles of earthen berms and Hesco barriers, which are mesh-framed, collapsible boxes that can quickly be filled with sand or other material that weren’t available to the city in 2008, have been erected throughout the city. As a secondary line of defense, more than 250,000 sandbags had been piled up around property.
“If it works, we will save the city,” Corbett said. City leaders plan to closely monitor the flood system, noting that any breaches could cause water to quickly gush into areas and cause problems for residents who don’t evacuate. Authorities said more than half of the 5,800 properties in the evacuation zone had been evacuated by Sunday, and the area had a ghost town feel by Monday afternoon.
The city had time to prepare because forecasters have been warning of the floods since last week, following heavy rainfall to the north. City leaders said they believed the system would greatly minimize the damage.
But they’ve struggled to secure funding for a better flood protection system for low-lying areas. Residents voted down a sales tax increase that would have helped pay for it years ago.
Now the city is waiting on Congress to authorize and appropriate the federal share of a plan to build a permanent flood system along with investments from the state and the city. City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said lobbying for the federal money is a top priority and the project will be critical to the city’s future.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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But instead of the hurricane’s storm surge, the cause of this week’s flooding was days of rain.
“We literally have water up to people’s waist and above, and many houses have been flooded,” McCrory said at a news conference.
About 63 people across northeastern North Carolina have had to be rescued from their homes by fast-water rescue teams. An additional 61 were taken to safety from threatened nursing homes.
For much of this week, the remnants of Tropical Storm Julia sat spinning off the coast, dropping anywhere from a foot of rain in parts of North Carolina to nearly 18 inches in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia.
Schools canceled classes, a downtown was submerged and overwhelmed sewers spewed untreated wastewater.
McCrory said the Bertie County seat of Windsor appeared to suffer the worst, although floodwaters appeared to be receding. The town of about 3,000 along the Cashie River received more than a foot of rain.
McCrory had declared a state of emergency in 11 counties Thursday.
The Midwest was also inundated with rain. Authorities in several Iowa cities were mobilizing resources Friday to handle flooding from a rain-swollen river that has forced evacuations in several communities upstream, while a Wisconsin town was recovering from storms now blamed for two deaths. More rain fell Thursday night and early Friday in the area, and the National Weather Service said the threat for more rain and flash-flooding remained high along the Cedar River in northeastern Iowa.
Just across the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, residents of Victory, a tiny community at the base of a river bluff, were recovering from torrential rains, flooding and mudslides that caused two deaths.
In Iowa, Cedar Falls officials have been talking to residents about possibly evacuating low-lying neighborhoods. The dike system protecting downtown was expected to hold, but Public Safety Director Jeff Olson said it will be patrolled. The Cedar River was expected to crest in the area today, at about 2 feet below the record crest of 102.1 feet in June 2008.
Waterloo has closed several storm sewer floodgates, activated lift stations and put up flood control walls at several spots downtown. Several downtown bridges may close, and the fire department has been lining up extra boats for water rescues.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Washed-out railroad tracks derailed a train in southwestern Wisconsin, where a mudslide destroyed a house and killed the man inside. Crews built dams to protect a cheese cave and a woolen mill in southern Minnesota. And in northern Iowa, about 100 people were evacuated from their apartments.
The rain mostly moved through the states Wednesday evening and early Thursday, though another round was in the forecast for northern Iowa on Thursday night. While much of the water began to recede or drain Thursday, its effects could be found throughout the area. Mud pushed a home onto Wisconsin State Highway 35 in Vernon County on Thursday morning. It took search and rescue crews until the afternoon to find a man’s body, emergency management officials said. His name was not immediately released.
About 40 miles south in Crawford County, two BNSF Railway locomotives and five cars derailed. The crew wasn’t injured, but one of the fuel tanks ruptured, spilling about 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel— some into the Mississippi River, the railroad said. BNSF crews placed booms downstream to capture the fuel. Wisconsin emergency officials said 15 people who lived nearby were evacuated as a precaution.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Study co-author Stanford University William Ellsworth said the technique provides a new way to determine what quakes are manmade.
The team looked at two sets of wells, eastern and western. The eastern wells were shallow and the satellite radar showed that the eastern wells weren’t the culprit, but the high-volume deeper western ones were, Ellsworth said.
Cornell University seismologist Rowena Lohman, who wasn’t part of the study, said it shows that satellite data of ground changes provide good ways to complement what’s measured on the ground.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The number is higher than the 55-country threshold needed for the treaty to enter into force. But because together those countries account for 48 percent of total global emissions — short of the 55 percent threshold — the agreement must wait for more nations to join.
“Today we also heard commitments from many other countries to join the agreement this year. Their combined emissions will take us well past the required amount for the agreement to enter into force,” Secretary-General Ban Kimoon said at an event on the sidelines of the high-level U.N. General Assembly gathering. “I am convinced that the Paris Agreement will enter into force before the end of 2016.”
Secretary of State John Kerry said he is confident of reaching the magic number before the next U.N. climate conference, which starts Nov. 7 in Marrakech, Morocco. He urged people everywhere “to become warriors for the planet.”
The world’s two biggest emitters, the United States and China, have already ratified the deal, providing momentum for other countries to quickly ratify the accord.
Brazil, Mexico and Argentina were the largest emitters to join the treaty Wednesday, but many of the countries that joined were small island nations, whose very existence is threatened by rising sea levels provoked by global warming, but whose individual emissions account for a mere fraction of a percent of total global emissions.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The season ends today, and not a moment too soon. Summer featured floods that killed hundreds of people and caused more than $50 billion in losses around the globe, from Louisiana and West Virginia to China, India, Europe and the Sudan. Meanwhile, droughts parched croplands and wildfires burned from California to Canada to China and India. Toss in unrelenting record heat.
From June to August, there were at least 10 different weather disasters that each caused more than $1 billion in losses, according to insurance industry tallies. With summer weather now seemingly stretching from May to September, extreme weather in that span killed well more than 2,000 people. And that’s without a major hurricane hitting a big U.S. city, although the Pacific had its share of deadly and costly storms, among them Typhoon Nepartak, which killed 111 people in Asia.
“It is representing, I think, a notch up for the impacts we have had to deal with,” U.S. National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said. “We’ve experienced an increasing number and a disturbing number of weather extremes this summer.”
While flooding made the news, the “sneaky” thing about the summer was heat that did not even ease at night, said Deke Arndt, climate monitoring chief at the federal National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, N.C. When temperatures drop to below 72 at night it allows the body to recharge, plants to grow and air conditioners to be shut off. But this year that didn’t happen enough.
The U.S. set a record for the hottest nighttime temperatures on average this summer, Arndt said. Tallahassee, Fla., for example, went 74 consecutive days where the nighttime temperature didn’t dip below 72.
From May 1 to Sept. 12, nearly 15,000 daily records for warmest nighttime lows were set in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. “This is one of the clearest signals we expect for climate change,” said Mark Bove, a New Jersey-based senior research meteorologist for re-insurance giant Munich RE, which tracks natural disasters. “It keeps a blanket on you particularly at night. We cannot radiate the heat away at night as the planet used to.”
While records were broken, the summer has “been more notable for the consistency of the heat than individual high-impact heatwaves,” said Blair Trewin of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the World Meteorological Organization.
For example, Savannah, Ga., had a record 69 days in a row of 90 degrees or higher.
Twelve U.S. cities had their warmest summers ever, including Las Vegas, New Orleans, Cleveland and Detroit. The globe had its hottest month on record (July) and hottest summer on record. August was the 16th consecutive month Earth set a monthly heat record, according to NOAA.
Temperatures of 129 degrees were recorded in Mitribah, Kuwait, and Basra, Iraq. If verified, these would be not only the hottest temperatures recorded for Asia, but the hottest recorded outside a much-debated record in Death Valley, according to weather historians.
The extra heat— both in the air and oceans — puts extra moisture in the air, which then comes down as more extreme downpours, said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. And when an area is already dry, droughts worsen because warmer air takes more water out of the ground, like “levying a larger tax on the plants and soil moisture,” Arndt said.
Climate scientists say what’s happened pretty much fits with what they’ve been saying would occur as the world warms. For most of the extreme events, they haven’t done the detailed studies that can show that man-made climate change is to blame for certain extreme weather events. But they did do that for the Louisiana flooding, which NOAA said had its chances boosted by 40 percent because of heat-trapping gasses.
(Seth Borenstein, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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But after a three-decade, $62 million Superfund cleanup, Clear Creek now lives up to its pristine-sounding name, at least most of the time. In the historic mining town of Idaho Springs, the creek attracts anglers, rafters and even real estate investors.
“The actual designation of the Superfund site on Idaho Springs I would say has been, in my view, nothing but positive,” said Bob Bowland, a longtime resident and City Council member.
That offers hope for the town of Silverton, 165 miles to the southwest, where the federal government is embarking on another big cleanup after a massive spill from the Gold King Mine last year.
But other Idaho Springs residents warned that getting through their cleanup was wrenching, especially in the early years.
When the Environmental Protection Agency launched the project in 1983, the outside world wrongly thought the entire town was contaminated, and the community’s reputation and economy suffered, they said.
The cleanup also brought down the enormous power of the EPA on Idaho Springs, a town that even now has just 1,700 residents, and some people felt steamrolled.
“To my knowledge, not a single concern we had made a single difference in any of the analysis or outcomes,” former Clear Creek County Commissioner Nelson Fugate said.
But even these critics said the overall results were, for the most part, good.
“In hindsight, everything came out fine,” Fugate said.
Arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead, manganese and zinc were washing into Clear Creek from abandoned mining sites when the EPA created the Superfund project.
“The name of Clear Creek was a joke,” Bowland said. “The creek was never clear, ever. It was just yellow.” The EPA built one treatment plant for wastewater flowing from the mines, and a second is under construction. A concrete-and-steel bulkhead was installed inside a mine tunnel to control the flow of wastewater. Rain and snowmelt were diverted away from piles of mineral-rich waste rock so contaminants wouldn’t drain into the creek. The results were striking, residents said. “Nobody is saying, ‘Oh, that damn Superfund site,”’ County Commissioner Tim Mauck said. “It’s almost, if anything, a source of pride and achievement.”
Mauck and others hope an influx of rafters, anglers and other outdoor enthusiast made possible by the cleanup will help stabilize a local economy still dependent on mining. A molybdenum mine may close, and officials are looking for ways to diversify. Earlier this year, Bowland and partners bought one of the Superfund hotspots, the historic Argo gold mill in Idaho Springs. Like the previous owner, they still offer tours, but they also plan a hotel, conference center, housing and restaurants.
Mary Jane Loevlie, a partner in the project, had harsh words for the way the EPA carried out the cleanup, but she and her partners are betting that the spruced-up community will flourish.
“I’m very optimistic or I wouldn’t be investing in the Argo,” she said.
Silverton and surrounding San Juan County were reluctant to accept a Superfund cleanup in their backyard, even though nearby mines have been belching wastewater for decades.
Some worried about the stigma of a toxic-waste cleanup in a town whose economy depends on tourism. They also feared the EPA would wield outsized power over local affairs.
But the 2015 blowout at the Gold King — inadvertently triggered by an EPA-led cleanup crew — convinced residents that something had to be done, and that only the federal government could afford to do it.
San Juan County and Silverton officials toured Idaho Springs and other Colorado towns late last year and took note of Superfund pitfalls. They pressed EPA to limit the area covered by their Superfund designation.
EPA spokeswoman Nancy Graham said the agency worked hard to involve residents in the Silverton-area Superfund planning, holding public meetings, explaining technical information and listening.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The typhoon arrived in the early hours of Thursday near the major city of Xiamen after sweeping through southern Taiwan on Wednesday and killing one person.
Pictures on state media showed flooded streets in some parts of the province of Fujian, where Xiamen is located, fallen trees and crushed cars.
Xinhua news agency said it was the strongest typhoon to hit that part of the country since the founding of Communist China in 1949 and the strongest so far this year any where in the world.
In some parts of Xiamen, including both urban and rural areas, power supplies had been cut off, it said.
Meranti was a Category 5 typhoon, the strongest classification awarded by Tropical Storm Risk storm tracker, before it made landfall on the mainland and has since been downgraded to Category 2.
Dozens of flights and train services have been cancelled, state television said, inconveniencing people at the start of the three-day mid-autumn festival holiday.
Tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated as the storm approached and fishing boats called back to port.
One person died and 38 were injured in Taiwan, the Central Emergency Operation Centre said, as the typhoon hit the southern part of the island, including the port city of Kaohsiung, on Wednesday.
Typhoons are common at this time of year, picking up strength as they cross the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean and bringing fierce winds and rain when they hit land.
Meranti will continue to lose strength as it pushes inland and up towards China's commercial capital of Shanghai, but will bring heavy rain.
(AL JAZEERA)
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Super Typhoon Meranti was the tenth most powerful cyclone, hurricane or typhoon ever recorded globally.
It was the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane [as measured on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale]. At one point sustained winds within Meranti reached an astonishing 305kph.
Yet, the topography of the island saved the inhabitants from what could have been a far worse experience. The populated southeastern side of the island was afforded some shelter by the Hengchun Peninsula of Pingtung County.
Maximum winds at Kaohsiung International Airport were "only" 114kph.
The island was not so fortunate in terms of rainfall, which in the coming days will lead to a heightened risk of landslides. Up to 500mm of rain fell in parts of the south, and over the mountains there were reports of 800mm of rain.
Undersea topography also came to Taiwan's aid. The island shelves very steeply into the Pacific Ocean, and that minimized the possible effects of what is often the deadliest element of a powerful cyclone - the storm surge.
A storm surge is an abnormal rise in water, above the predicted astronomical tides.
It is caused by a dome of water being pushed up by the sustained strength of the wind. There is also a contribution from the low central pressure of the cyclone, but it is very small.
This dome of water has a vertical circulation as it moves through the ocean. Once the dome approaches shallower water, the circulation is disrupted and the downward movement of the water is cut off. It only has one way to go, and that is up.
Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 produced a surge of up to eight metres, with waves of five metres on top of that. Taiwan’s south coast is likely to have been battered by huge waves, but, thanks to the lack of shallow water, no storm surge has been reported.
Because Meranti passed to the south of Taiwan there were concerns about the possible impact of a storm surge along China’s Guangdong and Fujian coastline. Predictions of a storm surge in excess of two metres were made by the Joint Research Commission of the European Union.
Early reports suggest Meranti hit the mainland as a Category 2 equivalent storm with sustained winds of 165km/h. The much shallower coastline here and the ferocious winds would certainly support such a surge.
Yet it would appear that Xiamen, the island just north of Meranti’s point of landfall, suffered relatively little coastal inundation from a surge or waves. This is one of the 20 busiest ports for container shipping.
It seems likely that landfall, at 18:00 GMT on Wednesday, was within two hours of low tide, minimizing the impact of enhanced sea levels and wave action.
Nevertheless, more than 1.6 million homes in southeastern China have been left without power and although Meranti has been downgraded to a tropical storm, it has the potential to cause further problems across the region largely due to flooding from rainfall.
In the next few days another typhoon will be approaching Taiwan, but at this stage Typhoon Malakas is expected to pass to the east of northern Taiwan.
(AL JAZEERA)
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Clutching one of the youngest children, Saada Suleiman said she tried to run as Saturday's tremor made the ground heave beneath her feet.
"I felt something, as though someone was pushing me from behind, and suddenly the building was shaking," said Suleiman, who operates the Uyacho Orphanage Centre in Bukoba township.
"It felt like an electric shock," she told Al Jazeera, shaking her body and arms to demonstrate the strength of the quake.
People came to help - and Suleiman and the tiny baby were carried to safety.
Though the Uyacho orphanage was reduced to piles of rubble and dangerously half-collapsed walls, none of the children living there was hurt.
More than 2,000 homes and buildings were damaged by the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that hit on Saturday, killing at least 17, injuring more than 200, and leaving hundreds of families homeless.
Red Cross volunteers are setting up temporary shelters for those forced to sleep in the open, but building materials are in short supply and the demand is high following the earthquake.
"Many families who lost homes or who are afraid to return to damaged ones are staying in open fields and are exposed to the elements and other health risks," Fatoumata Nafo-Traore, director of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies regional office for Africa, said in a statement on Wednesday.
The earthquake - the first major seismic activity to hit Tanzania in more than a decade - took many by surprise, including Philip Bonventure, the headteacher at Ihungo Church School in Bukoba.
"I didn't believe it, in fact," Bonventure said.
"Because I have never met this situation. It was the first time. So it was a very big shock," he said.
Standing in what was left of the Ihungo church, the Bishop of Bukoba, Method Kilaini, said his thoughts were with those in rural areas who lost their homes but who were not likely to receive the same attention in the aftermath of the earthquake as those in larger towns.
"I have been in the villages. Also there, houses are falling down. Maybe they are not reached by the media ... They don't know where to live," he said.
Tanzanian Red Cross staff and volunteers are currently assessing the situation in remote areas where the earthquake damaged roads, power supplies and other infrastructure, though heavy rains and difficulty with access to remote areas may hamper relief efforts, the IFRC said.
"It's a big challenge and we were not prepared for this tragedy," said Laurent Bangileki, spokesman for the Tanzanian Red Cross.
"This is the first time we've had an earthquake. Right now, we are collecting what we can to face this challenge but our resources are limited. We need help from the government," he said.
Jacinta Sylvester said she was away from home when the quake hit, but she returned just in time to see her house collapse. Now she is relying on the kindness of neighbours.
"I feel bad because I'm having to rely on my neighbours for everything; they are cooking us a little bit of food, giving the children some tea and I can't do anything in return because I have nothing," she said.
Severina Gregory's son was pinned under a wall of bricks when her house collapsed, knocking the young boy unconscious and breaking his leg.
"I am glad my boy is alive. I thank God. That day will stay with me for a long time," she said.
Now, like many others in Bukoba, Gregory must begin the slow and difficult task of rebuilding her home and her life.
"This makes them even more vulnerable," Nafo-Traore said.
(AL JAZEERA)
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South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that “artificial seismic waves” from a quake measuring 5.0 were detected near the Punggye-ri test site. The South’s Defense Ministry said it believed the North conducted a nuclear test, while European and U.S. monitoring services also detected similar seismic activity, with the U.S. Geological Survey calling it an “explosion” on its website.
A second North Korean nuclear test this year would raise serious worries in Washington because the North’s nuclear tests are part of a push for a nuclear-armed missile that could one day reach the U.S. mainland. A second nuclear test this year would be a defiant response to Western pressure on Pyongyang to halt its nuclear ambitions. The country has previously conducted tests every three to four years. A South Korean Defense Ministry official, who refused to be named because of office rules, said that Seoul detected an estimated explosive yield of 10 kilotons and assessed that it was from a nuclear test.
After the fourth test, in January, South Korean lawmaker Lee Cheol Woo said Seoul’s National Intelligence Service told him that an estimated explosive yield of six kilotons was detected. The 5.0 magnitude earthquake today is the largest of the four past quakes associated with North Korean nuclear tests, according to South Korea’s weather agency. Artificial seismic waves measuring 3.9 were reported after North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006; 4.8 was reported from its fourth test this January.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen a robust increase in the number and kinds of missiles tested this year. Not only has the range of the weapons successfully tested jumped significantly, but the country is working to perfect new platforms for launching them — submarines and mobile launchers.
The longer ranges and mobile launchers give the North greater ability to threaten the tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed throughout Asia.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Newton made landfall at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula in the morning as a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 90 mph, pelting the area with torrential rain as residents hunkered down in their homes and tourists huddled in hotels.
Palm trees were toppled along Cabo San Lucas’ coastal boulevard and some windows were broken. But there was calm in the city as firefighters cleaned refuse from the streets during the day.
“There are only minor damages — fallen branches, some fallen banners, some cables. In general, no victims,” army Col. Enrique Rangel said. Roberto Dominguez, a customer relations worker at the Fairfield Marriot, said the hotel’s windows and balconies had been sufficiently protected from the storm and guests were fine, although cellphone and internet services had been knocked out.
“At this moment there are no reports of people killed or missing due to Hurricane Newton,” said Luis Felipe Puente, head of Mexico’s civil defense agency. Newton was forecast to dump 8 to 12 inches of rain on Baja California Sur state with isolated maximums up to 18 inches, and heavy rains were also expected for five other states. Newton could reach the U.S. border at Arizona as a tropical storm at midday today, forecasters said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“These are more seasoned surfers who live for the thrill of these waves,” said Kim Buttrick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass.
Hermine’s position Monday southeast of Nantucket created 20-foot waves and wind gusts of up to 50 mph about 55 miles southeast of the island, Buttrick said. Hermine was expected to stall over the water before weakening again.
Even as Hermine weakens, wind gusts of 30 to 50 mph were expected across southern Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, Buttrick said.
Governors along the Eastern Seaboard announced emergency preparations. A tropical storm warning was in effect from New York’s Long Island to Massachusetts. New York officials extended beach closures beyond Labor Day because of continued deadly rip currents.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, cited illegal hunting in downgrading the status of the eastern gorilla on its Red List of Endangered Species. The list contains more than 80,000 species, and almost 24,000 of those are threatened with extinction.
“To see the eastern gorilla— one of our closest cousins — slide toward extinction is truly distressing,” Inger Andersen, IUCN director general, said in a statement. “Conservation action does work, and we have increasing evidence of it. It is our responsibility to enhance our efforts to turn the tide and protect the future of our planet.”
The organization said an estimated 5,000 eastern gorillas remain in the wild, a decline of about 70 percent over the past 20 years.
Of all the great ape species — the eastern gorilla, western gorilla, Bornean orangutan, Sumatran orangutan, chimpanzee and bonobo — only the chimpanzee and bonobo are not considered critically endangered. But they are listed as endangered.
For the gorillas of the Congo, where the majority of the population lives, conservation will be a struggle because of political instability, said primatologist Russell Mittermeier, executive vice chairman of the Conservation International environmental group and chairman of IUCN’s primates specialist group.
“There are no simple solutions right now, other than a much greater investment in on-the-ground protection until the region stabilizes, at which time major ecotourism, as is happening in the neighboring countries of Uganda and Rwanda, can take place,” Mittermeier said in an email to The Associated Press.
In an interview, Catherine Novelli, U.S. undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, called the gorilla numbers a man-made tragedy.
The research by the Wildlife Conservation Society was accepted by the IUCN, which is made up of private and government entities and is hosting the World Conservation Congress. More than 9,000 delegates from over 180 countries are attending this week’s conference in Honolulu, including several heads of state. “Critical endangered status will raise the profile of this gorilla subspecies and bring attention to its plight. It has tended to be the neglected ape in Africa, despite being the largest ape in the world,” the study’s lead scientist, Andrew Plumptre, said in an email. The IUCN compiles its peer-reviewed Red List alongside partners such as universities and environmental groups within animals’ natural habitat. It is the most comprehensive analysis of endangered species and guides government policy around the world, said Cristian Samper, president and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
And there were other dismaying updates Sunday as well. The plains zebra has moved from “least concern” to “near threatened” after a 24 percent population decline over the past 14 years, down from around 660,000 to 500,000 animals. They are only found in protected areas in many of their range countries, yet many range states still report population declines. They are threatened by hunting for their meat and skins.
Three species of African antelope — bay duiker, white-bellied duiker, and yellow-backed duiker — have also moved from “least concern” to “near threatened.” Populations within protected areas are relatively stable, but elsewhere they are threatened with illegal hunting and habitat loss.
Koalas have moved from from “least concern” to “near threatened” as well. Habitat destruction and fragmentation, brushfires, disease and drought have all taken a toll on Australia’s favorite marsupial.
While management plans are in place, they require improvements; a recent parliamentary inquiry concluded that Australia’s conservation and management strategy was largely ineffective. Amid this bad news, there are signs of hope as well. Two endemic Hawaiian plants believed to be extinct — mark’s cyanea and hairy wikstroemia — were rediscovered during the most recent assessment. And several other species have been downlisted, indicating that conservation actions are working.
The giant panda was moved from “endangered” to “vulnerable,” as its population has grown as a result of effective forest protection and reforestation efforts by China.
“For over 50 years, the giant panda has been the globe’s most beloved conservation icon,” said Marco Lambertini, director general of the environmental group World Wildlife Fund. “Knowing that the panda is now a step further from extinction is an exciting moment for everyone committed to conserving the world’s wildlife.” The news is a big deal in San Diego, where the zoo has had a self-described love affair with pandas since two came to visit for 100 days in 1987.
Almost a decade later, in 1996, the San Diego Zoo welcomed Bai Yun and male panda Shi Shi, the first giant pandas to move into a U.S. zoo as part of a landmark agreement with China.
Bai Yun made history in 1999 when she gave birth to Hua Mei, the first giant panda to be born in the United States. The pioneering matriarch birthed five more, with help from new mate Gao Gao, making her the mother of nearly half of all surviving panda cubs to be born in the United States.
Bai Yun, her mates and her cubs have supplied researchers with a treasure trove of information. When China first began tackling panda conservation in the 1960s, little was known about the huge, roly-poly creatures.
Since the pandas took up residency at the zoo, scientists have collected huge amounts of data on reproductive life, cub growth, nutrition and behavioral development.
Zoo officials have previously called Bai Yun the most scientifically influential panda that has ever lived. Although Bai Yun’s cubs are returned to China at 3 years old, she and the youngest pandas hang out at the zoo’s panda habitat, one of the most popular attractions at the park.
The exhibit is also outfitted with a “panda cam” for those hoping to catch a glimpse without taking a trip to the zoo.
According to the current contract, the zoo pays $500,000 a year for the pandas and $100,000 a year to a technical assistance fund. All of the money goes to the China Wildlife Conservation Association.
(Caleb Jones, ASSOCIATED PRESS; with contribution from THE WASHINGTON POST and Lyndsay Winkley SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE)
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As it churned hundreds of miles off shore in the Atlantic Ocean, the system picked up strength, and forecasters said it could regain hurricane force as it travels up the coast. It was expected to stall over the water before weakening again to a tropical storm by Tuesday.
“It’s just going to meander for a few days,” said Dennis Feltgen of the National Hurricane Center, explaining that Hermine was unlikely to make landfall again but was positioned to batter the coast with wind and waves.
Governors along the Eastern Seaboard announced emergency preparations. Tropical storm watches and warnings were in effect from Virginia to Massachusetts, with special concern focused on New Jersey and Delaware, where Rehoboth Beach could experience gusts up to 50 mph and life-threatening storm surges during high tide late Sunday and into today.
Tropical storm-force winds were possible today in New Jersey. Gov. Chris Christie warned that minor to moderate flooding was still likely in coastal areas and said the storm will cause major problems, even as it tracks away from land.
“Don’t be lulled by the nice weather,” Christie said, referring to the bright sunny skies along the Jersey Shore on Sunday. “Don’t think that nothing is going to happen, because something is going to happen.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Hermine quickly weakened to a tropical storm as it spun through Georgia and the Carolinas. But the National Hurricane Center predicted it would regain hurricane strength after emerging over the Atlantic Ocean. The system could then lash coastal areas as far north as Connecticut and Rhode Island through Labor Day.
“Anyone along the U.S. East Coast needs to be paying close attention this weekend,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center.
In Florida, Hermine’s main impact came in the form of power outages and damage from storm surges. A homeless man south of Gainesville died when a tree fell on him, Gov. Rick Scott said.
He [The governor] later took to a Blackhawk helicopter to visit the coastal communities of Cedar Key and Steinhatchee hit hard by the damage from flooding and storm surge that crumpled docks and washed out homes and businesses.
Scott pledged that businesses would be eligible for help from the state. But it’s unclear whether Florida will get any federal disaster assistance as the state begins to clean up from the storm. An estimated 325,000 people statewide and more than 107,000 in neighboring Georgia were without power, officials said.
At 8 p.m. local time Friday, the hurricane center said the tropical storm was approaching the tourist resort of Myrtle Beach, S.C., amid warnings the storm threatens a dangerous surge up to southeast Virginia.
Forecasters said the system could strengthen back into a hurricane by Monday morning off the Maryland-Delaware coast before weakening again as it moves north. Tropical storm watches and warnings were posted up and down the coastline.
Amtrak canceled or altered some service on the East Coast as the storm approaches.
Back in Florida, a storm surge at Dekle Beach damaged numerous homes and destroyed storage buildings and a 100-yard fishing pier.
Nancy Geohagen walked around collecting photos and other items for her neighbors after the storm scattered them.
“I know who this baseball bat belongs to,” she said plucking it from a pile of debris.
The Florida governor declared an emergency in 51 counties and said about 6,000 National Guardsmen stood ready to mobilize for the storm’s aftermath. The governors of Georgia and North Carolina also declared emergencies.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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The National Hurricane Center said the storm’s top sustained winds ratcheted up from 75 mph in the afternoon to 80 mph by evening as the former tropical storm gained new fury nearing the coast. Forecasters said the storm was expected to gain even some slight additional strength before coming ashore.
Hermine was expected to blow ashore late Thursday or early today along the state’s Big Bend — the mostly rural and lightly populated corner where the Florida peninsula meets the Panhandle — then drop back down to a tropical storm and push into Georgia, the Carolinas and up the East Coast with the potential for drenching rain and deadly flooding. Florida Gov. Rick Scott warned of the danger of strong storm surge, high winds, downed trees and power outages, and had urged people during the day to move to inland shelters if necessary and make sure they have enough food, water and medicine.
“This is a life-threatening situation,” Scott said. “It’s going to be a lot of risk. Right now, I want everybody to be safe.”
Scott added that 6,000 National Guardsmen in Florida are ready to mobilize after the storm passes. The governors of Georgia and North Carolina declared states of emergency.
Projected rainfall ranged up to 10 inches in parts of northern Florida and southern Georgia.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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Africa’s savanna elephant population plummeted by about 30 percent from 2007 to 2014 and is declining at about 8 percent a year, said a survey funded by Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist Paul Allen. “If we can’t save the African elephant, what is the hope of conserving the rest of Africa’s wildlife?” elephant ecologist Mike Chase, the lead researcher, said in a statement. “I am hopeful that, with the right tools, research, conservation efforts and political will, we can help conserve elephants for decades to come.”
The aerial survey covered 18 countries using dozens of airplanes to fly the equivalent of going to the moon and partway back. The study, known as the Great Elephant Census and involving 90 scientists, estimated a population of 352,271 savanna elephants. Overall, researchers spotted about 12 carcasses for every 100 live elephants, indicating poaching at a high enough level to cause population decline. But the rates were much higher than that in some countries.
Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania experienced greater population declines than previously known, and elephants face local extinction in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Zambia, the study said. It also says numbers of elephants in South Africa, Uganda and parts of Malawi and Kenya were stable or partly increasing. Results of the study were announced ahead of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress in Honolulu.
Allen, who provided $7 million for the effort, said he decided to launch the census after hearing three years ago that there had not been a comprehensive count of African elephants in decades.
“I took my first trip to Africa in 2006 and have been fascinated by elephants ever since,” he said. “They are intelligent, expressive and dignified— but not to be underestimated. So, as this latest poaching crisis began escalating, I felt compelled to do something about it.” The research team used the limited existing data as a baseline for the study. But this survey is more comprehensive and will serve as a more reliable baseline for future observations, the team said. Its methodology involves manually counting animals while maintaining a specific altitude and following calibrated strips of land below the plane. The method is widely used for surveying animals on large plots of land and was the most accurate method of three tested on a known population in Africa, Chase said. The team also used video surveillance when counting big herds.
Elephants are threatened by ivory trading, which is banned internationally. But the domestic trade of ivory within countries is legal nearly everywhere.
A motion being considered at the Hawaii conference seeks to change that by gaining international consensus to close all domestic ivory markets, noting that illegal killing of elephants for their tusks threatens national security, hinders economic development and endangers those tasked with protecting the animals.
President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced their commitment last year to combating wildlife trafficking. The leaders promised to work toward a nearly complete ban on ivory imports and exports and an end to the domestic ivory trade.
The decline in savanna elephants, like the dwindling numbers of African forest elephants, is directly tied to criminal poaching activities, some with ties to terrorist groups, according to Washington’s nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency.
“Trade in ivory has been a driver of destabilization wherever it occurs in Africa,” agency President Allan Thornton said.
Thornton said one-time auctions of stockpiled ivory to China and Japan in 2008 resulted in a spike in illegal poaching, and the rate of decline among Africa’s elephants has been accelerating since.
In areas with a high rate of population decline, the savanna turns into an overgrown thicket devoid of grasslands that sustain other wildlife and becomes overrun by disease-carrying tsetse flies, said James Deutsch, director of Allen’s Vulcan Inc. Wildlife Conservation.
(Caleb Jones, ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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The wet messy storm could also push dangerous storm surges inland if it arrives at high tide. Hermine faced little resistance from wind shear and slowed to a standstill earlier in the day over warm waters so it could still strengthen to a hurricane by the time it makes landfall. Computer models Wednesday evening shifted the track west over the Panhandle. But forecasters warn that where it arrives is not as worrisome as wider impacts, which in Hermine’s case could stretch south on the side of the storm where winds are concentrated.
Forecasters expanded surge warnings Wednesday evening, with water in parts of the Panhandle at risk of reaching up to 6 feet.
(MIAMI HERALD )
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The Norwegian Environment Agency has released eerie images showing a jumble of reindeer carcasses scattered across a small area on the Hardangervidda mountain plateau. The agency said 323 animals were killed, including 70 calves, in the lightning storm Friday.
Agency spokesman Kjartan Knutsen told The Associated Press it’s not uncommon for reindeer or other wildlife to be killed by lightning strikes but this was an unusually deadly event.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES )
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The first system was expected by forecasters to become a tropical storm before brushing the North Carolina coast today, bringing heavy rain and high winds to barrier islands popular for serene beaches.
Another tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico could hit northern Florida as a tropical storm later in the week and possibly head toward the Atlantic coast, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. They cautioned that the storm’s exact path remained uncertain days in advance.
Coastal Dare County in North Carolina could face winds of up to 45 mph with higher gusts and heavy rain that could flood low-lying areas through Wednesday, according to an emergency management news release. To the south, Carteret County officials also warned of flooding and advised residents to monitor forecasts.
A tropical storm warning was issued for areas of the coast from Cape Lookout to the Oregon Inlet along the Outer Banks.
“I would advise everybody to take a look at the weather,” Dare County emergency management director Drew Pearson said when asked whether visitors should keep their travel plans. “They need to make those decisions based on what they see in the weather forecast.” Tourists sought to take the approaching storm in stride.
Visitor Katherine Vega, 45, of Springhill, Tenn., said she could handle a day indoors during her vacation. By Monday afternoon, she had already fled the Atlantic’s swelling waves and strengthening currents off Hatteras Island in Buxton.
“We were just knee-deep, and there were a few times where we had to run out because it kept sucking us in,” she said, adding she’d watch movies with her husband until the storm blows through.
“We came from Tennessee,” she said with a shrug. “There are tornado threats over there.”
As of Monday night, the first depression was about 125 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras with top sustained winds of 35 mph and moving to the northwest. It was expected to become a tropical storm today but not grow stronger than that, said National Weather Service meteorologist Shane Kearns in eastern North Carolina. “Anything is possible, but we’re not really seeing any kind of significant strengthening for the storm,” he said in an interview.
The second depression was about 240 miles west of Key West, Fla., with maximum winds of 35 mph. It was moving west, but forecasters expect it could curve back to the northeast in the coming days. Authorities at some locations in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area of Florida were hauling out sandbags Monday to offer residents amid predictions of heavy rains.
On North Carolina’s Outer Banks, business owner Jennifer Scarborough said her biggest concern was that the first storm could saturate the area before another blow by the second storm.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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They also called for efforts to ensure organized crime doesn’t infiltrate lucrative construction contracts to eventually rebuild much of the picturesque towns leveled in the disaster.
Meanwhile, rescue workers pressed on with the task of recovering bodies from the rubble, with hopes of finding any more survivors virtually vanished more than four full days after the powerful quake.
Over the past two days, they found six more bodies in the rubble of Hotel Roma in Amatrice, the medieval hill town in mountainous central Italy that bore the brunt of destruction and loss of life in the powerful quake. They recovered three and by late Sunday were still working to retrieve others that were hard to reach.
It wasn’t clear if those six were included in the overall 290 death toll given by authorities. The Civil Protection agency, which combines the figures it receives from different provinces affected by the quake, said the number is lower than the previous toll of 291 dead due to a correction in the numbers from the province of Rieti, where most of the victims died.
The quake that struck before dawn Wednesday also injured nearly 400 people as it flattened three medieval towns near the rugged Apennines. Prosecutor Giuseppe Saieva, based in the nearby provincial capital of Rieti, said the high human death toll “cannot only be considered the work of fate.” “The fault lines tragically did their work, and this is called destiny, but if the buildings had been built like in Japan they would not have collapsed,” Saieva said in comments carried by Italian media.
Investigations are focusing on a number of structures, including an elementary school in Amatrice that crumbled despite being renovated in 2012 to resist earthquakes at a cost of 700,000 euros ($785,000). With schoolchildren’s summer vacations in their final weeks, the school wasn’t yet in use. Many were shocked that it didn’t withstand the 6.2 magnitude quake. After an entire first-grade class and a teacher were killed in a 2002 quake in the southern town of San Giuliano di Puglia, Italian officials had pledged citizens that the safety of schools, hospitals and other critical public buildings would be guaranteed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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“With the aftershocks yesterday but especially this morning the situation has worsened considerably,” Pirozzi told reporters. “We have to make sure Amatrice does not become isolated, or risk further help being unable to get through.”
The biggest aftershock struck at 6:28 a.m., one of the more than 1,000 that have hit the area since Wednesday’s quake. The U.S. Geological Survey said it had a magnitude of 4.7, while the Italian geophysics institute measured it at 4.8. It left one key access bridge to Amatrice unusable, and damaged another one. Crews began clearing trees to create an alternate bypass road to avoid the nearly 25-mile detour up and down mountain roads that they were forced to use Friday, slowing the rescue effort.
Even before the roads were shut down, traffic into and out of Amatrice was horribly congested with emergency vehicles and dump trucks carrying tons of concrete, rocks and metal down the single-lane roads. Multiple ambulances were also bringing the dead to an airport hangar in the provincial capital of Rieti, where four big white refrigerated trucks created a makeshift morgue to which relatives came in a steady stream Friday.
Premier Matteo Renzi declared a state of emergency and authorized 50 million euros ($56 million) for immediate quake relief. The Italian government also declared today a day of national mourning and scheduled a state funeral to be attended by President Sergio Mattarella.
Thirty-four caskets were lined up in a gym in Ascoli Piceno ahead of today’s Mass.
A memorial service for the Amatrice victims is scheduled for next week.
Rescue efforts continued, but by nightfall, two full days had passed since the last person was extracted alive from the rubble.
“There is still hope to find survivors under the rubble, even in these hours,” Walter Milan, a rescue worker, said Friday.
But he conceded: “Certainly, it will be very unlikely.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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But seismic experts and structural engineers say there remain many buildings across California that could not withstand the type of magnitude 6.2 temblor that on Wednesday hit Amatrice and other rural villages in the Apennine Mountains that form Italy’s spine. The structural flaw in those ancient stone homes is not so different from unreinforced brick buildings built in California before 1933, they say. That year, the Long Beach earthquake flattened many structures and left 120 people dead.
The Long Beach quake shares several similarities to this week’s temblor in Italy. It was slightly more powerful, estimated at magnitude 6.4, and like this week’s temblor was shallow, meaning the shaking was particularly strong at ground level.
The shaking in Long Beach turned the mortar between bricks back into sand. With nothing tying the walls to the roof, bricks shot out from walls like cannonballs, and roofs came crashing down. Numerous office buildings, stores and schools collapsed. The devastation began decades of earthquake safety measures in California, including a ban on new brick buildings that have not been reinforced. Some cities forced property owners to retrofit or demolish existing unreinforced masonry structures.
But thousands remain. Officials have expressed particular concern about cities including San Bernardino and Bakersfield, where there are clusters of these buildings and no retrofitting requirement.
“They are unbelievably dangerous buildings,” said structural engineer Kit Miyamoto, a member of the California Seismic Safety Commission, who has visited Italy before to study earthquake damage. “The things that we see in Italy, there will be similar things that we see here.”
San Diego’s brick buildings aren’t likely to pose a similar threat. The city established a mandated program for unreinforced masonry in 1992, requiring by January 2006 that owners of brick buildings reinforce walls to prevent bricks from collapsing.
Anthony Santacroce, a city spokesman, said the number of unreinforced brick buildings is now “in the single digits.”
While the city was unable to provide an exact number, those not in compliance have been accruing fees to encourage compliance. The city works with each building owner to make sure the process is completed. Santacroce said that the reinforcement doesn’t make buildings “earthquake proof,” but the work prevents bricks from falling onto people in an earthquake, allowing people more time to escape. In central Italy, the quake also damaged brittle concrete buildings built in the 1960s and 1970s, Gian Michele Calvi, structural design professor at the Institute for Advanced Study of Pavia, said Thursday in a telephone interview. Hundreds of similar buildings— mostly un-retrofitted — exist across California.
But the lion’s share of casualties in Italy are believed to have been people trapped in the rubble of unreinforced stone homes that date back to medieval times, Calvi said.
“It was just terrifying — really, quite a bit of destruction,” U.S. Geological Survey geologist Kate Scharer said. “It’s one of the most problematic (types of buildings) for withstanding even moderate magnitude earthquakes.”
Brick and brittle concrete buildings have been the focus of much debate in recent years. Los Angeles last year passed the nation’s toughest earthquake safety rules, requiring retrofitting of brittle concrete buildings, and San Francisco is studying similar rules.
Retrofitting a brick building is relatively inexpensive. The basic approach involves pushing steel rods to affix the brick wall to the building’s ceilings and floors. More extensive versions involve installing diagonal braces or adding reinforced concrete or polymers to the walls.
“You basically have four walls being held up by the weight of the roof, so when they shake, there’s nothing to keep them together,” Gonzalez said. “The reinforcement allows people enough time to get out safely” once the shaking has stopped.
Concrete buildings are generally much larger than brick ones. They can cost more than $1 million to fix, making them far more expensive.
The earthquake struck Italy at perhaps the worst possible time — the late summer season, when children from the city are sent up to their grandparents’ ancestral homes in the mountains, filling residences that are usually empty. The region has only 5,000 or so residents, but is now filled with tens of thousands of visitors. This weekend, Amatrice was to hold its annual festival for its namesake signature pasta, spaghetti all’amatriciana.
“This is the reason there are so many victims, because there are many people there who are not normally living there,” said Calvi, the Italian professor. “It is well known that there is a very high vulnerability, and consequently, there is a very high chance of collapse in case of a strong earthquake, like this one.”
It wasn’t just homes that are gone. A hospital collapsed, and buildings for police and firefighters were ruined, Calvi said. In one town, there was not a single building safe enough to set up an emergency command post, so officials were forced to set one up in the town square, Calvi said.
“In a high seismicity zone, this is really unbelievable,” Calvi said. He said lawmakers have considered, but never acted on, reforms to convince owners to retrofit these quake-vulnerable buildings. Calvi said there is not much motivation for owners to retrofit.
“This is a problem related to the fact that politicians have not really paid attention,” Calvi said.
The Italy earthquake is similar to the kinds of earthquakes seen in California. Even a magnitude 6 earthquake can cause severe damage if it’s shallow, and hits directly underneath a populated area.
“It was kind of a perfect storm, locally,” said USGS seismologist Susan Hough. Italy’s earthquake struck only six miles deep. By contrast, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake that struck Myanmar, also on Wednesday, was more than eight times deeper and caused far less damage and deaths.
“Think of an earthquake as a bomb underground,” Hough said. “Whether it’s six miles below your feet, or 50 miles down, makes a big difference.”
(Rong-Gong Lin II, CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP; Daniel Wheaton, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE )
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Residents wakened before dawn by the temblor emerged from their crumbled homes to find what they described as apocalyptic scenes “like Dante’s Inferno,” with entire blocks of buildings turned into piles of sand and rock, thick dust choking the air and a putrid smell of gas.
“The town isn’t here anymore,” said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of the hardest-hit town, Amatrice. “I believe the toll will rise.”
The magnitude 6.2 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents woke to a long swaying followed by aftershocks. The temblor shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast, a highly seismic area that has witnessed major quakes in the past. Dozens of people were pulled out alive by rescue teams and volunteers that poured in from around Italy.
In the evening, about 17 hours after the quake struck, firefighters pulled a 10-year-old girl alive from the rubble in Pescara del Tronto.
“You can hear something under here. Quiet, quiet,” one rescue worker said, before soon urging her on: “Come on, Giulia, come on, Giulia.”
Cheers broke out when she was pulled out. And there were wails when bodies emerged. “Unfortunately, 90 percent we pull out are dead, but some make it, that’s why we are here,” said Christian Bianchetti, a volunteer from Rieti who was working in devastated Amatrice where flood lights were set up so the rescue could continue through the night.
Premier Matteo Renzi visited the zone Wednesday, greeted rescue teams and survivors, and pledged that “No family, no city, no hamlet will be left behind.” Italy’s civil protection agency reported the death toll had risen to 247 by late Wednesday; at least 368 others were injured.
Worst affected were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, some 60 miles northeast of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto, about 16 miles farther east. Italy’s civil protection agency set up tent cities around each hamlet to accommodate the thousands of homeless. Italy’s health minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, visiting the devastated area, said many of the victims were children: The quake zone is a popular spot for Romans with second homes, and the population swells in August when most Italians take their summer holiday before school resumes.
The medieval center of Amatrice was devastated, with the hardest-hit half of the city cut off by rescue crews digging by hand to get to trapped residents.
The birthplace of the famed spaghetti all’amatriciana bacon and tomato sauce, the city was full for this weekend’s planned festival honoring its native dish. Guests filled its top Hotel Roma— famous for its amatriciana — where five bodies were pulled from the rubble before the operation was suspended when conditions became too dangerous late Wednesday. Among those killed was an 11-year-old boy who had initially shown signs of life. Officials initially said about 70 guests were staying at the hotel, but later lowered the number to about 35, many of whom got out in time.
Carlo Cardinali, a local fire official taking part in the search efforts at the hotel, told Sky TG24 that about 10 guests were still missing.
Amatrice is made up of 69 hamlets that teams from around Italy were working to reach with sniffer dogs, earth movers and other heavy equipment. In the city center, rocks and metal tumbled onto the streets and dazed residents huddled in piazzas as more than 200 aftershocks jolted the region throughout the day, some as strong as magnitude 5.1.
“The whole ceiling fell but did not hit me,” marveled resident Maria Gianni. “I just managed to put a pillow on my head and I wasn’t hit, luckily, just slightly injured my leg.”
Another woman, sitting in front of her destroyed home with a blanket over her shoulders, said she didn’t know what had become of her loved ones.
“It was one of the most beautiful towns of Italy and now there’s nothing left,” she said, too distraught to give her name.“I don’t know what we’ll do.”
As the August sun turned into a nighttime chill, residents, civil protection workers and even priests dug with shovels, bulldozers and their bare hands to reach survivors. A steady column of dump trucks brought tons of twisted metal, rock and cement down the hill and onto the highway toward Rome, along with a handful of ambulances bringing the injured to Rome hospitals.
“We need chain saws, shears to cut iron bars and jacks to remove beams. Everything, we need everything,” civil protection worker Andrea Gentili told The Associated Press in the early hours of the recovery. Italy’s national blood drive association appealed for donations to Rieti’s hospital.
Despite a massive rescue and relief effort— with army, Alpine crews, carabineri, firefighters, RedCross crews and volunteers, it wasn’t enough: A few miles north of Amatrice, in Illica, residents complained that rescue workers were slow to arrive and that loved ones were trapped.
“We are waiting for the military,” said resident Alessandra Cappellanti. “There is a base in Ascoli, one in Rieti, and in L’Aquila. And we have not seen a single soldier. We pay! It’s disgusting!”
Agostino Severo, a Rome resident visiting Illica, said workers eventually arrived after an hour or so. “We came out to the piazza, and it looked like Dante’s Inferno,” he said. “People crying for help, help.”
The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake’s magnitude was 6.2, while the Italian geological service put it at 6 and the European Mediterranean Seismological Center at 6.1. The quake had a shallow depth of between two and six miles, the agencies said. Generally, shallow earthquakes pack a bigger punch and tend to be more damaging than deeper quakes.
“The Apennine mountains in central Italy have the highest seismic hazard in Western Europe and earthquakes of this magnitude are common,” noted Richard Walters, a lecturer in Earth sciences at Durham University in Britain.
The devastation harkened back to the 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people in and around L’Aquila, about 55 miles south of the latest quake.
(Paolo Santalucia & Frances D'Emilio, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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The first, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake, struck at 3:36 a.m. near the town of Accumoli, in the province of Rieti.
The mayor of Accumoli reported that people had been killed there. And at least two people were reported to have been killed in Pescara del Tronto in the province of Ascoli Piceno, according to the authorities Severe damage was reported in Amatrice, where Mayor Sergio Pirozzi said, “Half the town no longer exists.” He added that Amatrice had been cut off because of damage to roads and to a bridge, and appealed during a live television broadcast for assistance.
“There are people stuck in the rubble,” he said, calling on emergency services to help clear roads. “Houses are no longer there,” he added, suggesting that victims had been buried in the rubble.
The paths of destruction led to other places, including the Tyrrhenian coast. A witness in Sperlonga, a popular seaside town in Lazio, said that the historic city center had been seriously damaged, and news channels showed photos of crumbled buildings and rubble-covered cars.
The earthquake was felt from Rome to Bologna, in Emilia Romagna, in a broad area pockmarked with dozens of small towns, and Italian officials said it was difficult to gauge the number of casualties or the damage as the earth trembled throughout the night.
Fabrizio Curcio, the director of Italy’s Civil Protection Department, said that the earthquake had been “severe” and that national emergency procedures had been activated. The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology reported that there had been nearly a dozen other earthquakes in the affected area over the course of about two hours. None were as strong as the 6.2 quake.
Katherine Selby, of Nottingham, England, was vacationing with her family in Campagnano di Roma, just outside Rome, when the wardrobe doors began “shaking like crazy,” she wrote on Twitter. It was frightening because it was unclear what was going on, she said, adding that she was anxiously waiting for the next aftershock. She said there was no damage. The U.S. Geological Survey said the population in the region lives in structures that are a “mix of vulnerable and earthquake-resistant construction.”
A Twitter user in Le Marche reported that electricity had been knocked out.
In 2009, a devastating earthquake in the Abruzzo region of central Italy killed more than 300 people and left some 65,000 homeless.
A 1997 quake killed a dozen people in the area and severely damaged one of the jewels of Umbria, the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, filled with Giotto frescoes. The Franciscan friars who are the custodians of the basilica reported no immediate damage from today’s temblor.
(Elisabetta Povoledo & Christopher Mele, THE NEW YORK TIMES )
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The blaze destroyed an estimated 105 homes and 213 other structures in San Bernardino County and now ranks as the 20th most destructive wildfire in state history, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The massive fire put more than 82,000 residents under mandatory evacuation orders and created.
Meanwhile, several other large wildfires continued to burn throughout the state.
The 37,101-acre Chimney fire burning near Lake Nacimiento in San Luis Obispo County was 35 percent contained on Tuesday morning. The fire has destroyed 52 structures and damaged seven. It threatens an additional 1,896 structures.
In Santa Barbara County, the Rey fire, which has burned 29,664 acres, was 30 percent contained. The Soberanes fire burning in Monterey County near Big Sur was 60 percent contained on Tuesday. It has charred 87,316 acres and has been burning for more than a month.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES )
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As he toured a battered neighborhood and spoke to local officials, Obama tried to buck up beleaguered residents of the water-soaked region. “This is not a one-off, this is not a photo-op issue. I need all Americans to stay focused on this,” he said. “I know how resilient the people of Louisiana are and I know that you will rebuild again.”
Eleven years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, Obama’s visit was a reminder of the political dangers and opportunities natural disasters pose for politicians. The president has been criticized for waiting until after he returned from his New England vacation to tour the Gulf Coast flooding. The timing, amid a heated presidential campaign, drew barbs from some local officials and Republicans political opponents, including GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. Trump visited Baton Rouge on Friday, enjoying a warm reception and allowing him to cast the president as golfing while Louisianans suffered. It was a sentiment echoed by many in the area, many of whom have said they feel their plight has been ignored by the media.
“Too little too late,” Mona Gaspard said of Obama’s visit. The resident of Ascension Parish said she saw her home filled with 4 feet of water and resented what she saw from Obama. “I saw him play golf, not helping out over here. Trump was over here, but he wasn’t,” she said.
Others welcomed Obama and the spotlight he brought.
“It means a lot to know you have that support from the highest level,” said Chrisena Brown, as the president surveyed the piles of discarded mattresses, broken appliances and heaps of clothing that line the curbs of her street. The college administrator says she’s staying with family while she cleans up, working late into the night in stifling humidity.
Going door to door and trailed by cameras, Obama offered sympathy to residents as they took a break from the cleanup. “I wish I was coming at a better time,” he told one resident, as he put his arm around her and walked into her home for a brief tour. “But I’m glad to see everybody is safe, at least.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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Nearly 1,900 structures were threatened by the nearly 52-square-mile blaze in coastal San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties, where more than 2,400 people were under evacuation orders, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. Despite its being well over a week old, the fire surged with new activity on Monday and threatened to jump the lines that were containing it.
By day’s end the blaze remained 35 percent contained after destroying 34 homes and 14 other buildings.
Hearst Castle, the palatial ocean view estate built by William Randolph Hearst and a major stop on summer road trips, remained closed because of proximity to the fire. Eighty miles up the coast, California’s biggest fire grew to nearly 135 square miles in rugged wilderness coast along Highway 1 north of Big Sur.
More than 400 homes remained threatened by the fire, which was started July 22 by an illegal campfire and has destroyed 57 homes and 11 other buildings. A bulldozer operator was killed in a rollover accident last month.
The prevalence of poison oak in the region was proving a problem. Five hundred firefighters, including 200 in the past three days, had sought treatment after contact with the toxic shrub, authorities said.
In the Santa Ynez Mountains above Santa Barbara, a wildfire expanded to nearly 37 square miles as it chewed through critically dry brush, grass and oak canopies.
Just 20 percent contained, the blaze has caused the closure of campgrounds and recreation areas but remains far from communities. It was, however, a threat to vegetation in watersheds important to supplies on the south coast of Santa Barbara County.
In the southern Sierra Nevada, a fire feeding on critically dry, beetle-killed timber expanded to more than 30 square miles of Sequoia National Forest in Kern and Tulare counties northwest of Lake Isabella.
Nearly 1,600 people in 13 small communities were under mandatory evacuations orders and evacuations were recommended for a half-dozen others, said fire spokesman Naaman Horn. He said the fire is within a mile of the community of Alta Sierra in Kern County. Thunderstorms were a concern as well Monday, not for rain, but due to potential for lightning and gusty winds.
Sixty miles east of Los Angeles, minimal activity was seen at fire that burned nearly 58 square miles and 105 homes in Cajon Pass and the San Gabriel Mountains last week. With all evacuations lifted, firefighters were extinguishing hotspots and doing erosion control while utility crews replaced infrastructure lost to the blaze.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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About 82,000 people were ordered to leave their properties Tuesday when the fire broke out 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
Most of those residents are returning to find their homes intact, though not all. A preliminary damage assessment found 105 homes and 216 outbuildings destroyed across the rural, mountainous terrain where large swaths of open terrain have been turned black.
“This fire did not go through a dense community, like some fires do,” fire spokesman Costa Dillon said Sunday. “Almost all of this area is sparsely populated.”
The once-fast moving and erratic blaze that burned nearly 58 square miles was 83 percent contained Sunday, up from 73 percent the evening before. Firefighters were going property to property in the areas most heavily hit to quell any lingering flames and hot spots.
“You don’t want somebody to come back to a neighborhood where a fire could suddenly flare up on the property next door from something still smoldering,” Dillon said.
Fire officials briefed residents at an evacuation center Sunday morning at the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds where about 15 residents remained.
Johanna Santore, 63, her husband and their 10-year-old granddaughter were among those who learned Sunday they are still not being permitted to return home.
The family’s home and nearly all their belongings were destroyed in the blaze.
Santore said the family was “holding up,” but that Saturday evening when everyone was asleep she’d gone outside and cried thinking of the family’s lost pets and mementoes. The Santores were out running an errand when the fire broke out and were unable to return to save anything.
Four dogs, six cats and a hamster left behind are missing.
“I’m hoping someone is stuck around hiding someplace,” Santore said. “And if I start calling, they might recognize our voices.”
In the meantime, she has begun looking into how to replace birth certificates, their housing deed and other important documents they are unlikely to recover. A prolonged drought has transformed swaths of California into tinderboxes, ready to ignite. Six other wildfires were burning in the state, including one in San Luis Obispo County that forced the closure of the historic Hearst Castle on Saturday. It remained closed Sunday. That fire grew to nearly 38 square miles overnight into Sunday and remained 35 percent contained. Fire spokeswoman Jaime Garrett said the fire was growing in the opposite direction of the Hearst Castle. The castle is a popular tourist attraction and houses a large art collection that belonged to media magnate William Randolph Hearst.
In rural Santa Barbara County, a 15-square-mile wildfire forced the evacuation of two campgrounds.
In Northern California, fire crews were gaining control Sunday on an arson fire that destroyed 189 homes. Officials said the 6-square-mile fire in Lower Lake was 95 percent contained.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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Five feet of water swept through the homes in the quiet Park Forest neighborhood just over a week ago, shocking residents who had been told they did not live in a flood zone.
“It’s not a flood zone,” said Robins, a 27-year-old Navy veteran. “At least it didn’t used to be.”
As efforts in Louisiana turn from rescue to recovery, renters and homeowners who do not have flood insurance are facing an uncertain financial future.
Private insurers do not cover flood damage, and flood insurance in the United States is underwritten by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Homeowners who live in designated high-risk flood zones are required to carry flood insurance if they have a federally backed mortgage.
In Louisiana, an estimated 42 percent of homes in high-risk areas have flood insurance, according to FEMA. Only 12.5 percent of homeowners in low and moderate-risk zones do.
Many of the areas hit hard by record rainfall last week were not considered at high risk for flooding.
Those residents without flood insurance are eligible for up to $33,000 in FEMA individual disaster assistance funds, although most will likely receive less than that, based on payments after other major disasters.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, FEMA paid $6.6 billion to approximately 1.07 million households and individuals in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, an average of just over $6,000 per grant, according to agency figures.
(REUTERS )
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Fishing guides and rafting operators who run businesses along the river said the move could be catastrophic to the area’s sizable outdoor industry, which depends heavily on the busy summer season. The closure could extend for months if river conditions don’t improve and fish keep dying, according to officials from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. It includes hundreds of miles of waterways that feed into the Yellowstone, including the Boulder, Shields and Stillwater rivers. Even when the river reopens, there are fears the fish die-off could deal a lasting blow to the Yellowstone’s reputation as a world-class trout fishery that draws visitors from around the world.
“This kill is unprecedented in magnitude. We haven’t seen something like this in Montana,” Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokeswoman Andrea Jones said.
By Friday, roughly 4,000 dead fish had been counted, but the total number is estimated to be in the tens of thousands, including fish that sank to the bottom, officials said.
Most have been mountain whitefish, a native game species, but reports also emerged that the die-off has affected some rainbow trout and Yellowstone cutthroat trout — species crucial to the area’s fishing industry.
No dead fish were found inside Yellowstone National Park, where a celebration of the National Park Service’s 100th anniversary was planned for next week. Officials said they had no plans to close waters inside the park.
The closure on the Montana portion of the river aims to stop the spread of the parasite, which causes fish to contract a fatal kidney disease, and to protect the fishery and the outdoor economy it sustains, officials said.
The disease was previously documented just twice in the state over the past 20 years but more recent outbreaks have occurred in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Officials said it does not pose a health risk to people.
Low water levels and warm temperatures are making the problem worse by adding to the stresses faced by cold-water species such as trout and whitefish, officials said. In other rivers, fish dieoffs caused by outbreaks of the disease persisted until water temperatures dropped significantly as winter began, they said.
Fishing, wading, floating, boating and all other activities are not allowed until further notice. Numerous fly fishing outfitters and rafting companies operate in the closed stretch of river, which extends from Yellowstone National Park’s northern boundary to the city of Laurel, along with all tributaries in those areas.
(Matthew Brown, ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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Johanna Santore was among those left homeless. She was running an errand Tuesday when the fire charged through her neighborhood. She tried to rush home to rescue the family’s four dogs, six cats and hamster but was blocked by closed roads. Frantic for answers, she posted messages about her pets on Facebook. A group of animal rescue volunteers saw her pleas and offered to check on the animals. They found the house in smoldering ruins — with no signs of the pets.
“I’m actually feeling numb,” said Santore, who fled with her husband and granddaughter to an evacuation center. “It’s like a nightmare.” Thousands of residents chased from their mountain and desert homes were slowly beginning to take stock of their losses as the preliminary damage assessment was released for the Blue Cut fire, which erupted Tuesday in drought-parched canyons east of Los Angeles.
Firefighters initially struggled to get the towering flames under control but later made dramatic progress in corralling the fire that scorched nearly 58 square miles and was 26 percent contained. Plans were under way Friday to demobilize some of the nearly 1,600 firefighters.
Fire spokesman Brad Pitassi said crews were in defensive posture until Thursday night when they reached a turning point, aided by a buildup of ground forces and a fast-paced air attack with retardant and water drops.
“That number could have been much higher,” he said of the destroyed homes and buildings, noting that at one point the fire had grown by 30,000 acres in 24 hours.
Katie and Johnathon Havens piled their 1-year-old son and teacup Chihuahua into their RV as flames neared.
The Havens thought they had lost everything when a map of the fire was released. They later discovered their house was intact after they were able to access a camera they had placed inside the home.
“It’s very comforting to know the house is still there,” Katie Havens said. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to go back and have neighbors who don’t have homes anymore. The community is never going to be the same.”
A small number of residents have been allowed to return home, but fire officials could not say when all the evacuations would be lifted. No deaths have been reported and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
A prolonged drought has transformed swaths of California into tinderboxes, ready to ignite. Several other wildfires were burning in the state.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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Approximately 280,000 people live in the areas that flooded, according to an analysis the chamber released Friday. In those flood-affected areas are 110,000 homes worth a combined $20.7 million [sic: should this be billion?] and more than 7,000 businesses — about one in every five businesses in the region — that together employ more than 73,000 people.
The figures underscore two of the biggest challenges that local, state and federal officials face as they work to recover from the unprecedented flooding: How to house the families left suddenly homeless, and how to pay for the recovery. The hardest-hit area in the region was Livingston Parish, according to the report: Nearly 87 percent of its homes and 91 percent of its businesses are in flood-affected areas. Few residents had flood insurance. The value of homes in flooded areas exceeds $9 billion, the report says, but “the combined coverage of all Livingston flood policies, in full force, amounts to less than $2.5 billion.”
Two-thirds of the homes in Livingston Parish carry mortgages, the report says.
The chamber cautions that this is a preliminary analysis subject to change as more information becomes available. It does not attempt to assess the actual cost of property damage, but rather the total value of homes in flooded areas. And it does not show the value of other belongings — such as cars, furniture, clothes and appliances — that were lost to the flood.
The analysis covers the nine parishes considered part of the capital city region. Altogether, 20 parishes have been declared disaster areas, and in some of those areas, water was still rising Friday even as the cleanup continued in earnest further north.
“This disaster is still unfolding like a slow-moving freight train,” the report says.
(THE WASHINGTON POST )
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Crews were expected to remain throughout the night to fully douse the 15-acre blaze, which was 40 percent contained by evening. There were no reports of damage to homes, fire officials said. The fire ignited about 4 p.m. north of Pointe Parkway and west of Jamacha Road, fire officials said. Fueled by hot weather and dry, thick brush, the flames headed north, across a canyon, toward houses on Ledgeside Street.
“(Firefighters) had everything stacked up against them ... but because they got in there quickly, they went to work and they were able to do an outstanding job to save the homes,” said Cal Fire Capt. Kendal Bortisser said.
Some firefighters stood in the backyards of residences on Ledgeside Street and attacked the flames as they approached, said several neighbors who briefly evacuated their homes. More than 100 firefighters, with the help of air tankers and water-dropping helicopters, were able to halt the spread of the flames in about an hour and a half, Bortisser said.
During their efforts, one firefighter was bitten by a snake and taken to a hospital. He was recovering well Wednesday night, Bortisser said.
Residents on Ledgeside Street between South Barcelona Street and Ledgeview Avenue, as well as on Pointe Parkway, California Waters Drive and Pleasant Water Court were briefly evacuated. A evacuation center was temporarily set up at nearby Monte Vista High School on Sweetwater Springs Boulevard, but many residents stayed in the area. One resident, who identified herself only as Rebecca, said she left her home off Ledgeside Street with her two daughters, ages 1 and 2, as soon as a neighbor knocked on her door and alerted her to the blaze.
“You grab what you can, say goodbye to the house and hope for the best,” she said. “The fear of losing everything is terrifying.”
Many residents coming home from work were not allowed into the neighborhood. Some who were worried about their pets were reunited with them thanks to the San Diego County Animal Services.
When a friend texted Derrick Casler, 34, about the fire, he left work early to check on his two dogs. The area was closed off when he arrived, but an animal services worker went to his Ivy Way home and brought him Gunner and Penny. “They were nice enough to get the dogs for me just in case,” he said as he looked down at his tail-wagging pets.
Residents were allowed back into the neighborhood about 6 p.m.
When Rebecca returned to her Ferntree Lane house, she found it covered with pink retardant and filled with a bit of smoke. Considering the flames came within about 50 feet of her home, she lauded the firefighters’ work. “They did the hardest job for sure,” she said. “They were so kind, too. I told them, ‘Thank you so much for saving my house.’ And they were so apologetic about the fire.”
Strong, gusty winds and very low humidity — ideal conditions for wildfires — prompted the National Weather Service to extend a red-flag warning in the county until 9 p.m. today. It was about 95 degrees in Spring Valley when the fire ignited.
The cause of the blaze is under investigation.
(David Hernandez & Lyndsay Winkley, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE )
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People whose homes were swamped by some of the heaviest rains Louisiana has ever seen are staying in shelters, bunking with friends or relatives, or sleeping in trailers on their front lawns. Others unable or unwilling to leave their homes are living amid mud and the ever-present risk of mold in the steamy August heat.
Many victims will need an extended place to stay while they rebuild. Countless others didn’t have flood insurance and may not have the means to repair their homes. They may have to find new places altogether.
“I got nowhere else to go,” said Thomas Lee, 56, who ekes out a living as a drywall hanger — a skill that will come in handy. His sodden furniture is piled at the curb and the drywall in his rented house is puckering, but Thomas still plans to keep living there, sleeping on an air mattress.
Exactly how many will need temporary housing is unclear, but state officials are urging landlords to allow short-term leases and encouraging people to rent out any empty space. “If you have a unit that’s an old mother-in-law suite and you can rent it out, let us know,” said Keith Cunningham, who heads the Louisiana Housing Corporation, the state housing agency.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose very name became a punchline during Katrina, said it will look into lining up rental properties for those left homeless and also consider temporary housing units.
But FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate gave assurances that the temporary units won’t be the old FEMA travel trailers — a reference to the ones brought in after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that were found to have toxic levels of formaldehyde.
The flooding that has struck the Baton Rouge and Lafayette areas has left at least 13 people dead. More than 30,000 have been rescued, and at least 70,000 have registered for federal disaster assistance. At the height, 11,000 people were staying in shelters, though that had dropped to 6,000 by Wednesday.
For the foreseeable future, home for Carolyn Smith, her husband, two grown sons and a family friend will be a 30-foot travel trailer supplied by a relative. It has one bedroom, a sofa-sleeper, four bunks and one bathroom. It sits in the driveway of the home she and her husband lived in for 48 years in Denham Springs. Nearby lies a pile of stinking debris pulled from the flooded, one-story wood-frame home.
Smith and her husband are both in their 70s and on fixed incomes. She said she’s not sure how they will make it in coming months as they try to rebuild the house, which took on more than 4 feet of water.
“We’re starting over again. From rock bottom,” she said. “At our age that’s kind of rough.”
In a sign of the housing crunch, Livingston Parish officials are talking with FEMA about getting temporary housing for emergency and rescue workers. An estimated 75 percent of the homes in the parish of 138,000 residents were a total loss.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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“It hit hard, it hit fast — it hit with an intensity that we haven’t seen before,” San Bernardino County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig said.
By late Wednesday, the blaze had charred through 25,626 acres and was only 4 percent contained, according to Melody Lardner, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.
With winds pushing the Blue Cut fire northwest, fire officials are now concerned it could decimate Lytle Creek, a tiny community in the San Gabriel Mountains under mandatory evacuation since the blaze broke out Tuesday.
Structure protection engines are stationed in Lytle Creek, as well as the adjacent ski resort town of Wrightwood, and more than 1,580 firefighters are attacking encroaching flames “with everything they can from the air and the ground,” Lardner said.
More than 100 firefighters from across the San Diego region have headed north to San Bernardino County to help battle the blaze. The teams came from Oceanside, Vista, Fallbrook, Escondido, San Marcos, Carlsbad, Poway, Rancho Santa Fe, Rincon and Pauma reservations as well as San Diego and Chula Vista.
More than 82,000 people in the county’s rural communities have been forced to flee more than 34,000 homes. An unknown number of homes were destroyed, and the blaze was barely contained. Officials are bracing for an immense tally of devastation from a fire fed by strong winds, parched tinder and triple-digit heat.
“There will be a lot of families that will come home to nothing,” Hartwig warned.
On Wednesday, the remote region was an ominous version of itself. Brilliant flames of red, gold and copper licked at skies choked with smoke. Multiple helicopters whirred in smog as bulldozers razed paths below.
The Summit Inn, a historic diner along Route 66 once frequented by Elvis, had become indistinguishable rubble. Charred skeletons of buildings and cars dotted the area. A cargo train sat idle on tracks, abandoned by its engineer.
A spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service said assessment teams and cadaver dogs would be sent to homes and structures along Highway 138. No deaths were reported, and the cause of the fire wasn’t immediately known.
“The fire came so quickly,” Chon Bribiescas said. “We want to make sure nobody was left behind.”
It’s been 13 years since the area was struck by fire, leaving the hills and mountains a mix of dead brush and new growth. Still, conditions were ripe for a fast-moving fire. The Cajon Pass, acting as a funnel, sent winds that raced up to 30 miles per hour to help the blaze jump Interstate 15, said Michael Wakoski, battalion chief of the San Bernardino County Fire Department and incident commander of the Blue Cut fire. Wakoski said firefighters had difficulty navigating the steep slopes while the flames raced through the rugged terrain.
Six county firefighters were trapped Tuesday by walls of flame while defending homes and evacuating residents in Swarthout Canyon, officials said. They were treated for minor injuries and have returned to the field, officials said. No other injuries have been reported.
In addition to Lytle Creek, Wrightwood and Swarthout Canyon, mandatory evacuations were ordered for Baldy Mesa, Old Cajon Road, Lone Pine Canyon and West Cajon Valley, fire officials said. But the closure of Highway 138 and Interstate 15 — two key thoroughfares in the area — clogged traffic and made it difficult for residents to leave. Mary Grass, 74, and her husband left their Phelan home Tuesday as smoke and flames tore through the area. After dropping their horse off at a friend’s house in Hesperia, they headed to Victorville to spend the night.
They have already seen television footage of neighbors’ residences destroyed.
“Just wondering about our house now,” Grass said.
Others couldn’t bear to leave their home.
“I don’t like this view at all,” Angela Adams said as she stood in her front door in Wrightwood, watching flames smoldering on a hillside.
The 48-year-old occupational therapist had eyed the blaze since sunrise, opting to stay behind to keep tabs on neighbors’ homes.
It helps that her firefighter friends send updates.
Adams also wanted more time to pack up the belongings of her 17-year-old son who died earlier this year in a car accident.
“I just have to have his stuff,” she said of her son’s snowboards, skateboards, hats and clothes.
This year alone, California has been besieged by wildfires that have scorched hundreds of homes and killed eight people — all before fall, when the state’s traditional fire season begins and the Santa Ana winds come into play.
The fires are a sort of “new normal,” said Char Miller, an expert on wildfires and national forests at Pomona College.
“We’re in the fifth year of drought, and we’re starting to see the consequences of that,” he said.
Aerial fights against intense fires can only do so much, Miller said: “You need boots on the ground.”
That’s a tall order as firefighters face temperatures that aren’t likely to cool until Friday, said Philip Gonsalves, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.
Crews won’t be able to rely on any nighttime humidity to recover either, he said. The dozens of residents who made their way to Sultana High School in Hesperia found themselves fearing the worst and taking stock of the best. “You can’t worry about your things,” said Anthony Botello, 48, who left his home with just a handful of clothes and his wedding band. “It’s your life that you have to value.”
Nearby, Osuna Rosa sipped coffee on a cot and retraced the past day’s events.
The 53-year-old hospice nurse was at work in the High Desert on Tuesday morning when she noticed smoke.
The southbound Interstate 15 was closed. She tried an alternate route along Summit Valley Road, but found it clogged with traffic.
After Rosa failed to get a hotel room, she found herself in tears.
Then, a motel employee pointed her to the shelter. In the dimly lit gymnasium, she managed to get a few hours of sleep, still dressed in her blue hospital scrubs.
(Paloma Esquivel, Angel Jennings & Shane Newell, CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP,
publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune and Los Angeles Times; Lyndsay Winkley & Pauline Repard, ASSOCIATED PRESS )
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Fed by strong winds, bone-dry brush and 100-degree temperatures, the Blue Cut fire marched across hills, canyons and flatlands into the night as firefighters struggled to get a handle on a blaze they fear will get worse.
Residents in several communities — including the entire ski resort town of Wrightwood — were forced to flee as the fire spread in several different directions. It closed Interstate 15 and Highway 138 — the two key routes in the area — clogging traffic and making it more difficult for residents to evacuate.
The blaze is the latest in a series of destructive wildfires to hit California as the state endures its fifth year of drought. The fires this year have claimed hundreds of homes and killed eight people, but officials warn the worst might be still to come because Southern California’s traditional fire season doesn’t begin until fall when the hot Santa Ana winds typically arrive.
Officials blame the drought — which has left brush dangerously dry — for helping fuel the fires, which have stretched from Lake County in Northern California to the border region in San Diego County. In some areas, the fires have also been fueled by millions of dead or dying trees in forest areas.
The Blue Cut fire was first reported just after 10:30 a.m. near Interstate 15 and jumped to nearly 1,500 acres within just two hours. As the fire continued to surge late Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in San Bernardino County.
Homes could be seen burning along Highway 138 and television footage showed flames creeping toward a McDonald’s and surrounding a large cross.
“We know that we’ve lost structures, it’s unknown how many at this time,” said Tracey Martinez, public information officer for the San Bernardino County Fire Department. “This fire is still raging out of control.” Six county firefighters became entrapped by walls of flame while defending homes and evacuating residents in Swarthout Canyon, Martinez said. The firefighters were able to take shelter in a nearby structure, but two had to be treated for minor injuries, she said. Both firefighters were released and have resumed battling the wildfire.
In addition to Wrightwood, mandatory evacuations have been ordered for Baldy Mesa, Lytle Creek, Wrightwood, Old Cajon Road, Lone Pine Canyon, West Cajon Valley and Swarthout Canyon, fire officials said. The mandatory calls went out to 34,506 homes with 82,600 people, officials said.
San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies raced door to door, urging residents to evacuate parts of Lytle Creek Canyon on Tuesday afternoon. A visit from a deputy prompted Ellen Pollema, 63, and her husband to flee their home in Happy Jack on Tuesday. The couple quickly packed their cars and fled to a nearby ranger station.
An hour later, Pollema sat in a Prius stuffed with pillows, blankets, clothes and a cat nestled in its carrier. Her husband was parked nearby in a sport utility vehicle with the couple’s three dogs.
Tuesday was far from the couple’s first evacuation. Pollema and her husband have lived in the area for 25 years, and were not surprised by the blaze’s rapid growth. “It’s part of living in this canyon,” she said. “It went fast. But it’s very dry.”
Pollema said she has worked with several of her neighbors to ensure that their properties are cleared of brush and anything else that could make their homes more flammable.
“People need to be prepared and just know that that’s part of the risk of living in these kinds of areas,” she said. “We’ve got a beautiful community.”
Farther up the road, Lytle Creek resident Joe Gonzales was gathering laptops and important papers after deputies asked him to leave. While he was ready to flee, Gonzales said he wanted to wait until deputies checked on an elderly neighbor who might need a ride out of the area.
“I’m a little worried. I don’t want to leave here. We love it in the canyon,” he said. “But that smoke looks pretty bad.” Others were taking a wait-and-see approach as they watched a helicopter swoop down to draw water from a lake and fly toward the advancing fire near Lytle Creek Road and Alder Way. Steve Sager, 53, was packed and ready to go, but had decided to keep an eye on the fire before choosing whether or not to flee as he sat alongside several neighbors on a stone fence. “It’s kind of like a mild tailgate party,” he said. “As long as they can keep it on that ridge we’ll be OK. If it comes over that ridge too far, I’m out of here.”
Cheryl Anaya, 67, had chosen to stay behind to try to protect her two-story log cabin in case flying embers descended on the wood frame building. She’d done the same during a previous wildfire in north Fontana several years earlier.
“We’re gonna stay and fight,” she told one neighbor who was heading for the nearest highway.
But with the Blue Cut fire rapidly growing in size, Anaya accepted that she too might have to race out of the area if the flames got too close.
At least 700 firefighters, 57 engines, 8 fire crews and 10 air tankers were on the scene as of 3 p.m., said Mattingly, who added that the fire was burning through “heavy, dry brush.” An additional 750 firefighters have been ordered to the scene, San Bernardino National Forest officials reported on Twitter.
It was not immediately clear if the fire was surging toward more residential areas or out into the desert. Mattingly said winds were moving northwest on Tuesday afternoon, but warned that could shift quickly.
Authorities shut down I-15 from Oak Hill Road to Kenwood Avenue, forest officials said. State Highway 138 is closed from Highway 2 to I-15. The interstate highway is the major thoroughfare for drivers headed to Las Vegas from Southern California.
Temperatures in San Bernardino rose into triple-digits on Tuesday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. A high of 99 is expected Wednesday, with southwest wind gusts of up to 10 miles per hour expected in the afternoon.
The blaze erupted as crews battled another major fire in Northern California, where the Clayton fire had ripped through 4,000 acres in Lake County, nearly obliterating entire neighborhoods and causing thousands to flee.
A 40-year-old man was charged with arson in connection with the blaze late Monday, police said.
(Sarah Parvin, Paloma Esquivel & James Queally, CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP,
publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune and Los Angeles Times )
NB: by the morning hours of 8/17, the fire grew to over 30,000 acres, and the
historic Summit Inn (see online SD Tribune latest news) was destroyed.
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The scope of the disaster was unprecedented, officials said. At least 40,000 homes had been damaged, Louisiana’s governor said, and 11 people have been killed since two feet of rain began falling Thursday night.
More than 10,000 people were in shelters, miles of roads remained impassible, the start of the school year was canceled and first responders began the grim work of door-to-door inspections to check for drowning victims.
Frantic relatives inundated social media, asking for help for those still stuck and those they couldn’t find.
“I don’t know that we have a good handle on the number of people who are missing,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news briefing Tuesday afternoon. The number of those stranded and still needing rescue “was next to impossible to say,” said Mike Steele, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, “and it’s changing every minute.”
Parishes with heavy damage imposed a curfew to keep the streets clear at night, and officials pleaded with people to stay out of neighborhoods still hip high in muddy water. Volunteers set forth in flatboats and canoes anyway, plucking the trapped from newly flooded Ascension Parish, southeast of Baton Rouge.
When they got to Joy Garon, the flooding had already chased her from a home she thought was safe on high ground to a cousin’s house. She woke up Tuesday morning to find the water licking at the front door.
Garon, 46, was tearful when she climbed down from an armored vehicle that had picked her up from a volunteer boater and brought her to dry land. She was with her 74-year-old father and her husband and 16-year-old son and headed to yet another house that was still dry — so far.
“I’m devastated,” she said. “I lost everything.” Redell Smith said he had been working the waters for four days and estimated that he had rescued about 300 people as part of the “Cajun Navy” of volunteers using social media to search for the trapped. Steele said about 30,000 have been rescued by personnel with the National Guard, wildlife and fisheries, state police, state fire marshals and local agencies.
In some places, the water had receded, leaving a coating of mud and cars parked haphazardly wherever their owners managed to leave them, on median strips and even in the middle of moving traffic lanes. Cleanup began in some neighborhoods, with mounting piles of sodden furniture dragged to the curb on block after block.
Elsewhere, the water refused to leave. A half-built apartment building in one part of the city was now half-submerged. In the parking lot of an Albertsons, aluminum skiffs floated next to swamped cars. Barely visible tops of stop signs hinted that what now appears to be a river was actually a street.
Bethany and Ben Ash left home with their two young children on Friday as rain kept falling and the flood warnings grew more dire. They brought only what they stuffed in their car — some clothes, books, toys, a computer, iPad, phones and a carton of milk — along with their two dogs, a Chihuahua and a dachshund.
“There’s this thought in my mind, we just need essentials,” Bethany Ash said. “We’ll be back in a couple of days.”
Hours after they left their home, she watched a television news reporter interview a man who had swum down their street in chest-deep water. The last update she got on her house was from a family member who had seen her neighborhood on the news.
“All you could see was rooftops,” she said.
Some who scrambled from their homes into uncertain futures asked why their plight had not received more widespread national attention. W. Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, touched on those concerns at the news conference Tuesday, but he assured Louisianians that the federal government was deeply aware of the breadth of the flooding.
Inside the emergency shelter in Ascension Parish, evacuees said they were being well cared for as they awaited whatever comes next. There was plenty of water, food, first aid and donated clothes, plus toys for the kids and generous air conditioning to stave off the August heat.
But no one had much more than a few bags of belongings, hastily gathered on the way out the door. And everyone had a story of escape, and amid the rows of cots, everyone could tick off a list of what was left behind.
Ed Martin, 69, lives in Prairieville on a property that backs up to Bayou Manchac.
He woke up in four inches of water on Sunday. By lunchtime, it was thigh high and still rising fast, and when the National Guard arrived to help, he agreed it was time to go. Martin figured that he has lost his home and his vehicles, a conversion van and a 1980 El Camino. He recalled his calculations over the cost of flood insurance and his decision not to buy it. “Too late now,” he said.
He shrugged. “I just bought a brand-new 70-inch TV. Watched it twice,” he said. “What am I going to do about it? I’m not God, and I’m not the weatherman.”
Jayda Guidry fled her home on Sunday before dawn when her neighbor alerted her to the rising water. She had lost her job at Walmart and now was worried about what else she might lose. She’s behind on bills. Her husband has a good job at an oil refinery, but his employer warned that he had to show up to work on Tuesday. The clothes he needed were at home, and retrieving them meant leaving the shelter they had found to risk becoming stranded in the submerged streets.
“I’m just lost. I don’t know what to do,” said Guidry, 48, sitting on a folding chair outside a gymnasium converted into an emergency shelter in Ascension Parish. “I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.”
The family decided to caravan home, on a 20-mile trip that took longer than two hours.
Mud coated streets on the way into their neighborhood, and two cars were left abandoned at an intersection, cocked at odd angles. A block from their house, two people walked in the street, dragging bulging plastic bags.
But Guidry’s street was dry. Her neighbors’ lights were on. And when she opened the door to her house, she found it just as she had left it. In the living room, a U-shaped couch faced a large flat-screen television. On the wall, a certificate hailed her 15 years of work at Walmart. “It looks fine,” she said, smiling and crediting God with her good fortune. “I ain’t worried no more.”
(Emma Brown, Ashley Cusick & Mark Berman, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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At least six people have been killed and more than 20,000 have had to be rescued since Friday in some of the worst flooding the state has ever seen.
A seventh body was pulled from floodwaters Monday, said Casey Rayborn Hicks, a spokeswoman for the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office. A volunteer patrolling in his boat found the body, and sheriff’s units confirmed the discovery. The manner of death and identification — confirmation of a flood-related death — will come from the coroner’s office, Hicks said.
As of Monday, the rain had mostly stopped, but rivers and creeks in many areas were still dangerously bloated and new places were getting hit by flooding. In areas south of Baton Rouge, people were filling sandbags, protecting their houses and bracing for the worst as the water worked its way south. In Ascension Parish, officials said some small towns have already been swamped by floods.
More than 11,000 people were staying in shelters, with a movie studio and a civic center that usually hosts concerts and ballets pressed into service. “It was an absolute act of God. We’re talking about places that have literally never flooded before,” said Anthony “Ace” Cox, who started a Facebook group to help collect information about where people were stranded. He was in Baton Rouge to help his parents and grandparents, who got flooded out.
“Everybody got caught off guard,” he said. Forecasters said one reason was the sheer, almost off-the-charts intensity of the storm and the difficulty of predicting how bad it would be.
Meteorologist Ken Graham of the National Weather Service’s office in Slidell said forecasters alerted people days in advance of the storms. The forecasts Thursday were for 8 inches of rain, with higher totals expected in some areas.
Some areas received more than 2 feet of rain in a 48-hour period that ended Saturday morning.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Director Ken Pimlott said the blaze in the town of Lower Lake has caused more than $10 million in damage and left dozens of families homeless.
"Mr. Pashilk committed a horrific crime and we will seek prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. My thoughts continue to be with the people of Lake County during this difficult time," Pimlott said. The wind-whipped blaze had spread to more than 6 square miles in the Lower Lake area about 90 miles north of San Francisco.
It was just 5 percent contained, though late in the day fire officials said no other structures were under direct threat.
For the first time in several generations, wildfire had stalked Lower Lake last year during a devastating period from the end of July through September. Three major blazes blackened towns and mountainous wildland within a few miles to the east and south of town.
The new reality roared into Lower Lake on Sunday, when wind-driven flames fed by pines in the mountains and oaks that cluster on the rolling hills close to town wiped out whole blocks, authorities said.
Lower Lake is home to about 1,300 mostly working class people and retirees.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire reached Main Street in Lower Lake, a town of about 1,200, and burned the post office, a winery, a Habitat for Humanity office and several businesses and restaurants as black smoke loomed over the four-block strip. Staff at a hospital in Clearlake, a neighboring town of about 15,000, rushed to transfer 16 patients to another hospital 25 miles away while firefighters carried goats and other animals to safety as homes burned around them.
Officials confirmed four homes were destroyed, although eyewitnesses could see many more. The fire broke out Saturday afternoon and grew to more than 3 square miles as firefighters struggled to get a handle on the largely out-of-control blaze amid hot, windy conditions.
The fire was creating its own weather pattern and shifted northward into Lower Lake in the afternoon, said Suzie Blankenship, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“As it grows, the fire is pushing heat in front of it, and it gets critically dry,” Cal Fire spokeswoman Suzie Blankenship said.
The fire was throwing embers and spreading rapidly because of parched conditions brought on by the state’s historic drought, officials said. Large, explosive fires have torn through dried-out or hard-to-reach areas across California this summer, including a stubborn blaze near the picturesque Big Sur coastline that has burned 113 square miles since late July and destroyed nearly 60 homes.
Lower Lake was evacuated in a devastating wildfire last year.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Gov. John Bel Edwards said residents had been pulled from swamped cars, flooded homes and threatened hospitals across the southern part of the state. The already soaked region is expected to get more rain from a storm system stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Ohio Valley.
While the brunt of the storm that brought torrential rains was moving west toward Texas, Louisiana residents should remain cautious, the governor said at a news conference. “Even with the sunshine out today intermittently, the waters are going to continue to rise in many areas, so this is no time to let the guard down,” Edwards said, calling the flooding unprecedented.
Obama issued the disaster declaration after speaking with Edwards, the White House said in a statement.
The initial declaration makes federal aid available in the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena and Tangipahoa. Edwards said in a statement that other parishes could be added to the list.
Edwards told a later news conference that more than 20,000 people had been rescued from flood waters in southern Louisiana. In Livingston Parish, phone service was spotty due to the high waters, and most shelters were full. A Greyhound Bus traveling from Memphis, Tenn., to Baton Rouge was diverted to a shelter because of flooded roadways.
About 5,000 people had been forced to sleep in shelters overnight around the state, said Marketa Walters, head of Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services. Louisiana State Police Col. Michael Edmonson said helicopters were transporting food and water to those still trapped by floods. Helicopters were also transporting some seriously ill people to areas outside the high waters.
Some 1,700 members of the Louisiana National Guard have been deployed for rescue efforts.
Even as the state grappled with high waters, the National Weather Service forecast heavy rain from the Gulf Coast as far north as the Ohio Valley through today, with a threat of flash flooding.
A flash flood watch was in place until this morning for Houston, where rains killed at least eight people in late April.
At least five people had died in Louisiana from the high water. Ronda Durbin, a spokeswoman for Tangipahoa Parish, said by telephone that searchers on Sunday recovered the body of a man reported swept away on Friday.
The body of a woman was also recovered from a submerged vehicle in the parish, she said. On Saturday, the body of a woman was recovered from the Tickfaw River, in St. Helena Parish northeast of Baton Rouge, after a car in which she was riding was swept away.
A 54-year-old man in Greensburg in the northern part of the state died when his vehicle was swept off the road, state police said.
The body of a 68-year-old man was recovered on Friday near Baker after he drowned, said William “Beau” Clark, the coroner in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Another person is also believed missing in St. Helena Parish, Edwards said.
(REUTERS)
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"Some calculations estimate up to 200 meteors per hour at (the) peak, which is about twice the usual count," said Lisa Will, an astronomer at San Diego City College.
Scientists said the Perseids haven’t produced such an “outburst” since 2009, when Earth passed through an unusually thick swath of the debris cast off by Comet Swift-Tuttle.
Some of the debris strikes Earth’s upper atmosphere and burns up, producing a brief flash of light— or meteor.
NASA said the gravitational influence of Jupiter might pull the debris stream closer to Earth this year, resulting in more meteors.
“The major observing criterion is to have a wide view of the sky,” Will said. “Perseids are bright enough to be seen in the city, depending on the penetration of the marine layer, of course. Perseus, the constellation, is in the northern part of the sky. Meteors will most easily be seen after midnight (tonight).”
It’s likely, though, that some meteors will be visible an hour or two before midnight.
(Gary Robbins, S.D. U-T)
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Hundreds of people were evacuated from recreation centers and homes in the town of Vitrolles, about 15 miles north of Marseille where some homes had burned down, and in nearby Pennes-Mirabeau. The Marseille airport said it was rerouting incoming flights to make way for firefighting aircraft, while officials in the city were bracing for flames that risked lapping at its doors.
"The fire is progressing. It’s progressing fast," Deputy Marseille Mayor Julien Ruas said on BFM-TV. He said the city was setting up firewalls on the corridor leading toward it, but if the fire passes those "it will move toward the northern neighborhoods of Marseille."
He called the size of the fire "absolutely exceptional," and advised people to stay off the roads.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The blaze in the mountains about 60 miles east of Los Angeles grew slightly to more than 12 square miles and containment jumped from 6 percent to 64 percent in 24 hours, the fire command said.
Terrain, heat and wind continued to hinder firefighters’ efforts, however.
Mandatory and voluntary evacuations remained in place for some 5,300 homes between the Lake Arrowhead resort area and the high desert city of Hesperia to the north.
Three school districts in the area were closed due to poor air quality caused by smoke.
On the Central Coast, the huge fire near scenic Big Sur backed farther downhill toward Highway 1, forcing a second round of overnight closures due to fire activity along the roadway.
The highway was reopened early Wednesday.
More than 4,800 firefighters are on the lines of the gigantic blaze, which was ignited July 22 by an illegal campfire and has destroyed 57 homes and 11 outbuildings while damaging three more homes. A bulldozer operator was killed late last month in an accident while fighting the fire expected to be fully contained by Aug. 31.
Among other wildfires in the state, firefighters contained 10 percent of a nearly 8-square-mile blaze in rugged terrain about 8 miles west of the small town of Coalinga in Fresno County.
A 21-mile stretch of Highway 198 was closed in both directions to the Monterey County line.
The fire broke out Monday night and grew rapidly.
Meanwhile, officials said Wednesday that a hot tub’s faulty wiring ignited one of California’s most destructive wildfires last year, a blaze that killed four people, sent four firefighters to the hospital and destroyed more than 1,300 homes last year.
In addition, a fifth Northern Californian who was last seen in his home before it was destroyed by the fire is missing and presumed dead.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection released a detailed, 500-page report into the cause of the 120-square mile wildfire that devastated a large portion of rural Lake County and parts of Napa County about 90 miles north of San Francisco in September 2015. The wiring of the hot tub on residential property owned by John and Cindy Pinch in Cobb “was not installed according to building code,” investigators found.
The property owners are now being investigated for possible criminal charges and whether they are responsible for any of the $57 million it cost to extinguish the fire.
The Pinches didn’t return a call seeking comment Wednesday. Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott said a building permit was required when homeowner John Pinch installed the used hot tub in 2009.
“We have not found a permit on file,” Pimlott said Wednesday at a press conference in Lake County.
Pimlott said investigators are discussing with the state Attorney General whether the homeowners will be sued.
Lake County District Attorney Don Anderson said at the press conference that he is reviewing the report and launching an investigation to determine if criminal charges should be filed.
“That’s very difficult to answer mainly because I haven’t read the report,” Anderson. “We are involved with four deaths and that could be a whole range of criminal activity. Obviously there was destruction of a lot of property.”
The fire was the state’s third most destructive blaze and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents and businesses.
The blaze burned for more than two weeks and dry, windy condition made the initial days especially harrowing.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The wildfire encroaching on the capital Funchal is now under control, and cooler temperatures forecast for today are expected to help put it out, said the head of Madeira’s regional government, Miguel Albuquerque.
Albuquerque told a news conference that most of those needing treatment had inhaled smoke and only one person was severely hurt, with burns. He said at least 27 homes were left uninhabitable on the island off Africa’s northwest coast.
Other wildfires have raged for several days on the Portuguese mainland. By Tuesday evening, fire officials said seven major blazes in the countryside were out of control. The National Civil Protection service said just over 4,000 firefighters supported by 26 water-dumping planes and 1,262 vehicles were attending 149 blazes of varying sizes across the country.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Mandatory and voluntary evacuations covered 5,300 homes in the Southern California fire area between mountain communities around Lake Arrowhead and the high desert city of Hesperia to the north, said Lyn Sieliet, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman. The number of people who left was not known.
Southwest winds pushed the fire northward through the mountains toward the desert.
Schools in Hesperia were closed as a precaution because of the fire’s movement and two neighboring districts also shut down for the day due to poor air quality caused by smoke.
More than 900 firefighters aided by retardant-dropping air tankers and water-dropping helicopters had just 6 percent of the fire contained, but no structures had been lost since it erupted at 12:10 p.m. Sunday. The cause remained under investigation. Overnight prospects looked good for firefighters, with temperatures dipping into the low 60s and humidity rising.
Meanwhile, California’s biggest wildfire expanded to more than 104 square miles north of scenic Big Sur.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
NB: 12 square miles - 7680 acres; 104 square miles = 66,560 acres
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About a dozen species of vibrio bacteria make people sick from eating raw or undercooked seafood or drinking or swimming in tainted water. It also causes cholera, although that was not the focus of the research.
Lab-confirmed vibrio infections in the United States have increased from an average of about 390 a year from the late 1990s to an average of 1,030 in recent years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But most cases aren’t confirmed by tests and reported.
“It’s a remarkable increase on an annual basis,” said study lead author Rita Colwell of the University of Maryland, a top microbiologist who used to head the National Science Foundation.
The study examined Europe and North America, but the most consistent tracking of vibrio illnesses were in the United States. The CDC blames about 100 deaths a year on vibrio on average.
Even Alaska, where such outbreaks used to be unheard of because the bacteria needs warm water, is getting cases from people eating vibrio-infected oysters, Colwell said. Her study, published in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights an unprecedented wave of vibrio illnesses from swimming in northern Europe during heat waves in 1994, 1997, 2003, 2006 and 2010.
Until now, researchers had indirectly linked climate change to an increase in illnesses from the bacteria, Colwell said. Using DNA, a 50-year database of plankton, water temperatures and disease reports, she shows a more comprehensive connection.
“Now we have linked very directly the increase and the trend in number of cases, so it’s all coming together in great detail,” Colwell said.
With the giant database of plankton and DNA, the international team of scientists was able to monitor how pervasive the vibrio bacteria have become in waterways around the world by creating an index. The index doesn’t show the number of vibrio, but its relative abundance, said study author Luigi Vezzulli of the University of Genoa. That index has about tripled in many of the areas they examined, including the North Atlantic.
That type of examination of vibrio levels in plankton hasn’t been done before and “is critical to understand the regional scale of changes in climate to potential increases in human risk,” said Erin Lipp, a University of Georgia professor of environmental health sciences. She wasn’t part of the study but praised it as exciting and important.
(Seth Borenstein, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Communities in two states were digging out from weekend mudslides during heavy rains brought by remnants of Earl, which hit Mexico’s Gulf Coast as a tropical storm. Three more bodies were found amid the mud and floodwaters in central Puebla state, bringing the toll there to 32. Two more dead were found in neighboring Veracruz, raising the death toll in that state to 13.
Javier was forecast to stay slightly out to sea as it passed by Cabo San Lucas late Monday or early today, and continue on a more northerly track, raking the Pacific coast of the Baja peninsula.
Javier was expected to begin weakening this afternoon. The hurricane center said heavy rains were pounding southern Baja California.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Hundreds of firefighters, aided by 16 aircraft, battled flames that spread across nearly 10 square miles on the northern side of the rugged mountain range east of Los Angeles.
People in some 375 homes were ordered to evacuate, San Bernardino County sheriff and U.S. Forest Service officials told the Los Angeles Times.
About 5,000 more homes were advised that they may want to evacuate, authorities said.
Helicopters sucked loads of water from nearby Silverwood Lake to douse flames leaping across slopes. Air tankers swooped low to paint the dry vegetation with pink fire retardant.
The fire, which erupted for an unknown reason Sunday, was just 6 percent contained.
Across the Mojave, officials in southern Nevada issued an air quality advisory because of smoke from the fire more than 200 miles away.
The Clark County Department of Air Quality said the air was unhealthy for sensitive groups, including young children, senior citizens and people with respiratory problems and cardiac disease.
On the central coast, meanwhile, California’s biggest fire expanded to more than 95 square miles north of scenic Big Sur. An army of more than 5,000 firefighters and an air force of tankers and helicopters made progress against the 18-day-old blaze. Long-suffering residents of Palo Colorado who had been under evacuation orders since late July were finally being allowed to return. Some evacuation orders remained in place, while others were reduced to warnings.
Five state parks frequented by tourists on the Highway 1 route between San Francisco and Los Angeles remained closed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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At least 21 people were killed and 77 injured in what officials described Sunday as the worst flooding disaster in a half-century to hit Skopje, the Macedonian capital and a city of more than a half-million people in the center part of the Balkan Peninsula.
Officials said the death toll could rise because many people were still missing after the storm, which hit with shocking ferocity on Saturday night. More than 1,000 people were rescued from the raging water that flooded streets, buildings, houses, clinics and schools by the police, army units and firefighters. Traffic in much of the city was paralyzed. The Gazi Baba area, in the eastern part of Skopje, was particularly hard hit, with hundreds of homes losing power.
Underpasses throughout the city became instant lakes, completely submerging vehicles.
The National Hydrometeorological Service said it had issued a warning about an impending storm earlier on Saturday, but the intensity of the storm was a shock.
“The clouds seem to have stopped immediately and dropped the water on this very small part of Skopje, in what can be described only as a water bomb,” Oliver Romevski, director of the service, said Sunday. “We are all shaken from this phenomenon and from what it has caused.” Koce Trajanovski, Skopje’s mayor, who announced financial aid for families of the dead, said many victims had been caught off guard because the rain started so rapidly Saturday evening. “Most of the casualties were people returning home from work or travel,” he said. Romevski said the storm had dumped nearly 4 inches of rain on the Gazi Baba area, while other parts of Skopje received far less. Heavy rain also was reported in the western Macedonia city of Tetovo.
Volunteers established a center in central Skopje on Sunday to accept donations for victims, who needed food, drinking water and hygiene supplies. A government state of emergency was expected to be declared later.
But many local residents accused the municipal authorities of an utter lack of preparedness. Trajanovski rejected the criticism, saying that the storm was a natural catastrophe and that no system could handle such volumes of rainfall in such a short period. Nikola Todorov, minister of health, said the last such flooding that Skopje residents could recall was in 1962, when more than 5,000 houses were flooded.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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At least 28 people died in multiple mudslides in the mountainous north of Puebla state, National Civil Protection Coordinator Luis Felipe Puente said in an interview with ForoTV. He said 25 of the dead were in various parts of the township of Huaucinango and three were in Tlaola.
Rains also set off mudslides in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz that killed 10 people, officials reported. Gov. Javier Duarte said the landslides were in the towns of Cocomatepec, Tequila and Huayacocotla.
Heavy rain continued in the area, leading officials to close a section of the main federal highway connecting Mexico City to the region. Crews spent the day clearing a number of landslides from the road, but authorities said mud was continuing to slide with the new rain.
Tropical Storm Javier formed off Mexico’s Pacific Coast on Sunday.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Forecasters warned of the potential of flooding in six states Wednesday — Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and California, particularly in washes and streams. Rain was already falling in the Four Corners region but there were no reports of flooding or mudslides. More intense monsoon rain was expected in that area through Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
The flood watches in effect covered large swaths of desert and forests and cities such as Las Vegas, Tucson and Albuquerque, but not Phoenix.
Just a little over a month ago in Phoenix, residents were swapping social media photos of boiling temperature readings. Now, images of flooded streets and dark skies were being shared after a storm dropped 2 inches of rain in an hour in some spots Tuesday.
The rains bring some relief to crews fighting wildfires, but also the potential for mudslides in areas blackened by flames. Because of the moisture, forest managers have been allowing wildfires to burn in areas where they didn’t threaten structures or public safety.
While there are fears that lightning could spark new blazes and strong winds could fan them, flooding remains the main threat.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
NB: During the week of Aug 10, the monsoon brought additional moisture from Hurricane Javier that moved north along Baja California.
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The 27-year-old reportedly made the confession after being held as firefighters continued to battle the blaze on La Palma in the Canary Islands.
He is said to have told officers he didn't want to leave the soiled paper as rubbish and decided to burn it with no intention of causing a fire.
The fire broke out at lunchtime on Wednesday in the Jedey mountain area in the municipality of El Paso in the centre of La Palma. The blaze, which is being tackled on the ground and from the air with the help of four helicopters and a specialist plane, has already claimed more than 250 acres of pine forest.
A forest worker aged 54 died today tackling the blaze and 700 people were evacuated from their homes overnight as a precaution.
(THE DAILY MAIL, UK)
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A 1-in-1,000 year storm brought destructive flooding to the small Maryland town of Ellicott City last weekend. That event also marked at least the 9th 1-in-1,000 year rainstorm since 2010 and the third of 2016, following ones in Texas and West Virginia.
Overall, heavy rainstorms have been increasing over the entire U.S., most dramatically in the Northeast, the National Climate Assessment, a federal report said in 2014. A report by the National Academy of Sciences released earlier this year said a link between heavy rain events and global warming can be made with a "moderate" amount of confidence.
A 1-in-100 year rainstorm indicates that amount of rainfall in such a short time has a 1% chance of happening in any given year in a given location. A 1-in-1,000 year storm has a 0.1% chance of happening.
On Tuesday, more than 2 inches of rain pounded west and central Phoenix in about an hour, flooding major roads and highways. Several drivers needed to be rescued from flooded cars, but no injuries were reported.
Parts of the Phoenix area will again be vulnerable to heavy rain Wednesday evening, with the potential of 1-2 inches in some spots, the weather service predicted. Nearly the entire state of Arizona, along with portions of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico were under a flood watch for later Wednesday.
Monsoon storms are frequent this time of year in the Desert Southwest. July and August are typically Phoenix's rainiest months.
Though the rain itself is popularly called a "monsoon," the term scientifically means a seasonal shift in wind direction. It's derived from the Arabic mausim, meaning "season," according to the American Meteorological Society.
The Southwest monsoon is not nearly as intense as the Asian monsoon, which often brings catastrophic flooding to India and other nations.
Miami also saw an unusually stormy Tuesday. Streets were flooded due to heavy rain and flights at the city's airport were halted due to lightning, the Miami Herald reported. Miami picked up 3.79 inches of rain, a record for Aug. 2, the weather service said.
Overall, Miami sees plenty of rain in the summer. August is typically the city's 3rd-rainiest month, with almost 9 inches of rain on average.
(USA TODAY, online; with contributions from Sydney Green, THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC)
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The wildfire has destroyed 57 homes and 11 outbuildings and is threatening 2,000 more structures. It was 15 percent contained Sunday morning.
More than 5,000 firefighters are battling the wildfire that killed a bulldozer operator working the fire line.
The blaze, about the size of San Francisco, has also scared away tourists who are canceling bookings after fire officials warned that crews will likely be battling a wildfire raging in steep, forested ridges just to the north for another month.
In Central California, a fast-moving fire forced people to evacuate at least 300 homes on the path of the Fresno County blaze being fueled by hundreds of dead trees. Residents of the rural area surrounded by rolling hills told reporters they scrambled to evacuate with their animals as the wind-driven blaze swept through dry slopes. The 1,000-acre wildfire started Saturday afternoon off Gooseberry Lane and Morgan Canyon, south of the town of Prather. The blaze was 5 percent contained Sunday morning, Cal Fire said.
The fire is burning in an area with many dead trees, Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said.
On the outskirts of Los Angeles, crews had nearly surrounded a 65-square-mile blaze that killed one man and destroyed 18 homes. That fire was 93 percent contained Sunday, nine days after it broke out in Santa Clarita and spread into the mountainous Angeles National Forest, officials said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman said Sunday that the body of a man had been recovered, along with a woman’s body that was recovered earlier Sunday. Both were found in the Patapsco River. Everyone else had been accounted for, he said. The town, about 14 miles west of Baltimore, received 6.5 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service, and most of it fell Saturday between 7 and 9 p.m.
Videos posted on social media showed floodwaters rushing down the town’s Main Street, which slopes toward the river, and sweeping away cars. Some vehicles came to rest on top of each other. In one video posted to the Facebook page of aMain Street art gallery, several people can be seen forming a human chain to rescue a woman from a car that was being swept down the street.
One of the victims was a pedestrian who was swept away by floodwaters, and the other was carried downstream after abandoning a stranded vehicle along with another person, who survived, Police Chief Gary Gardner said. Kittleman said the devastation was the worst he’d seen in 50 years living in the county, including Hurricane Agnes in 1972, which caused the river to overflow its banks. Virtually every home or business along Main Street sustained at least some damage, and the cost of repairs could reach the hundreds of millions of dollars, he said.
"It looks like the set of a disaster movie," said Kittleman. "Cars everywhere, cars on top of cars, parts of the road are gone, many parts of the sidewalk are gone, storefronts are completely gone."
Gov. Larry Hogan toured the damaged area Sunday along with Kittleman and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who has an office in the town. Hogan declared a state of emergency, which will allow greater aid coordination and assistance.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The blaze spanning 42 square miles has destroyed 34 homes, forced the evacuation of 350 properties and put at least 2,000 buildings at risk. A 35-year-old father of two girls also was killed this week when the bulldozer he was operating rolled over on the fire lines.
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection estimated it will take until the end of August to extinguish the blaze that also led to the rescue of 11 hikers, some of whom authorities suspected of tending to an illegal marijuana patch of 900 plants. No arrests were made.
"Every day the fire is gaining ground on us," Cal Fire Battalion Chief Robert Fish said. "The weather and steep and rugged terrain is taking its toll. So we’ll make progress, but then the fire is making progress faster than we can keep pace with."
Firefighters worked in rugged terrain near coastal Highway 1 in an area that draws tourists from around the world for the dramatic vistas of ocean and mountains. The famous roadway remained open, but smoke and the threat of flames forced the closure of state parks near Big Sur, a big economic driver for the region.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire that has destroyed at least 18 structures and burned more than 22,000 acres in northern Los Angeles County gained ferocious new power two days after it broke out.
Fueled by 20 mph winds and hillsides carpeted with tinder-like chaparral, the wildfire was burning in hills toward Acton and threatening hundreds of homes.
Mandatory evacuations were still in place Sunday for about 1,500 residents in parts of Sand and Placerita canyons, as well as for others along Little Tujunga Canyon Road.
Assisted by fixed-wing aircraft and water-dropping helicopters, more than 1,600 firefighters continue to battle to get ahead of the blaze. But the fire remains only 10 percent contained.
"For this time of year, it’s the most extreme fire behavior I’ve seen in my 32-year career," Los
Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said.
About 300 miles up the coast, crews were battling another fire spanning more than 10,000 acres that destroyed six homes on Sunday and forced evacuations outside the scenic Big Sur region.
The Southern California blaze has blackened brush on ridge lines near the city of Santa Clarita, and authorities found a burned body in a car. Because of the strong winds, planes were unable to make drops over the fire for a long stretch of the afternoon before resuming for a few hours before dusk. Helicopters released retardant around the perimeter of the fire all day and would continue into the night.
"The fire’s just doing what it wants right now," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Nathan Judy said.
Juliet Kinikin said Sunday there was panic as the sky became dark with smoke and flames moved closer to her home a day earlier in the Sand Canyon area of Los Angeles County. "And then we just focused on what really mattered in the house," she told The Associated Press. Kinikin grabbed important documents and fled with her husband, two children, two dogs and three birds. They were back at home Sunday, "breathing a big sigh of relief," she said.
Shifting winds were pushing flames northeast through Angeles National Forest, where additional evacuations were ordered in Acton and other residents were warned to prepare to leave, authorities said.
Lois Wash, 87, said she and her daughter and her dog evacuated, but her husband refused. "My husband’s stubborn as a mule, and he wouldn’t leave," Wash told KABC-TV. "I don’t know if he got out of there or not. There’s no way of knowing. I think the last time I looked it was about 100 yards from us. I don’t know if our house is still standing or not. All we can do is pray."
The fire has ripped through brush withered by days of 100-degree temperatures and years of drought.
"It started consuming houses that were non-defendable," Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief John Tripp said, describing the flames as charging through terrain "like a freight train."
Most of the structures that were destroyed were in the Angeles National Forest, near Little Tujunga Canyon Road and Bear Divide, he said.
"We’ve never seen a fire come into Sand Canyon like that," Tripp said. "All the experience we’ve had with fires is out the window." The Sand fire, which is named for Sand Canyon, is the latest blaze to ravage L.A. County this year.
Tripp said earlier blazes in Calabasas, Duarte and Stevenson Ranch that would have likely claimed 20 to 50 acres in a normal year spread exponentially, burning thousands of acres. Tripp said he can’t help but worry about what the remainder of the season will bring. “We are in July,” he said. “We’ve never had four major fires within six weeks in June and July.”
The fire destroyed film sets at Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita, which has Old West-style buildings used for movie locations.
It also forced a nonprofit sanctuary for rescued exotic creatures to evacuate 340 of its more than 400 animals, including Bengal tigers and a mountain lion.
North on the Central Coast, a blaze consuming brush in rugged mountains near Big Sur was threatening about 1,650 homes.
It burned in inaccessible terrain 5 miles south of Garrapata State Park and forced the communities of Palo Colorado and Carmel Highlands to evacuate, California’s forestry department said.
Brock Bradford lives in a historic house in Palo Colorado and could see the flames coming down the road as he evacuated.
“I hope I don’t have to rebuild my house,” he told the Monterey Herald. “I’m 66.”
(U-T NEWS SERVICES, L.A. TIMES and ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Excessive heat warnings will continue today, the first day of the convention, in the Philadelphia area, most of the Midwest and regions out west. It’s due to a dome of high pressure, meteorologists say, that’s affecting most of the United States and contributing to drought conditions in the Northeast and continuing to fuel wildfires in California.
"It’s fair to say that the vast majority of the nation has been experiencing above normal temperatures for the past week," said David Robinson, New Jersey state climatologist.
The dome of high pressure traps hot air and is the basis for the "critical high temperatures" the country has been experiencing the past week, Robinson said.
Thunderstorms are common, as they were in parts of New England over the weekend, but don’t help much with drought conditions in the Northeast. Particularly dry weather in areas like Massachusetts and New York has forced farmers to choose which crops they will water and which will not survive.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The high-pressure system, sometimes called a “heat dome,” will push conditions to their hottest point so far this summer, though record hot temperatures are not expected, according to the National Weather Service. Authorities from Minnesota to Louisiana are warning people to take precautions and check on the elderly and other vulnerable neighbors and relatives.
The temperature in the South Dakota capital of Pierre reached 105 degrees Wednesday afternoon. Misty Black Bear, who works for the state, watched as her chocolate ice cream cone immediately started melting in the sun. She said she’s fortunate her office has air conditioning.
State workers Katie Hruska and Kelsey Weber ate ice cream in the shade but planned to head right back inside when they were done.
"I eat ice cream in the winter, too, because it’s delicious," Hruska said. "But, did we pick ice cream today because it’s hot? Yes."
A 4-year-old Illinois girl was hospitalized Tuesday after being found unresponsive in a hot vehicle in a suburb northwest of Chicago. Details on her condition weren’t released. Investigators think the girl climbed into the vehicle without her parents’ knowledge after overhearing conversations about going to her grandmother’s home for dinner, the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday.
In neighboring Missouri, officials blamed heat for the death last week of an elderly woman in St. Louis County.
And officials at the Canterbury Park track near Minneapolis canceled live horse racing today, when the heat index was expected to exceed 110 degrees.
Temperatures were forecast to reach the 90s for most areas of the central U.S. starting Wednesday and lasting into the weekend in some places. High humidity will make it feel anywhere from 105 to 115 degrees.
"We’re not talking record-breaking heat by any stretch," said Andrew Krein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Chicago - area office. "The only thing is it is the warmest it’s been this summer, so in that respect people may not be prepared for it."
Excessive heat warnings put out by the weather service were in effect Wednesday for parts of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.
Thunderstorms and a cold front descending south across Lake Michigan could provide some relief Friday for parts of the Great Lakes region.
Heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths, ahead of flooding, Krein said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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"Citizens across the state have demonstrated the ability to transition to more sustainable, reusable bags, and I’m confident that the citizens of San Diego will quickly adopt this beneficial practice," City Council President Sherri Lightner said during the council’s afternoon meeting.
"I strongly believe that now is the time to demonstrate local leadership on this issue and make a clear statement that we value our environment," she added. Mayor Kevin Faulconer said he plans to sign the ordinance, which would make San Diego the 150th municipality in California with a ban on plastic checkout bags, which often end up in landfills or as litter in storm drains, rivers, canyons and beaches.
Councilmen Mark Kersey, Scott Sherman and Chris Cate voted in opposition, citing broad concerns about local government overreach.
"All this trash, all this litter was put there by somebody or carelessly left behind because they were too lazy to haul this stuff home," Sherman said at the meeting. "We need to start dealing with those laws that are on the books, the littering, the dumping, and making those fines and those penalties so people think twice."
A second reading of the ordinance is expected within a few weeks. Once finalized, the rules would give large food stores about six months to comply and approximately a year for smaller drug and convenience stores.
The proposed ban drew wide support Tuesday from the council’s audience, which included advocacy organizations such as the Surfrider Foundation’s San Diego County chapter and San Diego Coastkeeper to business-minded groups such as the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Equinox Project.
"The vast majority of plastic bags we see are entangled in the brushes next to our rivers and streams," said Kristin Kuhn, community engagement manager for Coastkeeper. "After every rain event, these bags clog and choke our city’s already damaged waterways."
The stated goal of the new ordinance is to encourage shoppers to bring their own reusable sacks in order to decrease the roughly 700 million plastic checkout bags distributed locally every year. Only 3 percent of those bags are recycled, according to the city.
Like most plastic-bag bans in the state, San Diego’s policy requires grocery stores and other food retailers to charge at least 10 cents for each paper bag or for a sturdier reusable bag, which often costs considerably more.
"Stakeholders have worked tirelessly with local jurisdictions throughout the state to find a solution that makes sense for both the environment and businesses," Sophie Barnhorst, policy coordinator for the chamber of commerce, said at the council meeting. "A ban on plastic and a charge for paper has the potential to achieve maximal environment gain with minimal business disruption."
The city’s policy comes a few months ahead of a referendum vote in this fall’s general election on whether to uphold a statewide prohibition on single-use checkout bags.
After California in 2014 passed the nation’s only statewide ban on such products, the plastics industry launched a signature drive to overturn the law, criticizing it as a tax on shoppers and an ineffective way to fight pollution.
The American Progressive Bag Alliance has raised more than $6.4 million — funded largely by out-of-state bag manufacturers — to overturn the statewide ban in November. If that ban is voided, the municipal ones — including San Diego’s — would remain in place.
"Like other local bag ordinances in California, this law will do nothing to benefit the environment or residents while letting grocers make millions annually in new bag fees," said Lee Califf, executive director of the bag alliance.
Bag manufacturers also have spearheaded another ballot measure this fall that would require stores to redirect money from bag sales to a fund administered by the Wildlife Conservation Board. The bag fees are estimated to bring in tens of millions of dollars annually, according to the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office.
"While San Diego residents should have been given the opportunity to vote to repeal the bag ban, they will still be able to vote in November to allow their local government to redirect bag fees to the environment," Califf said.
Supporters of eliminating single-use plastic bags see the San Diego council’s vote as a boon for the campaign to uphold the statewide ban.
"Polling has shown that people already living under a ban are more likely to support the statewide effort because they realize that it’s not that big of a deal," said Genevieve Abedon, waste prevention campaign coordinator with Californians Against Waste, which is part of a coalition that has raised about $1.6 million to defeat the overturn referendum.
San Diego officials said based on statistics from the county of Los Angeles, which adopted its ban in 2010, customers will eventually bring their own reusable bags for about 65 percent of purchases at grocery stores and other retailers — eliminating about 95 percent of all single-use plastic bags distributed in the city.
San Diego stores subject to the new ordinance could be forced to pay up to $2,500 for each day they’re not in compliance. In addition, they would have to track for three years the number of paper bags they provide to customers each month and provide that data to the city upon request.
The city’s ban doesn’t extend to smaller disposable bags used for meat, produce and other loose perishable items. Restaurants and department stores also aren’t covered by the measure.
In anticipation of the ordinance, San Diego has distributed about 40,000 reusable shopping bags, focusing on low-income neighborhoods, food banks, schools and libraries, according to city officials.
San Diego’s ban requires that paper bags be provided for free to customers who are receiving government food assistance, including through the California Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children. In this region, Solana Beach, Encinitas and Del Mar has similar bans. Oceanside is poised to vote on such a measure as early as next month.
About 40 percent of Californians live in areas with some type of restriction on plastic bags, including Long Beach, San Jose, Sacramento and Oakland, as well as San Francisco, the city that led the push against single-use bags in 2007.
Last year, Huntington Beach became the only city in the state to repeal a plastic bag ban, after its elected leaders and many residents expressed concerns over government overreach.
(Joshua Emerson Smith, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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"It’s going to feel the most uncomfortable it’s felt all summer," Kevin Donofrio, a National Weather Service meteorologist in suburban Chicago, said of the expected heat wave. Temperatures in Chicago and stretching into Iowa, Missouri and Kansas and up into Wisconsin are expected to reach 90 degrees by Thursday or Friday, with the same story — though perhaps a bit warmer— anticipated in Minnesota. And in all these areas, the humidity is going to make the temperatures feel like they have reached and even passed the 100-degree mark.
"Anybody that’s out and about running around is going to have to limit their exercise because of the heat," said Tony Zaleski, a weather service meteorologist in Chanhassen, Minn., explaining that the expected temperatures in the upper 90s would be a good 10-12 degrees above normal for this time of year.
On Sunday, thunderstorms with winds greater than 40 mph rolled through Chicago, Iowa and other parts of the Midwest, the most violent of which apparently hit eastern Iowa.
There, storms, along with two confirmed tornadoes, knocked down trees and damaged homes and businesses.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Chasing dollars, Florida land developers and their government allies broke up nature’s flow that used rivers, Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades to move water south from central Florida to the Florida Bay at the peninsula’s tip. That spurred Florida’s economic growth, but it came with a price: Rivers and lagoons have periodically become so toxic with green and brown slime that fish die off, residents are sickened and tourists stay away — all costly consequences.
The algae-laden runoff flowing down rivers and estuaries after this year’s heavy winter rains has hit especially hard along the St. Lucie River nearing the heavily populated Atlantic beaches.
It’s an oft-recurring problem. Yet joint federal and state projects agreed upon in 2000 by former Democratic President Bill Clinton and then-Republican Gov. Jeb Bush have been slow to materialize amid tight budgets and political opposition. From the late 1800s well into the 1900s, business interests with government cooperation sought to drain the Everglades so land could be developed. Water that naturally flowed south from Lake Okeechobee through the Everglades to Florida Bay was diverted east and west into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers and out to sea.
Around the lake, farms, ranches and homes sprang up, producing human and animal waste and fertilizer, all laden with phosphorus and nitrogen that fast-reproducing algae feast upon. Florida’s heavy seasonal rains wash the pollutants into the lake and slow-moving rivers, prompting massive blooms almost annually in Florida’s summer heat.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Television broadcast images of strong wind and torrential rains brought by the year’s first typhoon, whose approach had prompted Taiwan and neighboring China to batten down the hatches.
As many as 15,400 people were evacuated from their homes in preparation for the storm, while 187,830 households suffered power outages, emergency officials said. “The wind is very strong,” said a resident of Taitung, the eastern Taiwan city where the typhoon hit land.
One death and 66 injuries had been reported. Bullet train service had been suspended, and more than 300 international and 254 domestic flights canceled.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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The month’s average temperature in the Lower 48 states was 71.8 degrees, 3.3 degrees above normal, surpassing the Dust Bowl record set in 1933 by a couple tenths of a degree, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday. Every state in the nation was warmer than normal in June, with Utah and Arizona having their hottest Junes. "2016 has been hot, wet and wild for the contiguous U.S.," NOAA climate scientist Jake Crouch said Thursday. The nation had its third hottest first half of the year. June’s record heat is from a combination of natural variability and long-term global warming, Crouch said. Records go back to 1895.
But there’s been a wet and wild aspect of the year, too. So far, NOAA calculates that there have been eight billion-dollar weather disasters in the first half of this year, not counting the West Virginia flooding, which is still being calculated. They’ve been a combination of severe storms with tornadoes and heavy rains and downpours that cause damaging flooding. Seven of those have hit Texas.
NOAA calculates billion-dollar disasters, adjusting for inflation, to show trends in the most extreme and damaging weather. Since 1980, the U.S. has averaged five billion-dollar disasters a year, but in the last five years the country has averaged nearly 11 a year. There were eight in 2015. The record is 16 different billion-dollar disasters in 2011.
"The main lesson is that it shows us how vulnerable we are to climate change," Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler said in an email. "People frequently think that, 'we’ll just adapt to climate change.' But we’re learning that it’s going to be a lot harder than people realize to do that. How do you adapt to the amount of rain that West Virginia got?"
(Seth Borenstein, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Customers streamed in for supplies. Nobody seemed too worried.
Then the rain sped up in the afternoon. The creeks churned faster and the sky grew dark — so dark that Robert Frank’s young daughter asked if she had fallen asleep and woken up at night.
McClure’s phone beeped with National Weather Service alerts. Thunderstorms, forecasters warned. Potential flash floods.
A few blocks away, Karol Dunford called her daughter and said she could see water rising up in the distance. She was alone, she said, and the power was out.
As they surveyed the sky in their town of 1,500 people that Thursday afternoon, they did not imagine that the rain would keep pouring down and the water would keep rising, that within hours it would turn their town into a lake and trap dozens whose screams would echo all night. By daybreak, at least 23 would be dead across the state. Those who lived though it said it seemed to veer from relentless storm to catastrophe in an instant.
“It was a nightmare. It was like the Titanic sinking,” said Terri Bowen, who would later stand on the edge of the water, looking out into darkness as her husband steered a kayak through the flood to save 18 neighbors clinging to branches and roofs.
Phil Hysell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, described it as a “1-in-1,000-year” storm. Parts of Greenbrier County got more than 9 inches of rain in 36 hours.
The rain started in the county around 2 a.m. and was coming down at the rate of 2 inches an hour between 1 and 3 p.m. The National Weather Service, which had been warning for days that the water might rise, issued a dozen more flash-flood warnings Thursday. People started calling the sheriff, worried about the water.
“It was just like buckets of water falling out of the sky,” Sheriff Jan Cahill said.
At 4:41 p.m., the National Weather Service sent out a rare flash-flood emergency warning, the sort of alert reserved for the most dangerous situations.
Dunford texted her daughter, Randee Suzer, at 6:30 p.m. to say both streets leading to town had flooded.
Dunford, a 71-year-old in a wheelchair, sat with her four dogs crowded into her lap as the water crept into her trailer.
“Pray for me,” she wrote at 7:50 p.m. She screamed and screamed, “Help me! Somebody save me!”
McClure, the Go Mart cashier, stood in her mother’s yard on high ground around 8:30 p.m. and could hear Dunford’s screams from the other side of the tree line. She called 911 over and over.
Her 7-year-old son cried. He said he wanted to turn into a water snake, swim over and carry the woman on his back to shore. She told him as long as the woman screamed, it meant she was still alive. She sang to him to drown out the screams as she tucked him into bed.
When she went back outside, she couldn’t hear the woman anymore. “I thought she was gone and there was nothing I could do to help her,” Mc-Clure said. She cried herself to sleep.
At Dunford’s trailer, the water rose to her shoulders.
“Are they in the wrong place looking for me?” she texted her daughter at 11:16 p.m.
“I’m freezing,” she wrote at 12:36 a.m. One of the dogs, a Chihuahua named Frankie, fell off her lap into the water. She watched it drown and couldn’t stop it.
“They aren’t coming,” she decided at 12:39 a.m. “I’m so tired,” she wrote at 1:42. Two more hours passed.
The National Guard arrived for Dunford just before 4 a.m. and rescued her and the three dogs she had left.
The sun rose and the town woke up to see the devastation the flood left behind: houses ripped off their slabs, trees uprooted, roads collapsed. The death toll climbed from seven to 14 to 23.
McClure heard Friday morning that Dunford had made it out alive. She wrote her a message on Facebook and described listening to Dunford scream for hours, then fearing that the storm had swallowed her.
“I can’t help but feel like a part of me was with you.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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And that was not the only place that the popular devices got in the way of firefighting. Officials in Arizona and Utah last week reported that drones posed a danger to firefighters there as well.
The Monrovia Fire Department announced Sunday that air operations were halted on Saturday due to “private drones flying in the path of firefighting aircraft.”
“One area of concern that has developed recently is the fact that there are privately operated drones that have been violating the air space within which fire response teams are operating,” the department wrote on its fire update page.
"It is vitally important to note ... fire officials cannot deploy firefighting aircraft when private individuals are flying drones in the fire response locations. These types of disruptions are extremely dangerous to firefighting personnel and can cause severe disruptions to the response effort. We urge anyone with a drone to keep away from the fire operation by not flying drone vehicles into the firefighting airspace."
The U.S. Forest Service warned those who fly unmanned aircraft that flights were restricted in the fire area and that operators found violating those regulations could face criminal charges.
“When drones interfere with firefighting efforts, a wildfire has the potential to grow larger and cause more damage,” the agency stated in an incident report.
It also posted the following on Twitter.
The San Gabriel Complex fire was 62% contained as of the last update Sunday after burning some 5,381 acres in the hills above Duarte and Azusa. Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate their homes as the flames bore down but orders were lifted as firefighters got the upper hand.
And it was not the only firefighting effort that was hampered by the popular flying devices. In Arizona last week, officials had the same issues in battling wildfires where drones were spotted, according to AZCentral.
Jones said that pilots are most likely just trying to get photos and videos of the flames.
"That's what's dangerous and unfortunate about this," she said. "You have people who probably just want to have some fun with their drone and get neat images of the fire unknowingly putting firefighters' lives in danger and interfering with their ability to put out these destructive fires."
(Debbie Baker, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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"Most people here, this is all they had," said Daniel O’Brien, 53, who lost two rental mobile homes. "You have these moments where you just want to breakdown crying and fall apart." The 58-square-mile fire has claimed at least two lives, and officials warned the death toll may rise. Cadaver dogs were being brought in Sunday to search for remains.
Kern County Fire Department operations chief Joe Reyes said firefighters had contained significant swaths of the fire’s northern and eastern edges, but that work remained in securing the southern side of the blaze. Crews were moving in from both sides to connect in the middle and establish a perimeter.
Firefighters are hoping to take advantage of lighter winds, though a dry air mass over the area will continue to bring high temperatures and low humidity.
Retardant was being spread over one section south of the fire in case it moves further down.
“The hope is we never have to use it,” Reyes said. “But hope’s not a plan.”
Firefighters were aiming to have the blaze fully contained by Thursday.
About 1,700 firefighters are battling the blaze and combing through debris for hotspots.
On Saturday, firefighters found what appeared to be a set of human remains further up the street from O’Brien’s two rental homes. The remains were so badly burned forensic investigators will have to determine whether they belong to a person or animal, Kern County Sheriff ’s spokesman Ray Pruitt said.
Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency, freeing up money and resources to fight the fire and to clean up in the aftermath. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also authorized the use of funds for firefighting efforts, fire officials said.
The fire tore through small communities of houses and mobile homes that surround the lake — actually a reservoir — and the Kern River, a popular spot for fishing and whitewater rafting. The communities are nestled in foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Seventy-five homes were damaged. Scorching heat and tinder- dry conditions across the West have contributed to massive wildfires in the past week that have destroyed properties and forced residents to seek shelter.
Since it began Thursday, the fire has swept through 36,810 acres of parched brush and timber. It moved so quickly that some residents barely had time to escape — and two didn’t.
An elderly couple apparently was overcome by smoke as they tried to flee, county Sheriff Donny Youngblood said. Their bodies were found Friday, but their names haven’t been released.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch today for at least 25 West Virginia counties. Heavy rains were possible in many areas already ravaged by last week’s floods that have killed 24 people statewide.
The forecast also includes hardest-hit Greenbrier County, where 16 people have died and floodwaters have yet to recede.
Dozens of residents of flooded-out Rainelle remained Sunday at a shelter more than 25 miles away at the Ansted Baptist Church, where singing from inside mixed with the bustle of activity outside.
The church’s gymnasium has been converted to a shelter. The church also is a drop-off point for donated goods as well as a makeshift kennel for dog owners.
Authorities have yet to start sizing up the flood damage in West Virginia. But it is drawing comparisons to November 1985 floods that remain the state’s most expensive natural disaster with more than $570 million in damage.
That year, the remnants of Hurricane Juan had brought rivers to near bank-ful when a low-pressure system stalled over the Mid-Atlantic region and produced as much as 10 inches of rain.
Forty-seven people died in West Virginia, more than half of them in Pendleton and Grant counties. The Potomac River at Paw Paw crested 29 feet above flood stage. More than 3,500 homes, 180 businesses and 43 bridges statewide were destroyed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The Center for Biological Diversity, with more than a dozen groups including Greenpeace, Earthjustice and the Sierra Club, petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service this week to list bluefin as an endangered species. The process of review and public comment on the endangered listing would take two years, if the service agrees to consider it.
"Without help, we may see the last Pacific bluefin tuna sold off and lost to extinction," said Catherine Kilduff, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.
The call for a moratorium on bluefin fishing comes at a time when vast schools of bluefin are appearing in Southern California waters, thanks to “the blob,” a body of warm water off the West Coast created by stagnant wind conditions to the north.
"The quality of fish and the quantity of fish in our local area is probably the best we’ve ever seen," said Buzz Brizendine, a representative on the Pacific Fishery Management Council and captain of the Prowler, a sport boat out of Fisherman’s Landing in San Diego.
Brizendine said U.S. fishermen have done their part to conserve bluefin by complying with strict catch limits enacted last year, and said efforts to restore the population should be balanced with the economic value of the fishery.
Bluefin tuna are prized for their rich flavor and fierce fight, and are considered one of the most challenging tuna to catch. They’re sought after for sushi, and fetch high prices on Japanese markets.
That popularity has decimated the fishery. Despite their apparent abundance in U.S. waters, bluefin had plunged to just 4 percent of their historic high in 2014. This year their stock fell below 3 percent of unfished levels, Kilduff said. Many of the fish are caught before reaching spawning age, and few young bluefin are surviving, creating a downward spiral for the population. "We’re targeting the young fish before they have the chance to reproduce," Kilduff said.
Fisheries managers have already reined in catch of the iconic sport fish. Last July federal rules limited the U.S. commercial fleet to 600 metric tons of bluefin over two years, a 40 percent reduction from the previous limit of 500 metric tons per year. At the same time new rules restricted the bag limit for sport fishermen from 10 to two bluefin per day. Since few fishermen land more than three per day, that resulted in a catch reduction of about 30 percent, Kilduff said.
Anglers grudgingly accepted the lower bag limits, but say that outlawing bluefin fishing in U.S. waters would harm West Coast fishermen, without helping the species recover. About 84 percent of bluefin are caught in waters off Asia; so banning bluefin caught by U.S. anglers wouldn’t take a big bite out of the problem, Brizendine said.
(Deborah Sullivan Brennan, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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Then, the house blew up.
Belinda Scott was able to break a vent and get out onto a porch, then make it onto a tree, which she clung to for hours before being rescued by state police, Ronnie Scott told The Associated Press on Friday. His wife was in the hospital with burns on 67 percent of her body. The pets did not make it out alive.
"My wife was out there four and a half hours hanging in a tree with a house burning right beside her, floodwaters running all around her," said Scott, who was not at the White Sulphur Springs home when the waters rose.
Early reports indicate about 9 inches of rain damaged or destroyed more than 100 homes and knocked out power to tens of thousands of others, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said.
"Our focus remains on search and rescue," the governor said.
Greenbrier County Sheriff Jan Cahill described "complete chaos" in his county, one of the hardest hit. "Roads destroyed, bridges out, homes burned down, washed off foundations," he said. "Multiple sections of highway just missing. Pavement just peeled off like a banana. I’ve never seen anything like that." In the towns of Rainelle and White Sulphur Springs, rescue crews went door to door to check on residents, a painstaking task that was expected to stretch into the weekend. Once a residence was checked, a red or orange "X" was marked on the home.
The governor declared a state of emergency in 44 of 54 counties and authorized up to 500 soldiers to assist. While most of the rain had tapered off Friday, there were still scattered showers, thunderstorms and river flood warnings.
Some of the heaviest rainfall was in Greenbrier County, where The Greenbrier luxury resort and golf course had to be closed on Friday because of flood damage. The course, overrun by floodwaters, is scheduled to host a PGA tour event from July 4-10.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Moments later, Magee, 54, and his wife, Teresa, 55, watched Thursday night as flames bore down a mountain toward their South Lake community. Magee frantically searched for his keys and his wallet. The couple grabbed their dog and cats and ran for their car — already low on gas — as ash and pieces of burnt wood rained down on them.
"It was a firestorm," Nathan Magee said early Friday from a grade school turned evacuation center, not knowing whether his home still stood.
For Magee and other residents around Lake Isabella, the Erskine fire seemed to come out of nowhere and strike without warning. Many ran for their lives as the wind-whipped blaze barreled from the foothills down into the tiny towns that dot state Route 178 east of Bakersfield.
Fueled by drought conditions, massive stands of dying trees and soaring temperatures, the fire consumed 30 square miles in less than 20 hours and destroyed more than 100 structures, making it the most destructive wildfire so far this year in California. An elderly couple trying to flee from the flames were overcome with smoke outside of their house and killed, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said.
Their bodies were found Friday near Lake Isabella.
The names of the two dead have not been released. The sheriff said his department hasn’t been able to search very extensively and would be looking through burned homes with cadaver dogs seeking more possible victims.
Those who did escape the fire shared harrowing stories of survival.
"The wind was so diabolical," said Magan Weid, 57, who fled with her father and with other neighbors. "Everything was flying into your eyes. I didn’t have time to get glasses. I literally just grabbed a bag with miscellaneous crap. I didn’t have time to get anything together."
The fire began shortly before 4 p.m., said Kern County Fire Department Capt. Michael Nicholas. In those early hours, fire crews frantically tried to save what homes they could but were overwhelmed by the power of the blaze. One fire official broadcast his journey through the fire zone, showing home after home burning to the ground.
Hundreds of firefighters flooded the area Friday to join in the effort, officials said. Three suffered from smoke inhalation.
The fire, whose cause is under investigation, forced evacuations in communities including Bella Vista, South Fork, Weldon, South Lake and Mountain Mesa.
Nancy Moore, 64, had gone to visit friends in Mountain Mesa Thursday afternoon, but when she arrived they said they were being evacuated because of an approaching wildfire. Moore had her friends come to her South Lake home, but almost as soon as they arrived they were forced to evacuate once more.
She didn’t see the flames, but saw the smoke and watched as strong winds knocked over tables and vases full of rocks.
"It was intense," she said. "I’ve never seen anything move that fast."
Chelsea Hunt, 27, saw the fire reach a nearby mountain from the home she shares in Squirrel Valley with her boyfriend and her grandmother. She was shocked at how close the clouds of smoke were to her home.
"It was apocalyptic," she said. "I can’t even remember what I was doing. All I remember is seeing the fire and realizing I needed to run."
And she did, leaving behind all of her possessions— including her Social Security card and birth certificate. The few possessions that remain are her car and her pajamas. She, her boyfriend and grandmother evacuated to Kernville Elementary School, where they joined more than 100 others.
Shawn Rice, 22, and his family tried to evacuate from South Lake. He described the process as stressful, with many neighbors trying to do the same and creating a small traffic jam. As he watched the flames at the ridge of a nearby mountain, he couldn’t help but think the worst.
"South Lake is probably going to burn down, along with my home and the surrounding homes in the community," he said. "It was negative thinking, but I’m seeing the flames and was thinking realistically — things are looking pretty terrible."
On Friday, Rice looked in the distance at the orange glow from the wildfire. He said he didn’t know how to feel because he wasn’t sure whether his family’s home had burned down or not.
"It would be a miracle if it’s still there," he said. "The important thing is I’m alive."
The parking lot of the evacuation center Friday was filled with dozens of vehicles, where people had placed dog food, animal crates and bags of clothes. Some cars were empty, but at least one person slept in a car, wrapped in a Red Cross blanket.
Officials said the area was ripe for a disastrous fire. Besides the extreme weather, the area has been hit hard by a die-off that has killed millions of trees across the state. The trees are dying from a lethal combination of drought, heat and voracious bark beetles, heightening the already serious dangerous of big brush fires.
Conditions were the worst they could have been for a fire, said Geri Jackson, a spokeswoman with Sequoia National Forest, one of several agencies responding to the blaze. Temperatures were in the high 90s, humidity was in the single digits and low teens, and the area was just coming off a weeklong wind advisory.
"The wind, the heat and the low humidity — all that does is just drive a fire," Jackson said. "When the fire initially started, it took off quickly." Worries intensified for some as they struggled to reach people in the Lake Isabella community. Because of the blaze, cell service around the fire had been compromised, fire officials said. A local television station reported long lines of people at one of the evacuation centers, waiting to use a land line to make a phone call. The Kern County blaze is the latest of several major brush fires to hit Southern and Central California in the last two weeks.
(LOS ANGELES TIMES)
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The office of county Supervisor Dianne Jacob forwarded a complaint to county prosecutors accusations that the Potrero General Store had been price-gouging.
Jacob publicly raised the issue at a meeting Thursday night of residents affected by the fire. A Jacob aide said a representative of the store was in contact with her office Friday, disputing the claim.
"He was adamant that there was no price-gouging," said Jacob’s chief of staff, Jeff Collins.
The District Attorney’s economic crimes unit is handling the investigation, office spokesman Steve Walker said Friday.
Victor Daniel, who owns the store with family member Hani Daniel, said in an interview Friday that they have actually given about $3,000 worth of merchandise to local customers on credit since the fire if they were not able to pay.
"We’ve done our part," Daniel said in a telephone interview. "The community knows our store. The store has been there a long time, and our prices have always been the same. We’re not in the business of price-gouging."
He said he has not yet had any inquiries from investigators.
Daniel also said he wonders if the person who complained was not used to rural prices, which typically run higher than city-based bargain stores because of transportation costs and the lack of big-volume discounts.
"Am I a little bit higher? Of course," he said. He said his family also runs a gas station in Tecate but has not raised prices there either.
The accusation arose Thursday in a social media posting for the Deerhorn Valley Community Association. Kim Hamilton, association vice president, said she made the post based on a casual conversation among locals the day before, when someone said the Potrero store immediately raised prices during the fire. "I have no direct proof of it," Hamilton said Friday.
Meanwhile, firefighters continued gaining control of the Border fire, with containment lines around nearly half of its perimeter extending from Potrero south to the Mexican border and east past the Lake Morena area.
All evacuation orders for Potrero and Lake Morena have been lifted, and sections of only three roads remained closed north of state Route 94 at Harris Ranch Road, Vollmer Road and Martin Road.
An evacuation shelter at Los Coches Creek Middle School on Dunbar Lane, east of Lakeside, was expected to close Friday evening. The Red Cross had operated the shelter since Monday.
However, Cal Fire issued a statement warning that if flames jump the containment lines, Lake Morena Village, Campo and surrounding ranches and recreational areas could be threatened as the fire continues heading north and northeast.
"This is still a dynamic and active fire," a Cal Fire statement on Friday said. "Residents in the surrounding area of the fire should continue to be prepared to evacuate if need be."
Calculations on how much of the largely rocky and hilly terrain had burned rose slightly from 7,358 acres Thursday afternoon to 7,483 by Friday morning. Containment was estimated at 45 percent. The tally on property damage remained at five homes and 11 outbuildings destroyed and one home damaged.
Day 6 on the fire lines started with a cloud cover, and temperatures later in the day were in the low 90s, with light to moderate winds.
"We’re not seeing the fire behavior we saw the first few days, but we’re not letting our guard down," Cal Fire Capt. Kendal Bortisser said Friday morning.
Motorists through the area were cautioned to drive slowly because of the large number of engines (175), water tenders and other fire rigs going up and down the roads. There were 1,937 firefighters from all over the state deployed at the Border Fire.
More than 1,900 firefighters have been involved in the Border fire. Some aircraft that had been assigned to the fire were redirected to other state wildfires, such as one in Kern County that broke out Thursday afternoon and quickly scorched 8,000 acres and destroyed 100 structures, with another 1,500 threatened. The San Gabrial Mountains fire in Los Angeles County, which started Monday, has burned about 5,600 acres.
San Diego Gas& Electric Co. crews were still working to replace burned power poles and restring power lines. The company website said 10 customers in the Potrero area have been without electricity since Sunday night, but service was expected to be restored Friday night.
(Pauline Repard, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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The tornado hit a densely populated area of farms and factories Thursday near the city of Yancheng in Jiangsu province, about 500 miles south of Beijing.
Jiangsu Governor Shi Taifeng said today that the death toll had risen to 98 people, with 800 others injured, according to the official China News Service. Earlier, the state-run Xinhua News Agency had said 200 people were critically injured.
Rescuers worked to carry injured villagers into ambulances and deliver food and water to others, Xinhua reported, although state broadcaster CCTV said that roads were blocked with trees, downed power lines and other debris. Heavy rain and the possibility of further hailstorms and more tornadoes complicated rescue efforts.
In badly hit Xintu village, survivors grieved over lost relatives and surveyed the damage wrought on their homes.
"The people inside tried to run outside, but the wind was too strong so they couldn’t," villager Wang Shuqing told an Associated Press reporter. "My family members were all inside, they all died. The police then came and took the bodies out. I can’t bear it."
The disaster has been declared a national-level emergency, and on a trip to Uzbekistan, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered central government bodies to provide all necessary assistance.
Tents and other emergency supplies were being sent from Beijing, while schools and other facilities were used to shelter survivors, CCTV said.
The network showed people carrying the injured to hospitals, cars and trucks lying upside down, street light poles snapped in half, and steel electricity pylons crumpled and lying on their side. Power and telephone communications were knocked out over a broad area.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The dire estimate offered Wednesday by federal officials brings the loss of trees since 2010 to at least 66 million, a number that is expected to increase considerably throughout the year, despite an average winter of rain and snow that brought some relief to urban Californians.
"Tree dies-offs of this magnitude are unprecedented and increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires that puts property and lives at risk," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
U.S. Forest Service officials say 40 million trees died between 2010 and late 2015. In October, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency and formed a tree-mortality task force to help mobilize additional resources for the safe removal of fallen and dying trees.
The latest number was reached after a May survey of six southern Sierra counties: Fresno, Kern, Madera, Mariposa, Tuolumne and Tulare.
The Forest Service, which spent more than half its budget last year on fire management, plans to conduct additional surveys on tree mortality throughout the summer and fall.
In his statement, Vilsack called on Congress to address financial allocations for firefighting, warning that the agency will otherwise lack the necessary resources to restore the forests.
“Forcing the Forest Service to pay for massive wildfire disasters out of its pre-existing fixed budget instead of from an emergency fund like all other natural disasters means there is not enough money left to do the very work that would help restore these high-mortality areas,” he said. “We must fund wildfire suppression like other natural disasters in the country.”
The rapid escalation of tree deaths should be considered a grave issue, threatening the collapse of an ecosystem that has made California the sixth-largest economy in the world, said Andy Lipkis, president and founder of TreePeople, an L.A.-based environmental advocacy nonprofit.
“We tend to think of trees as decoration,” Lipkis said. “Unfortunately, we’ve forgotten that trees are the actual pillar of our life-support system, critical for our food, water, habitat— for our air and for temperature stability.”
Trees can help cool areas, but as evidenced by the record-setting temperatures this week in the Southland, Lipkis said, “we’re heading rapidly in the other direction.” For fire officials, the dramatic loss of trees has them on edge.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean more fires, but if a fire gets into those areas where there’s massive tree die-off, it’s going to be much faster and more intense,” Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said.
“It’s going to be much harder for us to stop a fire in these dead forests, as opposed to when they were alive.” Berlant said that last week alone his agency responded to more than 250 fires. Crews are readying themselves for the summer and fall months when conditions are drier and the Santa Ana winds come into play.
“A fire with those conditions in those tree mortality regions can be devastating,” Berlant said. “We absolutely see it as a huge public safety risk.”
Forest Service scientists believe the remaining trees need at least two years of normal or above-normal rain to fully regain their health.
Water-starved trees are unable to produce their usual pitch or sap, the secretions that tend to protect them from fungi and insects. Bark beetles are notoriously fond of frail trees, burrowing destructive paths into limbs and trunks to mate and lay eggs.
Although the epicenter of the die-off is the southern Sierra Nevada, the march of death is rapidly moving north to places such as Lake Tahoe and Eldorado National Forest.
Environmental experts are not surprised by the latest number of tree deaths. Trees that may have looked green and healthy last fall may have, in fact, been at death’s door, said Adrian Das, a forest ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. And tree mortality will “lag” even after the drought ends, he said.
Das, who works in Sequoia National Park, said that dead trees are generally found at lower elevations, but that there is much to be learned in the field.
“Trees just don’t die that often,” he said. There are also new forays to be made into the study of forest regeneration.
“If we’re in a warmer climate, are we going to see the same forest come back in, or is it going to change the landscape?” Das said. “These forests have been here a long time. You might not get the same thing that you had before.”
And then there is the issue of which types of trees should be planted in the areas where trees have died.
“We’re doing a lot of reforestation right now,” said Randy Moore, who oversees the Pacific Southwest region of the U.S. Forest Service. “Do we bring back pine, or another species? Do we want it to come back as chaparral?”
In a statement Wednesday, the Forest Service said it had committed to spending $32 million in California to restore trees along roads and at recreation sites. But limited resources mean it can be hard to strike a balance between planting trees and fighting fires. California’s forests, Moore said, still contain “lots of material” for future blazes.
(Matt Stevens & Corina Knoll, CALIFORNIA NEW GROUPS (LA Times and SD U-T))
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Evacuation orders remain in place for the rural communities from state routes 94 and 188 northeast to Buckman Springs Road south of Interstate 8.
The blaze, which broke out about 11 a.m. on Sunday near the Mexican border, was about 15 percent contained as of Wednesday morning.
The head of the fire was about five miles south of Lake Morena Village, Cal Fire Capt. Kendal Bortisser said. He said there are homes and ranches scattered through the territory.
There was no immediate information on the location of the houses that were consumed by flames. Also destroyed were 11 outbuildings, and one structure was found damaged.
About 700 people have evacuated from the fire zone since Sunday, Bortisser said.
There was no word on when residents might be allowed to return home. Some have expressed frustration at not being able to get past road blocks after leaving home to obtain animal food or other supplies.
Many people stayed on their property after sheriff’s deputies issued warnings that the fire was approaching Lake Morena Village and surrounding ranches Tuesday afternoon. Some were able to move livestock to safety in trailers, others stayed to feed and water their animals.
Some backcountry residents have voiced complaints in the last two days that officials have been slow to arrive with pet or livestock food, or water for residents who have stayed at their homes rather than evacuate.
The Deerhorn Valley Community Association posted word of a dire need for pet food and medical supplies for injured horses. The association said one Potrero woman found some dead animals and others were “just hanging on.” Credit was given to Border Patrol agents who know the back roads and were bringing in what supplies they could, but residents who lack cellphone service or electrical power were having a hard time making their needs known to authorities.
At an evacuation shelter near Lakeside, Humane Society worker Diana Mueller said one Border Patrol agent, on his own off-duty time, drove an evacuee back through the fire lines to get his dog, then return to the shelter.
Humane Society officials put out a call Wednesday for donations of all kinds of pet food, especially for dogs and cats, and for hay for livestock. Donations should be dropped off at the Humane Society shelter, 5500 Gaines St., San Diego, near Interstate 5 and Friars Road. If anyone already in the East County has hay to donate, they could call the office at (619) 299-7012 to arrange a pickup closer to the area where it is needed, a society spokeswoman said.
The San Diego Humane Society reported that the large-animal emergency shelter set up at Circle T Ranch, 24215 Viejas Grade Road in Descanso, had reached its capacity as of Wednesday. Evacuees with large animals were advised to take them to the Customs and Border Protection station in Boulevard, at 2463 Ribbonwood Road.
Anyone needing assistance in evacuating or feeding animals can call the county Department of Animal Services 24-hour emergency line at (619) 236-2341.
"We have been hauling in trailers of hay and feed," animal services Deputy Director Dan DeSousa said. "If they are out there needing food, they need to call us. Tell us what animals you have and we’ll provide two days of food, then come back in two days and bring another two days’ worth."
He said the agency has been ordering feed from local stores.
There were six animal control officers working through the fire area Wednesday, along with supervisors and volunteers. On Tuesday they brought in seven horses, an emu captured by the Border Patrol, two goats and two dogs. Officers also helped trailer dozens of mini-donkeys at Fantasy Donkeys farm to another location. "We were just ‘Donkey-Uber’ giving them a lift," DeSousa said.
The county also deployed a pet disaster relief trailer operated by AKC Reunite and stocked with enough non-perishable supplies to last 65 pets for three days, a club official said Wednesday.
With the trailer posted at the Border Patrol station in Boulevard, animal control officers didn't have to trek back to their nearest facility, an hour away, for extra animal care supplies or equipment such as cages.
The evacuation shelter was still operating Wednesday at Los Coches Creek Middle School, 9669 Dunbar Lane, east of Lakeside, where 58 people and 45 animals spent Tuesday night, a Red Cross worker said. The school grounds looked like a refugee center, with tents scattered around the grounds, pets in cages in the shade, and car windows draped with towels to fend off the blazing sun while owners sat inside with the air conditioning running. Pets were not allowed indoors, so some people slept outside with them to reduce the animals’ stress.
One family with a tiny pug dog, Molly, slept in their SUV to be with her. Robert Salas, 51, Margaret Coleman, 47, and their son Robert Salas Jr., 5 had left their Lake Morena Village home on Tuesday. “I hope the fire’s not going to get our house,” young Robert said.
(Pauline Repard & Karen Pearlman, SAN DIEGO U-T)
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The mercury made a quick ascent Sunday for a high of 118, breaking a record of 115 set nearly 50 years ago, according to the National Weather Service. It tied for the fifth-hottest day ever in Phoenix.
Portions of Arizona and southeast California were expected to keep getting scorched today with a high-pressure ridge lifting out of Mexico. The weather service forecasts similar temperatures in Phoenix before they drop to 113 Tuesday and stay below 115 the rest of the week. For those who want to brave the outdoors, going out early won’t always save you. A 28-year-old woman and two friends set out mountain biking around 6 a.m. in north Phoenix and carried water, but she became exhausted about three hours later and then could not breathe.
Firefighters rescued the unidentified woman, who was an avid hiker and a personal trainer, and she later died at a hospital, fire Capt. Larry Subervi said. She had no known medical issues, and her condition appeared to be heat-related, authorities said.
Her death comes a day after a 25-year-old Phoenix man died of heat exposure while hiking in neighboring Pinal County.
Phoenix didn’t reach 120 as forecasters said was possible, but Yuma, in the southwestern corner of the state, did. Plus, weather service meteorologist Andrew Deemer said he had "no doubt there are places in the Valley that hit 120 or so."
On social media, residents commiserated by posting photos of boiling temperature readings on car thermometers and cellphones.
Some ventured outside for quick errands. Kim Leeds, 28, had to take her dog Bo outside in the early afternoon for a bathroom break. The Australian shepherd wears special booties with rubber bottoms. “He does really well with them. He doesn’t mind walking around,” Leeds said.
Preparing to enter her fourth summer in Phoenix, Leeds also decided to experiment with her car.
"I’m totally reveling in this experience because I’m actually baking cookies in my car," Leeds said. "I’ve been here long enough that I’ve got to do these things."
Others took advantage of discounts at Phoenix-area resorts, where summer can be the slow season.
Hotel guests got an early start at the JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort and Spa as temperatures climbed. Several guests swam in the pool and sat under umbrellas sipping water and other iced drinks to cool off.
The Los Angeles area also baked. Burbank and Glendale soared past 100 degrees. Burbank saw a record 107 degrees.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Strong gusts and rising temperatures across the dry Western U.S. also worsened wildfires in other states. A blaze in central New Mexico exploded to nearly 19 square miles and forced residents of some small communities to flee after sending up a towering plume of smoke that blanketed the state’s largest city in a thick haze. Some structures have burned, but it’s not clear whether they were homes.
In eastern Arizona, a small community was evacuated and thousands of other residents were told to prepare to leave after a wind-whipped wildfire charred more than 12 square miles. Blazes also threatened homes in Utah, where a firefighter hurt his head in a fall.
The weather was expected to pose problems for crews in those states and California, where flames that ignited Wednesday afternoon chewed through nearly 2 square miles of dry brush in an area that has not burned in some 70 years.
Winds gusting to nearly 40 mph pushed the fire through canyons and close to a few ranch homes and an ExxonMobil crude oil processing facility that employs about 250 workers. No structures were damaged, and no injuries were reported.
ExxonMobil evacuated non-essential employees from the Las Flores Canyon site, and those that remained through the night helped protect it against the flames.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Forecasters said much of the West will be similarly scorching.
In San Diego County, the National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning for Sunday through Tuesday, when temperatures will likely be 10 to 20 degrees above normal.
Highs during those days could surpass 100 degrees across most of the inland areas. The temperature could reach 120 on Monday in Borrego Springs.
"A high-pressure system will build over the region, producing record-breaking temperatures," said James Thomas, a National Weather Service forecaster. "We typically have two of these kind of events a year, and they’re more common in September than in June."
The high-pressure system is expected to wipe out the marine layer, which has been thick along the coast for about a month.
Even with that marine layer, the average temperature in San Diego has been running slightly higher than normal. But the clouds and winds have often made the air seem unusually chilly.
The “May gray” and “June gloom” effects can “make the weather appear to be cool when temperatures are actually a little bit above normal,” Thomas said.
Meteorologists said when the region’s heat wave is first felt on Saturday, temperatures will climb to the mid-70s at the beaches, 85 to 90 across inland foothills, and up to 107 in the deserts.
Then temperatures should jump sharply on Sunday, hitting the mid-80s at the coast, the mid-90s to low 100s in the foothills, and 117 in Borrego Springs and Ocotillo Wells.
The heat wave will likely peak on Monday, with temperatures reaching the upper 80s to low 90s at the coast. Foothill communities will be in the 98- to 107-degree range, while the deserts could see a high of 120 degrees.
The sweltering conditions almost surely will generate big crowds along the coast, where sea surface temperatures will likely be in the range of 65 to 67 degrees. That’s average for this time of year, but far cooler than in June of last year.
Meanwhile, the highs in Phoenix could reach 114 to 119 degrees by early next week, said Matt Rogers, president of the Commodity Weather Group in Bethesda, Md.
Through next week, temperatures from Washington state down to California and eastward into the Rocky Mountains could be at least 8 degrees above normal, according to Rogers’ latest forecast. The heat is expected to affect Mexico as well. “Heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion and heatstroke will be likely,” the National Weather Service said. Officials reminded people to stay indoors as much as possible and drink plenty of cold fluids.
San Diego County has a network of Cool Zone sites with air conditioning, such as libraries and senior centers, that are open to the public free of charge. To locate a nearby location, go to http://bit.ly/1Ywahm8 or call (800) 510-2020.
(Gary Robbins, SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE; BLOOMBERG NEWS)
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A large portion of Florida’s western and Panhandle coast was already under a tropical storm warning when the National Hurricane Center announced that a quickly moving depression had become a named storm. The center said it is the earliest that a third named storm has ever formed in the Atlantic basin.
It is the latest in a series of severe whether events across the country, from record-breaking heat in the West, flooding in Texas and storms that are expected to cause problems in the nation’s capital and mid-Atlantic region.
The storm was moving at a speed of about 12 mph and was expected to pick up the pace late Sunday.
“It’s going to impact most of the state in some way,” Gov. Rick Scott said in a phone interview. “Hopefully we won’t have any significant issues here, but we can have some storm surge,some rain,tornadoes and some flooding.”
Scott postponed a political meeting with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump scheduled today in New York so he can remain in the state capital to monitor the weather.
Tropical storms carry wind speeds of between 39 mph and 73 mph.
Colin was likely to bring dangerous rainfall levels, and residents were warned about possible flooding and hazardous driving conditions. Rain began falling in the Tampa Bay area just past noon Sunday.
Scott warned residents not to simply look at the center of the storm, saying the heaviest rain will be to the east and west of it.
The Georgia coast and the north Florida Atlantic coast were placed under a tropical storm watch Sunday evening.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire near the prosperous and semi-rural neighborhoods of Calabasas was 80 percent contained by sunset — up from 30 percent at daybreak. Firefighters using aircraft made water drops along the eastern and southern edges of the blaze, which was held to just over 500 acres, Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief John Tripp said.
He said the fire was hung up on the mid-slope of steep canyons, making a direct attack difficult.
"The fire was not down against a road, it was up against a cliff,” Tripp said. “So firefighters had to hike up."
All the evacuations, most of them in Calabasas but some in nearby Topanga, were canceled starting at 6 p.m.
At the height of the fire, about 3,000 homes were threatened and about 5,000 residents were under evacuation orders. It was sparked by a car crash that downed power lines.
The fire destroyed one commercial building, Tripp said. Officials had previously said three homes had been damaged, but closer examination as the fire calmed showed that was not the case, he said.
Fifty-foot-high flames erupted on ridges, and embers turned trees into torches Saturday afternoon. The fire flared as Southern California sweltered under temperatures that hit the 90s in many places.
Flames raced through drought-dry brush and came within yards of million-dollar homes. The smoke could be seen across the region.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Germany
The Baden-Württemberg village of Braunsbach was most heavily affected by the floods. After flash floods on 29 May 2016, small tributaries of the river Kocher flooded the streets of the village within minutes, and the roadways were buried under rocks, trees and car wrecks. While no one was killed in
Braunsbach, four people died in Baden-Württemberg alone, three of them in the floods, and a fourth victim, a young girl, was killed while seeking shelter from the rain under a railway bridge in Schorndorf, near Stuttgart. Among the dead were a 21-year-old man and a 38-year-old firefighter, who wanted to help the young man and died along with him in a flooded underpass in Schwäbisch Gmünd, engulfed in an open sewer.
At least seven people were killed in Bavaria, where districts established "disaster areas". The towns of Triftern and Simbach on the river Inn faced severe flooding. Three women were found dead in the basement of a flooded house in Simbach, and a drowned woman was found hanging over a tree trunk near the village of Julbach, after her house collapsed.
On 2 June, it was confirmed that a fifth and a sixth person died in Bavaria: two men, aged 75 and 65, were found dead in Simbach. In addition, four people were reported missing. Streets were swept away, bridges destroyed. The small Simbach stream had risen from half a meter to a level of 5 meters within hours. Two people were arrested under allegations of looting. A seventh victim, a 72-year-old man, died in hospital after being rescued from the floods.
On 3 and 4 June, heavy storms were reported in Southern Germany again. Music festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park faced serious security concerns and heavy rainfalls. 81 people were injured at Rock am Ring festival, 15 of them seriously, after lightning struck the crowd on the evening of 3 June. Two people had to be resuscitated by paramedics; however, none were in a life-threatening condition. Hundreds left the festival on 4 June, and it was temporarily interrupted for hours after thunderstorms were predicted, but continued in the evening. The festival didn't continue on 5 June, because the authorities denied approval. The 90,000 visitors had to leave.
On 4 June there were also floodings in Bonn on the river Rhine. In Polling in Upper Bavaria a "disaster situation" was reported by the authorities, in Lower Bavaria there were more than 140 rescue operations.
Initial estimates of the damage amounted to 1 billion Euro, in Bavaria alone. The flooded area there was twice as large as lake Chiemsee.
France
In France, the river Seine burst its banks and one town was evacuated. Four people died in the floods. An 86-year-old woman was found dead in Souppes-sur-Loing, Seine-et-Marne, after her house was flooded. A 74-year-old man on horseback died in Evry-Gregy-sur-Yerre, south of Paris while crossing a flooded field.
Some areas reported the worst flooding seen in a century. In the department of Loiret, six weeks' worth of rain reportedly fell in three days. Drivers on a highway had to be rescued by soldiers. In Paris, boat cruises were cancelled. The Louvre museum barred public admission on 2 June to 3 June to
preemptively secure the artwork in case of flooding caused by
the river Seine. Flooding in Paris was expected to peak at around 6.30 m above normal, higher than 6.18 m high seen in 1982, but below the 1955 flood level of 7.12 m, and the 1910 Paris flood which saw levels at 8.62 m above normal.
Casualties
The Seine burst its banks on Wednesday and continued to swell, raising alarms throughout the city. The Seine was expected to peak in Paris early today at about 16 feet 3 inches above normal.
"The situation is still evolving hour per hour," a deputy mayor of Paris, Colombe Brossel, said at a news conference at City Hall, saying that authorities estimated that it would take at least one or two weeks for the water to recede to normal levels.
Near the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, pieces of tree trunks floated along the swollen river. The waters had risen to the waistline of the Zouave, a notable statue next to the Pont de l’Alma that has traditionally been used as a gauge of the Seine’s levels. The city’s government urged residents to move valuables out of their basements. An art collection had to be removed from the city hall in Ivry-sur-Seine, a southeastern suburb of Paris, for safekeeping.
“Around the Eiffel Tower, the banks are flooded,” said Julien Rogard, 23, an engineer who takes the No. 6 Metro line, which crosses over the Seine on the Pont de Bir-Hakeim. “Where we usually can walk, we can’t anymore.”
Vanessa Colnot, 39, who lives in Choisy-le-Roi, a southeastern suburb of Paris, said she had watched from her windows with alarm as the waters rose for two days. “My baby sitter lives in the flooded area,” she said. “People have started to leave their homes because there is water in the streets, and they don’t want to stay if it means wearing rain boots inside.”
The Seine has not overflowed this much since December 1982, when it rose to about 20 feet, but the river’s level is still far short of the 26.2 feet reached in the catastrophic flood of January 1910. The government has made emergency plans to shift operations from the Lysee Palace, the seat of the French presidency, to the Chateau de Vincennes, a former royal fortress just east of the capital, if the waters reach 21.3 feet. “We’re not yet at this stage,” an official at the general secretariat for national defense and security told the magazine Le Point. “For now, we’re making sure that all plans are ready and that the different measures may be set in motion to ensure the continuation of governmental work.”
At the Foreign Ministry, on the Left Bank, officials expressed fears that telecommunications and computer equipment on the lower floors of the building, known as the Quai d’Orsay, could flood.
Heavy rains have caused flooding across much of France, and 20,000 households were without power on Friday, mostly in the Seineet- Marne area, east of Paris, and in Essonne, south of Paris, a result of the swelling of the Marne and Loing tributaries of the Seine. At least 16 people have died, and others are missing.
The evacuation of artworks from the Louvre, which was closed to visitors, has attracted particular attention. Starting Thursday, officials at the museum, which is on the Right Bank of the Seine, activated an emergency flood-protection plan established in 2002, prioritizing the most fragile artworks, such as tapestries.
An estimated 150,000 artworks in storage rooms and an additional 7,000 pieces in galleries were vulnerable to flooding, and a large portion of those were moved to higher floors as a precaution, officials said.
(Lilia Blaise & Benot Morenne, THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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The Louvre Museum announced it will be closed today to remove artworks from rooms threatened by the rising waters, preventatively shifting them upstairs. Its most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” is staying put on an upper floor.
The Orsay museum, on the left bank of the Seine, will also be closed today to prepare for potential flooding.
A spokeswoman at the Louvre said museum had not taken such precautions since its 1993 renovation. Some underground storerooms created during the renovation are particularly vulnerable to flood risks.
She spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the museum’s policy.
The Louvre did move art to higher floors in the flood that devastated Paris in 1910, but authorities were still checking to see if similar actions had been taken from then to 1993. About 200,000 artworks are located in flood-risk areas, mostly in storerooms.
European rivers have burst their banks this week from Paris to the southern German state of Bavaria, killing six people, trapping thousands and forcing everything from subway lines to castles to museums to shutdown.
Tourist boat cruises in Paris have been canceled and roads in and around the French capital are under water. A suburban train line that runs alongside the Seine in central Paris, serving popular tourist sites like the Eiffel Tower, the Invalides plaza and the Orsay museum, was shutdown.
Days of heavy rains have caused exceptional delays to the French Open tennis tournament and may force it into a third week. For the second day, emergency workers evacuated residents in Nemours, 50 miles south of Paris, the hardest-hit site in France.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The rising flood waters in Texas scrambled transportation, further swelled rivers already over their banks and sent more people to evacuation shelters.
The Army said the truck overturned at Fort Hood’s Owl Creek low-water crossing, and five bodies were recovered downstream. A search was being conducted for four soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, it said in a statement. Fort Hood is about 70 miles north of Austin.
Three soldiers were rescued from the water and were in stable condition at a hospital, the statement said.
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for parts of east Texas and Louisiana. It placed most of Texas on a flash flood watch because of a slow-moving storm system expected to linger through the weekend.
About 200 flights were canceled in Houston and Dallas as of Thursday evening because of heavy rains, according to tracking service FlightAware.com. Major highways have seen delays caused by accidents linked to the storms, transport officials said.
(REUTERS)
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The French government pressed to rescue thousands of people trapped in homes or cars in provincial towns, while drenched tourists were rearranging plans, and schools in one region were shutdown.
Emergency workers have carried out more than 8,000 rescue operations from the Belgian border south to Burgundy over the past two days, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Wednesday. Paris City Hall closed roads along the shores of the Seine from the Left Bank in the east to the Eiffel Tower neighborhood in the west, as water levels rose at least 14 feet higher than usual. Jordan Muller, a 25-year-old from Seattle who is living in Paris, jogged along the Seine quay despite its slippery cobblestones.
“Well, my normal running route is completely gone,” she said. “I usually run up the stairs (toward) the Eiffel Tower. Got to the stairs, and they are underwater. So I had to turn around. I have to find a new running route today.”
Signs for the Seine’s popular Bateaux-Mouches tourist boats in French, English and Japanese read “Due to flood waters, all cruises are cancelled.”
Unusually heavy rain has pummeled France and other European countries in recent days, causing exceptional delays at the French Open and forcing the evacuation of two prisons.
The town of Nemours, southeast of Paris, was the worst hit. Authorities were evacuating the center of town Wednesday even as Environment Minister Segolene Royal rushed to the site. Members of a canoe club were among those helping in the rescue, France-Info radio reported.
President Francois Hollande expressed his support for flood victims during a Cabinet meeting, while Cazeneuve said the government is working to protect flood victims and pledged to pay for rescue and cleanup efforts.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The coastal hazards, vulnerability and risk assessment, released this month, details the problems the city could face with a projected 3-foot rise in sea level by the end of the century.
"We’re trying to think about the next 100 years, given everything we know, the best science available, given what our high tide line will be, and how that would increase during a big flood event," said senior planner Joseph Smith.
Del Mar’s report is among the first in a series of similar studies on the San Diego coastline. Imperial Beach has also prepared a sea level rise assessment, and Carlsbad plans to release its report on the topic in a few weeks. San Diego County and other cities are also studying the issue. The studies aim to paint a picture of what the county’s coastline may look like in coming decades, and map ways of dealing with the rising ocean.
"It makes sense to think about these ideas now, and not wait until the waves come crashing in," said Gabriel Buhr, coastal program manager for the California Coastal Commission. "So that’s what we’re trying to address with all the different communities."
Del Mar plans to follow its hazard assessment with a report on adaptation — the measures the community can take to reduce the damage from changing sea level. Options for containing floods and storm surges include beach sand replenishment, lagoon dredging, creating artificial dunes and moving or elevating train tracks, bridges and other infrastructure, Smith said. The city will hold public meetings to discuss those options from 4 to 6 p.m. June 9 and July 21 at the temporary Del Mar City Hall at 2010 Jimmy Durante Blvd. Although the descriptions of flooding streets and failing bluffs sound bleak, experts say that San Diego’s technology sector leaves the region uniquely poised to weather these effects. "I think that the good news is that we are a place that’s renowned for world-class science and an innovation-based economy, and those are critical to helping us become a better prepared, more resilient region that can flourish in the future," said Emily Young, vice president for community impact for the San Diego Foundation.
Del Mar’s assessment looks closely at bluff erosion, beach sand and potential flood events, estimating conditions in the years 2030, 2050, 2070 and 2100. Although sea level rise might not be visible soon, it could exacerbate tidal and weather events, said Nicola Hedge, the foundation’s director of environment initiative.
"It’s really times when there are extreme high tides or winter storms, that will be magnified by sea level rise, that we will have to be most concerned about, particularly in the shorter term," she said.
With each increment of sea level rise, the risk of flooding escalates, the Del Mar report states. The document displays photos of storm damage from 1980, when Pacific cyclones flooded the city, and in 1983, when a record El Niño swamped its low-lying lands. The images depict the destructive power of that deluge, showing a rowboat floating down an inundated North Beach street, and tumbled slabs of concrete at a beachside home. The Del Mar fairgrounds were also submerged in those incidents, along with other facilities.
The probability of those kinds of torrents will increase as the sea rises, the report stated. "That magnitude of storms, has a 1 to 5 percent chance of occurring every year,” under current conditions, Smith said. “What our study shows is that by 2030, those impacts would increase to about a 15 percent chance per year, and by 2070 it would be a 50 percent chance every year. By 2100, there would be 100 percent chance.” What had once been considered a 100-year flood could become an annual event, Smith said. As flood risks increase, specific facilities would be endangered. The fairgrounds would be “highly exposed” by 2070, the report notes. Emergency services would be “highly vulnerable” by 2030, because the fire station, located about 200 feet off the San Dieguito Lagoon, could be swamped in a storm. Roads and bridges, including Camino Del Mar, Jimmy Durante Boulevard and Bridge, the east ends of North Beach District streets, and San Dieguito Drive, would be at high risk by 2070, according to the report. Low-lying central portions of the North Beach District, now considered safe from river flooding, would be highly vulnerable by then. Sewer and water infrastructure in the area would be at risk of both river and coastal flooding.
The San Dieguito Lagoon, recently restored at a cost of $90 million, could be repeatedly “drowned out” by floodwaters, destroying sensitive pickle weed and cordgrass marshes, and leaving only mudflats and open water.
"At some point, will there even be a lagoon?" Smith asked. "Or will it just be a bay?"
The report also includes maps of the city’s coastal border outlining how its bluffs are likely to crumble in coming decades. By 2100, the figures show, the bluff edge may move 100 to 200 feet to the east, imperiling buildings and major transportation lines atop it. And the damage could happen sooner, rather than later.
By 2030, the report warns, “the railroad would need to be moved inland or armored with a seawall to reduce the risk of the railroad collapsing.” That choice poses some serious complications, with no clear solution. Armoring the bluffs protects rail lines, streets and structures, but at a cost to the shoreline.
"If a seawall is constructed, the beach will erode back to the seawall over time until little to no beach exists," the report stated. "If the railroad is moved inland and bluff erosion is allowed to continue, bluff top property and sewer infrastructure in the South Beach and South Bluff Districts would be vulnerable to erosion by 2050."
Bluff failure could happen gradually, or through sudden collapse, which could create public safety risks for people in the area.
The city faces “high vulnerability” of beach loss and erosion between 2030 and 2050, the report warns, and the confluence of storms, sea and the San Dieguito River poses even greater risk. “Where the river meets the ocean, the combination of those two together can produce a lot of big events,” Smith said.
(Deborah Sullivan Brennan, S.D. UNION TRIBUNE)
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National Weather Service meteorologists predicted that the river would crest at 53.5 feet by midday today in Fort Bend County, topping a 1994 flood that caused extensive damage.
During four days of torrential rain, six people have died in floods along the Brazos, which runs from New Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico and just two years ago ran dry in parts of Texas because of drought. A Brazos River Authority map shows all 11 of the reservoirs fed by the Brazos at 95 to 100 percent capacity. Aman whose body was recovered late Sunday from a retention pond in the Austin area near the Circuit of the Americas auto racing track appeared to be one of two people reported missing earlier, said Travis County sheriff ’s spokeswoman Lisa Block.
Beth Wolf, a Fort Bend County spokeswoman, said the additional rain forecast for southeast Texas was "problematic."
"The ditches are full, the river’s high, there’s nowhere else for that water to go," she said.
Flood warnings across Texas remained in effect Monday though only isolated rainfall was expected in parts of the southeast.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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In Bandera, about 45 miles northwest of San Antonio, an estimated 10 inches of rain overnight led to the rescues of nine people. The rain caused widespread damage, including the collapse of the roof of the Bandera Bulletin, the weekly newspaper, KSAT-TV in San Antonio reported. Photos from the area showed campers and trailers stacked against each other, but no injuries were reported.
Torrential rains caused heavy flash flooding in some parts of the U.S. over the last few days and led to numerous evacuations in southeast Texas, including two prisons. But the threat of severe weather has lessened over the Memorial Day holiday for many places, though Tropical Depression Bonnie continued to bring rain and wind to North and South Carolina. Bonnie reached the South Carolina coast early Sunday, bringing heavy rain and rough tides to an area packed with tourists.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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A similar proposal was defeated at the Exxon Mobil meeting in Dallas but received 38.2 percent of the vote. The "climate stress test" measure was supported by a group of Chevron and Exxon Mobil investors, including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
"Given that the deck is stacked against you in these votes, that’s a pretty big number," said Andrew Logan, the director the oil and gas program at Ceres, a Boston- based nonprofit concentrating on sustainable business practices that organized the shareholder campaigns.
"This adds up to a wave of pressure on these companies that people will find hard to ignore." All the other items dealing with climate lost by lopsided margins at each meeting, including:
The record was set Thursday in the city of Phalodi, in the western state of Rajasthan. India’s meteorological department said the previous high was 123 degrees Fahrenheit, reached in 1956 in the city of Alwar, also in Rajasthan. Authorities have issued a severe heat wave alert for the weekend in the western states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and parts of the central state of Madhya Pradesh. That means the areas can expect temperatures of 116.6 degrees Fahrenheit or more. The main summer months — April, May and June — are always excruciatingly hot across most parts of India before monsoon rains bring cooler temperatures.
The monsoon normally hits southern India in the first week of June and covers the rest of the nation within a month. It is especially eagerly awaited this year because several parts of the country are reeling under a drought brought on by two years of weak rains. Clare Nullis, a spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization, told reporters in Geneva on Friday during a briefing on record global temperatures that meteorologists expect this year’s Indian monsoon will bring more rain than normal, which would be good news for the drought-stricken regions.
"Obviously the monsoon hasn’t yet started. The intervening weeks will be quite serious. But I understand the Indian government is actually taking quite serious measures to address this," she said. In Rajasthan and Gujarat, authorities issued advisories urging people to remain indoors during the hottest parts of the day and stay hydrated. Hospitals were asked to set aside beds to treat patients suffering from heatstroke.
Many people believe that certain foods help prevent heatstroke, and stalls selling a salty-sweet drink made of raw mangoes and ones selling sliced watermelon and cucumbers have been doing a brisk business. The prolonged heat wave this year has already killed hundreds and destroyed crops in more than 13 states, impacting hundreds of millions of Indians.
Hundreds of farmers are reported to have killed themselves across the country and tens of thousands of small farmers have been forced to abandon their farmland and live in squalor in urban slums in order to eke out a living. Rivers, lakes and dams have dried up in many parts of the western states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat, and officials say groundwater reservoirs are severely depleted. In some areas, the situation is so bad the government has sent in water by train for emergency relief.
(Muneeza Naqvi, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Heavy fog, electrical outages and the loose ground complicated the search in Kegalle district, about 45 miles north of Colombo.
"We will continue the search tomorrow, but we have to study the situation" to make sure it’s safe, said army Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe, who was coordinating search efforts.
Asked whether rescuers expected to find survivors, Ranasinghe pointed to an area where 66 houses once stood. "All gone with that landslide," he said. "So I have my doubts." Soldiers carried bodies to a school where families waited for news of missing loved ones. The school entrance was decorated with white flags, a symbol of mourning.
Most of the bodies recovered were in Elangapitiya, the village farthest down the hill. The area around the villages had been cleared for agriculture and tea plantations, leaving the countryside exposed.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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News of the fire’s spread comes a day after officials said that the more than 80,000 residents who were forced to evacuate Fort McMurray and surrounding regions two weeks ago could return home starting on June 1 if conditions are deemed to be safe.
Alberta senior wildlife manager Chad Morrison said the fire, which has grown to 1,930 square miles, has burned nearly three square miles into Saskatchewan. However, it is still about 18 miles away from La Loche, the nearest Saskatchewan community.
Premier Rachel Notley reiterated Thursday that the Fort McMurray fire continues to "burn out of control" north of the city but emergency crews have been successful in securing the oil sands facilities.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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That has caused zero-visibility storms that resulted in car accidents. Arizona state troopers now preemptively close the highway every time a storm approaches in an effort to keep drivers safe.
State officials say they are seeking fines against the farm’s owner because he hasn’t cooperated fast enough. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has watered the land to the tune of $20,000 a day for several days and is now using a biodegradable liquid designed to control dust erosion. The state plans to bill the landowner.
"Things can turn very quickly. And you’re seeing that all over that place right now, but in other areas in Colorado, parts of Oklahoma," said Dave DuBois, climatologist at New Mexico State University.
DuBois said environmental conditions like drought, along with land use practices, affect how dusty the air will be. This calendar year has been particularly dry in the Southwest, which increases the risk of blowing dust.
"It’s amazing to see the same issues whenever there’s a dry spell combined with a land use practice of disturbing the soil. I mean it could be in Idaho, it could be Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas."
Scientists have also kept track of dust storms in more remote places like Alaska, where webcam images show cloud-like plumes of dirt circling near the upper Copper River in southeastern Alaska. University of Arizona meteorologist Mike Leuthold says predicting dust storms is difficult because they form quickly.
Leuthold also specializes in forecasting haboobs in the Phoenix area. This year could see the giant walls of dust that roll in with thunderstorms more active because of the dry winter, Leuthold said.
(Astrid Galvan, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More than 80,000 residents have been ordered to flee after an earlier order that had applied to almost 30,000 people, mostly on the city’s south side, was extended to tens of thousands more as flames continued to make their way into the city Tuesday. Residents were panicked. Highway 63 is the only road out of the city and flames jumped the road. The wildfire, whipped by unpredictable winds on a day of high temperatures, worsened dramatically in a short time, and many residents had little notice to flee.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said officials were doing all they could to ensure everyone’s safety and said they were looking into the possibility of an airlift for residents with medical issues.
Scott Long of Alberta Emergency Management said the flames had burned a number of structures, but couldn’t say how many.
Carol Christian’s home was in one of the neighborhoods under the order to leave. She said it was scary as she drove to an evacuation center with her son and cat.
“When you leave it’s an overwhelming feeling to think that you’ll never see your house again,” she said, her voice breaking. “It was absolutely horrifying when we were sitting there in traffic. You look up and then you watch all the trees candle-topping up the hills where you live and you’re thinking, ‘Oh my God. We got out just in time.”’ The main road into Fort McMurray was closed at the southern entrance to the city after flames jumped the road. Pictures posted on Twitter showed long lines of traffic and skies darkened by thick smoke as flames licked the edges of roads. Fort McMurray is the capital of Alberta’s oil sands region. The Alberta oil sands are the third largest reserves of oil in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that he spoke with Notley and said the federal government stands ready to help. He urged residents to follow evacuation orders.
Oil sands work camps were being pressed into service to house evacuees as the raging wildfire emptied the city. Most oil sands projects are well north of the community, while the worst of the flames were on the city’s south side.
Officials were also evacuating non-essential staff at Suncor’s base plant, which is 18 miles away and one of the closest facilities to the city. Spokesman Paul Newmarch said evacuees were moving into the plant’s work camps.
Will Gibson, a spokesman for Syncrude, which also has a plant north of the town, was one of the evacuees.
Gibson said he had to flee his neighborhood via a grass embankment because the fire had already cut off the road at both ends.
"I left my neighborhood and there were houses on fire," he said. "I don’t know if and when I’ll be going back."
The large work camps can normally accommodate thousands of workers.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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"When we look at any of the major impacts of climate change, they one way or another come through water," said Richard Damania, a lead economist at the bank and the lead author of the report, on a call with reporters Tuesday.
Climate change hits water supplies in multiple ways. Warm temperatures can cause more evaporation of water from landscapes, while changes in precipitation can lead to both more intense individual downpours but also swings of drought conditions. The threat from all this is not just to what people drink but what they eat: The human activity that consumes the most water is agriculture.
And then, there’s sea-level rise: It can push into coastal aquifers, as is happening today in Florida, and thus threaten to make them more saline and less usable. So it isn’t only surface waters that may be depleted by climate swings, but also groundwater. The World Bank report says that 1.6 billion people on Earth already live in conditions of water scarcity. Other research has put that number even higher, finding that 4 billion face conditions of severe water scarcity during at least some part of the year. Either way, the World Bank fears the number will double.
The problem will be exacerbated by greater populations overall, and more demand for water due to increased needs in the electricity generation and agricultural sectors.
"Growing populations, rising incomes, and expanding cities will converge upon a world where the demand for water rises exponentially, while supply becomes more erratic and uncertain," the report says.
Some of the statistics are staggering. The report finds that in the next 30 years, "the global food system will require between 40 to 50 percent more water; municipal and industrial water demand will increase by 50 to 70 percent; the energy sector will see water demand increase by 85 percent; and the environment, already the residual claimant, may receive even less."
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Liberal-to-moderate Republicans say climate change is real in much higher numbers than the party’s right wing does. More than 70 percent of GOP moderates say they know the world is warming, up 10 percentage points from two years ago. But only half of these Republicans, and just 26 percent of conservative Republicans, identify the problem as caused mostly by human activities. Acknowledging the warming is "a critical first step," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. "The first step is admitting that you have a problem."
The two leading Republican presidential candidates have repeatedly dismissed climate change science. Donald Trump told The Washington Post editorial board in March that he is "not a great believer in man-made climate change," adding that "perhaps there’s a minor effect."
The Yale-George Mason poll was conducted March 18-31 and is based on a survey of 1,004 registered voters who reflect the national electorate. The respondents were drawn from Knowledge Panel, a unit of the German marketing company GfK SE that assembles statistically sound sample groups for universities, new organizations, companies and nonprofits.
The survey confirms that while only liberal Democrats put climate change near the top of their agenda, it remains a litmus test for credibility among many registered voters. Respondents were more likely to pick a candidate who strongly supports fighting climate change, 43 percent to 14 percent. They also reported feeling less likely to vote for an opponent of climate policy.
The issue is generational as well as partisan, according to Sheril Kirshenbaum, director of the University of Texas-Austin Energy Poll. Younger Americans are much likelier to understand climate change — but that doesn’t mean they’ll vote.
The biggest surprise is just how tenacious far left Democrats have become about the issue. The survey asks liberals and conservatives within each party to rank 23 issues by importance. Global warming, environmental protection and clean energy all appear among the top eight issues for liberal Democrats — higher than their traditional bread-and-butter topics such as gun control, reproductive rights and Wall Street reform.
(Eric Roston, BLOOMBERG NEWS)
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"We are breaking records in these chambers, and this is good news. But there are also records being broken outside," Ki-moon said, referencing the hotter-than-ever recorded temperatures of the first three months of 2016. Other events tied to climate change also have triggered sharp concern globally: Greenland’s massive ice sheet has experienced more melting this spring than researchers have ever seen. Coral reefs known for their eye-catching colors are turning white in warming seas, with the Great Barrier Reef experiencing unprecedented bleaching right now.
"We are in a race against time," Ki-moon said. The signing at 10:50 a.m., an hour behind schedule due to dignitaries' lengthy speeches, was for a commitment to abide by the accord reached by an overwhelming majority of U.N. member states at climate talks in Paris late last year.
Negotiators there agreed to take steps to prevent global temperatures from rising by no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. “This is a day to commit ourselves to actually winning this war,” Kerry stressed in his remarks near the end of the event’s opening ceremony. As 2015 closed as the warmest year since the start of the industrial age, the nations in Paris heeded the mounting evidence: "Nature is changing due to our choices," Kerry said.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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The dams — at 50 percent capacity — are classified as high risk only because they’re about two decades beyond their life expectancy and in a populated area, said agency spokeswoman Sandra Arnold.
However, a Corps report issued on the dams in 2012 offered more worrying criteria for the classification, noting that such structures are “critically near failure or at extremely high risk under normal operations.” In the unlikely event that the dams collapsed, downtown and the highly populated area in sprawling West Houston would likely see deaths as well as $60 billion in property damage, said Richard Long, a project operations managers with the Corps.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Officials said the quake killed at least 246 people and injured more than 2,500 along Ecuador’s coast. Vice President Jorge Glas said the toll was likely to rise because a large number of people remained unaccounted for, though he declined to say how many.
Much damage was reported in the cities of Manta, Portoviejo and Guayaquil, which are all several hundred miles from the epicenter of the quake that struck shortly after nightfall Saturday.
But the loss of life seemed to be far worse in isolated, smaller towns close to the center of the earthquake.
President Rafael Correa, who cut short a trip to Rome to oversee relief efforts, declared a national emergency and urged Ecuadoreans to stay strong.
"Everything can be rebuilt, but what can’t be rebuilt are human lives, and that’s the most painful," he said in a telephone call to state TV before departing for Manta, where he arrived just before nightfall to be briefed by aides.
More than 3,000 packages of food and nearly 8,000 sleeping kits were being delivered Sunday. Ecuador’s ally, Venezuela, and neighboring Colombia, where the quake was also felt, organized airlifts of humanitarian aid. The European Union, Spain, Peru and Mexico also pledged aid.
Carlos Hernandez, a representative of Save the Children International in Quito, said his organization was sending a team of disaster response specialists from Panama and putting together supply kits to distribute in Ecuador.
His organization and other civil society groups met with government officials to plan their response Sunday.
"We’re trying to see what they need most and where," he said. Rescuers scrambled through ruins in the provincial capital Portoviejo, digging with their hands trying to find survivors. “For God’s sake, help me find my family,” pleaded Manuel Quijije, 27, standing next to a wrecked building. He said his older brother, Junior, was trapped under a pile of twisted steel and concrete with two relatives.
“We managed to see his arms and legs. They’re his, they’re buried, but the police kicked us out because they say there’s a risk the rest of the building will collapse,” Quijije said angrily as he looked on the ruins cordoned off by police. “We’re not afraid. We’re desperate. We want to pull out our family.”
Electricity mostly remained out in Manabi province, the hardest-hit region, as authorities focused on finding survivors.
“Compatriots: Unity, strength and prayer,” the vice president told a throng of people in Manta as he instructed them on how to look for survivors. “We need to be quiet so we can hear. We can’t use heavy machinery because it can be very tragic for those who are injured.”
On social media, Ecuadorians celebrated a video of a baby girl being pulled from beneath a collapsed home in Manta. But fear was also spreading of unrest after authorities announced that 180 prisoners from a jail near Portoviejo escaped amid the tumult after the quake. Shantytowns and cheaply constructed brick and concrete homes were reduced to rubble along the quake’s path. In the coastal town of Chamanga, authorities estimated than 90 percent of homes had damage, while in Guayaquil a shopping center’s roof fell down and a collapsed highway overpass crushed a car.
In Manta, the airport closed after the control tower collapsed, injuring an air traffic control worker and a security guard. In the capital, Quito, terrified people fled into the streets as the quake shook buildings. One resident shot a video of his lamps and hanging houseplants swinging wildly for more than 30 seconds as the building rocked back and forth. The quake knocked out electricity in several neighborhoods and a few homes collapsed, but after a few hours power was being restored. Among those killed was the driver of a car crushed by an overpass that buckled in Guayaquil, the country’s most populous city. Two Canadians were also among the dead. The city’s international airport was briefly closed. The government said it would draw on $600 million in emergency funding from multilateral banks to rebuild.
The U.S. Geological Survey originally put the quake at a magnitude of 7.4 then raised it to 7.8. It had a depth of 12 miles. More than 135 aftershocks followed, one as strong as magnitude-5.6, and authorities urged residents to brace for even stronger ones in the coming hours and days. The quake was about six times as strong as the most powerful of two deadly earthquakes on the other side the Pacific, in the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. A magnitude- 6.5 earthquake struck Thursday near Kumamoto, followed by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake just 28 hours later. Those quakes killed 41 people and injured about 1,500, flattening houses and triggering major landslides.
Susan Hough, a seismologist at the USGS, said evidence exists that extremely large earthquakes can trigger other earthquakes at large distances and that within close distances the frequency of quakes are frequently clustered. But she said there appears no direct relationship between the quakes on opposite sides of the Pacific. “Nobody has ever demonstrated statistically significant temporal clustering of large quakes worldwide,” she said in an email. “Maybe there is something more going on than what we understand.”
(Dolores Ochoa & Allen Penchant, ASSOCIATED PRESS; NEW YORK TIMES)
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The Rio Mapocho flooded several districts of the city and landslides killed at least one person. Seven others were missing, and officials said some 300 people had been evacuated. Power was cut to more than 80,000 people in Santiago and the provinces of Valparaiso and O’Higgins. The huge El Teniente operation of the state-run Codelco mining company was forced to close. Officials said schools would be shuttered as well.
City official Claudio Orrego said that while the Mapocho didn’t overflow its banks, a problem with a tunnel led water to spill into the city.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Thousands of rescue workers fanned out in often mountainous terrain to search for the missing. Rescue helicopters could be seen going into and out of the area, much of which has been cut off by landslides and road and bridge damage. With 180,000 people seeking shelter, some evacuees said that food distribution was a meager two rice balls for dinner. U.S. forces are getting ready to provide aerial support for Japan’s relief efforts. The U.S. has major Air Force, Navy and Marine bases in Japan, and stations about 50,000 troops in the country.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, “We are extremely grateful, and we would like to coordinate quickly and have the emergency relief be transported in as soon as possible.” Shiori Yatabe, an official at the Kumamoto prefecture crisis management department, said 11 people were missing. She didn’t have a breakdown, but Japanese media reported that eight were in Minamiaso village.
About 100 troops, police and other rescue workers searched for those missing in Minamiaso, shoveling dirt in areas where they were believed to have been buried. A few stretchers were on hand in case anyone was found alive. Minamiaso is in a mountainous area southwest of 5,223-foot-high Mount Aso, the largest active volcano in Japan. Aerial footage from Japanese TV showed teams of rescuers going through small clusters of destroyed buildings. Earthquakes on successive nights struck Kumamoto city and the surrounding region late last week. Nine people died in the first earthquake, and 32 in the second. Kumamoto, a city of 740,000, is on the southwestern island of Kyushu. The hardest-hit town appears to be Mashiki, on the eastern border of Kumamoto city, where 20 people died.
Overnight rainfall did not appear to cause any more landslides, as had been feared, and the skies had cleared by Sunday morning.
About 80,000 homes in Kumamoto prefecture still didn’t have electricity Sunday, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said. Japanese media reported earlier that an estimated 400,000 households were without running water.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The fire department reported at least seven dead from the quake early this morning, according to Kumamoto Prefectural official Tomoyuki Tanaka. A series of aftershocks ensued, including a magnitude- 5.4 this morning. The Japan Meteorological Agency said that the quake that struck earlier today may be the main quake, with the earlier one a precursor. The quakes’ epicenters have been relatively shallow — about 6 miles— and close to the surface, resulting in more severe shaking and damage. Japanese media reported that nearly 200,000 homes were without electricity. Drinking water systems had also failed in the area. Hundreds of people were reported injured, although some of the injuries were minor.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, in an emergency news conference early today, said more than 300 calls came in to the Kumamoto police and 100 more to police in nearby Oita, seeking help and reporting people trapped or buried underneath debris. He said 1,600 soldiers joined rescue efforts. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said damage from the magnitude-7.3 quake could be extensive. The Nuclear Regulation Authority reported no abnormalities at Kyushu’s Sendai nuclear plant. Today’s quake hit residents who were still in shock from Thursday night’s earthquake and had suffered through more than 100 aftershocks. Yuichiro Yoshikado said Thursday’s quake stuck as he was taking a bath in his apartment in Mashiki. “I grabbed onto the sides of the bathtub, but the water in the tub, it was about 70 percent filled with water, was going like this,” he said, waving his arms, “and all the water splashed out.” “It’s as if all control was lost. I thought I was going to die and I couldn’t bear it any longer.”
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The authorities in Kumamoto said they had pulled several people from under collapsed buildings, according to NHK, the national broadcast network. Television reports showed the rescue of an infant, alive and apparently uninjured.
The earthquake knocked an out-of-service Shinkansen bullet train off its rails, JR Kyushu Railway reported. No one was hurt, the railway said. Television images also showed cracked and buckled roadways.
The Japan Meteorological Agency had reported the quake’s preliminary magnitude at 6.5, strong but not at the top of the range for seismically unstable Japan. The earthquake that struck northeastern Japan in 2011, unleashing a powerful tsunami, measured 9.0. That disaster led to reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The earthquake on Thursday was centered on land, unlike the offshore quake five years ago, and its origin point was a relatively shallow 6 miles below the surface. As a result, there was no tsunami, but the shaking near the epicenter was especially strong.
In Mashiki, groups of people gathered in parking lots, parks and other open spaces after fleeing their homes. At a community center where some spent the night, workers dispensed blankets and emergency food rations.
In Kumamoto, a city of about 700,000 that is just a few miles to the west of Mashiki, damage to buildings and other infrastructure appeared to be comparatively light. A section of the stone wall surrounding the city’s black castle, whose fortifications date from the 15th century, collapsed.
(NEW YORK TIMES)
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After years of focus on China’s hazy skies as a measure of environmental blight, the new data from 2,103 underground wells struck a nerve among Chinese citizens who have become increasingly sensitive about health threats from pollution. Most Chinese cities draw on deep reservoirs that were not part of this study, but many villages and small towns in the countryside depend on the shallower wells that are.
"From my point of view, this shows how water is the biggest environmental issue in China," said Dabo Guan, a professor at the University of East Anglia in Britain who has been studying water pollution and scarcity in China.
"People in the cities, they see air pollution every day, so it creates huge pressure from the public. But in the cities, people don’t see how bad the water pollution is," Guan said. "They don’t have the same sense."
For years, the Chinese government has acknowledged that wells and underground water reserves were endangered by overuse as well as widespread contamination from industry and farming.
(U-T NEW SERVICES)
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(AP)
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Jankowski said the weather service received reports of lofted debris, trees down and some structural damage. Emergency Medical Services Authority, an ambulance service provider, tweeted Wednesday night that weather-related calls resulted in nine patients transported. It said most calls were for serious injuries.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Pavlof Volcano, one of Alaska’s most active volcanoes, is 625 miles southwest of Anchorage on the Alaska Peninsula, the finger of land that sticks out from mainland Alaska toward the Aleutian Islands. The volcano in the 8,261-foot mountain erupted about 4 p.m. Sunday, spitting out an ash cloud that rose to 20,000 feet. Lightning over the mountain and pressure sensors indicated eruptions continued overnight. By 7 a.m. Monday, the ash cloud had risen to 37,000 feet and winds to 50 mph or more had stretched it over more than 400 miles into interior Alaska.
"It's right in the wheelhouse of a lot of flights crisscrossing Alaska," said geologist Chris Waythomas, of the U.S. Geological Survey. Waythomas had received no reports of ash falling in communities.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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At least 620 square miles of land in Oklahoma and southern Kansas have been scorched in the fire, which started Tuesday. It destroyed at least one home in Kansas, but no serious injuries have been reported.
The wildfire is the "largest in Kansas history and one of the largest in U.S. history," the Kansas Forest Service said in a release Friday, the same day authorities sent a plane up to update how much land had burned. Officials also are looking at the damage in Barber County to determine if it meets the threshold for a Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster declaration, which would provide public assistance for damaged public infrastructure.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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In a major international study published last week in Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers from regions ranging from Alaska to Russia report that permafrost is thawing faster than expected— even in some of the very coldest areas. In these regions, winter freezing cracks open the ground, which then fills with water in the summer from melting snow. When refreezing occurs in the winter, that causes large wedges of ice to form amid the icy ground. These ice wedges can extend ten or fifteen meters deep, and can in some cases be thousands of years old. But the study, sampling high Arctic sites in Russia, Alaska and Canada based on both field studies and satellite observations, found that across the Arctic, the tops of these wedges are melting, as the top layer of permafrost soil — which itself lies beneath a so-called "active layer" of soil that freezes and thaws regularly — also begins to thaw. "Landscape-wide ice-wedge degradation was observed at 10 out of 11 sites," the paper reported.
"At the places where we have sufficient amounts of data we are seeing this process happen in less than a decade and even after one warm summer," said Anna Liljedahl, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.
"The scientific community has had the assumption that this cold permafrost would be protected from climate warming, but we're showing here that the top of the permafrost, even if it’s very cold, is very sensitive to these warming events," Liljedahl continues.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Continued snow and blowing wind reduced visibility at Denver International Airport so much by midday Wednesday that officials said it was not safe for aircraft to take off or land. The road to the airport is impassable. Passengers already at the airport were told to stay there until the road was safe to drive again.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Environment Secretary Alejandro Pacchiano said if conditions don’t improve, further measures may be considered such as suspending industrial activity at factories.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Docia Winters hugged her 20-year-old son, Ryan Ficca, when he got off the back of a big truck Thursday morning. She said she and her husband and daughter evacuated their trailer on Wednesday, but Ficca had stayed behind to look after their 11 cats.
She said the water rose so fast, however, that Ficca was forced to leave without the cats. “We don’t know if they went under the trailer or where they are,” she said. Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a statewide emergency in all 64 Louisiana parishes late Thursday because more rain and severe weather was expected, and the National Guard was sent in to help. The declaration remains in effect until today, the governor’s office said.
Guard spokesman Rebekah Malone said the Guard has evacuated 361 people from homes in Bossier, Ouachita and Morehouse parishes since Wednesday morning, using trucks that can travel though water 20 to 30 inches deep.
Guardsmen have also evacuated 70 dogs, 16 chickens and even a guinea pig.
Rain also pummeled parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.
In southern Arkansas, heavy rainfall prompted the closure of some schools and roads, and forecasters say the deluge will continue there for the rest of the week. Meteorologists with the National Weather Service said officials have reported water rescues and evacuations near Dermott, Ark., as water rises in low-lying areas. More than 14 inches of rain had fallen as of Thursday morning in Chicot and Ashley counties in the southeast corner of Arkansas.
In west Tennessee, schools closed early and roads were closed Thursday because of flooding caused by heavy rain. The National Weather Service said 3 to 10 inches of rain has fallen in counties along the Mississippi River in western Tennessee, eastern Arkansas and northern Mississippi since late Tuesday, flooding roads, parking lots and fields.
(Gerald Herbert & Chevel Johnson, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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On Tuesday, a tornado that ripped through a recreational vehicle park in Louisiana left two people dead, and a man died of blunt-force trauma when storms hit in Mississippi.
At least five structures were damaged Wednesday in Waverly, a town of approximately 2,000, and roads leading into town had to be closed because of downed trees and debris tossed by winds gusting to 60 mph, Geller said. In Appomattox County, Va., a tornado with estimated winds of up to 165 mph left an 8- to 10-mile path of destruction, injuring seven people and killing a 78-year-old man, state police said. Edward Keith Harris was found outside his home in Evergreen late Wednesday, Sheriff Barry Letterman told a news conference Thursday. At least 15 structures were destroyed and 25 injuries were reported when the storm passed through Essex County and the town of Tappahannock, about 45 miles northeast of Richmond, state police said. The injuries ranged from minor to serious, but there were no confirmed fatalities.
In Waverly, Larry Turner, 50; Devine Stringfield, 26; and 2-year-old Ivan Lewis died Wednesday afternoon when a twister hit Turner’s mobile home in a neighborhood sandwiched between railroad tracks and U.S. 460. Their bodies were hurled 300 yards across the highway and into a field adjacent to a cemetery, police said.
The toddler’s 30-year-old mother, whose name was not released, was also in the trailer but survived. She remained hospitalized Thursday. In southern Michigan, a 6-year-old girl died following a three-vehicle crash. State police said Harlyn Radley died after the crash Wednesday afternoon near Battle Creek when a car driven by the child’s mother lost control and collided with another vehicle. A third vehicle then struck the wreckage. Police say speed and heavy, wet snow were factors.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The 112-day leak at the Aliso Canyon facility released about 5 billion cubic feet of methane into the atmosphere, making it by far the biggest single emitter of the gas anywhere in the country, according to detailed assessment published in the peer-reviewed journal Science.
From a climate perspective, the accident was historic: A single leak produced a heat-trapping effect equivalent to the annual exhaust emissions from nearly 600,000 cars.
“The climate impact is the largest on a record” for any single incident in the United States, said Stephen Conley, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California Davis and one of six scientists involved in the study.
The leak, which was halted only last week, illustrates how a single incident can sabotage efforts to reduce emissions of the gases blamed for climate change, the study said. California officials have called for dramatic reductions in carbon pollution for the state’s 39 million people, and offered tax rebates for consumers who buy electric vehicles. Yet the analysis shows that the methane flow from one damaged wellhead more than doubled the amount of methane pollution emitted by all sources across the entire Los Angeles basin.
Without a doubt, the disaster has made it harder for the state to meet its carbon-reduction goals, the scientists said.
“How much of the rebate program’s benefit did that one leak undo?” asked Conley. “Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. These leaks happen, and they will continue to happen.”
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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A day earlier, the system spawned about two dozen tornadoes along the Gulf Coast, damaging hundreds of homes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Three people were killed and dozens were injured. Forecasters warned the threat wasn’t over and that more than 88 million people were at risk of seeing some sort of severe weather. In the Midwest, heavy snow and biting winds led to mass flight cancellations at Chicago airports and school closings in several states.
In Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency Wednesday evening. The tiny farming town of Waverly in the state’s peanut- growing region took the brunt of the storm. The Virginia State Police said at least five structures were damaged in the town of approximately 2,000.
The names of the victims were not released, but state police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said in a statement that they were a 2-year-old child and two men, ages 50 and 26. She said their bodies were found about 300 yards from their mobile home. Roads leading into the town had to be closed because of downed trees and debris tossed by winds gusting to 60 mph, Geller said.
Witnesses said the storm swept through Waverly with little warning. Timothy Williams said a friend had just come by to take his new car for a drive when the storm hit. “It picked the car right off the ground, and put it right back on the ground,” said Williams, 44. He said they remained in the car until the storm passed. The storm blew down electrical lines “in a big ball of fire, thrashing all about each other,” Williams said. He said they both escaped shaken but uninjured. “I’m just a little nervous and jittery, but overall I’m OK,” Williams said. On Tuesday, one of the hardest-hit areas along the Gulf Coast was a recreational vehicle park in the town of Convent, in southern Louisiana. RVs were tossed about and lay on top of wrecked cars and pickup trucks. Two people were killed there, and 31 injured people were taken to area hospitals, said St. James Parish Sheriff Willy Martin.
An all-night search of the RV park found no additional injuries or fatalities, the sheriff said. One person was still unaccounted for.
Briaxton Lott, 23, was in the trailer park when the tornado hit. The pad where his trailer once sat was empty, and he pointed to the remnants of it about 100 feet away.
"The whole front end came up and slammed back down, and I grabbed up the baby and the next thing I know we just went rolling end over end," Lott said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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He said officials also have fears about nearby Taveuni Island, home to about 12,000 people, because they’ve managed to have only limited contact with people there.
Winds from Cyclone Winston, which tore through the Pacific Island chain Saturday and early Sunday, reached 177 miles per hour, making it the strongest storm in Fiji’s recorded history.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
NB: as of 2/25/16, the death toll from Cyclone Winston has climbed to 44, according to Wikipedia.
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The air quality index, used in many countries, is an aggregate measure of various pollutants in the air. Currently, any reading above 200 for more than three days in Beijing will prompt a red alert, which activates numerous contingency plans that can disrupt jobs and businesses.
Beijing’s air quality is among the worst in the world, and much of the smog comes from industrial pollution and the burning of coal. The red alert issued in December came as a surprise to many because air pollution in the city had routinely been worse. A number of times during the winter over the past three years, the air quality index exceeded 500, a level deemed hazardous to human health. Those “off-the-charts” episodes did not activate red alerts, even though the state news media instructed people to reduce their outdoor activities.
The new standards will also be applied to neighboring provinces that have suffered from severe air pollution, Xinhua reported.
Ma Jun, a prominent environmental researcher in Beijing, said the change highlighted officials’ worries about the social disruption a red alert could cause. With the new standards, he said, officials must reassess some of the contingency measures that come with the warning. “There will be multiple times of red alerts in a year if we continue using the current standards, which will bring about a high social and economic cost,” Ma said.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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Winds from Cyclone Winston, which tore through Fiji over the weekend, reached 177 miles per hour, making it the strongest storm in the Southern Hemisphere since record-keeping began, according to the Weather Underground website.
Ewan Perrin, Fiji's permanent secretary for communications, said the electricity network across Fiji remained patchy, and in some cases power had been deliberately cut to prevent further damage. He said clean water was also a challenge.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Authorities were urging people to remain indoors as they cleared fallen trees and power lines. They said all schools would be closed for a week to allow time for the cleanup. One man on Koro Island had died in the cyclone, authorities said, although they didn’t yet have details of the circumstances.
On Saturday, the government imposed a nationwide curfew and declared a 30day state of natural disaster, giving extra powers to police to arrest people without a warrant in the interest of public safety.
Wind speeds from Cyclone Winston were estimated at up to177 miles per hour.
The cyclone moved westward overnight along the northern coast of the main island, Viti Levu, before continuing out to sea. Fiji’s capital, Suva, located in the southern part of the main island, was not directly in the cyclone’s path and avoided the worst of its destructive power. “Truth be told, we’ve gotten off pretty lightly here in the capital,” said Alice Clements, a spokeswoman for the aid agency UNICEF who lies in Suva. “It was still a pretty awful night. You could hear crashing trees and power lines, and popping rivets as roofs got lifted and ripped out.” She said there’s foliage everywhere which looks like it has been put through a blender. Clements said there’s real concern for the welfare of people on the northern part of the main island and smaller islands elsewhere. She said many would have lost their homes and livelihoods.
She said the Fijian government is responding quickly by clearing vital roads. Flights to Fiji were canceled on Saturday and Clements said some tourist resorts on the outer islands may have suffered damage.
Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama wrote on social media that the island’s evacuation centers were operational and that the government was prepared to deal with a potential crisis.
“As a nation, we are facing an ordeal of the most grievous kind,” he wrote. “We must stick together as a people and look after each other.”
(Nick Perry, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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For Waste Management, the company that runs this operation in Newark, N.J., collecting, sorting and bundling recyclables was until recently a profitable endeavor. A year ago, Waste Management could have fetched $230 for each bale of thin translucent plastic.
But today, thanks to the glut of cheap oil flooding global markets, they are worth just $112 each.
“Recycling is in a crisis,” said David Steiner, chief executive of Waste Management. “It used to be that all players in the recycling ecosystem were able to make a profit. That’s not the case anymore.”
With concerns about climate change mounting, it’s an awkward time for the recycling industry to be under such pressure. The environmental merits of recycling are well accepted by the public, if still disputed by some. Curbside collection programs are commonplace.
Yet recycling is a commodities business. The paper, metal, plastic and glass that recyclers collect, sort and sell competes against so-called virgin materials. And right now, many commodities are cheap.
Abundant oil— whose price has dropped below $30 a barrel, though a 17 percent spike over the last week pushed it to close at $30.77 on Thursday— is the latest headache for recyclers. New plastics are made from the byproducts of oil and gas production. So as plentiful fossil fuels saturate global markets, it has become cheaper for the makers of water bottles, yogurt containers and takeout boxes to simply buy new plastics. This, in turn, is dragging down the price of recycled materials, straining every part of the recycling industry.
In Montgomery, Ala., Infinitus Energy opened a $35 million recycling center in 2014. By last October, it was hemorrhaging money and shut down. Montgomery’s recyclables are now going to a landfill, and a once booming local business, United Plastic Recycling, filed for bankruptcy last year.
In Plaquemines Parish, just south of New Orleans, Republic Services decided to double the fees it charged the local government to collect and process recyclables. The cost was too high, and the parish said it would end its recycling program at the end of the month, only to reverse course after a public outcry led by energetic seventh-graders.
And Waste Management, the biggest recycler in the country, has reduced the number of recycling facilities it operates to about 100, from 130, over the last two years, resulting in the loss of 900 jobs. Over the last three quarters, revenues from recycling operations are down 16 percent from the same time a year earlier, to $878 million from just over $1 billion.
“The recycling industry is being hit dramatically by falling commodity and oil prices,” said Michael Taylor, vice president for international trade at the Society of the Plastics Industry. “A real fear now is that recycling rates might go down. That would be a horrible situation.”
Local governments and businesses have spent decades working to increase recycling rates with new infrastructure, education campaigns and higher demand for post-consumer materials. And though recycling rates vary by material — newspaper and cardboard are recycled more than aluminum, glass and plastic— the push was largely successful. About 34 percent of waste was recycled in 2013, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than double the 16 percent that was recycled in 1990.
A few years ago, when oil and other commodity prices were high, these efforts paid off — companies, cities and counties were all able to make money through recycling. But abundant fossil fuels and falling prices for other commodities, including paper, aluminum and copper— largely the result of slower growth in China — are undermining these gains.
Today, some environmentally minded businesses and municipalities are facing an uncomfortable reality: When oil and other commodities are this cheap, recycling doesn’t always make economic sense.
Until recently, recycling programs were an unlikely cash cow for many cities and counties. Thanks to high commodity prices, recyclers like Waste Management would actually pay municipalities for used cardboard, aluminum cans and plastic bottles.
But as recyclers around the country face losses, they are passing their costs along to cities and counties. Increasingly, local governments are receiving nothing at all for their recyclables, or even having to pay companies to accept them.
Last year, the city government in Washington, D.C., paid Waste Management $1.37 million to accept the recyclables it collected from residents. That represented a stark reversal from 2011, when the district earned $550,000 for sending the company roughly the same amount of material. Orange County, N.C., which includes Chapel Hill, was making about $500,000 a year by selling its recyclables to a company called Sonoco. But as commodity prices have fallen, so, too, have the prices that Sonoco can offer local governments. Starting this month, Sonoco will not pay Orange County anything for the mixed paper, plastics and metals it collects. There are still bright spots in the industry. Big companies like Pepsi and Procter & Gamble are buying more recyclable material to meet sustainability goals. And efforts are underway to build out new recycling infrastructure that could make the industry more efficient.
Some in the industry believe that for these reasons, recycling will continue to thrive, even if it is less profitable than before.
“There are still some customers for recycled materials, for reasons other than pure economics,” said Taylor of the Society of the Plastics Industry. “The thinking is that that demand will grow because of the greening of the mainstream American consumer.”
At the Waste Management facility in Newark, bales of plastic, paper and metal continued to pile up, each one representing a small loss for the company. Waste Management executives expect their recycling business to shrink again this year, and others in the industry are girding for more cuts.
“Our recycling business has dramatically changed, from a business we thought was going to grow very fast and very profitable, to one that is not growing at all and not profitable,” said Steiner of Waste Management. “High commodity prices aren’t coming back anytime soon. This may be the new normal.”
(David Gelles, NEW YORK TIMES)
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“We have good news. The Division of Oil and Gas has confirmed that the leak in the Aliso Canyon storage field is permanently sealed,” Jason Marshall, chief deputy director of the state Department of Conservation, said at a news conference at a Southern California Gas Co. office in Chatsworth.
The news put an end to four months of foul air that sickened many residents and forced thousands of residents of the San Fernando Valley community of Porter Ranch to relocate to temporary housing far from the leaking well. Crews reached the leak last week and injected heavy fluids and then cement to seal it.
Dennis Arriola, president and chief executive of Southern California Gas, said the company would develop a plan to mitigate the damage the leaking well did to the environment and will support “forward-looking” regulations.
“To the residents of Porter Ranch and the surrounding communities, I want to tell you I recognize the disruption that this gas leak has caused to your lives,” Arriola said. “I know there is nothing that I can say that will change the past, but I know that measurable actions actually speak louder than words.” The company said in a statement that the leaking well had been taken out of service. A local assistance center that will help residents and businesses recover from the leak will open this morning at the Mason Recreation Center in Chatsworth.
Residents who moved out of their homes were notified by phone, text and email Thursday morning that they have eight days to vacate their temporary housing that the gas company has been paying for. By early Thursday, residents of 1,800 households had returned to their homes, said Gillian Wright, vice president of customer service for the utility.
An estimated 4,000 reimbursement checks were to be issued Thursday to residents who incurred expenses related to the gas leak, she said. The gas company will be required to do a full inspection and testing of the other wells at Aliso Canyon before injections can resume. State authorities will continue to look into the cause of the leak, which was first reported Oct. 23.
“We will investigate what happened,” Marshall said at the news conference. One health official said Thursday that he believes it is safe for Porter Ranch residents to return to their homes.
Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, interim health officer for the Los Angeles County Health Department, said that if residents come home and don’t smell any odors and don’t have any symptoms, it is safe to stay in their homes.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board will continue to monitor the air in the coming weeks, looking at the levels of methane, mercaptans, benzene and hydrogen sulfide.
"My conclusion is that all the levels that we’ve looked at are below health levels of concern, so we do not anticipate that there will be any long-term health effects in the community," Gunzenhauser said. As residents return home in the days and weeks ahead, attention will turn to the full scope of the damage done to the San Fernando Valley community of 30,000 people. Chief among their concerns are the effects that the worst natural gas leak in U.S. history will have on property values and residents’ longterm health — despite assurance from public officials that the noxious fumes posed no permanent health risks.
On Thursday, lawmakers and activists said that while they were glad the leak had been capped, there was still much work to do. Rep. Brad Sherman, D Sherman Oaks, called for “tough new regulations” for the other 114 injection wells at the 3,600-acre underground natural gas storage facility, which is among the nation’s largest. The gas company has said that many of those wells are aging, corroded and mechanically damaged. Sherman, in a statement, called for subsurface safety valves on each well and for 24-hour monitoring of each well that could be viewed online by the public. He said the Aliso Canyon facility should remain closed “until we know it is safe.” “We should not be declaring victory, as the Aliso Canyon facility and the negligence of Southern California Gas Company continue to pose a threat to the community,” Sherman said. He criticized the gas company, saying that even though it has encouraged residents to return, “truly thorough indoor air testing has not yet been completed.” State and local officials this week expressed concern that contaminants might linger in the area and called for new criteria to determine that the air has returned to normal before residents return.
Of particular concern is the presence of four pollutants: methane, which is not considered toxic to humans but is a potent greenhouse gas; mercaptans and hydrogen sulfide, which at extremely low levels can cause ailments including headaches and nausea; and benzene, a known cancer-causing compound. Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander, who represents communities affected by the leak, called for a comprehensive, independent study of potential health impacts.
“This is not the end of this catastrophic disaster, this is the beginning of the next chapter,” he said in a statement.
The gas company is facing ongoing investigations by the state attorney general’s office and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, dozens of lawsuits for economic damages, and the possibility of environmental fines connected to the well’s release of an estimated 80,000 metric tons of mostly methane into the atmosphere.
The company also faces four criminal charges from the L.A. County district attorney’s office for failing to report the release of hazardous materials and discharging air contaminants. The company has pleaded not guilty.
(Alice Walton & Hailey Branson-Potts, CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP)
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January’s average global temperature was a record 55.5 degrees Fahrenheit, easily beating the January record set in 2007, according to NOAA. Records go back to 1880.
There were colder-than-normal patches in parts of the United States, Europe and Asia in January, but they were overwhelmed by incredible “off our chart” warming in the Arctic region, according to NOAA climate scientist Jessica Blunden. Siberia, northwest Canada and a lot of Alaska were at least 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, she said.
That heat was why there was record low sea ice in the Arctic for this time of year, when sea ice grows, Blunden said.
Arctic sea ice in January averaged 5.2 million square miles, which is 90,000 square miles below the record set in 2011, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. It’s also 402,000 square miles — about the size of Texas and New Mexico, combined — less than the 30-year normal.
The string of nine record hot months matches June 1997 to February 1998, which was the last time Earth had a large El Niño.
It is still behind the 10 straight months of record heat in 1944, Blunden said. It’s likely we’ll tie that record in February, she said.
The current El Niño — an occasional natural warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather around the world and spikes global temperatures — is tied with 1997-1998 for the strongest on record, according to NOAA. And while it has been predicted to ease soon, it has not lessened yet, said NOAA Climate Prediction Center deputy director Mike Halpert.
NASA chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt blamed the record heat mostly on man-made climate change, with an assist from El Niño.
(Seth Borenstein, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Officials in Florida and Mississippi were investigating reports of at least three possible tornadoes. One of the apparent twisters swept through the rural town of Century, in the northwest corner of Florida’s Panhandle, late Monday afternoon, destroying or significantly damaging about 10 homes, said Escambia County spokeswoman Joy Tsubooka.
Century is on the Florida-Alabama border about 45 miles north of Pensacola, Fla. Pensacola news station WEAR-TV showed a large, black funnel cloud touching down on a highway near the town, and images submitted by viewers to the news station’s Facebook page showed downed trees and damage to the exteriors of at least two homes. Gulf Power reported on its website that about 800 people in Century were without electricity.
In Mississippi, windows were blown out of cars and two gymnasiums and a library were damaged at a K-12 school in Wesson where children were in attendance when heavy thunderstorms and a possible tornado walloped at least 19 counties. There were no reports of any students injured, said Mississippi Department of Education spokeswoman Patrice Guilfoyle.
In the eastern U.S. on Monday, a day after record low temperatures plunged several states into a deep freeze, wet weather including snow, freezing rain and sleet were pummeling the region.
National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Sullivan said there could be significant snowfall — 4 to 8 inches — in eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania and western New York.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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With El Niño nowhere in sight, this month could continue a nearly three-yearlong warm spell for the region. During the past 35 months, all but three have seen average temperatures registering higher than normal, according to the National Weather Service. Such warming trends are unusual but not unprecedented, said Brandt Maxwell, a meteorologist with the weather service’s office in Rancho Bernardo. Most recently, a similar trend lasted about three years in the early 1980s.
“Our climate is influenced heavily by the ocean, and so the past three years we’ve had a lot of ocean water temperatures above normal,” Maxwell said. “Ocean temperatures rise slowly, so you’re more likely to go on long streaks.”
At the county’s Waterfront Park in downtown San Diego on Monday, hundreds of children and their parents cooled off in the wading pools, splashing in the fountains that shoot arches of recirculated water. Against a backdrop of sailboats on the bay, the park’s lawn filled by midday with strollers, umbrellas and large shade structures.
“This is awesome,” said Amy Strasser, 44, who made the trip from Pacific Beach with her 4-year-old daughter.
“I had to drop off my stuff for taxes with my accountant downtown, and (my daughter) loves coming here,” she said. “So I figured I could keep an eye on her here versus going to the beach.”
The day is “bittersweet,” said Meena Westford, who brought her 5-year-old son.
“We love the sunshine, but on our water-supply situation, it’s pretty frightening what we’re looking forward to in the summer,” said Westford, 45, who works for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
Amid record drought, San Diego has both feared and welcomed the prospect of El Niño-fueled storms, which bring rainfall but also the specter of flooding. While Northern California has seen substantial precipitation compared with the past several years, partly replenishing reservoirs and fluffing mountain snowpacks, predictions of abundant rainfall in Southern California have yet to fully manifest.
The San Diego region hasn’t seen a significant storm for weeks, and the first 15 days of February have been some of the hottest on record.
The weather service expects more record-breaking heat today, but it does list a 50 percent chance of light rain — along with cooler temperatures— starting Wednesday night and potentially continuing through Thursday.
But up and down the coast this holiday weekend, heat was on people’s minds as they mobbed the beaches.
“The beaches are crazy, thousands of people flocking to the sand,” said Joe Amador, spokesman for San Diego city’s lifeguards. “Our lifeguards had several rescues throughout the weekend and including today.”
Despite the current summer-like conditions, storms linked to El Niño could still blast the region in March, said Jimmy Taeger, a forecaster with the weather service. “The common misperception (with El Niño) is that people think it’s going to rain all the time, which is not the case,” he said.
(Joshua Emerson Smith & Robert Krier, U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Five months after the Valley fire killed four and wiped out 1,300 homes in Lake County, many residents face personal and logistical hurdles that put full recovery years away, if ever, for some. The Sept. 12 fire torched nearly 120 square miles and caused at least $700 million in insured damages, making it the fifth costliest wildfire in state and U.S. history in terms of insured losses.
The county of 64,000 people is renowned for its remote beauty, privacy and an outdoor recreation industry centered on Clear Lake, the largest freshwater lake entirely within California. Today, skeletal pines and charred tree stumps litter a portion of it.
There’s also the threat of flooding and mudslides as forecasters warn of El Niño storms that could quickly saturate fire-scarred land unable to absorb heavy rain.
In woodsy Anderson Springs, a former resort with a bubbling creek where only about 20 of 200 homes survived, green metal address markers are staked where houses once stood.
“A lot of the people are on the fence about rebuilding and a lot of it has to do with the sheer devastation of it all,” said Jessyca Lytle, after a particularly contentious recovery task force meeting last month. “There’s an immense amount of fatigue right now.” Lake County officials are trying to get their arms around a recovery complicated by terrain ranging from tidy lots in downtown Middletown to off-the-grid homes along rutted roads that themselves need repair.
They’re not even sure how many people lack permanent housing, given that some of the destroyed buildings were second homes, but peg the number at 3,000 displaced. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has registered more than 2,600 households in Lake County requesting help and approved more than $6.7 million for housing assistance and other needs. FEMA has also reimbursed the state more than $43 million to help clear debris from private property.
Lake County Supervisor Jim Comstock knows people who are unsure about whether to stay. He recounted the story of a couple who initially decided not to return, but then changed their mind. “We’re really excited,” he said. “They’re good people and we want them here.”
The county is among the poorest in the state, with pockets of wealth. Its residents are retirees, commuters, families that have lived there for generations and newcomers grateful for the peace they say they found before the fire. Back in September, Sabrina Jose was thrilled to find her rental home of nearly seven years largely intact, even as neighboring houses perished. She was determined to stay in the town where her oldest daughter is a high school senior and where her youngest, who has Down syndrome, is a beloved fifth-grade cheerleader in the youth football league.
Then Jose received a notice from her landlord to move, and months later, she’s stressed over finding a place to live in a county strapped for affordable rentals. “I feel like we survived the fire, but we can’t survive the landlord,” she said.
(Janie Har, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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From New York and Boston to Providence, R.H., and Hartford, Conn., temperatures on Sunday morning dipped. It was minus 40 on Mount Washington in New Hampshire. The National Weather Service said the temperature in New York City’s Central Park fell to minus 1, a record low for the date. The last time it was below zero in Central Park was in January 1994. “I’m dumb enough to do this,” exclaimed John Male before starting a 12-mile park run on Sunday morning with two companions.
“I just always come out, and I just decided not to do anything differently” — except to wear a furry tiger hat with two tails over his normal headgear, in addition to four layers of clothing.
His running partner also was wearing a tiger hat on top of the balaclava that covered her face — except the eyes. “It’s zero degrees and feels like negative 19; I’m going to sue him for personal injury after this,” joked Molly Manning, a Manhattan attorney. “I’m here because they peer-pressured me to come out today. They basically made me feel like I was a wimp unless I came out.”
Boston reached minus 9, breaking the record set in 1934 by 6 degrees. It reached minus 16 in Worcester, Mass., breaking the 1979 record of 11 below zero. Providence hit minus 9 and Hartford minus 12, also breaking records from 1979.
In Montpelier, Vt., the overnight temperature hit minus 19, tying a record set in 2003. And South Lincoln, Vt., recorded 27 below zero.
Temperatures were so low in some spots, utilities were knocked out. A frozen regulator left about 400 customers in Connecticut without natural gas service, and officials believe extreme cold in Vermont broke a utility pole, knocking out service to about 1,500. An emergency generator didn’t kick in for Sheffield Selectboard Chairman Walter Smith, who said he lost a greenhouse full of about 500 orchids. “I’ve got it working now, but it’s too late,” he said.
The cold kept many people inside. In a New Jersey bagel shop that’s usually brimming with customers on Sunday mornings, Joe Weir was among a small handful of people who sat drinking coffee. “I just came from a church service, and it definitely wasn’t as packed as it usually is,” the 60-year-old Toms River man said. “We have a lot of elderly parishioners, and when the weather gets bad or real cold like this, a lot of them choose to stay in and watch aMass on TV instead of going to church. Can’t say I blame them.”
Temperatures were expected to climb before a winter storm already bringing snow to the Midwest moves into the region.
The storm was expected to bring 5 inches of snow to parts of Kentucky and up to 6 inches to parts of Tennessee before turning to rain.
West Virginia could see up to 9 inches of snow from the storm before it heads into the warming northeast.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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“More than 110 witnesses have reported a large blue-green fireball over Southern California on February 11th around 6:35 a.m. Pacific Time,” the American Meteor Society said online. “The fireball was seen primarily from California, but witnesses from Arizona also reported seeing the fireball.”
The eyewitnesses included Francis French, education director at the San Diego Air& Space Museum in Balboa Park. He saw the meteor while he was driving to work on state Route 94.
“The front of the light looked like the arc of a welder’s torch; it was blue and incredibly bright,” he said. “And it had a yellowish tail that was very textured.”
Another eyewitness, Howard McManus, said: “I was accessing Sunset Cliffs via Point Loma Nazarene University campus. I was on the bluffs about to climb down to the beach when I saw it. It came in from the north almost horizontal. It had a slight downward accent as it headed to the south. I was looking west over the ocean.
“It was spectacular. Bright green like a welder’s arc with a long tail and relatively slow-moving. It fragmented into several pieces as it died. They looked like little sparks. I looked at my watch as I was going to report it to the (American Meteor Society). It was 6:37. The sky was starting to get light.”
Some had speculated that the fireball was a military missile, given that such testing occurs periodically in the Pacific.
For example, people in California, Nevada and Arizona reported that they spotted a mysterious light streaking across the night sky on Nov. 7.
It turned out that the Navy test-fired an unarmed Trident missile from the ballistic missile submarine Kentucky in the Pacific Test Range off the coast of Southern California. It was part of a scheduled assessment of the Trident system, but the Navy said such operations are kept classified before a missile launch.
(Gary Robbins, SD UNION TRIBUNE)
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One woman lamented that she couldn’t stand out in the cold because she has asthma, but authorities were adamant that no one else would be allowed in because doing so would violate fire codes.
Driving on treacherous roads caused accidents across the region. In Connecticut, a bus carrying about 70 passengers from New York City to the Mohegan Sun casino crashed on a snowy Interstate 95 and fell on its side in Madison. At least 30 people were injured, and the northbound side of I-95 there shut down. Some areas of the Cape and Martha’s Vineyard had about 9 inches of snow Monday evening. The National Weather Service said the islands appeared to have met the conditions for a blizzard.
Boston could see 6 to 10 inches, and areas south of Boston were getting moderate coastal flooding.
Other parts of the Northeast, including northern New England and the New York City area, were expected to get much less snow. New York City, Philadelphia and northern New Jersey could get 2 to 3 inches through tonight, the weather service said.
Communities across the region closed schools and issued on- street parking bans.
Boston’s Logan Airport remained open, but hundreds of flights were canceled.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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More than 100 people are believed to still be under the debris in a disaster that struck during Lunar New Year celebrations. Saturday’s quake killed at least 38 people in Tainan city in southern Taiwan, all but two of them in the collapse of the 17-story building. Even though the 6.4-magnitude quake was shallow, few buildings were reported to have been damaged, which experts said was because Taiwan’s building standards are high.
Authorities have managed to rescue more than 170 people - the majority in the immediate hours after the quake — from the folded building using information about the building layout and the possible location of those trapped.
Five survivors were believed to have been pulled out on Sunday, and at least four on Monday. One of them, Tsao Wei-ling, called out "Here I am" as rescuers dug through to find her, Taiwan’s Eastern Broadcasting Corp. reported. She was found under the body of her husband, who had shielded her from a collapsed beam, the government-run Central News Agency reported. Tsao’s husband and 2-year-son were found dead, and five other members of the family remained unaccounted for, it said. Teams also rescued on Monday a 42-year-old man from the building, and, later, an 8-year-old girl, who had been trapped for more than 61 hours. Shortly afterward, rescue workers also pulled out a 28-year-old woman, identified as Chen Mei-jih, who had been trapped on what was the building’s fifth floor. Family members of the missing flooded into the information center in search of their loved ones. Tensions rose as some relatives, losing patience, demanded to speak directly to rescue workers to get the latest information.
The spectacular fall of the high-rise, built in 1989, raised questions about whether its construction had been shoddy. The government says it will investigate whether the developer cut corners.
Cans and plastic foam were visible Monday inside exterior walls that split open during the collapse, causing frenzied speculation about whether they should have been filled with concrete.
(U-T NEWS SERVICES)
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Firefighters and soldiers in worst-hit Tainan city scrambled with ladders, cranes and other equipment to the two towers that folded like an accordion in a pile of rubble and twisted metal and extracted dazed survivors.
Local media said the building complex included a care center for newborns and mothers.
The emergency response center said that five people were killed, including a 10-day-old infant and a 40-year-old man. They were pulled out of a 17-story Wei Guan residential building and later declared dead.
Local media said a woman was killed in a water tower collapse in another city district, and no information was immediately available for the two other deaths. The Health Ministry reported 318 people have been hospitalized.
One of the two towers was home to 256 people living in 92 units, according to the official Central News Agency. A second 16-story high-rise nearby also collapsed, and more than 30 survivors have been pulled out from there. It wasn’t clear how many others were still trapped.
As dawn broke, live Taiwanese TV showed survivors being brought gingerly from the high-rise, including an elderly woman in a neck brace and others wrapped in blankets. The trappings of daily life — a partially crushed air conditioner, pieces of a metal balcony, windows — lay twisted in rubble.
Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan, but most are minor and cause little or no damage.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Taiwan:
Temperatures in Taiwan's capital of Taipei plunged to a 16-year low of 39 degrees, killing 57 mostly elderly people, according to government officials. The semi-official Focus Taiwan news website reported that 85 people had died because of the cold.
Most homes in subtropical Taiwan lack central heating, and the cold caused heart trouble and breathing problems for many of the victims, a city official said. Normally, temperatures in Taipei hover around 60 degrees in January, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.
The cold snap was blamed in the deaths of 40 people in the capital, Taipei, and 17 in neighboring New Taipei City. The cold front also left about 4 inches of snow on Taipei’s highest peak.
Mainland China:
Most parts of mainland China experienced their coldest weather in decades over the weekend. The southern city of Guangzhou, which has a humid subtropical climate, saw snow for the first time since 1967 on Sunday.
The cold led to the deaths of four strawberry farmers who died of carbon monoxide poisoning when they turned up the heat in a greenhouse in Anhui province in the east, the Xinhua News Agency reported. A woman died in the southwest after the railings on her 24th-floor balcony broke as she leaned over to look at the first snow in Chongqing in 20 years, sending her plummeting.
The cold spell coincided with the beginning of the 40-day travel rush for the Lunar New Year, which is on Feb. 8 this year, disrupting cars, flights and trains. More than 11,000 passengers were stranded at Kunming airport in southern Yunnan province. Temperatures in central and eastern China were much lower than average, Xinhua said.
Japan:
Heavy snow in western and central Japan left five people dead over the weekend and possibly a sixth on Monday. Kyodo News service said the victims included a woman who fell from a roof while removing snow, a man in a weather-related traffic accident, another man found under a snowplow and a couple who fell into an irrigation channel, apparently while removing snow. An 88-year-old woman in western Japan’s Tottori prefecture died after a landslide hit her house before dawn on Monday, Kyodo and other media reported. The heavy snow stranded motorists, delayed bullet train service and caused flight cancellations.
South Korea:
Temperatures in the capital, Seoul, fell to zero on Sunday, the lowest since 2001. On Saturday, Jeju Island received 5 inches of snow, the heaviest since 1984, and its airport was closed from Saturday until Monday. The shutdown stranded about 86,000 people, mostly tourists, on the island and forced the cancellations of about 1,100 flights, according to Transport Ministry and airport officials.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The first round of flooding came with the morning tide. But officials were prepared for another surge Saturday night. A string of resort towns was temporarily isolated by floodwater that inundated homes and restaurants, authorities said. "We’re looking at more of the same or maybe not as bad," Diane Wieland, a spokeswoman for Cape May County said ahead of Saturday night’s high tide. "A lot of properties have water in them." Officials in other states, from North Carolina to New York, expressed similar concerns. By late Saturday morning, some people had already seen enough havoc.
"When the water just started rushing down, it was as impressive as some of the videos you saw of Japan during the tsunamis," said Jason Pellegrini, owner of Steak Out restaurant in Sea Isle City, who was trapped inside by floodwaters. "It came in that fast." Another restaurant, The Lobster House, was partly submerged by the rising tide more than 20 miles away in Cape May. "It touched everywhere," said Keith Laudeman, the third-generation owner of the nearly century-old establishment on Cape May Harbor. "It even got to the equipment we moved and never thought would get touched." The water quickly receded. And Laudeman said he has a crew of people preparing to clean the place so they can reopen in the coming days. In Delaware, flooding closed a popular route to the state’s beaches and forced about a dozen people to leave the low-lying community of Oak Orchard.
Gale warnings are in effect through this morning along the North Carolina coast, the National Weather Service said, with winds of 30 mph expected along with rough seas. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said coastal flooding remained a concern along parts of Long Island into Saturday night. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe shared the same fears about the Chesapeake Bay. Water had already covered some roads in Norfolk, which is prone to flooding.
(Ted Shaffrey & Ben Finley, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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After days of weather warnings, most of the 80 million people in the storm’s path heeded requests to stay home and off the roads, which were largely deserted. Yet at least 18 deaths were blamed on the weather, resulting from car crashes, shoveling snow and hypothermia. And more snow was to come, with dangerous conditions expected to persist until early today, forecasters warned.
"This is going to be one of those generational events, where your parents talk about how bad it was," Ryan Maue, a meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics, said from Tallahassee, Fla., which also saw some flakes.
The system was mammoth, dropping snow from the Gulf Coast to New England. By afternoon, areas near Washington had surpassed 30 inches. The heaviest unofficial report was in a rural area of West Virginia, not far from Harper’s Ferry, with 40 inches.
As the storm picked up, forecasters increased their snow predictions for New York and points north and warned areas nearly as far north as Boston to expect heavy snow.
"This is kind of a Top 10 snowstorm," said weather service winter storm expert Paul Kocin, who co-wrote a two-volume textbook on blizzards. It was Top 3 in New York, where more than 25 inches of snow had fallen as of 7 p.m. Saturday, close to the record, 26.9 inches, set in February 2006.
Three people died while shoveling snow in Queens and Staten Island. The normally bustling streets around Rockefeller Center, Penn Station and other landmarks were mostly empty. Those who did venture out walked down the middle of snow-covered streets to avoid even deeper drifts on the sidewalks. With Broadway shows dark, thin crowds shuffled through a different kind of Great White Way in Times Square. Officials imposed a travel ban in the city, ordering all nonemergency vehicles off the roads. Commuter rails and above-ground segments of the nation’s biggest subway system shut down, too, along with buses. Without a bus, home health aide Elijah Scarboro couldn’t get to his next client, an 89-year-old man with Alzheimer’s disease. "I wish I could get there, but I can’t," Scarboro said, hoping the man would be safe at home with his wife.
As recently as Friday night, New York officials had expected the storm to top out at 18 inches. But that prediction jumped to 28 inches by Saturday evening. The scenario was much the opposite of what unfolded a year ago, when a storm carrying predictions for 18 to 24 inches of snow prompted officials to shut down the subway system completely, but far less than a foot ultimately fell.
In Washington, monuments that would normally be busy with tourists stood vacant. In the morning, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial had not been cleared off and looked almost like a ski slope. At the Korean War Veterans Memorial, statues of soldiers were coated with snow, as was the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
Visibility was sharply reduced. On an average day, visitors can see from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument and the Capitol. But on Saturday, the Washington Monument was not even visible from the memorial to the 16th president.
All mass transit in the capital was to be shut down through today. Throughout the region, drivers skidded off snowy, icy roads in accidents that killed several people as the storm raged Friday and Saturday. Those killed included a 4-year-old boy in North Carolina; a Kentucky transportation worker who was plowing highways; and a woman whose car plunged down a 300-foot embankment in Tennessee.
An Ohio teenager sledding behind an all-terrain vehicle was hit by a truck and killed, and two people died of hypothermia in southwest Virginia. In North Carolina, a man whose car had veered off an ice-covered road was arrested on charges of killing a motorist who stopped to help.
In Kentucky, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, drivers were marooned for hours in snow-choked highways.
The snow alone would have been enough to bring the East Coast to a halt. But it was whipped into a maelstrom by winds that reached 75 mph at Dewey Beach, Del., and Langley Air Force Base, Va.
From Virginia to New York, sustained winds topped 30 mph and gusted to around 50 mph, officials said. The wind was so strong that scientists reported trouble measuring the snow because it sometimes seemed to blow sideways.
And if that weren’t enough, the storm also had bursts of thunder and lightning. Forecasters saw lightning out the window of the Weather Prediction Center, where meteorologists were camped out.
Airlines canceled nearly 7,000 weekend flights and started to cut Monday service. Stranded travelers included Defense Secretary Ash Carter, whose high-tech aircraft couldn’t land at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Carter was rerouted to Tampa, Fla.
The storm also knocked out electricity to thousands of homes and businesses.
(Seth Borenstein & Jessica Gresko, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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"Look at all the work we’ve done in Detroit. Several cities — Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, Saginaw — I’ve made a focused effort since before I started in office to say, we need to work hard to help people that have the greatest need. So we’ve done a lot in terms of programs there to go help the structurally employed get work. In terms of public safety, we’ve done a lot." An interviewer, Mika Brzezinski, cited a New York Times article that asked, "If Flint were rich and mostly white, would Michigan’s state government have responded more quickly and aggressively to complaints about its lead-polluted water?"
Snyder acknowledged failures on the state’s part. "If you look at it, it was people being much too technical, not having the culture of asking the common-sense questions, and then the tone of how things were done," he said. But he also deflected blame from his high-level appointees, questioning the competence of state workers who analyzed the quality of the water and the threat it posed to residents. A specialist at the federal Environmental Protection Agency began warning the state last February that its testing was probably understating lead levels in Flint’s water, but state officials dismissed those concerns, and the federal officials declined to go public with them. Researchers at Virginia Tech who have looked into the lead poisoning contend that state health officials knew of the lead problem for months but that the Department of Environmental Quality suppressed the information and misled the public.
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
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But the emails only generated more controversy. They showed that even as Flint residents were growing increasingly outraged over the lead that had seeped into the city’s water supply, state authorities were dismissing their complaints and questioning research showing elevated lead levels were poisoning their children. At one point, a top aide said that state officials thought that people in Flint were trying to turn the issue "into a political football" and shift blame. A message with background information from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality discussing the water situation acknowledged that Flint had a "tremendous need to address its water delivery system."
The emails only cover correspondence sent to and from Snyder’s email address regarding Flint, and so provide an incomplete picture of how the official response unfolded in Michigan. But they illuminate how top officials responded to a concern that has, in recent weeks, emerged as a national scandal.
Dennis Muchmore, at the time Snyder’s chief of staff, wrote in September that state officials in two agencies felt that "some in Flint are taking the very sensitive issue of children’s exposure to lead and trying to turn it into a political football" and pointing blame at the state level.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Residents and elected officials throughout the Eastern United States are heeding the warning.
States of emergency have been declared in five states and the District of Columbia. Schools and government offices are being closed preemptively. Thousands of flights have been canceled. Food and supplies are disappearing from grocery and hardware stores. College basketball games and concerts will have to wait.
"It’s going to be dangerous out there," said Tonya Woods, 42, a Washington Metro station manager who lives in suburban Clinton, Maryland. "I say they should shut things down." On Thursday afternoon, she got her wish. The capital’s subway system announced that it will shut down entirely late tonight and remain closed through Sunday for the sake of employee and rider safety.
The director of the National Weather Service said all the ingredients have come together to create blizzards with brutally high winds, dangerous inland flooding, white-out conditions and even the possibility of thunder snow, when lightning strikes through a snowstorm.
The snowfall is expected to continue from late tonight into Sunday.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Two astronomers reported Wednesday that they had compelling signs of something bigger and farther away — something that would satisfy the current definition of a planet, where Pluto falls short. "We are pretty sure there's one out there," said Michael E. Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. What Brown and a fellow Caltech professor Konstantin Batygin have not done is actually find that planet, so it would be premature to start revising mnemonics of the planets.
In a paper published in The Astronomical Journal, Brown and Batygin lay out a detailed circumstantial argument for the planet’s existence in what astronomers have observed— a half-dozen small bodies in distant elliptical orbits. What is striking, the scientists said, is that the orbits of all six loop outward in the same quadrant of the solar system and are tilted at about the same angle. The odds of that happening by chance are about 1 in 14,000, Batygin said. A ninth planet could be gravitationally herding them into these orbits. For the calculations to work, the planet would be at least an equal to Earth, and most likely much bigger — perhaps a mini-Neptune with a mass about 10 times that of Earth. That would be 4,500 times the mass of Pluto.
Pluto, at its most distant, is 4.6 billion miles from the sun. The potential ninth planet, at its closest, would be about 20 billion miles away; at its farthest, it could be 100 billion miles away. One trip around the sun would take 10,000 to 20,000 years. "We have pretty good constraints on its orbit," Brown said. "What we don't know is where it is in its orbit, which is too bad."
Alessandro Morbidelli of the Côte d’Azur Observatory in France, an expert in dynamics of the solar system, said he was convinced. "I think the chase is now on to find this planet," he said. This would be the second time that Brown has upended the map of the solar system.
In January 2005, he discovered a Pluto-size object, now known as Eris, in the Kuiper belt, the ring of icy debris beyond Neptune. The next year, the International Astronomical Union placed Pluto in a new category, "dwarf planet," because in its view, a full-fledged planet must be the gravitational bully of its orbit, and Pluto was not.
Morbidelli said a possible ninth planet could be the core of a gas giant that started forming during the infancy of the solar system; a close pass to Jupiter could have ejected it. Back then, the sun resided in a dense cluster of stars, and the gravitational jostling could have prevented the planet from escaping to interstellar space.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
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"Of course, some of the Flint people respond by looking for someone to blame instead of working to reduce anxiety," Muchmore wrote. "We can’t tolerate increased lead levels in any event, but it’s really the city’s water system that needs to deal with it."
In a Sept. 25 email, Muchmore said he could not "figure out why the state is responsible" before noting that former state Treasurer Andy Dillon had signed off on the city’s switch to a new water source. "So we’re not able to avoid the subject."
Muchmore also said two state agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could not "find evidence of a major change" in lead levels.
By early October, the Snyder administration was forced to acknowledge the lead concerns and help Flint return to the Detroit water system.
The two-term Republican released the emails a day after his annual State of the State speech in which he apologized again for the emergency and pledged to act. He called the release of his emails — which are exempt from Michigan’s public- records law — "unprecedented" but necessary so people "know the truth."
Snyder released emails sent to him or by him. He did not release those of his staff.
Flint’s water became contaminated with lead when the city switched its water source in 2014 as a cost-cutting measure while under the city was under state financial management. The Flint River water was not properly treated to keep lead from pipes from leaching into the supply. Elevated blood-lead levels were found in two city zip codes.
Also Wednesday, Snyder asked President Barack Obama to reconsider the denial of a federal disaster declaration to address the crisis, saying it poses an "imminent and long-term threat" to residents.
Obama declared an emergency— qualifying the city for $5 million— but concluded that the high lead levels are not a disaster based on the legal requirement that disaster money is intended for natural events such as fires or floods. Snyder had estimated a need for up to $95 million over a year.
In his appeal letter, Snyder called the decision a "narrow reading" and likened the crisis to a flood, "given that qualities within the water, over a long term, damaged the city’s infrastructure in ways that were not immediately or easily detectable."
The crisis "is a natural catastrophe in the sense that lead contamination into water is a natural process," the governor wrote.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The District of Columbia was preparing for blizzard conditions and up to 2 feet of snow, Mayor Muriel Bowser said Wednesday. The city has requested Humvees from the National Guard to reach isolated people and places if necessary. "If this is a blizzard and we have sustained winds and people lose power, that would be my biggest concern," Bowser said at a news conference. "We can move the snow. We will move the snow."
In the areas where blizzard conditions are possible, the weather service warns that travel will be limited if not impossible. The strongest winds and potentially life threatening conditions are expected Friday night through Saturday night.
On Wednesday, the weather service issued blizzard and winter storm watches for parts of Maryland, Washington, Virginia, West Virginia and Arkansas. The watches start as early as today and stretch to Saturday.
The bigger cities could get 1 to 2 feet of snow, but first the storm will bring ice and freezing rain to Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky starting Thursday, prediction center Meteorologist Rich Otto said. But it's not yet clear where the storm will hit the hardest, he said Wednesday.
"There’s a lot of details that are yet to be seen," Otto said. "Subtle changes can make a big difference. We’ve seen that in past storms."
All major airlines have issued waivers for travel over the weekend, allowing passengers to rebook onto earlier or later flights to avoid the storms. The airports included vary by airline but include some cities in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia up to New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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These cities are represented by the San Diego-based law firm Gomez Trial Attorneys. They seek to recover tens of millions of dollars being spent to clean up bays, rivers and stormwater systems polluted with PCBs.
That cost figure will likely mount because the firm anticipates filing similar suits for other cities along the West Coast.
The federal government banned PCBs in 1979; the toxins have been linked to cancer, neurological damage, thyroid problems and reproductive complications.
"There’s definitely momentum from the perspective of municipalities understanding and realizing that Monsanto has liability in this case," said John Fiske, the lawyer heading up the cases, which have been filed in federal court on behalf of San Diego, Berkeley, San Jose, Oakland and Spokane, Wash.
St. Louis-based Monsanto has said it responsibly scaled back production of PCBs and then completely ceased making the chemicals as information came to light about their harmful effects. The company has also argued that it’s not liable for how others handled the chemicals it sold.
"Monsanto is not responsible for the costs that California and other states have imposed on municipalities to control their own storm water runoff," said Charla Lord, a spokeswoman for the company. "PCBs sold at the time were a lawful and useful product that were then incorporated by third parties into other useful products."
If the lawsuits go against Monsanto, their underlying legal strategy could provide a model for those seeking damages from corporations even when those businesses didn’t directly spill or release a hazardous product into the environment.
(Joshua Smith, SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE)
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Moreover, the study says, massive human greenhouse gas emissions since that time have likely "postponed" what might otherwise be another ice age “by at least 100,000 years.” The new research is based on the idea that there are two key factors that shape whether the Earth goes into an ice age (or glacial period) or not. There’s one that humans can influence, as well as one they really can’t.
The factor out of our control is the Earth’s Milankovitch cycles, which describe the erratic way in which the planet orbits the sun and spins on its axis over vast time periods. The Earth’s orbit grows slowly more and less elliptical, even as the angle of the planet’s axial tilt, and the wobble of the poles as the planet spins (much like what you see with a spinning top), also change slightly over thousands of years. All of this can affect the delivery of sunlight over different parts of the Earth and the nature of the seasons for instance, causing summers to be colder — and thus, whether it’s possible to build up huge ice masses on land.
Critically, how much sun the Earth’s northern hemisphere high latitudes receive in summer shapes whether ice can build up there over long periods, the new study says. But there’s also a second factor that’s in our control— how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. We are able to turn this knob by how many forests we cut down and how many fossil fuels we burn, both processes that transfer carbon from the land (or beneath it) into the atmosphere. Atmospheric carbon dioxide traps heat and so causes an overall warming effect, and this will happen no matter where the planet is in its various orbital cycles. And if there’s enough of it, it can counteract the tendency of these cycles to make and then unmake ice ages.
"We wanted to understand what is really triggering glacial inception, and what we found is an amazingly simple function, which is the ratio between insolation around 65 north latitude and the CO2 content of the atmosphere," Schellnhuber said. "And this is more or less summarizing the two key factors in the development of glacial cycles over the last at least 800,000 years." Specifically, using analysis of past planetary glaciations and a computer model of the Earth that is able to predict their occurrence, the researchers found that carbon dioxide concentrations were only slightly too high to push us into glaciation a few thousand years ago. Instead, we enjoyed the relatively friendly (for humans) interglacial climate of the Holocene. “The Earth system would already be well on the way towards a new glacial state if the pre-industrial CO2 level had been merely 40 parts per million lower than it was during the late Holocene,” the authors write. Indeed, they note that about 800,000 years ago, orbital alignments were similar but carbon dioxide concentrations were around 240 parts per million, and glaciation did indeed occur. It’s important to note that at present, the Earth is not fully deglaciated since we still have major ice sheets atop Greenland and especially Antarctica.
However, in a period of glacial maximum, ice sheets would also cover northern Europe and much of North America, placing vastly more total ice atop land and thus leading to sea levels radically lower than they are at present. A key question raised by the research then becomes why carbon dioxide concentrations were higher during the Holocene— the current geological epoch that began 11,700 years ago, unless you agree with some scientists that we’ve now entered the "Anthropocene" — and whether this is natural.
Here, the authors walk up to, but do not fully embrace, the idea that humans substantially altered the climate long before the industrial revolution, and specifically, that they upped atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from around 240 parts per million to 280 parts per million through deforestation, agriculture and other means. This idea is credited to University of Virginia climate scientist William Ruddiman, who was not involved with the current paper. Asked to comment on it, Ruddiman agreed with the work overall but questioned why the authors didn’t more fully embrace his thesis (which they call “debatable”), and the idea that preindustrial humans headed off a coming ice age through their alterations of the planet’s land surface, even without mass burning of fossil fuels (yet).
"While there is little doubt that industrial-era anthropogenic emissions are now forestalling any possibility of a new ice age, the evidence shown here suggests that this major human intervention started millennia ago," Ruddiman said in a statement to The Post. If Ruddiman’s hypothesis is right, then combined with the new research, it would suggest that burgeoning human civilization basically headed off an ice age before that ice age could complicate matters for human civilization, making its establishment and growth considerably more difficult, especially in some key northern hemisphere regions.
(Chris Mooney, THE WASHINGTON POST)
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Local officials first declared a public health emergency in October in response to tests that showed children with elevated levels of lead. "I’m glad the state is putting in resources and we welcome the Michigan National Guard with open arms," Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said in a statement. "However, we also need federal assistance as we continue to cope with this man-made water disaster." Meanwhile, Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that there’s been an increase in Legionnaires’ disease cases during periods over the past two years in Genesee County.
Legionnaires’ disease is a type of pneumonia caused by bacteria that infect the lungs. Health officials say they can’t conclude that the increase is related to Flint’s water crisis.
There were 45 confirmed cases, including seven associated deaths, in Genesee County from June 2014 to March 2015. In 47 percent of the cases, the water source at the primary residence was from the Flint River. A comparative chart that officials provided shows only 21 cases were confirmed in all of 2012 and 2013.
Preliminary data also indicates 42 cases of Legionnaires’ disease between May 2015 and November 2015, with three deaths, health officials said. A Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in western Illinois last summer that killed 12 and sickened dozens was likely spread by an aging water system at a 129-year-old facility that lacked several safeguards, The Associated Press reported last month based on a federal report.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is consulting with state health officials and local health departments in Michigan on the increase in Legionnaire’s disease cases in and around Flint, agency spokesman Ian Branam told The AP Wednesday in a statement.
The CDC currently has no plans to send staff to Flint, and says state and local health department have jurisdiction over investigations in their states, Branam said.
Snyder has requested support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in coordinating a recovery plan with other federal agencies that have the programs, authorities or technical expertise to help with Flint’s water crisis.
FEMA appointed a disaster recovery coordinator to assist, spokesman Rafael Lemaitre said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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"We are working with researchers on the entire area of the state involved in the latest seismic activity to plot out where we should go from here," Oil and Gas Conservation Division Director Tim Baker said, adding that responding to the swarm of earthquakes in the region was an ongoing process.
Oklahoma has become one of the most earthquake-prone areas in the world, with the number of quakes magnitude 3.0 or greater skyrocketing from a few dozen in 2012 to more than 800 in 2015. Many of the earthquakes are occurring in swarms in areas where injection wells pump salty wastewater — a byproduct of oil and gas production — deep into the earth.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The powerful temblor left large cracks in walls, and a portion of a popular market building collapsed in the state capital. A newly constructed six-story building also collapsed in Imphal, authorities said.
India’s Meteorological Department said the epicenter of the quake was in Tamenglong region of Manipur state. It struck before dawn at a depth of about 10 miles in the India-Myanmar border region. The epicenter of the earthquake was 20 miles northwest of Imphal. The area is remote with poor cellphone and Internet connections, and information about conditions outside major cities may take time to emerge. People panicked and rushed out of their homes in Gauhati, the capital of neighboring Assam state, as they felt massive shaking at least twice within 60 seconds. In Imphal, residents said furniture was knocked over and books fell off shelves.
“The ground swayed for almost a minute, jolting people awake in their homes,” said one resident, Apem Arthur.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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