LOS ANGELES - At least 86,000 homes are being planned for Los Angeles and Orange counties on land designated as being at high risk from wildfires, it was reported yesterday. Housing tracts are sprawling over brushy hillsides that provide beautiful views but also funnel flames.
Wildfires that began last month killed nine people, destroyed some 2,100 homes and charred more than 800 square miles of land from Los Angeles County to the Mexican border. One such fire was in Santa Clarita in northern Los Angeles County. An area there where 600 homes are planned was blackened by the fire. Altogether, some 60,000 homes are proposed in risky northern county areas during the next few years, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing records and interviews.... In Orange County, the Irvine Co. and Mission Viejo Co. have approval to build more than 26,000 homes in high-risk fire zones during the next 20 -30 years.
New homes must have fire-retardant features and landscaping but critics say building in fire-prone areas raises the cost of firefighting. It will cost about $869 Mio to fight wildfires in the 2007-08 fiscal year, up 83% over the cost from 10 years ago, according to the legislative analyst's office.
Gov. Arnold Scharzenegger recently directed a state task force to look at whether the state should allow homes and businesses to be built in areas with high wildfire risk. Some residents, though, accept the risk. "That's what you get with the view," said Melanie Altieri, who lives near the scene of last month's Buckweed blaze in northeastern Los Angeles County. "Fires."
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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NEW ORLEANS - Amid a Carnival-like atmosphere, streetcars began rolling past the historic mansions of the city's Garden District yesterday for the first time since Hurricane Katrina halted the St. Charles Avenue line more than two years ago.
Although about half of the line is reopened, many people said they saw the return of the 1920s-era green cars as a morale booster and a sign of progress in the city's recovery.
Officials hope to restore full service to the St. Charles line by spring. It's been slow going because of the cost and scope of the storm's damage to the line's power system.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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OSTUACAN, Mexico - The floods that forced hundreds of thousands from their homes in Tabasco have also wiped out agricultural production in the state, one of Mexico's main producers of everything from chocolate and citrus to sugar cane, officials said.
The massive flooding, which is now in its second week, will be Mexico's most costly natural disaster - etstimates are $700 Mio - since a hurricane devastated Cancun and Cozumel in 2005, insurers said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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OSTUACAN, Mexico - When a mountain of mud and a wall of water buried a Mexican village, only 14 of the 600 people there disappeared. One reason? Jittery cattle. The villagers' nervous animals somehow sensed the impending disasters and fled to higher ground. Many people got out of bed to chase after them, then watched as their homes were engulfed when a rain-soaked hill collapsed, a senior official said yesterday....
Yesterday, rescuers dove into a murky river and dug among mountains of earth in serach of victims, two days after the landslide crashed down on the tiny hamlet of San Juan Grijalva in Mexico's southernmost state, Chiapas....
Residents said they were awakened Sunday night by a loud rumbling as mud and rocks rolled down from surrounding hilltops..... When the hillside collapsed into the Grijalva River, it also created an enormous wave of water that swept over dozens of homes. ....
The landslide in San Juan Grijalva - about 45 mi southwest of Villahermosa - added to woes caused by widespread flooding and heavy rains across Mexico and Central America. In Honduras, authorities evacuated dozens of people on the Atlantic coast and at least 2 people drowned in floodwaters, including a 2-year-old boy swept away by a raging river. ....
(Eduardo Verdugo, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - A wall of mudd and water engulfed a village in flood-ravaged southern Mexico yesterday, and the government said at least 16 people were missing. Mexican media reported as many as 30 people could be missing in the landslide in southern Chiapas state that buried 100 houses in the village of San Juan Grijalva. TV images showed jungle swamped by water and mud, and bare earth where houses once stood in the community of 500 people....
San Juan Grijalva is close to Tabasco state, which is mostly underwater after last week's rain caused rivers to burst their banks and left about 800,000 people homeless. In Tabasco's devastated capital, Villahermosa, people resorted to drinking from a muddy river and cisterns in the homes as potable water and food became scarce.
Tabasco state Gov. Andres Granier said it would be months before all of Villahermosa's evacuated residents could return..... The land around the city, where bananas, beans and corn are grown, was devastated.
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(Noel Randerwich, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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BOSTON - Several thousand coastal residents from Massachusetts to Maine faced a second night without power yesterday, and at least two house fires were indirectly blamed on the remnants of Hurricane Noel.
The storm struck New England with just a glancing blow Saturday, bringing down tree limbs and knocking out power to 80,000 homes. State officials reported no serious injuries or deaths. By late yesterday afternoon, NStar said, 17,000 customers were without power. The company expected to restore power to all its customers by today .... No evacuations, deaths or serious injuries in the region were linked to the storm.
Earlier, Noel was blamed for at least 57 deaths in Haiti, 84 in the Dominican Republic and one each in the Bahamas and Jamaica, making it the deadliest storm of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season. Thousands were homeless because of catastrophic flooding on the islands, and extensive damage was reported in Cuba. The storm dropped more than 5 in of rain on parts of Maine and 6 in of snow in the northern end of the state.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - Residents began running perilously short of food and water in Mexico's southern Gulf coast yesterday after a week of devastating floods that destroyed or damaged the homes of as many as half a million people. Authorities said two more bodies were found yesterday floating in brackish waters covering much of the region. If confirmed that the deaths were caused by the flooding, the disaster's toll would stand at 10. "We are seeing one of the worst natural catastrophes in the history of the country," President Felipe Calderon said in Tabasco state. "Not only because of the size of the area affected, but because of the number of people affected."
Since rivers first began to burst their banks Oct. 28, the homes of an estimated half a million people have been damaged or destroyed and at least that many people have been affected by severed utilities and transportation corridors, according to the government. In neighboring Chiapas state, four bridges and 180 mi of roads were washed out.
... Many in Tabasco remained camped out on the rooftops or upper floors of their flooded homes to guard their possessions from looters, but their resolve was running out - along with water, food and other supplies.... Some desperate residents in Villahermosa broke into shuttered stores and took food and household goods, and police reported deteaining about 50 people for looting over the past couple of days.....
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans fled a flooded regions of the Gulf coast yesterday, jumping from rooftops into rescue helicopters, scrambling into boats or swimming out through murky brown water. President Felipe Calderon called the flooding in Tabasco state one of Mexico's worst recent natural disasters and pledged to rebuild.
A week of heavy rains caused rivers to overflow, drowning at least 80% of the oil-rich state. Much of the state capital, Villahermosa, looked like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, with water reaching to second-story rooftops and desperate people awaiting rescue.
At least one death was reported and nearly all services, including drinking water and public transportation, were shut down. The flood affected more than 900,000 people in the state of 2 Mio - their homes flooded, damaged or cut off by high water.
A 10-in natural gas pipeline sprang a leak after flooding apparently washed away soil underneath it, but it was unclear whether other facilities operated by the state-run Petroleos Mexicanos were damaged or if oil production was affected.
Workers tried to protect Villahermosa's famous Olmec statues by placing sandbag collars around their enormous stone heads. They also built sandbag walls to try to hold back the Grijalva River in the state capital. But the water rose quickly, surprising residents use to annual floods and forcing soldiers to evacuate the historic city center. The dikes failed Thursday night, and water swamped the capital's bus station and open-air market.
Rain gave way to sunshine yesterday, but tens of thousands of people were still stranded on rooftops or in the upper floors of their homes. Rescue workers used tractors, helicopters, personal watercraft and boats to ferry people to safety, while others swam through water infested by poisonous snakes to reach higher ground. ..... Calderon flew over the affected areas [and] canceled a trip to panama, Colombia and Peru ...
TV stations dedicated entire newscasts to the flooding. ... Yesterday was the Day of the Dead holiday [in Mexico], but banks opened to accept donations for flood victims.
(Antonio Villegas, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - Thousands of people, clung to rooftops, huddled inside waterlogged homes or hunkered down in shelters yesterday in an attempt to survive the worst flooding that low-lying Gulf state of Tabasco has seen in 50 years. A week of heavy rains caused rivers to overflow, leaving at least 70% of the state - and 80% of the capital - under water. At least one death was reported.
(Marco Ugarte, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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NASSAU, Bahamas - A powerful Caribbean storm drenched the Bahamas and Cuba yesterday, while rescue workers in the Dominican Republic headed out in boats and helicopters to reach dozens of communities isolated by floods and mudslides. The death toll rose to 115. .. By late lastnight, as it moved away from the Bahamas heading northeast, Noel's sustained winds had increased to 80 mph, just strong enough to be rated a Category 1 hurricane, the National Weather Service said.
Early yesterday, muddy, rain-swollen waters overflowed a dam in Cuba, washing into hundreds of homes and over highways, knocking out electricity and telephone service. Dozens of small communities wer cut off. Cuban soldiers went door to door in low-lying areas and evacuated about 24,000 people, according to state radio and TV reports. At least 2,000 homes were damaged by floodwaters, but there was no official word of deaths. In Ciego de Avila province in central Cuba, flooding wiped out nearly 2,000 tons of corn, potato, banana, cucumber and tomato harvest ..... The storm brought a record 15 in of rain to the Bahamas. Flooding killed at least one man in the Bahamas and forced the evacuation of nearly 400 people. The majority of the evacuees were from Abaco island.
Rescuers in Hispaniola, the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, found a rising too of destruction. There were at least 73 dead in the Dominican Republic and 40 in Haiti. One person died in Jamaica.
Noel was upgraded to a hurricane yesterday evening, after doing most of its damage as a tropical storm and becoming the deadliest tempest of the Atlantic region this year. Hurricane Felix, a devastating Category 5 storm, killed 101 people when it lashed the Caribbean and slammed into Nicaragua and Hoduras in early September.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Reported deaths in natural disasters worldwide are down tenfold since the 1960s, even though the number of natural disasters is up sharply, according to Princeton University geoscientists The reason is better responses to floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other environmental catastrophes, according to a paper in the October issues of Geotimes, which is published by the American Geological Institute. What was the key to better responses? Perhaps how democratic the afflicted country was and how rich, according to principal author Gregory E. van der Vink.
He and co-researchers found, to their surprise, that a country's level of democracy and wealth proved better predictors of death tolls in natural disasters that how catastrophic the event was or the density of population at its epicenter.....
The study wasn't peer-reviewed, so its findings, while based on authoritative figures, will face further review and research.....
Reducing international hazards is becoming an important line of research and planning among nations that are confronting unpredictable natural disasters associated with global warming. Especially hazardous, are events that are extremely unusual in the area in which the occur.... In a finding that may be some balm to global-warming anxieties, van der Vink's study found that the percentage of the global population that died in natural disasters decreased tenfold between the 1964-68 period and the 2000-2004 period. At the same time, the number of recorded disasters increased from an average of 64 per year to 332 per year.
For their findings about the contributions of democracy and national wealth van der Vink [et al.] reviewed thousands of disasters in 133 countries. They used adjusted gross domestic product figures for each country at the time of each disaster, plus a contemporaneous World Bank democracy score for each country. That score is based on expert ratings of factors such as accountability, freedom of expression, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption. Top score: Finland at 2.47. The U.S.'s score is 1.4; the global median is minus 0.3.
The study found that more than 80% of the disaster deaths from 1964 through 2004 occurred in 15 countries, among them China, Ethiopisa, Sudan, Indonesia and Bangladesh. At that time, nearly 3/4 of the 15 countries were below the median global gross domestic product and the median grade on the World Bank's democracy index. Most other countries showed the same pattern: the more democratic and/or rich they were, the fewer of their citizens died in natural disasters.
(Frank Greve, MCT NEWS SERVICE)
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SATNO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -
Tropical Storm Noel brought heavy rains to the western Caribbean yesterday as it pushed through Cuba and edged closer to Florida. Floods and mudslides across the region have killed at least 22 people.
...Warning were in effect for rough surf for much of South Florida, including the Miami area, as waves were pounding the region's beaches. Swimmers are advised to stay out of the ocean because of the risk of rip currents and waves higher than 10 ft But forecasters said the rains probably would miss drought-stricken Georgia, Alabama and other Southeastern states.
The storm cut a destructive path across the island of Hispaniola, which is shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Rain may total as much as 30 in in parts of Hispaniola and 15 in in Cuba and the Bahamas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Because of difficulties reaching remote areas of Hispaniola, there was uncertainty over death-toll figures, with emergency officials reporting at least 36 fatalities.
A Dominican emergency commission spokesman said at least 30 people died and nearly 12,000 were driven from their homes. Nearly 3,000 homes were destroyed, while collapsed bridges and swollen rivers have isolated 36 towns. In neighboring Haiti, at least 6 people died....In Cuba, the government said about 1,000 homes had suffered damage, 2,000 people had been evacuated from low-lying areas, and schools were closed for several thousand students. Bahamian authorities closed most government offices, and lines formed at grocery stores and gas stations in Nassau, the capital. Rain from the outer bands of the storm prompted some tourists to cover themselves in trash bags.
Late last night, Noel was centered about 25 mi southwest of Camaguey, Cuba, and was moving northwest at about 4 mph. Maximum sustained winds were 40 mph, down from 60 mph earlier.
(Ramon Almanzar, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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AT THE MOSUL DAM, Iraq - The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding 2 of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.
Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed U.S. officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 ft of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 ft ....
U.S. reconstruction to help shore up the dam in northern Iraq has been marred by incompetence and mismanagement, according to Iraqi officials and a report by a U.S. oversight agency released yesterday. The reconstruction project, which cost at least $27 Mio, was not intended to be a permanent solution to the dam's deficiency.
The effort to prevent a failure of the dam has been complicated by behind-the-scenes wrnagling between Iraqi and U.S. officials over the severity of the problem and how much money should be allocated to fix it.
The Army Corps has recommended building a second dam downstream as a fail-safe measure, but Iraqi officials have rejected the proposal, arguing that it is unnecessary and too expensive.
The debate has taken place largely out of public view because both Iraqi and U.S. Embassy officials have refused to discuss the details of safety studies - commissioned by the U.S. government for at least $6 Mio - so as not to frighten Iraqi citizens.
(Amit R. Paley, The WASHINGTON POST)
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SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Tropical Storm Noel lashed the Dominican Republic with heavy rains yesterday, causing flooding and mudslides that killed at least 20 poeple and left another 20 missing, officials said.
Noel was expected to dump up to 20 in of rain on the Dominican Republic and haiti, which share the island of Hispaniola, as its head northwest toward the Bahamas.
Forecasters said a tropical storm watch, which means that tropical storm conditions are possible within 36 hours, may be issued for southeast Florida early today.
The spinning tropical storm had been forecast to hit Haiti hardest but veered toward the Dominican Rapublic, apparently catching residents off-guard.
... Noel temporarily knocked out the Dominican Republic's entire power system early yesterday, plunging 9.4 Mio people into the dark for about 2 h ....
Some building tumbled down hillsides near the Dominican capital and a cell phone tower slammed to the ground in the southwestern province of Barahona. At least 10 people went missing when the Maimon River overflowed its banks and sent a torrent of muddy water rushing through the town of Piedra Blanca.
.... Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis said there were no immediate reports of casualties in his country, but he urged people to seek shelter. .... Haiti is prone to deadly flooding because of its steep moutnains and hills deforested by people who cut down the trees to make charcoal. Floods earlier this month killed at least 37 and sent more than 4,000 people to shelters. ....
Late last night, rain had started falling on parts of the southeastern Bahamas. Noel's center was about 305 mi southsouthest of Nassua, Bahamas. It had winds of up to 50 mph and headed northwest at roughly 13 mph. The storm was expected to move between the central Bahamas and the northern coast of Cuba early today.
(Ramon Almanzar, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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NARSARSUAQ, Greenland - A strange thing is happening in Qanasiassat forest. Its four oldest trees, the oldest in Greenland and named Rosenvinge's pines after the Dutch botanist who planted them in 1893, are waking up. After lapsing into sleepy old age, the are exhibiting new sprinklings of green at their tops.....
Although Greenland is the same size of Europe, it has only nine conifer forests, all of them cultivated. Greenland has only 51 farms (50 sheep farms and 1 experimental cattle farm). Except for potatoes, the only vegetables most Greenlanders ever eat - to the extent that they eat vegetables at all - are imported, mostly from Denmark.
But now that the climate is warming, it is not just old trees that are growing. A Greenland supermarket is stocking locally grown cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage this year for the first time. Eight sheep farmers are growing potatoes commercially. Five more are experimenting with vegetables [in the south]..... Farther north, Greenland's great ice sheet, a vast white landscape of nearly 700,000 square miles covering 80% of the island's land mass, is melting rapidly and alarmingly, with repercussions not only for the traditional way of life on an island of 56,000 people, but for the rest of the world. The more ice melts, the higher sea levels will eventually rise......
Greenland, now a self-governing province of Denmark, was settled by the Viking leader Erik the Red in the 10th century, after his murderous ways got him ejected from Iceland. Legend has it that he called it Greenland as a way to entice others to join him, and, in fact, it was. It was relatively green then, with forests and fertile soil, and the Vikings grew crops and raised sheep for hundreds of years. But temperatures dropped precipitously in the so-called Little Ice Age, which began in the 16th century, and the Norse settlers died out and agriculture was no longer possible......
While temperatures in the south dipped in the 1980s, they have risen steadily since. Between 1961 and 1990, the average annual temperature was 33 °F; in 2006, it was 35°F, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute. Winter is coming later and leaving earlier, giving more time for farming and agriculture. Ewes are having more and fatter lambs every season. The growing season now lasts roughly from mid-May through mid-September, about 3 weeks longer than a decade ago.
.... The fjords freeze later and less frequently, providing more opportunity to travel by boat. Cod, which prefer warmer waters, have started appearing off the coast again.
(Sarah Lyall, NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE)
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Allowing Georgia to fight drought by slowing water flow into Florida would imperil commercial fishing along the Florida Panhandle, Gov. Charlie Crist argued in a letter to President Bush. Crist urged Bush not to let Georgia move forward with a water-saving plan to slow the flow from reservoirs into rivers that eventually reach Florida.
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has sued to try to force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to curb the release of water from North Georgia lakes into rivers that make their way to the Gulf of Mexico through the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola River Basin. The corps controls water releases in the basin.
Georgia officials want to reduce the depletion of reservoir levels into early next year so that no more water flows out than is coming in. But doing so would hurt the Apalachicola River and Apalachicola Bay, "resulting in a profound disruption of the socioeconomic foundation in Florida's Panhandle region" Crist wrote in the letter Wednesday.
Florida, Alabama and Georgia have been in a dispute for years over how to manage the water that flows from North Georgia into the other two states on its way to the gulf. As metro Atlanta has grown, the problem has grown too - with one of the major lakes in that area, Lake Lanier, serving as the main source of drinking water for the city. The problem is exacerbated by a drought that is gripping much of the Southeast. Officials in Georgia ordered state agencies and public utilities to reduce usage and have banned outdoor watering.
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Hot, dry winds and low humidity are expected to sweep into the region tomorrow - the same menacing Santa Ana conditions that fed the devastating Cedar and paradise fires nearly four years ago to the day. [NB: started Saturday, Oct 25, 2003].
"The weather will be conducive to explosive fire growth," said Rob Balfour, a forecaster and fire-incident meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Rancho Bernardo office. "It'll be very similar to 2003, in strength and duration. We're hoping nobody does anything stupid, like throw a lit cigarette. But we're also going to have to worry about sparks from downed power lines."
Sustained Santa Ana winds should reach 20-40 mph, and gusts could hit 60-70 mph in county canyons and passes. By Monday morning, when the winds are expected to peak, humidity levels should fall below 10% and stay in single digits for a couple of days. The inland valleys could reach 95 °F.
Much of Southern California, with the exception of coastal zones and deserts, will be under a red-flag warning from tomorrow morning through Tuesday afternoon. The warning signifies extreme fire danger because of a combination of strong winds, low humidity and high temperatures.
Wildland firefighters are gearing up just in case. Additional personnel and equipment have been moved from around the West to Southern California....The department repositioned two air tankers and a "helitanker" to the Ramona Air Attack Base on Monday to complement two tankers already there.....as recent storms in the Western United States and Northern California reduced the fire danger there and made the aircrafts' transfer possible.....
Homeowners should clear brush within 100 ft of their homes and cover attic vents to keep potential embers from entering and igniting insulation ..... They are also advised to avoid using lawn mowers, tractors or chain saws during the heat of the day......
Light storms that hit the county earlier this week may help lessen fire danger over the weekend. Rains moistened the soil and brush in the mountains, and a weak storm passing through today will keep humidity levels in the local mountains slightly higher. But the hot, dry winds are expected to evaporate that moisture quickly. By Monday, humidity levels should be well below 10%, and the brush should be extremely volatile....
When the Paradise and Cedar fires began in October 2003, a Santa Ana knocked humidity levels into the single digits. But the winds at that time were not as strong as the gusts that are expected tomorrow night and Monday....The Cedar fire, which began near Ramona on Saturday evening, Oct. 25, 2003, burned 422 square miles, destroyed 2,400 homes and killed 15 people. The Paradise fire, which began early the next morning, burned almost 57,000 acres around Valley Center, destroyed more than 200 homes and killed 2 people. The Cedar fire became the largest wildfire in California history.
(Robert Krier, STAFF WRITER)
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LOCKE TOWNSHIP, Mich. - A couple spending their first night in a new house were among at least six people killed as unusually severe October storms destroyed homes, downed trees and knocked out power in several states, authorities said yesterday.
The thunderstorms, some spawning tornadoes and high winds, sent a mobile home in Missouri flying flying, killing another couple, destroyed homes in Michigan and Indiana, and collapsed a trailer in kentucky as they struck Thursday and early yesterday.... A 29-year-old man was killed when strong wind collapsed his home around him...a 14-month-old boy in acrib escaped injury after apparently being tossed about 40 ft by a tornado that destroyed a home early yesterday....a neighbor found the baby under a pile of debris, still in the crib....
National Weather Service officials believe as many as four tornadoes, plus a water spout over an area lake, may have touched down in Kalkasa, Cheboygan, Alpena and Mio counties.
"This is extremely rare," said a National Weather Service meteorologist. "When you're this deep into the month of October, it's a very rare event." In rural northeasters Missouri a couple sought refuge in their mobile home in Monroe County as a tornado approached. Their bodies were found about 400 ft from where the home had been. The mobile home's frame was found three-quarters of a mile away, with debris as far as two miles away. The national Weather Service said the [tornado] traveled a mile and had winds as high as 135 mph.
Storms that rumbled through Kentucky produced several tornadoes, smashing mobile homes and injuring 11 people in Owensboro.
In Washington state, where one person died, a floating bridge buffeted by powerful wind was closed, and tens of thousands of homes and businesses lost electricity......
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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ATLANTA - With the South in the grip of an epic drought and its largest city holding less than a 90-day supply of water, officials are scrambling to deal with the worst-case scenario: What if Atlanta's faucets really do go dry?
So far, no real backup plan exists. And there are no quick fixes among suggested solutions, which include piping water in from rivers in neighboring states, building more regional reservoirs, setting up a statewide recycling system or even desalinating water from the Atlantic Ocean......
Georgia's governor Perdue seems to be pinning his hopes on a two-pronged approach: urging water conservation and reducing water flowing out of federally controlled lakes. Perdue's office asked a Florida federal judge yesterday to force the Army Corps of Engineers to curb the amount of water draining from Georgia reservoirs into Alabama and Florida. And Gerogia's environmental protection director is drafting proposals for more water restrictions.
But that may not be enough to stave off the water crisis. More than a quarter of the Southeast is covered by an "exceptional" drought - the National Weather Service's worst drought category. The Atlanta area, with a population of 5 Mio, is in the middle of the affected region, which extends like a dark cloud over most of Tennessee, Alabama and the northern half of Georgia, as well as parts of North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia.
State officials warn that Lake Lanier, a 38,000-acre north Georgia reservoir that supplies more than 3 Mio residents with water, is already less than three months from depletion. The corps, however, stresses that there's no reason to think Atlanta will soon run out of water.....
Some academics say Georgia should start using more "purple water" - wastewater, which comes out of purple pipes, that is partially treated and can be used for irrigation, firefighting and uses other that drinking. That would conserve lake water and help replenish the water-supply system......In the meantime, virtually all outdoor watering has been banned across the northern half of the state, restaurants have been asked to serve water only at a customer's request and the governor has called on Georgians to take shorter showers.
(Greg Bluestein, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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BOGOTA, Colombia - A landslide triggered by local residents digging for rumored deposits of gold in an abandoned mine killed at least 21 people and injured 26 others yesterday in southern Colombia... Seven of those injured were in serious condition ... The search for survivors at the mine, near the town of Suarez, 220 mi southwest of Bogota, was suspended yesterday evening because of darkness and bad weather, which made the open pit mine unsafe.
It was unclear how many people were missing, but rearlier [police] said that about 50 people may have been in the mine at the time of the landslide. ...
Images broadcast by RCN news showed the mine as a pit about 25 ft deep and 160 ft in diameter. Rescuers waded waist-deep through the mire, and heavy machinery also worked to remove the mud.
Local residents had begun digging in the mine after it was reported that gold had been found underground.... many of them appeared to have little experience in tunneling or mining. The governor said in a statement that the Suarez mayor had ordered the mine closed, but "the people went in despite being warned" that it was dangerous.
(Sergio De Leon, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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BEIJING - A storm drenched China's southeast yesterday after killing five people in Taiwan and prompting the evacuation of 1.4 million people on the mainland, officials said. In Vietnam, the death toll from a separate storm rose to 55.
Krosa came ashore as a typhoon in China's Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, but weakened and was soon downgraded to a tropical storm, the official Xinhua News Agency said. No deaths or injuries were reported, but the storms wrecked houses and knocked out power in the port city of Wenzhou as torrential rains swept the region.
More that 1.4 million people were evacuated from costal areas, including more than 500,000 tourists who were at beach resorts for the National Day holiday week, Xinhua said. About 75,000 fishing vessels in the two provinces were ordered back to port and trips by ferries and sightseeing boats were canceled.
Krosa - the Cambodian word for crane - killed five people Saturday in Taiwan as it knocked out power to 2 million homes and soaked the island according to Taiwan's Disaster Relief Center.
Early yesterday, China's coast guard rescued 27 sailors from a Hong Kong freighter that suffered mechanical failure after it was hit by the storm off Wenzhou. In Shanghai, where the Special Olympics is taking place, the city government canceled vacations for flood-control workers.
Meanwhile, the death toll from Typhoon Lekima, which hit Vietnam's central coast late Wednesday, rose to 55, with 16 other people missing, officials said yesterday.
The death toll in Vietnam's worst-hit central province of Nghe An rose to 22 after eight more bodies were discovered in the past two days, said provincial disaster official Pham Hong Thuong. "Communication to many parts of the province is still cut off", Thuong said.
Lekima, named after a local fruit, also damaged about 77,000 homes, the government said.
(Joe McDonald, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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An object that struck the high plains of Peru on Saturday [(Sept. 15)], causing a mysterious illness among local residents, was a rare kind of meteorite, scientists announced today.
A team of Peruvian researchers confirmed the oirgins of the object, which crashed near Lake Titicaca, after taking samples to a lab in the capital city of Lima.
Nearby residents who visited the impact crater complained of headaches and nausea, spurring speculations that the explosion was a subterranean geyser eruption or a release of noxious gas from decayed matter undergorund.
But the illness was the result of inhaling arsenic fumes, according to Luisa Macedo, a researcher for Peru's Mining, Metallurgy, and Geology Institute (INGEMMET), who visited the crash site.
The meteorite created the gases when the object's hot surface met an underground water supply tainted with arsenic, the scientists said.....
Locals described the meteorite as a bright, fiery ball with a smoke trail .... The meteorite's impact sent debris flying up to 820 ft (250 m) away, with some material landing on the roof of the nearest home 390 ft (120 m) from the crater.
(Jose Orozco for National Geographic News)
NB: check out complete news item at National Geographic News
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JULIAN - Fire crews expected to have full containment and control of the Angel fire by 6p.m., today, authorities said.
The blaze, which has scorched 850 acres near Julian, was 95% contained as of last night, Cal Fire reported.
Evacuation orders have been lifted and all roads into the Julian area have been reopened except one: state Route 78 between Wynola Road and S2 at Scissors Crossing.
The blaze, which was sparked by an illegal campfire Saturday afternoon, destroyed one home and 23 outbuildings, mostly at Camp Stevens, officials said.
The cost of fighting the fire has reached an estimated $2.9 Mio.
(UNION-TRIBUNE)
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In the Arctic, researchers aboard the Coast Guard icebreaker Healy have been mapping claims to the spoils of global warming.
North of Alaska, 23 scientists on the Healy this week gathered the data legally required to extend national territories across vast reaches of the mineral-rich seafloor usually blocked by Arctic ice. Fathom by fathom, multibeam sonar sensors mounted on the ship's hull charted a submerged plateau called the Chukchi Cap, in a region that may contain 25% of the world's reserves of oil and natural gas.
In an era of climate change, these frozen assets are up for grabs, as melting ice allows detailed mapping and, maybe one day, drilling. Rising temperatures thinned the ice pack to a record low this month. If current trends continue, the Arctic could become ice-free in summer months by 20440, polar researchers say.
The Healy found easy passage this week through the Arctic Ocean's archipelagos of ice.... The $1 Mio Healy expedition is the third U.S. seafloor-mapping venture into the Arctic since 2003, prompted by provisions of the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The United States has never ratified the treaty but commissioned new seabed maps in case it ever is adopted. The Healy's voyage is part of a broader U.S. effort to extend its undersea zone of military and economic authority should it adopt the 25-year-old U.N. accord. For 5 yeras, the university's mapping teams, commissioned by the U.S. State Department, have been charting in unprecedented detail the deep ocean bottom of the Arctic.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has set a hearing on the treaty this month. Framed decades before the politics of the greenhouse effect permeated international relations, the U.N. treaty is taking on added importance in the Arctic as an arbiter for countries determined to come out ahead in a world transformed by rising temperatures. No country actually owns the North Pole. But with growing boldness this past summer, Russia, Denmark, Norway and Canada jockeyed for control of the Arctic seabed, galvanized by the prospect of open waterways there.
.... The U.N. treaty allows countries to extend their coastal economic zone up to 350 nautical miles offshore, depending on detailed technical evidence of undersea geology and topography. Under this provision, all 4 countries claim an underwater mountain called the Lomonosov Ridge that runs underneath the North POle. They are depending on seafloor data to bolster their cases before the U.N. Continental Shelf, which has been meeting this week in closed session to consider claims.
(THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
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ZAHARO, Greece - Forest fires sweeping uncontrolled across southern Greece have killed 46 people, some found Saturday in the charred homes of mountain villages reached too late by rescuers hampered by wind-driven flames. New blazes erupted across the country, including a fire on the fringes of Athens.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said arson was suspected in some of the 170 fires that have broken out since Friday morning. He declared a nationwide state of emergency and vowed to pursue the perpetrators.
.....
The deadliest fire was in the western Peloponnese region of southern Greece, where at least 38 people were killed in mountain villages near the town Zaharo, the fire department said. A massive fire whipped by strong winds continued to burn out of control.....
Hot, dry winds gusting to gale force were expected to continue Saturday before abating in the evening. The winds frequently prevented firefighting planes from taking off, leaving mainly ground forces to fight the flames in the southern Peloponnese, occasionally helped by helicopters.... A three-day heat wave, in which temperatures have touched 104 [deg] Fahrenheit (40 deg C), has left forests and shrubland parched. Fires have raged from the western Ionian islands to Ioannina in northwest Greece, and down to the south.
The skies above Athens turned red with smoke for hours, and ashes fell in the center of the capital as wind drove the flames across the dry landscape....
Greece has suffered its worst summer for forest fires this year, with hundreds of blazes burning thousands of hectares of forest and brushland....
(Petros Gianakouris, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
NB: excerpts from a local German newspaper and CNN: The German newspaper reports land clearing by greedy developers as the cause of 20 nearly simultaneously erupting fires, while CNN cites political extremists in the upcoming elections.
Since June, more than 3,000 fires have razed thousands of hectares of forests and scrubland across the country - nearly triple last year's total - according to officials.
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NY ALESUND, Norway - Previously unknown islands are appearing as Arctic summer sea ice shrinks to record lows, raising questions about whether global warming is outpacing U.N. projections, experts said.
Polar bears and seals have also suffered this year on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard because the sea ice they rely on for hunts melted far earlier than normal.
"Reductions of snow and ice are happening at an alarming rate", Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoy told a seminar of 40 scientists and politicians in Ny Alesund, 750 mi form the North Pole. "This acceleration may be faster than predicted" by the U.N. climate panel this year, she said. The U.N. climate panel of 2,500 scientists said in February that warming in the past 50 years was "very likely" the result of greenhouse gases. "There may well be an ice-free Arctic by the middle of the century", said Christopher Papley, director of the British Antarctic Survey.
The thaw around Svalbard has revealed several islands not on any maps. "Islands are appearing just over the fjord here: as glaciers recede, said Kim Holmen, research Director at the Norwegian Polar Institute. "We're already seeing adverse effects on polar bears and other species."
(REUTERS)
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XINTAI, China - Chinese authorities focused today on placating relatives of 181 men trapped underground in a flooded coal mine with little hope of rescue after a clash between managers and anguished families demanding information.
The miners have been trapped since Friday (8/17) when a river dike burst in torrential rains, sending water rushing into the mine shafts in the eastern province of Shandong.
As hopes faded for the miners, relatives were disputing the local government's description of the mine flood as a natural disaster as their anger and grief mounted.
(REUTERS)
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SANTA BARBARA - Dozens of ranch properties were put on alert as the 1.5-month old Zaca wildfire raged yesterday in Los Padres National Forest backcountry while a new fire on the central coast shut down part of Highway 1, authorities said.
A fleet of aircraft, including a DC-10 that can swoop in with 12,000 Gal of fire retardant, flew sorties over the Zaca fire. The 214,725-acre blaze, equivalent to 336 square mi, was 75% surrounded, with containment not expected until Sept. 7.
The new blaze erupted on the west side of Highway 1 south of Lompoc and was blown east across 250 acres toward wineries and ranches, Santa Barbara County fore spokesman Michael Burke said.
The fire was 50% contained last night, but residents on a rural road off the highway were warned to be ready to evacuate.
The Zaca fire erupted July 4 and has become the third-largest wildfire in California history as it has marched eastward through a swath of wilderness in the interior of Santa Barbara County toward neighboring Ventura County.
The 3,015 firefighters on the ground face rugged terrain, temperatures on the 90s and extremely low humidity.......
Sparks from equipment used to repair a pipe ignited the blaze north of Los Olivos on July 4. The state's biggest wildfire was the 2003 Cedar fire in parts of San Diego County, which burned more than 273,000 acres, destroyed 4,847 structures and killed 15 people.
Also yesterday, the relentless spread of large wildfires in Idaho has prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency and fire managers in three national forests to give up on trying to extinguish the blazes, focusing instead on protecting homes and other structures, and letting winter snows snuff out the flames.
The Cascade complex (burning on about 248 square mi roughly 25 mi from McCall) and the landmark complex (burning on 74 square mi about 7 mi south of Yellow Pine) are expected to grow together, and firefighters' best efforts aren't likely to stop the flames, firefighters said.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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GAYS MILLS, Wis. - Relentless thunderstorms pounded parts of the Midwest and the Plains yesterday, causing mudslides, washing out bridges and flooding towns. At least 12 people have died since the weekend.
Remnants of Tropical Storm Erin dumped heavy rain in southwest Missouri yesterday, leaving one town temporarily cut off. Storms brought 82-mph wind gusts and golf-ball sized hail to Lincoln, Neb.
In southwestern Wisconsin, where one man was still missing yesterday, emergency workers braced for more rain and flooding. Heavy rains also caused flooding, road closures and sewage-treatment systems to overflow in Iowa, authorities said. In northeast Ohio, heavy rain caused Wolf Creek to overflow its banks, flooding streets and buildings.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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TULUM, Mexico - Hurricane Dean strengthened into a monstrous Category 5 storm last night as its first rain and winds began slamming the coasts of Mexico and Belize. Thousands of tourists fled the beaches of the Mayan Riviera as the storm roared toward the ancient ruins and modern oil installations of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Mexico's state oil company, Petroleos de Mexico, said it was evacuating its more than 18,000 offshore workers int he southern Gulf of Mexico, which includes the giant Cantarell oil field. Dozens of historically significant mayan sites also were abandoned.
Dean - which has killed at least 12 people across the Caribbean - quickly picked up strength after brushing Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
Late last night, Dean had sustained winds of 160 mph and was centered about 150 mi east of Chetumal, where it was projected to make landfall early today, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Chetumal is about 120 mi south of Tulum.
Category 5 storms are rare and capable of catastrophic damage. Only three have hit the U.S. since record-keeping began.....A hurricane warning was in effect from Cancun south through Belize. all hospitals were closed in Belize City, and authorities urged residents to leave, saying Dean is too strong for their shelters. Meteorologists said a storm surge of 12 to 18 ft was possible at the storm's center.
The hurricane was expected to slash across the Yucatan and emerge in the Bay of Campeche, where Petroleos de Mexico decided to shut down production on the offshore rigs that extract most of the nation's oil.... Shutting down the 407 oil well in the Campeche Sould will result in a production loss of 2.7 Mio barrels of oil and 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, Pemex said. of that, about 1.7 Mio barrels of oil a day are exported from three Gulf ports, where Pemex was loading its final tankers before shutting down the ports.
Central Mexico would be next in the storm's path, though the outer bands were likely to bring rain, flooding and gusty winds to south Texas, already saturated after an unusually rainy summer. At the southern tip of Texas, officials urged residents to evacuate ahead of the storm.....
In the Cancun area .... Hurricane Wilma caused $3 billion in losses in 2005. Dean could be even stronger than Wilma, which stalled over Cancun and pummeled it for a day. The fast-moving Dean was passing farther south and was likely to deliver a brief but powerful punch to Mexico's Mayan heartland.....
Dean, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, raked Jamaica and the Cayman Islands on Sunday (8/19), but both escaped the full brunt of the storm. In Jamaica, the storm uprooted trees, flooded roads and collapsed some buildings. Downed utility poles left thousands without electricity or telephone service. Police said two men were killed: one when his house collapsed and another was struck by flying debris. haitian officials yesterday reported two more deaths, raising the storm's death toll in the Caribbean to at least 12.
The worst strom to hit Latin America in modern times was Hurricane Mitch, which killed nearly 11,000 people in 1998 and left more than 8,000 missing, mostly in Honduras and Nicaragua.
(Mark Stevenson, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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PISCO, Peru - Rescuers gave up hope of finding any more survivors and concentrated yesterday on clearing tons of rubble from the streets of this southern port city leveled by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 540 people.
The magnitude 8 quake on Wednesday (8/15) destroyed more than 85% of the homes in Pisco, a fishing port 125 mi southeast of Lima.
Rescue workers have removed 148 bodies from the San Clemente church in the city after its domed ceiling broke apart during the earthquake. It was not clear how many of the 300 congregants inside survived the shaking that lasted for an agonizing two minutes. .... Meanwhile, the government was preparing plans to rebuild Pisco. .... Plans include building small two-bedroom houses made of concrete blocks and steel rods designed to withstand earthquakes better than unreinforced adobe.
In a preliminary report, the civil defense said the quake destroyed 35,214 houses - including 16,000 in Pisco and 16,010 in nearby Chincha. ... 1,200 soldiers had restored calm to the streets where days earlier, hungry quake victims looted aid trucks and markets..... Some 280 planes arrived with 600 tons of food and other supplies, and navy ships had brought potable water.
(Jeanneth Valdivieso, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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WINONA, Minn. - Rivers swollen by as much as a foot of rain lifted houses off their foundations and washed away roads, killing at least 13 people in three states, authorities said yesterday. Hundreds of people in southeastern Minnesota and southwestern Wisconsin were evacuated, some by boat off rooftops.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty ordered 240 National Guard soldiers to the area to help with flood relief and provide security, and the Red Cross set up emergency shelters. Six deaths were reported in Minnesota.... Floodwaters cut a 30-ft gully through one road near tiny Witoka. Two people died in vehicles that plunged in. In Oklahoma, where the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin soaked the region, a vehicle carrying the wife, daughter and granddaughter of Kiowa Chief Billy Horse was swept from a state highway by rising floodwaters .... Three other people drowned in Oklahoma, including a woman in her cellar on rural Fort Cobb ..... In Taylor County, Texas, searchers found the body of a woman hours after her vehicle was found washed off the road.
In Wisconsin, up to 12 in of rain triggered a mudslide that pushed a house onto state Highway 35 in Vernon County ... no injuries were reported. In Chicago, more than 200 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport yesterday because of low visibility caused by the storms....
(Scott Bauer, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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KINGSTON, Jamaica - Hurricane Dean pummeled Jamaica yesterday with gusting winds and torrential rains that blew the roofs off homes, caused landslides and flooded roads.
The Category 4 hurricane's life-threatening eyewall - surrounded by 145-mph winds - raged along the southern coast last night as hurricane winds ripped across the island. With the Jamaican assault still under way this morning, accounts of casualties and damage were scarce, but police relayed ominous reports of at least three landslides, and a heavy toll seemed likely.
The nation's prime minister made a last-minute plea for residents to abandon their homes and head for shelter. But many residents ignored the call, while tourists holed up in resorts with hurricane-proof walls.
Dean, which had already killed eight people on its destructive march across the Caribbean, triggered evacuation calls from the Cayman Islands to Texas and forced the space shuttle Endeavour to cut short its mission. Cruise ships changed course to avoid the storm, but some tourists in jamaica could not get away before the island closed its airports late Saturday.
The national Hurricane Center in Miami said Dean was projected to reach the most dangerous classification of Category 5 with sustained winds of 160 mph before plowing into Mexico's Yucatan peninsula tomorrow. The Mexican mainland or Texas could be hit later.
In Washington, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said yesterday that the government was far better prepared for Hurricane Dean than it had been for Katrina in 2005.... Plans were being developed for the possible evacuations of more than 100,000 people on the southeastern Texas coast, where Dean is most likely to hit in the U.S......
Dean is being watched closely by energy markets, which have been nervous since a series of storms in 2004 and 2005 toppled Gulf of Mexico oil rigs, flooded refineries and cut pipelines. Mexico's Pemex oil company began evacuating 13,360 workers from its Gulf rigs.....
The hurricane created massive waves and surges as high as 20 ft as it passed the Dominican Republic on Saturday (8/18), where roads were flooded and a boy drowned. At least two people were killed and about 150 homes were destroyed in Haiti......In Nicaragua, a 4-year-old girl died when a boat she was on sank amid high winds and waves in the Kukra River ...
(ASSOCIATED PRESS and MCT NEWS SERVICE)
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WASHINGTON - NASA has slightly revised its record of average annual temperatures in the United States since 2000 - modifications that researchers say are insignificant but that some conservative commentators and bloggers have seized upon to assert that global warming has been hyped as a problem.
The revisions, which were forst posted on the Web site of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, stemmed from an error noticed by Canadian blogger and global warming skeptic Stephen McIntyre. James Hansen, director of the institute, said McIntyre brought the error to the institute's attention, and the error was corrected.
Hansen said the error involved adjustments to average annual temperatures after 2000 and that the corrected figures show that the past six years were 0.15 deg C cooler that reported. Hansen said that change is insignificant in terms of global warming and changed the overall global mean temperature by 1/1000 deg.
Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh used reports of the revisions to argue that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by scientists with liberal agendas.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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SOUTH POINT, Hawaii - Hours after getting jolted by a moderate earthquake, residents of Hawaii's Big Island holed up for a different force of nature yesterday: Hurricane Flossie, which brought pounding 25-foot waves and strong winds in a powerful but glancing blow.
Schools and many businesses closed, and shelters opened in anticipation of the hurricane, which was downgraded to a Category 2 with top sustained winds of 105 mph. The slowing storm began moving past the Big Island in the afternoon, and was expected to pass within 85 mi last night with winds exceeding 40 mph and 10 in of rain.
The storm comes on the heels of a magnitude 5.4 earthquake centered 25 mi south of Hilo. The quake Monday night (8/13) caused a small landslide, but there were no reports of injuries or structural damage ....
Anticipating Flossie, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) dispatched a 20-person response team that arrived in Hawaii Monday .... The team includes specialists in areas of transportation, aviation, public works and health.
While Flossie stirred up the Pacific, a tropical storm watch was issued last night for the Texas coast as a tropical depression formed in the Gulf of Mexico. And in the open Atlantic, Tropical Storm Dean formed east of the Lesser Antilles. The tropical depression threatened to bring heavy rain to already-sodden Texas.....
The National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm watch for the Texas coast from Freeport, south of Houston, southward to the border. The government of Mexico has issued a tropical storm watch for the northwest coast of Mexico from Rio San Fernando northward. A tropical storm watch means that tropical storm conditions are possible within 36 h.... A tropical storm has winds of at least 39 mph.
.... Dean was moving over increasingly warmer waters, where atmospheric conditions could create a favorable environment for intensification into a hurricane by Friday (8/17), forecasters said....Forecasters said it was too early to tell where Dean will go.
(Audrey McAvoy, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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SEOUL, South Korea - Heavy rains spawned flooding that left hundreds dead or missing in North Korea and destroyed more than 30,000 homes, the country's state media reported today.
The official Korean Central News Agency .... said the rain (from storms, that began last week) flooded tens of thousands of acres of farmland in the impoverished country, which suffers from regular food shortages.
"The heavy rain destroyed at least 800 public buildings, over 540 bridges, 70 sections of railroads and at least 1,100 vehicles, pumps and electric motors," KCNA said.
Hardest hit appeared to be Kangwon province, ... where "huge casualties" and homes for more than 20,000 families were partly or completely destroyed. The effects also reached the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.....
North Korea also suffered from flooding last year that caused massive casualties, although the exact numbers of dead were never revealed by the secretive country.
Damage from storms is often worsened in North Korea because farmers denude vast hillsides to create more arable land to grow food, so natural vegetation that can stop erosion and landslides is no longer present. Energy-starved residents also removed tree from the hillsides to cook food or heat homes through the bitter winters.
More than 2 Mio people are estimated to have died in North Korea after a famine struck in the mid-1900s, which the government blamed on natural disasters but was also linked to outdated farming methods as well as the loss of the country's Soviet benefactor. North Korea still relies on outside aid to help feed its people....
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Cities simmered with triple-digit temperatures yesterday, toppling records in a heat wave blamed for deaths in at least six states.
Thermometers surpassed 100 deg F in parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Nebraska, Kansas and the western tip of Tennessee, where Memphis hit a records 105 deg F, the National Weather Service said.
Yesterday was the forth consecutive day of triple-digit highs in memphis, where the heat has been blamed for at least three deaths since Wednesday health authorities said. The brutal temperatures come during one of the city's biggest events: Elvis week, when thousands of fans from across the world turn out to mark the anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.
Temperatures in Memphis will likely set records through Thursday (8/16), with humidity climbing as the week goes on, so organizers set up free water and ice stations for fans.
A truck driver who was working on his rig at a gas station when he collapsed and died yesterday was among the 3 heat-related deaths in Arkansas.... South Carolina, Missouri and Kentucky have each reported 1 heat-related death, while Illinois officials have blamed 3 deaths on the heat since Thursday. Officials in Kentucky said the heat may have been to blame for the death of a 37-year-old man yesterday, but the cause of death had not yet been determined.
In Alabama, Montgomery broke a record yesterday with an 8th straight day of 100-plus heat, hitting 103 deg F. A day earlier, the city's streets steamed at 106. The city had 7-day hot streaks in 1990, 1954 and 1881. Pinson, Ala., hit a record high of 105, according to the weather service.
The average high so far in August in central Alabama is 92.
(Will York, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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MIAMI - An aging weather satellite crucial to accurate predictions on the intensity and path of hurricanes could fail at any moment, and plans to launch a replacement have been pushed back 7 years to 2016.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's chief wrote in a letter to a Florida congressman that the failure of the QuikScat satellite could bring more uncertainty to forecasts and widen the areas that are placed under hurricane watches and warnings.
If the satellite faltered, experts estimate that the accuracy of two-day forecasts could suffer by 10% and three-day forecasts by 16%, which could translate into miles of coastline and the difference between a cite being evacuated or not...... In the letter to the Florida congressman, NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher blamed the delays on technical and budget problems. Scientists said that if QuikScat failed, they may have to rely on less accurate satellites. ..... Lauterbacher said the replacement is part of a larger program to update the U.S.s weather satellites. It was reported last week that other cuts in the program have included scaled-back efforts to measure global warming from space.
Last year, forecasts were off an average of 111 mi two days in advance, a figure that has been cut in half over the past 15 years. But experts said that could grow to 122 mi if the satellite is lost, causing the "cone of error" well known to coastal residents to expand. Some scientists also complain that the technology planned for the replacement satellite is less precise for hurricane forecasting that what is currently flying.
QuickScat, launched in 1999 and designed to last two to three years, provides data on wind speed and direcyion over the ocean. Weather aircraft and buoys can also obtain similar measurements near a storm, but they do not provide a constant flow of data as QuikScat does. Last year, the satellite suffered a major setback - the failure of a transmitter used to send data to Earth about every 90 min. Now the satellite is limpling along on a backup transmitter and has other problems. ....
Emergency managers estimate that the total costs of evacuations are up to $1 Mio per mi of coastline, meaning wider evacuations could be expensive..... Even of money were immediately available, a replacement satellite is estimated to take at least 4 years and cost approx. $400 Mio to build.
(Jessica Gresko, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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SANTIAGO, Chile - An earthquake in remote southern Chile shook free a landslide of rocks, sending them smashing into a narrow fjord and causing massive, 25-ft waves that swept away 10 beachgoers. Three bodies were recovered. Rescuers were searching the cold Pacific waters for the other missing people from the beach after the magnitude 6.2 quake the day before, authorities said. The bureau said there was no tsunami. The waves were apparently created when several landslides crashed into the sea at the bottom of the narrow fjord, causing the water level to rise steeply.
NB: a wave generated in an enclosed body of water is called a seiche, not a tsunami but the generating mechanisms are very similar to that of a tsunami.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. - A menacing spring storm punished the Northeast for a second straight day yesterday, dumping more than 8in of rain on Central Park - quadrupling the 101-year-old record for the date - and sending refrigerators and pickups floating down rivers in one of the region's worst storms in recent memory.
... The nor'easter left a huge swath of devastation, from the beaches of South Carolina to the mountains of Maine. It knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people and was blamed for at least 12 deaths nationwide, including a New Jersey man who drowned inside a car.
The storm was particularly harsh in the suburbs north of New York City and in New Jersey, where the state was placed under a state of emergency and more than 1,400 residents were evacuated - many by boat.
Vermont got about 17in of snow, with flakes still falling yesterday across sections of Pennsylvania, New York and Maine. ... New Jersey authorities called it the worst storm to hit the state in 15 years. Five homes burned down in one town after fire crews could not reach the buildings because of floodwaters.
... Wind gusts registered 60mph near Boston, where runners had to contend with rain and 52mph winds during the Boston Marathon. Gusts exceeding 80mph in Maine toppled trees and drove rain that flooded roads and sank boats. In New Hampshire, a landslide forced the closure of part of the state's major east-west route, and winds blew out windows on oceanfront stores. In Maine, a woman and her 4-year-old granddaughter died when they were swept into a river as they tried to cross a washed-out section of road in Lebanon, the Maine Warden Service reported. A 52-year-old man died in a car stalled in deep water in an underpass in New Jersey, while a 79-year-old man also drowned on a flooded street. One person was killed by a tornado in South Carolina, and two died in car accidents - one in upstate New York and one in Connecticut. The same storm was blamed for five deaths earlier in Texas and Kansas. In Michigan, high winds toppled a flagpole onto a kindergartener at Roosevelt Primary School in Detroit's northern suburbs, killing the girl.
Snow drifts stranded tractor-trailers on highways in Pennsylvania. Washouts, flooding, mudslides and fallen trees blocked roads from Kentucky to New England. Pounding waves covered the shore at Hampton Beach, N.H., where residents reported up to 5ft of water pouring through their front doors.
The National Weather Service predicted showers through tomorrow night in the New York City area, with rain mixed with snow at times.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Is La Niña looming? If it is, our region could face yet another dry winter next year, but long-range forecasters disagree whether the weather phenomenon is on the horizon.
Climatologists who watch the waters in the central Pacific for hints about the coming year see the signs differently.
The Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md., reported yesterday that a quick drop in sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific since mid-January could herald the emergence of La Niña, a multimonth decline in ocean temperatures leads to a shift in storm paths. The Southwest almost always gets shortchanged, and drought conditions occur.
Climatologists at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Climate Research Division, however, say it's too early to tell if La Niña is on the way.
"Sometimes, it's better to keep your mouth shut", said Tim Barnett, a climate researcher at Scripps. He said it's two months premature to speak of La Niña, which means little girl in Spanish.
Barnett agreed that sea-surface temperatures have dropped in the Pacific, but he added that the timing and intensity are suspect. The cool-down appears to have already peaked, he said. Spring is a difficult time to make predictions based on the Pacific's temperatures because it is in transition between the seasons.
Vernon Kousky, a research meteorologist at the Climate Prediction Center, said the timing is good because La Niña episodes tend to develop from March to June.
Scripps' long-range computer model foresees warmer-than-normal waters in the Pacific - the opposite of La Niña - by late fall. La Niña's better known relative, El Niño, is characterized by warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures - and if strong - wetter winters in San Diego.....
(Robert Krier, STAFF WRITER)
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China may overtake the United States this year or next as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, new data show.
Data released in Beijing last week by China's National Bureau of Statistics show China's consumption of fossil fuels rose in 2006 by 9.3%, about the same rate as in previous years - and about 8 times higher that the U.S. increase of 1.2%.
This information, along with data from the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based alliance of oil-importing nations, show China's emissions have been growing by a total amount much greater that that of all industrialized nations put together.
"The magnitude of what's happening in China threatens to wipe out what's happening internationally" (to reduce emissions), said David Fridley, leader of the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.....
In 2001, China's greenhouse gas emissions were 42% of the U.S. level; by last year, they were an estimated 97%. .....
Zhou Shengxian, head of China's environmental protection agency, said the results show the government's environment agenda has been ineffective.
(Robert Collier, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE)
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SAN FRANCISCO, California - Part of a hillside came thundering down on a strip club and apartment buildings in San Francisco's North Beach district early yesterday, forcing 120 residents from their homes but causing no injuries.
(David Paul Morris, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE)
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PAISLEY, Fla. - At least 19 people died when powerful thunderstorms and tornadoes devastated parts of central Florida before dayn yesterday, flattening hundreds of homes and leaving thousands of residents who had little or no warning of the storms in grim shock.
Rescue workers combed what remained of toppled houses for survivors, and Gov. Charlie Crist, who declared a state of emergency in Lake, Volusia, Sumter and Seminole counties, said federal aid would arrive soon..... The worst of the storms touched down north of Orlando between 3 and 4am., jolting people from sleep with a noise some compared to a jumbo jet.
Though a tornado watch had been posted for many Florida counties late Thursday, the national Weather Service issued warnings minuted before the twisters hit in the middle of the night, when hardly anyone was watching or listening for them..........
Several thousand households remained without power last night. Dozens of people were treated for broken limbs, lacerations and other injuries at hospitals, and dozens more showed up at emergency shelters for the night.
Officials said at least 400 homes were destroyed in The Villages, a retirement community that sprawls across parts of four counties, and nearly 500 in Lady Lake, a town of 13,000 in Lake County about 50mi northwest of Orlando. In Volusia County, where parts of Deland and New Smyrna Beach were battered, officials estimated damage at $80Mio, including roughyl 350 homes that were damaged or destroyed.
Many of the structure destroyed yesterday were mobiled homes, but sturdier and costlier homes and buildings wer damaged, too. The Lady Lake Church of God, built to withstand winds up to 150Mph and used as a shelter in past storms, was leveled.....
In February 1998, a string of tornadoes hit the same region, killing 42 people. Several household .
(Abby Goodnough, NEW TORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE)
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BERLIN, Germany - Workers across Europe hauled away fallen trees and repaired power lines yesterday, after the deadliest storm [(named Cyril by German meteorologists)] to strike the continent in eight years killed at least 47 people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
Trains started rolling again after a massive shutdown during Thursday night's hurricane-force winds. Airports from London to Frankfurt reported some delays and cancellations, but were returning to normal. The disruption hit countries from Britain to Ukraine, where the flow of Russian oil through a main pipeline to Europe was temporarily halted after power to a pumping station was lost. The storm knocked out electricity to more than 1 million homes in the Czech Republic, which was hit by winds of up to 112 mph..... One million households in Germany and tens of thousands of homes in Poland and Austria also lost power .... 350,000 customers lost power in Britain .... and 30,000 Scottish customers remained without electricity.
The storm killed 14 people in Britain, 12 in Germany, six each in the Netherlands and Poland, four in the Czech Republic, three in France and two in Belgium. Most of those killed were motorists. However, the victims also included two German firefighters, an 18-month-old child in Munich hit by a terrace door ripped from its hinges, a toddler killed in London when a brick wall collapsed on him, and a Polish crane operator killed when his crane broke in half.
It was the highest death toll from a European storm since 1999, when gales [during storm Lothar] downed trees and driving snow brought on avalanches, killing more than 120 people.
[Insurance companies have estimated] losses in Germany at $1.3 billion, at $207 Mio in the Netherlands, and several hundreds of millions of dollars in Britain.
[The German national railroad experienced] an unprecedented near-total shutdown. Two steel girders came loose from a glass facade at Berlin's new main station Thursday night, one of them plunging onto an outdoor staircase, but no one was injured. The station remained closed until yesterday afternoon. Off the coast of France, a coast guard tug was called to tow a damaged British container ship containing explosives to safety, a day after its crew of 26 was rescued from stormy seas.
..... Stormy weather had been predicted this year for parts of Europe, with researchers saying unusually high temperatures in the North Atlantic would allow winds to accumulate more moisture and surge in energy.
(Melissa Eddy, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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DAKAR, Senegal - Rebels in eastern Congo have killed and eaten two silverback mountain gorillas, conservationists said yesterday, warning that more of the endangered animals may have been slaughtered in the lawless region.
Only about 700 mountain gorillas remain in the world, 380 of them spread across a range of volcanic mountains straddling the borders of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda in Central Africa.
A dismembered gorilla corpse was found Tuesday in a pit latrine in Congo's Virunga national Park, a few hundred yards from a park patrol post that was abandoned because of rebel attacks, according to the London-based Africa Conservation Fund. Another was killed in the same area Jan. 5, said the group, which based its report on conservationists in the field.....
The last remaining hippo populations in Congo are in Virunga and also are on the verge of being wiped out. Conservationists have blamed rebels and militias for slaughtering them, and say more that 400 were killed last year, mostly for food. Only 900 hippos remain, a huge drop from the 22,000 reported there in 1998.
Virunga National Park has been ravaged by poachers and deforestation for more than a decade. The 1994 Rwanda genocide saw millions of refugees spill into Congo, marking the beginning of an era of unrest, lawlessness and clashes......
The job of protecting the country's parks falls on local rangers, and the risks are high. At Virunga alone, 97 rangers have died on duty since 1996, the Africa Conservation Fund said.
(Todd Pitman, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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The California brown pelican appears ready to fly off the state's endangered species list. If that happens, it would be the first species delisted by state wildlife agents because it has recovered enough.
But the California officials are pleading poverty and trying to force a La Jolla-based conservation group to pay for costly environmental studies needed to change the birds' status. That means the pelicans could remain protected indefinitely even though avian experts widely recognize that they are proliferating in California, including in Dan Diego and Imperial counties.....
California brown pelicans are a signature species along the state's coastline and at the Salton Sea. They glide along the water in V-shaped formations and are known for their plunging dives in search of fish.
The iconic bird's population plummeted in the 1950s and 60s, largely due to the pesticide DDT in the food chain that weakened their eggshells. The pelican's decline led to federal and state protections.
Today, the bird's population is estimated at 150,000, a number that has sparked interest in removing the regulartory safeguards.
Conservationists say such moves would provide a major boost for the Endagered Species Act, which property-rights activists have decried as broken because so few species have been removed......
At the federal level, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to make a big splash in the next few weeks by announcing that the bald eagle will be removed from its lost of imperiled species..
.....the necessary reviews are expected to cost $50,000 or more......
(Mike Lee, STAFF WRITER)
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TOKYO- An 8.3 magnitude earthquake struck off Japan's northern coast in the Pacific today, setting off tsunami warnings and sending thousands of residents along the archipelago's easter coast fleeing to higher ground.
Japan's Meteorological Agency had said waves as high as 3.3ft could hit the main island of Hokkaido, and that waves half that size could hit western Japan.
A four-inch tidal swell was recorded in the northeastern town of Nemuro, the agency said. Officials had said the tide receded about 4 inches there, in the first signs that a tsunami was approaching, but most other areas reported no visible changes to the sea level.
Tsunami advisories had been in effect in Hawaii and Alaska, but were canceled.
The quake hit around 1:24pm local time about 310mi east of the Etorofu Islands, between northern Japan and Russia, the agency said. It struck 19mi below the seabed. There were no reports of injuries or damage. Temblors of magnitude 7 are classified as major earthquakes, capable of widespread destruction.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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WASHINGTON - Last year was the warmest in the continental U.S. of the past 112 years - capping a nine-year warming streak "unprecedented in the historical records", the government said yesterday. It also said that climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels has set the stage for the ever hotter temperatures. "People should be concerned about what we are doing to the climate", said Jay Lawrimore, chief of the climate monitoring branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Burning of fossil fuels is causing an increase in greenhouse gases, and there's a broad scientific consensus that is producing climate change."
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
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SAN DIEGO - While gusty winds gave students in one backcountry school district a vacation yesterday, most of the county enjoyed a distinctly un-winterlike day.
Records for the day were broken across the county as temperatures cimbed into the high 80s, the National Weather Service said. The wild Animal Park near Escondido reached a record-breaking high of 89°, while Brown Field in San Diego surpassed a 46-year-old record with 80°........
The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for East County yesterday because the hot, dry Santa Ana winds can create an explosive potential for fire. Wind gusts of up to 45mph caused Mountain Empire School District officials to close schools for a "wind day". The 665-square-mile district covers East County's backcountry. Superintendent Patrick Judd said the winds and danger of road debris made it too hazardous to send out school buses.....
It wasn't unexpectedly warm everywhere ... as the wind brought a chill to the backcountry.
(Anne Krueger, STAFF WRITER)
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MALIBU, California - A wildfire fanned by Santa Ana winds destroyed eight seaside mansions and damaged five others as it spread over more than 10 acres in this celebrity enclave Monday, authorities said. Flames boiled furiously out of the skeletons of million-dollar beach homes as palm trees bent in winds blowing at 21 mph.
More than 300 firefighters battled the blaze which began about 5 p.m. near West Pacific Coast Highway and Malibu Canyon Road, said Los Angeles County fire Inspector Ron Haralson.... Two helicopters were on the scene and two more were summoned....
Winds appeared to be blowing the fire toward the ocean rather than up into steep, brushy coastal canyons. The fire burned near what is known as the Malibu Colony, one of Malibu's original beachfront neighborhoods dating back to the 1930s. The densely built stretch of luxury homes has been a favorite of the movie world over the years. Malibu has frequently been the scene of devastating fires. In 1993, hundreds of homes were lost and three people were killed by an 18,500-acre fire. A 1996 fire spread over 13,900 acres, injured 11 people and destroyed six homes....
"Red flag" fire danger warnings had been posted for much of Southern California due to the siege of gusty north and northeast winds and low humidities. Fire agencies typically deploy units in high-risk areas during those conditions. Santa Ana winds blow when high pressure forms over the Great Basin and cold, dry air rushes out of the north or northeast toward the coast, reaching high speeds through canyons and passes. Earlier, firefighters in San Bernardino County, east of Los Angeles, fully contained a 200-acre blaze that began with spontaneous combustion in a manure pile at a fertilizer company and spread in brush near Chino State Park.
(Jeremiah Marquez, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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DENVER - The third snowstorm in as many weeks barreled into Colorado yesterday, blanketing the Denver area with up to 8 in of new snow and further hampering efforts to rescue thousands of cattle stranded by last week's blizzard.
Across the South, powerful storms killed at least two people, flooded streets and ripped apart homes as they swept from Louisiana through South Carolina, officials said.
In Kansas, an estimated 60,000 people were still without power after more than a week, and the new storm was headed their way after dumping nearly a foot of snow in the foothills west of Denver...... Agriculture officials were still trying to determine how to deal with the carcasses of thousands of livestock that were killed in the earlier blizzard or starved afterward. An estimated 3500 cattle are believed to have died on rangeland in six southeastern Colorado counties alone....American Humane Association workers arrived yesterday to rescue and feed pigs that might have been orphaned because they were separated from their mothers or whose mothers' milk production declined.... Owners of feedlots, where range cattle are taken before slaughter, were still calculating their losses..... In a massive effort to save stranded rangeland cattle, the Colorado national Guard conducted a three-day airlift that dropped about 3000 hay bales to herds spotted on rangeland. Guardsmen trucked in hay and smashed ice over watering holes for livestock trapped and weakened by the earlier blizzard.
In the South, much of the worst damage was in Louisiana's Iberia Parish, where what appeared to be a tornado hit the New iberia are about 4pm Thursday (Jan 4). The storm killed a woman and a 6-year-old girl in their home, and at least 15 other people were injured.
Nine more people were hurt when a storm reached east-central Mississippi's Kemper County late Thursday and early yesterday, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.....
In northwest South Carolina, 15 people were injured when a suspected tornado piled cars on top of each other yesterday afternoon outside an elementary school, officials said. No students were injured.
(Jon Sarche, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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