Irma knocked out power to over 3 million homes, businesses in Florida

Hurricane Irma knocked out power to more than 3 million homes and businesses in Florida on Sunday, threatening millions more as it crept up the state’s west coast, and full restoration of service could take weeks, local electric utilities said.

Irma hit Florida on Sunday morning as a dangerous Category 4 storm, the second highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, but by afternoon as it barreled up the west coast, it weakened to a Category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 110 miles per hour (177 kph).

So far, the brunt of the storm has affected Florida Power & Light’s customers in the states’ southern and eastern sections, and its own operations were not immune, either.

“We are not subject to any special treatment from Hurricane Irma. We just experienced a power outage at our command center. We do have backup generation,” FPL spokesman Rob Gould said on Sunday.

FPL, the biggest power company in Florida, said more than 2.9 million of its customers were without power by 7:40 p.m. (2030 GMT), mostly in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. More than 200,000 had electricity restored, mostly by automated devices.

The company’s system will need to be rebuilt, particularly in the western part of the state, Gould said. “That restoration process will be measured in weeks, not days.”

FPL is a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc.

Large utilities that serve other parts of the state, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc, were seeing their outage figures grow as the storm pushed north.

Duke’s outages more than tripled between 6:15 p.m. and 8 p.m., rising to 178,053, and the company warned its 1.8 million customers in northern and central Florida that outages could ultimately exceed 1 million.

The company updated its website on Sunday evening with a warning to customers that outages may last a week or longer.

Emera’s Tampa Electric utility said the storm could affect up to 500,000 of the 730,000 homes and businesses it serves.

The utilities had thousands of workers, some from as far away as California, ready to help restore power once Irma’s high winds pass their service areas. About 17,000 were assisting FPL, nearly 8,000 at Duke and more than 1,300 at Emera.

Tampa Electric told customers on Sunday, however, that response crews were halting work because of the high winds.

FPL said on Friday that Irma could affect about 4.1 million customers, but that was before the storm track shifted away from the eastern side of the state. Its customers are concentrated in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

NUCLEAR PLANTS SAFE

The utility said its two nuclear plants were safe. It shut only one of the two reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear plant about 30 miles (48 km) south of Miami on Saturday, rather than both, because the storm shifted. It plans to leave both reactors in service at the St. Lucie plant about 120 miles (193 km )north of Miami because hurricane-force winds are no longer expected to hit the sites.

There is also spent nuclear fuel at Duke’s Crystal River plant, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Tampa. The plant, on Irma’s current forecast track, stopped operating in 2009 and was retired in 2013.

In a worst-case scenario, the spent fuel could release radiation if exposed to the air, but a federal nuclear official said that was extremely unlikely.

“That fuel is so cold, relatively speaking, it would take weeks before there would be any concern,” said Scott Burnell of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Duke was transferring the spent fuel to dry cask storage as part of the work to decommission the plant but suspended the effort temporarily ahead of Irma.

source: interaksyon.com

Death toll nears 100 as new hurricane hits northwest Mexico

ATOYAC DE ALVAREZ, Mexico - Deaths from floods and landslides battering Mexico neared 100 on Thursday as a fresh hurricane hit the northwest and rescuers faced a risky mission in a village buried in mud.

Hurricane Manuel, the same weather system that pummeled the Pacific coast earlier this week, made landfall on the state of Sinaloa, prompting the evacuation of a small fishing town before weakening back to tropical storm force.

Luis Felipe Puente, the national civil protection coordinator, said the death toll rose to 97 from 81, with 65 of them registered in the southwestern state of Guerrero.

Guerrero was the hardest-hit state from the dual onslaught of Manuel and sister storm Ingrid on the east coast this week, which drenched most of the country, damaging bridges, roads and tens of thousands of homes.

The disaster left the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco cut off from the world, marooning tourists and residents, while a massive mudslide swamped a mountain hamlet of 400 people west of the city.

Ediberto Tabarez, the mayor of Atoyac de Alvarez, a municipality that oversees La Pintada, told AFP that at least 15 bodies have been found after more than 20 homes were crushed.

The threat of a new landslide in the coffee-growing village of La Pintada delayed a mission to seek 58 missing people.

But the federal government said it had yet to confirm any deaths and that so far survivors testified that they had removed five bodies from the site.

Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said rescue teams were unable to start the search because water was gushing from the hill, threatening to send more rock and mud over the village.

Police helicopters had rescued 334 women, children and senior citizens on Wednesday and were supposed to return on Thursday to pick up 45 men and a few officers who were left behind overnight.

"These 45 people are in a dangerous situation," Osorio Chong told MVS radio, adding that homes are barely visible. "The rest of the hill could fall."

The mobile phones of AFP journalists heading to the village had no reception. An aerial video showed a river of mud that had slid down a hill, covering a huge chunk of the village.

From Atoyac, it normally takes two hours by car in winding mountain roads to reach La Pintada, but the road may be damaged by the storms, which could make the trek much lengthier.

‘Ugly noise, worse than a bomb’

Survivors of the disaster who were evacuated to Acapulco recalled hearing a rumble before the earth came crashing down on houses, the church and the school as people were having independence day lunch last Monday.

"It was an ugly noise, worse than a bomb," said Ana Clara Catalan, 17, who was preparing corn tortillas when the earth collapsed.

News of the disaster only emerged two days later after a survivor was able to radio someone in a neighboring village.

"More than half of La Pintada was demolished, few homes were left," said Maria del Carmen Catalan, a 27-year-old mother of three.

The storms that swept across the nation have damaged 35,000 homes and forced the evacuation of 50,000 people, officials said.

More than half of Acapulco was flooded, stranding 40,000 tourists who sought airlifts while looters ransacked stores.

The civilian airport's terminal was flooded in knee-high dark water, but commercial carriers Aeromexico and Interjet have flown special flights since Tuesday.

Osorio Chong said almost 12,000 tourists had been flown to Mexico City in special military and commercial flights while authorities hoped to re-open the road out of Acapulco on Friday.

A human rights group accused the authorities of neglecting mountain communities.

The minister said "we do care about the lives of people in the mountains" but "we can't enter some communities by air or land."

As the cost of the flooding continued to mount, the finance ministry said it had around 12 billion pesos ($925.60 million) available in emergency funding.

While all but two of Mexico's ports remained open to large ships, including its three main oil export hubs along the Gulf, nearly 40 ports along both the Gulf and Pacific coasts were closed on Thursday morning to smaller boats, the transport ministry said.

State oil monopoly Pemex said it had dispatched technicians to fix a ruptured 12-inch oil pipeline between the Gulf port of Madero inland to Cadereyta, which connects two refineries.

The pipeline was damaged when the Pablillo River burst its banks due to heavy rains.

While Manuel churned in the west, a new tropical cyclone threatened to form in the east and cause more misery. (With additional Reuters reports from Miguel Gutierrez, Gabriel Stargardter and David Alire Garcia)

source: interaksyon.com

Sandy wreaks havoc across Northeast; at least 11 dead

(CNN) -- Though no longer a hurricane, "post-tropical" superstorm Sandy packed a hurricane-sized punch as it slammed into the Jersey Shore on Monday, killing at least 11 people from West Virginia to North Carolina and Connecticut.

Sandy whipped torrents of water over the streets of Atlantic City, stretching for blocks inland and ripping up part of the vacation spot's fabled boardwalk. The storm surge set records in Lower Manhattan, where flooded substations caused a widespread power outage. It swamped beachfronts on both sides of Long Island Sound and delivered hurricane-force winds from Virginia to Cape Cod as it came ashore.

Sandy's wrath also prompted the evacuation of about 200 patients at NYU Langone Medical Center.

"We are having intermittent telephone access issues, and for this reason the receiving hospital will notify the families of their arrival," spokeswoman Lisa Greiner said.

In addition, the basement of New York's Bellevue Hospital Center flooded, and the hospital was running off of emergency backup power. Ian Michaels of the Office of Emergency Management said the main priority is to help secure additional power and obtain additional fuel and pumps for the hospital.

The storm hit near Atlantic City about 8 p.m. ET, the National Hurricane Center reported. It packed 80-mph winds at landfall, down from the 90 mph clocked earlier Monday.

Superstorm Sandy's wrath

"I've been down here for about 16 years, and it's shocking what I'm looking at now. It's unbelievable," said Montgomery Dahm, owner of the Tun Tavern in Atlantic City, which stayed open as Sandy neared the Jersey Shore. "I mean, there's cars that are just completely underwater in some of the places I would never believe that there would be water."

Dahm's family cleared out of Atlantic City before the storm hit, but he says he stayed put to serve emergency personnel. At nightfall Monday, he said the water was lapping at the steps of his restaurant, where a generator was keeping the lights on.


The storm had already knocked down power lines and tree limbs while still 50 miles offshore and washed out a section of the boardwalk on the north end of town, Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford told CNN. He said there were still "too many people" who didn't heed instructions to evacuate, and he urged anyone still in town to "hunker down and try to wait this thing out."

"When Mother Nature sends her wrath your way, we're at her mercy, and so all we can do is stay prayerful and do the best that we can," Langford said.

And in Seaside Heights, about 30 miles north of Atlantic City, Police Chief Thomas Boyd told CNN, "The whole north side of my town is totally under water."




In New York, lower Manhattan's Battery Park recorded nearly 14-foot tide, smashing a record set by 1960's Hurricane Donna by more than 3 feet. The city had already halted service on its bus and train lines, closing schools and ordering about 400,000 people out of their homes in low-lying areas of Manhattan and elsewhere.

Flooding forced the closure of all three of the major airports in the area, LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty. Water seeped into subway stations in Lower Manhattan and into the tunnel connecting Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, while high winds damaged a crane perched atop a Midtown skyscraper under construction, forcing authorities to evacuate the surrounding area.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters there was an "extraordinary" amount of water in Lower Manhattan, as well as downed trees throughout the city and widespread power outages.

"We knew that this was going to be a very dangerous storm, and the storm has met our expectations," he said. "The worst of the weather has come, and city certainly is feeling the impacts."

The storm was blamed for more than 2.8 million outages across the Northeast. About 350,000 of them were in the New York city area, where utility provider Con Edison reported it had also cut power to customers in parts of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan to protect underground equipment as the storm waters rose.

But as water crept into its substations, Con Ed said it had lost service to about 250,000 customers in Manhattan -- including most of the island south of 39th Street.

Five things to know about Sandy

At least five people had been killed in storm-related incidents in New York state, including three killed by trees falling on homes in Queens and in the town of New Salem, near Albany, city and state officials said. Falling trees were also blamed for three deaths reported in New Jersey and one in Connecticut, authorities there told CNN.

In West Virginia, a woman was killed in a car accident after the storm dumped 5 inches of snow on the town of Davis, said Amy Shuler Goodwin, a spokeswoman for Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's office.


And before hitting land, it overwhelmed the sailing ship HMS Bounty, a replica of the historic British vessel, off North Carolina. Fourteen of the ship's crew of 16 were rescued, but the body of one deckhand was found Monday evening and the ship's captain was still missing Monday night, the Coast Guard said.

Sandy had already claimed at least 67 lives in the Caribbean, including 51 in Haiti.

Sandy's storm surges were boosted by a full moon, which already brings the highest tides of the month. And forecasters said the storm was likely to collide with a cold front and spawn a superstorm that could generate flash floods and snowstorms.

"It could be bad," said U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Steven Rattior, "or it could be devastation."

Mass transit shut down across the densely populated Northeast, landmarks stood empty and schools and government offices were closed. The National Grid, which provides power to millions of customers, said 60 million people could be affected before it's over.

On Fire Island, off Long Island, the water rose above promenades and docks on Monday afternoon, homeowner Karen Boss said. Boss stayed on the island with her husband despite a mandatory evacuation order. She said they own several properties and a business there and had weathered previous storms.

"I'm concerned that it might come into the first floor," she said. "If that's the case, I'll just move into another house that's higher up."

Based on pressure readings, it's likely to be the strongest storm to make landfall north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, CNN senior meteorologist Dave Hennen said. The benchmark storm, the 1938 "Long Island Express" Hurricane, contained a low pressure reading of 946 millibars; Sandy had a minimum pressure of 943 millibars. Generally speaking, the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.

In Sea Bright, New Jersey, Yvette Cafaro scrawled a plea on the plywood that covered her burger restaurant: "Be kind to us Sandy." The seaside area largely dodged last year's Hurricane Irene, but Cafaro was not optimistic that Sea Bright would be spared Sandy.


"Everything that we've been watching on the news looks like this one will really get us," she said. "We're definitely worried about it."




Its arrival, eight days before the U.S. presidential election, forced President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, to alter or cancel several campaign stops. Obama flew back to Washington from Florida, telling reporters at the White House that assets were in place for an effective response to the storm.

"The most important message I have for the public right now is please listen to what your state and local officials are saying," Obama said. "When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate."

And in Ohio, Romney asked supporters to drop off items and cash at his "victory centers" to be donated to victims of the storm.

"There are families in harm's way that will be hurt -- either in their possessions or perhaps in something more severe," Romney said.




By Monday afternoon, 23 states were under a warning or advisory for wind related to Sandy. Thousands of flights had been canceled, and hundreds of roads and highways were expected to flood. And according to a government model, Sandy's wind damage alone could cause more than $7 billion in economic loss.

Sandy was expected to weaken once it moves inland, but the center was expected to move slowly northward, meaning gusty winds and heavy rain would continue through Wednesday.

On the western side of the storm, the mountains of West Virginia expected up to 3 feet of snow and the mountains of southwestern Virginia to the Kentucky state line could see up to 2 feet. Twelve to 18 inches of snow were expected in the mountains near the North Carolina-Tennessee border.

"This is not a typical storm," said Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett. "Essentially, this is a hurricane wrapped in a 'nor'easter.'"

source: CNN

Hurricane Sandy strengthens as it nears US East Coast

NEW YORK - Hurricane Sandy, the monster storm bearing down on the East Coast, strengthened on Monday after hundreds of thousands moved to higher ground, public transport shut down and the stock market suffered its first weather-related closure in 27 years.

About 50 million people from the Mid-Atlantic to Canada were in the path of the nearly 1,000-mile-wide (1,600-km-wide) storm, which forecasters said could be the largest to hit the mainland in US history. It was expected to topple trees, damage buildings, cause power outages and trigger heavy flooding.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Monday the Category 1 storm had strengthened as it turned toward the coast and was moving at 20 miles per hour (32 km per hour). It was expected to bring a "life-threatening storm surge," coastal hurricane winds and heavy snow in the Appalachian Mountains, the NHC said.

Nine US states have declared states of emergency, and with the US election eight days away President Barack Obama canceled a campaign event in Florida on Monday in order to return to Washington and monitor the US government's response to the storm.

"This is a serious and big storm," Obama said on Sunday after a briefing at the federal government's storm response center in Washington. "We don't yet know where it's going to hit, where we're going to see the biggest impacts."

Sandy killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before pounding US coastal areas with rain and triggering snow falls at higher elevations as it moved north.

Forecasting services indicated early Monday the center of the storm would strike the New Jersey shore near Atlantic City on Monday night. While Sandy does not pack the punch of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, it could become more potent as it approaches the US coast.

Winds were at a maximum of 85 mph, the NHC said in its 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) report, up from 75 mph six hours earlier. It said tropical storm-force winds reached as far as 485 miles from the center.

Seventeen people from the replica HMS Bounty abandoned ship while stranded at sea off North Carolina in the path of the hurricane, roughly 160 miles from the center of storm, the US Coast Guard said on Monday.

"The 17-person crew donned cold water survival suits and lifejackets before launching in two 25-man lifeboats with canopies," the Coast Guard said, adding it was determining which aircraft or vessel was best-placed to launch a rescue.

The three-masted tall ship was built for the 1962 movie "Mutiny on the Bounty."

New York and other cities and towns closed their transit systems and ordered mass evacuations from low-lying areas ahead of a storm surge that could reach as high as 11 feet.

All US stock markets will be closed on Monday and possibly Tuesday, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange said late on Sunday, reversing an earlier plan that would have kept electronic trading going on Monday.

The United Nations, Broadway theaters, New Jersey casinos, schools up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and myriad corporate events were also being shut down.

'Don't be stupid'

Officials ordered people in coastal towns and low-lying areas to evacuate, often telling them they would put emergency workers' lives at risk if they stayed.

"Don't be stupid, get out, and go to higher, safer ground," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told a news conference.

Forecasters said Sandy was a rare, hybrid "super storm" created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm, possibly causing up to 12 inches of rain in some areas, as well as up to 3 feet (1 meter) of snowfall in the Appalachian Mountains from West Virginia to Kentucky.

At 8 a.m. (1200 GMT), the NHC said Sandy was centered about 265 miles southeast of Atlantic City and about 310 miles south-southeast of New York City.

Worried residents in the hurricane's path packed stores, searching for generators, flashlights, batteries, food and other supplies in anticipation of power outages. Nearly 284,000 residential properties valued at $88 billion are at risk for damage, risk analysts at CoreLogic said.

Transportation systems shut down in anticipation. Airlines canceled flights, bridges and tunnels closed, and national passenger rail operator Amtrak suspended nearly all service on the East Coast. The US government told non-emergency workers in Washington, D.C., to stay home.

Utilities from the Carolinas to Maine reported late Sunday that a combined 14,000 customers were already without power.

The second-largest oil refinery on the East Coast, Phillips 66's 238,000 barrel per day (bpd) Bayway plant in Linden, New Jersey, was shutting down and three other plants cut output as the storm affected operations at two-thirds of the region's plants.

Oil prices slipped on Monday, with Brent near $109 a barrel. "With refineries cutting runs, we're likely to see a build-up in crude stocks which could be driving bearish prices at the moment," said Michael Creed, an economist at National Australia Bank in Melbourne.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered the evacuation of some 375,000 people from low-lying areas of the city, from upscale parts of lower Manhattan to waterfront housing projects in the outer boroughs.

While Sandy's 85 mph winds were not overwhelming for a hurricane, its exceptional size means the winds will last as long as two days.

"This is not a typical storm," Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett said. "It could very well be historic in nature and in scope." (Additional reporting by John McCrank, Edith Honan, Caroline Humer, Paul Thomasch and Janet McGurty in New York; Barbara Goldberg in New Jersey; Gene Cherry in North Carolina; Dave Warner in Philadelphia; Tom Hals in Milford, Delaware; Mary Ellen Clark and Ebong Udoma in Connecticut; Matt Spetalnick in Washington)

source: interaksyon.com

US Gulf states on heightened alert over Isaac

TAMPA, Florida - Three US Gulf Coast states declared states of emergency on Sunday as Tropical Storm Isaac barreled toward land, threatening to slam into Louisiana as a damaging hurricane.

The governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama issued their declarations as Florida, which declared a state of emergency a day earlier, was drenched by heavy rains and strong winds from the storm.

The declarations make funds available to respond to the storm and order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans.

A hurricane warning was in effect east of Morgan City Louisiana to Destin, Florida, including metropolitan New Orleans, which is marking the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city and killed around 1,800 people.

The storm is forecast to hit as a category two hurricane on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale -- with top winds swirling at 96-110 miles (83-95 kilometers) per hour -- when it makes landfall.

"We are encouraging everyone to get prepared now to ensure that you have an evacuation plan in place, plenty of water, non-perishable food items, hygiene supplies, sufficient clothing and any prescription medications you or your family may need in the event of the storm," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said in a statement.

"As with every storm, we always hope for the best and prepare for the worst."

He recommended voluntary evacuations within the hurricane watch area, which includes low-lying areas, those zones outside of levee protection and areas south of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley said he was mobilizing the resources that his community needed as the storm approached.

"I am urging everyone to take precautions now, monitor weather warnings and be prepared for whatever Isaac may bring," he said.

Bentley ordered mandatory evacuations in parts of Mobile and Baldwin Counties.

Alabama Emergency Management Agency Director Art Faulkner urged residents to "make preparations now for the potential impact of strong winds and heavy rains."

The National Hurricane Center has also issued both a tropical storm warning and a hurricane warning for multiple counties in Mississippi.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant authorized the state's National Guard to deploy 10 members of its civil support team to coastal counties, and urged residents to finalize their preparations.

"We are taking the threat of impact from Isaac seriously, and we are working to ensure that Mississippi is well-prepared," Bryant said.

"Sound preparations will enable us to ramp up our response without losing time if the situation worsens."

source: interaksyon.com