Weather Related

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Hurricane Helene Leaves Huge Swaths of Damage in Its Wake

More than 40 people were reported dead in four states as the huge storm spawned flash floods and landslides on its way north after devastating parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast.


Homes are destroyed after Hurricane Helene roared through Dekle Beach, a community in Florida’s Big Bend region. Credit...Paul Ratje for The New York Times

Hurricane Helene forged a devastating path of floods and wind damage after slamming into Florida’s Big Bend region on Thursday night, submerging much of the state’s Gulf Coast before continuing its destructive march through Georgia and into the mountains of Appalachia. More than 40 people were reported dead in four states as the huge storm spawned flash floods and landslides on its way north.

In the densely populated Tampa Bay region of Florida, neighborhoods were underwater on Friday, the result of a powerful storm surge. In southern Georgia, search teams pulled trapped residents, some with injuries, out of damaged buildings. More than two million people in North Carolina were under flood warnings, and millions, including some as far north as Virginia, were without power.

The destruction stretched at least 800 miles north from where the storm came ashore in a sparsely populated area of Florida called the Big Bend, which sits in the crook of coastline where the Panhandle connects to the Florida peninsula.

Near the town of Newport, Tenn., concerns about a potential dam collapse triggered a flash flood warning for 20,000 people and led officials to order many in the 7,000-person community to evacuate. In mountainous western North Carolina, landslides threatened homes and blocked major roads. Emergency officials issued an evacuation warning for residents living below a large dam, the Lake Lure Dam, saying its failure was imminent.

Ryan Cole, the assistant director for emergency services in Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, called the storm “the most significant natural disaster that any of us have ever seen in Western North Carolina.”

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More than 11 inches of rain has fallen over the past two days in Atlanta, breaking a record set in 1886.Credit...Audra Melton for The New York Times
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Flooding in Boone, N.C. More than two million people in North Carolina were under flood warnings. Credit...Jonathan Drake/Reuters

Among those who died in the storm, which made landfall just before midnight on Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of at least 130 m.p.h., were at least 17 people in South Carolina, 15 in Georgia and seven in Florida.

In Tampa, one person died on a highway because of a falling sign, Gov. Ron DeSantis said; several people had drowned in other parts of the state. The storm also set off deadly tornadoes: Two people died in a tornado in Wheeler County, Ga., emergency management officials there said.

The breadth of the area so strongly affected by Helene is hard to imagine: In Atlanta, a television meteorologist covering the hurricane rescued a woman live on the air as she screamed from inside her car in the rising floodwaters. More than 11 inches of rain has fallen over two days in Atlanta, breaking a record set in 1886.

In Tennessee, dozens of people were trapped Friday afternoon on the roof of a hospital in the small town of Erwin because of flooding.

In the Tampa Bay area, the amount of flooding caused by the storm came as a surprise to some, given that Helene had first hit land about 200 miles to the north. On Friday morning, Michael Morton, 47, and Chris Grant, 49, were sitting in a waterfront park in St. Pete Beach, on a barrier island just west of St. Petersburg, Fla., when the storm water rushed toward them.


Mr. Morton, a native of St. Pete Beach, and Mr. Grant, who has lived in the area for nearly 30 years, agreed: They had never seen anything like it.

“It wasn’t like a gradual thing,” Mr. Morton said. “It was like, here comes this solid wall of water, all at once.”

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Leslie and James High in their neighborhood of destroyed homes in Dekle Beach, Fla.Credit...Paul Ratje for The New York Times
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The hurricane ravaged Dekle Beach.Credit...Paul Ratje for The New York Times

Mr. Morton, who is homeless, had sheltered from the storm on the balcony of a second-floor condo by the beach. He said it had taken about 20 minutes for the storm surge to destroy the boardwalk. A number of restaurants, including one where Mr. Grant used to work, were simply “gone.” The water had lifted cars and tossed Jet Skis all over the place. The air smelled like salt and mud.

The experience was even more disturbing in the region where Helene made landfall. Several waterfront towns there, along the Big Bend, were essentially razed by the third hurricane to hit that region in 13 months. Last August, Hurricane Idalia made landfall there as a Category 3 storm. And early last month, Debby smashed into the Big Bend as a Category 1.

Helene was not like the other storms, said Michael Bobbitt, a novelist and playwright who lives in Cedar Key, a small community set among tiny islands jutting into the Gulf of Mexico. About 75 of Cedar Key’s 700 residents remained through the storm, city officials said, and Mr. Bobbitt was one of them. He described Helene as the most violent force he had ever experienced, with the devastation to match.

“It looks like a nuclear bomb went off,” said Mr. Bobbitt, who has military and first aid experience and stayed behind to help. “I didn’t even know how to conceive of something so powerful.”

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Earl Swann, 79, drove around Perry, Fla., on Friday, checking on his eight residential and commercial properties.Credit...Zack Wittman for The New York Times
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Fallen trees blocked U.S. Highway 98 on Friday after Hurricane Helene battered Florida’s Big Bend region overnight. Credit...Zack Wittman for The New York Times

In tiny Dekle Beach, about 90 miles northwest of Cedar Key by car, Laurie Lilliott and Leslie High walked down the main street on Friday morning, clutching one another as they stepped over the remains of their homes.

“That’s my house in the middle of the road,” Ms. Lilliott cried out while stepping over wreckage. “My bed! I’m looking at my bed.”

Ms. High wept.

The hurricane had ravaged Dekle Beach, where Ms. Lilliott’s family has lived since the 1940s in one of a few dozen homes painted in varying shades of pastel. Helene scattered the remains of those homes along the waterfront. The surging waters had toppled them like dominoes.

Ms. Lilliott surveyed what was left, including some of her son’s Legos and her daughter’s mattress. Down the road, her husband Hugh asked if anyone recognized the wooden porch swing that was now tangled up in someone else’s roof.

In Steinhatchee, a small fishing village along the coast of Florida’s Big Bend, Sarah Merritt, an English teacher who moved to the area a few years ago, wiped away tears as she looked at the cottage where her mother had planned to retire, now split in half by the trunk of a toppled tree.

“It’s overwhelming,” she said. “That was going to be her home. But I guess not, now.”

Another resident, Jimmy Hooten, grizzled and smoking a cigarette, held out his phone to capture the damage.

“I lost my Land Rover,” he called out to a friend passing by.

“Damn,” the man said. Mr. Hooten shrugged. He said he would leave as soon as his children were grown.

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“I want out one day — I’m tired,” Jimmy Hooten said. “They wipe us out, you gotta start over.”Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York Times
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Damage in Steinhatchee, Fla.Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

“I want out one day — I’m tired,” Mr. Hooten said. “They wipe us out, you gotta start over.”

Perry, a city of about 7,000 some 50 miles southeast of Tallahassee, also took a direct hit from Helene. The eye made landfall just 10 miles away, on Thursday night.

Roofs were torn off and windows were blown in. The city was without power. But the storm appeared to have moved through quickly, sparing Perry from even worse.

One resident, Earl Swann, 79, was riding around Perry in his Chevy Silverado pickup with his black Lab, Mollie, checking on his eight residential and commercial properties.

The whipping winds from Helene did not cause any catastrophic damage, he said, but the cost of making repairs would add up, especially because he had already fixed properties damaged by Hurricane Idalia last year, and by Hurricane Debby in August.

“We hadn’t had one in years,” he said. What were the odds of getting three in 13 months, he wondered? “I could win the lottery,” he said.

The trio of powerful, damaging hurricanes are sure to cause people to leave Cedar Key and other communities along the Big Bend, said Mr. Bobbitt, the novelist, as he walked through the wasteland of his town. It’s the kind of somber and sobering walk so many Floridians are now taking. He described a disorienting amount of damage.

The homes on First Street?

“They’re just missing,” he said. “We don’t know where they are.”

And Big Deck Bar & Grill, the restaurant on Dock Street, on a road that curves perilously over the Gulf?

It too has vanished.

“Cedar Key as we know it is completely gone,” Mr. Bobbitt said.

He added, “I expect there to be a mass exodus.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/27/us/h ... 778d3e6de3

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Helene has killed more than 90 people, including a woman in her 70s who rode motorcycles. Read about the victims. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/h ... 778d3e6de3

See the storm’s devastating 600-mile path. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

At Least 66 Die as Persistent Monsoon Rains Inundate Nepal

Disasters in the small Himalayan nation have become more frequent as the effects of climate change increase.


Rescuers in Kathmandu taking residents to safety from the overflowing Bagmati River on Saturday.Credit...Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

At least 66 people have died and 69 were missing in Nepal after incessant monsoon rains unleashed flooding and landslides across the small Himalayan nation, which has been increasingly pummeled by the effects of climate change.

Rescue operations were underway for thousands of people, Nepali officials said on Saturday. At least 60 have been injured, and the death toll was expected to rise, the officials said.

More than half of the dead were from the Kathmandu Valley, which includes Kathmandu, the capital. Highways into the city were closed.

Binod Ghimire, a senior superintendent of police, said that more than 5,000 police personnel equipped with helicopters, rafts, ropes and vehicles had been deployed for rescue operations.

Rescuers have evacuated more than 3,000 people, but flooding victims complained of delays. A video circulating on social media showed people who were swept away by the floods after waiting on the roof of a hut for hours.

Many parts of the country were without power. “Several districts are disconnected from communication, so we are struggling to compile loss of lives and properties,” said Dan Bahadur Karki, a spokesman for the Nepal Police.

The authorities asked people to stay indoors if possible. The rainfall was expected to stop by Sunday.

The flood disaster occurred just as Nepalis were preparing to celebrate the Hindu festival of Dashain, which is scheduled to begin on Thursday. Hindu devotees travel for days to far-flung villages to obtain the blessings of their elders.

Nepal, with a population of about 30 million, is the fourth-most-vulnerable country to climate change, according to UNICEF. In recent years, the frequency of disasters — including the bursting of glacial lakes as temperatures rise — has increased, claiming more lives.

Local news media, citing the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, recently reported that 225 people have died and 49 have gone missing in disasters related to the monsoon season, which runs from June to September.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/28/worl ... loods.html

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Nepal Flooding and Landslides Kill at Least 190 People

The mountainous country is experiencing more extreme weather driven by climate change, including melting glaciers that add to the frequency and severity of flooding.


Rescue workers retrieving bodies of victims on Sunday after a landslide in Dhading, Nepal.Credit...Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

Police say 193 people have died in Nepal after days of unceasing rain caused heavy flooding and triggered major landslides around the country, including in the densely populated region around Kathmandu, the capital.

The monsoon rains destroyed hundreds of homes and swept away bridges, cut off power and left downed trees as rescuers struggled to reach people, some of whom were trapped under debris while others were stranded on rooftops.

By late Saturday, the rains had lessened in intensity, allowing rescue workers to use helicopters and expand their search to more remote areas in the Dhading and Dolakha districts. More than 3,600 people have been rescued so far, but with more than 100 injured and dozens still missing, government officials said they expected the death toll to rise.

Nepal’s prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, who was in the United States attending the U.N. General Assembly meeting, urged Nepalis to have patience, saying on social media that the rains would subside soon.

“I'm preparing to return,” Mr. Oli said. “Let’s collaborate for rescue in the time of disaster.”

Nepal, the home of Mount Everest, is prone to landslides and floods because of its mountainous terrain and heavy monsoons. But the warming climate has made weather events more dangerous and deadly, causing frequent flooding from melting glaciers. Climate change has also intensified rainfall. At the same time, rapid development and haphazard construction have added to the risk that lives will be lost in natural disasters.

On Saturday afternoon, Satrudhan Kumar Mahato, a police inspector, reached a remote two-story house made of mud and stone whose residents were trapped in the Dolakha district, about three hours from Kathmandu. When Mr. Mahato and his team finally reached the house, they found three members of one family dead and a young child crying next to his dead mother, Mr. Mahato said.

“He was lying under the bed and plywood,” Mr. Mahato said. “I carefully removed the plywood of the bed and recovered him.” The child was then rushed to a hospital.

On Sunday, Mr. Mahato and other police officers continued their search-and-rescue operations, unearthing bodies from damaged houses. More than 5,000 police personnel equipped with helicopters, rafts, ropes and vehicles had been deployed.

After retrieving 14 bodies from a small bus that was buried by a landslide late Saturday night in the Dhading district, police officers located another buried bus and a van on Sunday, said Shailendra Thapa, a deputy armed police force superintendent. They retrieved 17 more bodies on Sunday, Mr. Thapa said.

The economic toll on Nepal is likely to be severe. Roads linking Kathmandu to other cities have been damaged, curtailing the transport of essential goods, from food to petroleum.

As many as 16 hydropower projects have sustained damage, forcing the country to import power from India, according to Nepal’s national news agency. Some parts of the country remained dark, and the disrupted power supply also curtailed internet service in Kathmandu and other cities.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

A Changing Climate Is Scorching the World’s Biggest River

As a punishing drought dries up stretches of the Amazon River, Brazil is resorting to dredging to try to keep food, medicine and people flowing along the watery superhighway.


A much-depleted tributary of the Amazon, the Parana do Manaquiri, last month in Amazonas State, Brazil.Credit...Raphael Alves/EPA, via Shutterstock

By Ana Ionova
Reporting from Rio de Janeiro

Published Oct. 6, 2024
Updated Oct. 7, 2024, 10:02 a.m. ET
Leer en español
The world’s largest river is parched.

The Amazon River, battered by back-to-back droughts fueled by climate change, is drying up, with some stretches of the mighty waterway dwindling to shallow pools only a few feet deep.

Water levels along several sections of the Amazon River, which winds nearly 4,000 miles across South America, fell last month to their lowest level on record, according to figures from the Brazilian Geological Service.

In one stretch in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, the river was 25 feet below the average for this time of year, according to the agency, which began collecting data in 1967.

Parts of three of the Amazon River’s most important tributaries — major rivers in their own right, each spanning over 1,000 miles — have also fallen to historical lows.

The crisis has gridlocked the Amazon, a vital watery superhighway that serves as practically the only way to connect forest communities and move commerce around some of the most remote stretches on the planet.

Faced with a situation that shows no sign of abating, Brazil has resorted to an extraordinary measure that might have been unthinkable not too long ago: making the world’s largest river deeper.

Starting this month, the country plans to begin dredging sections of the river with the aim of ensuring that, even in times of drought, people and goods can keep moving through the rainforest.

“In some places, we can practically see the vegetation on the surface of the river,” the water so low that plants on the riverbed are exposed, said Fabricio de Oliveira Galvão, the director of the National Department of Transport Infrastructure, a federal agency. “So, this limits navigation. People aren’t able to travel like this.”

The remarkable drop in water levels has left boats struggling to shuttle children to school, rush the sick to hospitals or deliver medicine and drinking water to distant villages.

Ahead of local elections this month, voting machines may need to be flown to thousands of stranded Brazilians unable to reach nearby urban centers to cast ballots.

Transportation chaos has also hit the major international manufacturing hub of Manaus, a city of two million in the heart of the rainforest. Shallow water has made it difficult for cargo ships to dock. So companies have worked furiously to build floating docks where they can unload supplies from shipping containers, minimizing supply chain disruption.

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A tributary of the Amazon River in the city of Manaus, Brazil, in June.

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The same waterway last month.Credit...Photos by Edmar Barros/Associated Press

“Everything that arrives here usually comes by boat,” said Ayan Santos Fleischmann, a hydrologist at the Mamirauá Institute, a research organization in a rural part of Amazonas State. “Without the rivers, there’s almost no way to navigate the Amazon.”

In the past, the Brazilian authorities have dredged the Amazon River in rare emergencies. But the riverbed will now be carved out continuously for the next five years to cope with the possibility of chronic drought conditions, Mr. Galvão said.

“It’s so we don’t suffer in the coming years,” he said.

The Amazon is both the world’s largest river by volume and the longest river system, emerging in the Peruvian Andes and crossing five countries before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. It is home to a rich variety of aquatic life, like piranhas and pink river dolphins. In some areas, the river is still very deep — up to 400 feet — and can accommodate ocean liners.

Still, the dredging plan underscores the drastic measures that governments around the globe are being forced to pursue to soften the repercussions of extreme weather on transportation, economies and everyday life.

ImagePeople carrying containers on their shoulders or heads along a sandbank.

People in Amazonas State carrying water canisters last month on the sandbanks of the Madeira River. Water levels are running low in parts of the Amazon River and its tributaries.Credit...Bruno Kelly/Reuters

And it highlights the ways in which a hotter, drier climate is reshaping the Amazon rainforest, the earth’s largest freshwater reservoir and a key part of the struggle to slow global warming because the jungle absorbs and stores heat-trapping gases from the atmosphere.

“The climate is changing,” Mr. Galvão said. “And we are starting to prepare for this.”

In Brazil, like elsewhere in the world, average temperatures are rising, creating conditions that cause droughts. Some regions of the Amazon have seen average temperatures rise by 2 degrees since the 1980s and are on course to climb further, said Bernardo Flores, a researcher at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.

“The whole of the Amazon is growing significantly hotter,” said Dr. Flores, who studies the resilience of ecosystems. “And this has a huge influence. This current drought is associated with these much higher temperatures.”

In parts of the Amazon, rains have also grown less plentiful and the dry season is now a month longer than it was in the 1970s, research shows. Scientists point to climate change and deforestation as the driving forces.

As the Amazon loses trees, thinning out the canopy, the rainforest is less able to shade vegetation from intense sunlight and to retain moisture. This, coupled with rising temperatures, has made the rainforest drier and more susceptible to large wildfires.

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Fire and plumes of smoke.

A wildfire last month in Lábrea, Amazonas State. Higher temperatures and loss of tree canopy have made the rainforest more susceptible to wildfires.Credit...Bruno Kelly/Reuters

The annual dry season, which usually lasts from June to October, has been especially punishing this year because the Amazon is reeling from two consecutive years of severe drought, said Ane Alencar, the director of science at IPAM Amazônia, a research organization.

And the lingering effects of a natural weather pattern known as El Niño decreased the level of rain during the wet season.

“The rivers had no chance to recover,” Dr. Alencar said. “So we’re seeing a domino effect.”

The authorities hope dredging will bring some relief. In practice, this involves scooping up sediment from four strategic stretches of the Amazon that are becoming too shallow and depositing it in other areas where the water is deeper.

Mr. Galvão said the process carries few environmental risks, though the authorities will monitor water quality and the effects on fish.

But some scientists disagree, warning that dredging the Amazon and its tributaries could leave lasting marks on aquatic systems, disrupting and potentially harming plants and animals.

For one, it could unearth buried deposits of mercury, which seeps into rivers through the natural erosion of soil and also is a result of runoff from illegal gold mines.

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A parched riverbed in Brazil.

A parched section of the Solimões River, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon, last month.Credit...Jorge Silva/Reuters

By stirring up riverbeds, fish and other aquatic life would be exposed to more of the toxic chemical. Mercury can curb the reproduction, growth and neurological development of species and become more harmful as it moves through the food chain.

“Sediment is a set of deposits built up over time,” said Adalberto Luis Val, a biologist at the Brazilian Institute for Research of the Amazon in Manaus. “Messing with this sediment is like messing with all of this history.”

Dredging may also increase the river’s turbidity, making the water cloudy and limiting the amount of sunlight that reaches aquatic plants, which they rely on to reproduce.

“The decision to dredge meets a need for communities, for mankind,” Dr. Val said. “But, from an environmental point of view, it is very reckless.”

Even if dredging eases the gridlock along the Amazon and its major tributaries, smaller rivers linking rural areas to urban centers are still likely to continue to dry up, leaving many Indigenous villages and fishing communities isolated, according to Dr. Flores.

“When we think about the Amazon population as a whole, this isn’t really the solution,” he said, noting that building more water wells and installing rain collection systems could better prepare remote communities for more frequent droughts.

Still, the dredging plan was welcome news in communities like Tauary, a riverside village in one of the driest regions in the state of Amazonas. The drought has isolated its 35 families and made it nearly impossible to leave, according to one resident, Maria de Fátima Servalho Celestino.

“Here, the rivers are our streets,” said Ms. Celestino, 34. “And with the drought, we can’t get to town to buy water or medicine. We can’t fish, the fish is all gone. Everything is dry.”

What was once a one-hour boat journey to the nearest town, where Ms. Celestino and her neighbors buy groceries or visit a doctor, now takes up to 10 hours through muddy patches of riverbed, she said.

But the dredging of stretches of the Amazon River a few hours downstream from her village might bring some relief.

“We’re here abandoned,” she said. “So we hope it happens, and that help arrives soon.”

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A group of people overlooking a river with very low levels of water.

Drought has depleted the Madeira River in Humaitá, Amazonas State.Credit...Edmar Barros/Associated Press
A correction was made on Oct. 7, 2024: An earlier version of this

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/worl ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Photos from Florida as Milton leaves a path of destruction heading into the Atlantic Ocean

Milton, a Category 1 hurricane, was moving off Florida’s east coast into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday morning, after leaving millions without power.


Milton blew the roof off of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. on Thursday. (Ted Richardson for The Washington Post)


A drone image shows a flooded street due to Milton in Siesta Key, Fla., on Thursday. (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP/Getty Images)


A flooded street in Siesta Key, Fla., on Thursday. (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP/Getty Images)


Debris after Milton swept through Bradenton, Fla., on Thursday. (Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)


Residents are rescued from their second story apartment complex in Clearwater, Fla., that was flooded from and overflowing creek due to Milton on Thursday. (Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images)


The Ponce De Leon Hotel sign fell to the ground after Milton made landfall in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Thursday. (Lauren Peace/Tampa Bay Times/AP)


Dawn Fader looks at damage from a fallen crane in downtown St. Petersburg, Fla., on Thursday. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)


A large crane from the construction of a downtown St. Petersburg, Fla., building fell and damaged a nearby office building on Thursday. (Thomas Simonetti for the Washington Post)


A fallen traffic light near a police car in Orlando on Thursday. (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)


Flooding blocks a street after Milton swept through Palm River-Clair Mel, Fla., on Thursday. (Kathleeen Flynn for The Washington Post)


An officer patrols the streets of Cape Coral, Fla., by car as heavy rain falls ahead of the hurricane Wednesday. (Marta Lavandier/AP)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/photogra ... 186dd1f983

More photos and videos at: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/us/h ... 778d3e6de3


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More than 2 million without power as Hurricane Milton slams Florida, causes deaths and flooding

Video: https://apnews.com/video/hurricanes-and ... 5ed6e7cb88

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Milton plowed into Florida as a Category 3 storm Wednesday, bringing misery to a coast still ravaged by Helene, pounding cities with winds of over 100 mph (160 kph) after producing a barrage of tornadoes, but sparing Tampa a direct hit.

The storm tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall in Siesta Key near Sarasota, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa. The situation in the Tampa area was still a major emergency as St. Petersburg recorded over 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of flash flooding.

Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, appeared to be badly damaged. Television images Wednesday night showed that the fabric that serves as the domed building’s roof had been ripped to shreds. It was not immediately clear if there was damage inside the stadium.

More than 2 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. The highest number of outages were in Hardee County, as well as neighboring Sarasota and Manatee counties.

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Before Milton even made landfall, tornadoes were touching down across the state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, was hit particularly hard, with homes destroyed and some residents killed.

“We have lost some life,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News, though he wouldn’t say how many people were killed.

About 125 homes were destroyed before the hurricane came ashore, many of them mobile homes in communities for senior citizens, said Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

About 90 minutes after making landfall, Milton was downgraded to a Category 2 storm. By late Wednesday, the hurricane had maximum sustained winds of about 105 mph (165 kph) and storm surge warnings were in effect for parts of Florida’s Gulf and Atlantic coastlines.

Heavy rains were also likely to cause flooding inland along rivers and lakes as Milton traverses the Florida Peninsula as a hurricane, eventually to emerge in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday. It is expected to impact the heavily populated Orlando area.

The storm slammed into a region still reeling two weeks after Hurricane Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the South. In many places along the coast, municipalities raced to collect and dispose of debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge could toss it around and compound any damage.

Officials had issued dire warnings to flee or face grim odds of survival.

“This is it, folks,” said Cathie Perkins, emergency management director in Pinellas County, which sits on the peninsula that forms Tampa Bay. “Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out, and you need to get out now.”

By late afternoon, some officials said the time had passed for such efforts, suggesting that people who stayed behind hunker down instead. By the evening, some counties announced they had suspended emergency services.

Jackie Curnick said she wrestled with her decision to stay aat home in Sarasota, just north of where the storm made landfall. But with a 2-year-old son and a baby girl due Oct. 29, Curnick and her husband thought it was for the best.

Curnick said they started packing Monday to evacuate, but they couldn’t find any available hotel rooms, and the few they came by were too expensive.

She said there were too many unanswered questions if they got in the car and left: Where to sleep, if they’d be able to fill up their gas tank, and if they could even find a safe route out of the state.

“The thing is it’s so difficult to evacuate in a peninsula,” she said. “In most other states, you can go in any direction to get out. In Florida there are only so many roads that take you north or south.”

At a news conference in Tallahassee, Gov. Ron DeSantis described deployment of a wide range of resources, including 9,000 National Guard members from Florida and other states; over 50,000 utility workers from as far as California; and highway patrol cars with sirens to escort gasoline tankers to replenish supplies so people could fill up their tanks before evacuating.

“Unfortunately, there will be fatalities. I don’t think there’s any way around that,” DeSantis said.

Heavy rain and tornadoes lashed parts of southern Florida starting Wednesday morning, with conditions deteriorating throughout the day. Six to 12 inches (15 to 31 centimeters) of rain, with up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) in some places, was expected well inland, bringing the risk of catastrophic flooding.

One twister touched down Wednesday morning in the lightly populated Everglades and crossed Interstate 75. Another apparent tornado touched down in Fort Myers, snapping tree limbs and tearing a gas station’s canopy to shreds.

Authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders across 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people. Officials warned that anyone staying behind must fend for themselves, because first responders were not expected to risk their lives attempting rescues at the height of the storm.

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch told residents to expect long power outages and the possible shutdown of the sewer system.

In Charlotte Harbor, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Tampa, clouds swirled and winds gusted as Josh Parks packed his Kia sedan with clothes and other belongings. Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water to the neighborhood, and its streets remain filled with waterlogged furniture, torn-out drywall and other debris.

Parks, an auto technician, planned to flee to his daughter’s home inland and said his roommate already left.

“I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” he said.

By early afternoon, airlines had canceled about 1,900 flights. SeaWorld was closed all day Wednesday, and Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando shut down in the afternoon.

More than 60% of gas stations in Tampa and St. Petersburg were out of gas Wednesday afternoon, according to GasBuddy. DeSantis said the state’s overall supply was fine, and highway patrol officers were escorting tanker trucks to replenish the supply.

In the Tampa Bay area’s Gulfport, Christian Burke and his mother stayed put in their three-story concrete home overlooking the bay. Burke said his father designed this home with a Category 5 in mind — and now they’re going to test it.

As a passing police vehicle blared encouragement to evacuate, Burke acknowledged staying isn’t a good idea and said he’s “not laughing at this storm one bit.”

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Contributing to this report were Associated Press journalists Holly Ramer in New Hampshire; Joseph Frederick in West Bradenton, Florida; Curt Anderson in Tampa; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; Brenden Farrington in Tallahassee; Michael Goldberg in Minneapolis; Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine; Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-mi ... 778d3e6de3

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Tropical Storm Trami Hits Vietnam After Killing Dozens in the Philippines

The storm made landfall near Danang on Sunday after leaving at least 80 people dead last week.


Firefighters digging through mud and debris in the Philippine province of Batangas on Saturday.Credit...Francis R Malasig/EPA, via Shutterstock

Tropical Storm Trami made landfall in Vietnam on Sunday, days after causing widespread flooding and leaving at least 80 people dead in the Philippines, officials said.

Trami reached land near the central Vietnamese city of Danang on Sunday. Vietnam’s national meteorological agency said on social media that the storm was producing maximum wind speeds of 55 miles per hour, or 19 m.p.h. below hurricane strength.

The storm had moved west across the South China Sea from the Philippines after killing at least 80 people and injuring 66 others last week, the Philippine Office of Civil Defense said on Saturday. An additional 34 people were still missing, the agency said.

As Trami moved inland across Vietnam on Sunday, the country’s meteorological agency said there was a risk of flooding and coastal landslides. It said that some areas south of Danang, one of the country’s largest cities, were forecast to reach up to 16 inches of rain through Monday night.


Tracking Tropical Depression Trami
See the likely path and wind arrival times for Trami.

Ahead of the storm, flights had been suspended at four airports in central Vietnam, including at the Danang International Airport. But all four were reopened on Sunday, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam.

Tropical Storm Trami caused widespread flooding in several Philippine provinces, forced over half a million people from their homes, damaged nearly 28,000 houses and led to power disruptions in more than 150 cities and municipalities, officials said. Floodwaters prevented relief workers from reaching some hard-hit areas.

Another tropical storm, Kong-rey, was hovering near the Philippines on Sunday with roughly the same wind speeds, according to the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Kong-rey was forecast to brush along the coast of Luzon, the most populous island in the Philippines, on Monday and Tuesday. From there it was expected to head for the Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan.

Last month, Typhoon Yagi left at least 24 people dead in China and the Philippines before crossing the South China Sea and making landfall in Vietnam with wind speeds equivalent to those of a Category 3 hurricane. At least 49 people were killed as the storm moved inland across northern Vietnam.

Tropical Storm Trami

Tracking Tropical Depression Trami https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... acker.html

Tropical Storm Trami Brings Heavy Flooding to the Philippines https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/worl ... flood.html
Oct. 23, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/27/worl ... 778d3e6de3

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Flash Floods in Spain Leave More Than 60 Dead

About 1,000 soldiers from emergency response units deployed to the affected areas, and the death toll was expected to rise after one of the worst natural disasters to hit the country in recent years.

Video https://nyti.ms/40lFtMh
Rescue Operations Underway as Flash Floods Kill Dozens in Spain

More than 1,000 soldiers from an emergency response team were deployed, and officials said that many more residents were waiting for help, after more than a month’s worth of rain fell in less than 24 hours in some areas across southern and eastern Spain.CreditCredit...Víctor Fernández/Europa Press, via Associated Press

By José Bautista and Isabella Kwai
José Bautista reported from Madrid.

At least 64 people have died and others were missing after devastating flash floods hit eastern Spain, according to the local authorities, in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the country in recent years.

The catastrophic floods, fueled by an unrelenting deluge that began on Monday, washed away cars, inundated homes and knocked out power across eastern Spain. Rescuers waded through neck-high waters to reach some residents.

In the town of Chiva in the eastern Valencia region, practically a year’s worth of rain fell over eight hours, Spain’s meteorological agency said on Wednesday, illustrating the ferocity of the storm. Other areas across the south and east saw more than a month’s worth of rain in less than 24 hours.

The severity of the disaster became more apparent on Wednesday as the regional authorities confirmed that 62 people had died in the Valencia region, where the storm battered cities, villages and towns along the mountainous coastline.

Two other people died in the neighboring province of Castile-La Mancha, where at least five other people were missing in the municipality of Albacete, local officials said.

ImageCars and other debris in disarray on a flooded street.

Damage from floodwaters at an industrial complex near the city of Valencia, Spain.Credit...Miguel Angel Polo/EPA, via Shutterstock

More remain missing, but the authorities in Valencia said that they could not give an exact figure. A phone line was set up to report missing people, they added, and residents were urged not to travel in the area. The death toll, officials said, was expected to rise.

More than 1,000 soldiers from an emergency response team were sent to respond to the disaster, officials said, sharing videos of some people being airlifted from flooded areas into helicopters or waiting on rooftops.

Widespread areas appeared almost entirely submerged, and dozens of cars piled up in the flooding’s aftermath, according to footage released by the Civil Guard. Some buildings were reduced to sodden rubble.

The damage to roads and bridges left rescuers struggling to reach some areas, officials said on Wednesday. The overflowing ravines and strong winds also damaged infrastructure supplying telecommunications and power in the region. About 155,000 customers were left without power, according to Iberdrola, an energy provider in Valencia, adding that workers were encountering difficulties in restoring service.

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People and rescuers in a flooded street with vehicles piled on each other in the background.

Destruction in a neighborhood of Valencia on Wednesday.Credit...Ruben Fenollosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Highways leading to the region’s capital, also named Valencia, were littered with debris and covered with mud, according to footage from local media, and the subway was flooded. Regional trains on Wednesday were halted, and schools were closed in several places.

The Spanish Parliament on Wednesday held a minute of silence to mourn the victims. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez vowed in an address to help the flood-struck regions recover. “Together we are going to rebuild your streets, your squares, your bridges,” he said from Madrid. “All Spain cries with you,” he added.

The deluge is not yet over: More rain was expected on Wednesday, with Spain’s meteorological agency raising an emergency alert for the Valencia region to the highest level. A popular tourist destination, Valencia is also known for its bustling agricultural industry, which grows citrus and other fruits and vegetables.

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A stranded car straddling a washed-out train line.

In a Valencia suburb on Wednesday. More rain is expected, with Spain’s meteorological agency raising an emergency alert for the region to the highest level.Credit...Biel Alino/EPA, via Shutterstock

Though storms are typical during the fall in Spain, local residents were shocked at the sheer amount of rain: more than 70 gallons per square yard in some villages. In the village of Chiva, more than 100 gallons per square yard of rain fell in eight hours, practically a year’s worth, Spain’s meteorological agency said.

The agency added that it expected some 40 gallons per square yard of rain before 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday over parts of Valencia, Andalusia and Murcia. The storm was moving toward the north and northwest of Spain, with rain expected to continue until at least Thursday.

Flooding is a complex phenomenon and while linking climate change to a single flood event requires extensive scientific analysis, scientists have said that climate change is causing heavier rainfall in many storms. Warmer atmosphere holds, and releases, more water.

Meteorologists have said that the rainfall in Spain is most likely the result of a sudden “cold drop,” known in Spanish as a “gota fría.” That happens when cold air moves over the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea, allowing the hotter, moist air at the surface to rise quickly and producing giant rain clouds. Then, the storm system pushes these moisture-rich clouds over land.

The Mediterranean is also getting hotter, which is making such rainfalls more violent and more frequent. In August, the sea hit its highest recorded temperature.

The record rainfall that led to devastating floods in Belgium and Germany in the summer of 2021 was made much more likely by global warming, scientists have determined.

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A patient is taken toward the open back doors of an ambulance by rescue workers.

Rescue efforts in Valencia. Though storms are typical during the fall in Spain, residents were shocked at the sheer amount of rain in the latest deluge.Credit...Alberto Saiz/Associated Press

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/worl ... encia.html

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Hurricane Rafael Delivers Another Blow to Cuba

The storm’s winds knocked out power across the island before moving ashore as a powerful Category 3 storm.


Two people brace from hurricane winds in the middle of a street. One is holding a cardboard box over her head.

Hurricane Rafael hit Cuba, as it was already trying to recover from Hurricane Oscar and a dayslong power outage.Credit...Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters
By Frances RoblesIsabella Kwai and Claire Moses
Nov. 6, 2024

Hurricane Rafael arrived in Cuba on Wednesday afternoon, plunging the island into a power failure just before making landfall as a powerful Category 3 storm in the western Cuban province of Artemisa on Wednesday. The storm moved across the island with excessive rains, sustained winds near 115 m.p.h. and higher gusts as well as the threat of storm surge and flash flooding.

The storm could not have come at a worse time for Cuba, which has been struggling to keep the lights on for months and has suffered several nationwide blackouts recently. It suffered another, just before Rafael’s arrival, when the government announced strong winds had knocked out power islandwide.

Hurricane Oscar killed at least eight people late last month in a country known for excellent disaster preparedness but where a power outage before the storm made it almost impossible for people to follow hurricane-related warnings by radio or TV.

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Cuba was already trying to recover from several nationwide blackouts and Hurricane Oscar when Hurricane Rafael made landfall on Wednesday.Credit...Norlys Perez/Reuters

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Hurricane Rafael brought wind and rain to Havana.Credit...Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press

Before Rafael’s arrival, Cuba declared a hurricane warning in the provinces of Villa Clara, Sancti Spíritus, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, Mayabeque, Havana, Artemisa and the island of Isla de la Juventud. The government also hurried to position supplies already slammed by severe food and gas shortages. In Pinar del Río, in western Cuba, 200 tons of rice were to be distributed, but officials warned that weather conditions might thwart deliveries. With more than two dozen pumping stations out of commission or evacuated, officials said they were most worried about the water supply.

Operations at several airports in Cuba were suspended until midday Thursday, the Cuban Aviation Corporation said. The State Department has also warned travelers to defer trips to Cuba. “Be prepared to shelter in place until the storm passes and services re-open,” it said.

Image
A woman walks down the street while carrying a partially collapsed umbrella.

Havana was under a hurricane warning before Rafael’s arrival on Wednesday.Credit...Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

In Jamaica on Wednesday, two days after the storm first lashed the island, residents woke up to more flooding, which left some roads impassable. The rain, more than four inches of it in some areas, had already caused landslides and blocked residents in the parish of St. Catherine from traveling, the National Works Agency said on social media. Videos shared by a local broadcaster, Television Jamaica, showed muddy waters submerging streets in Negril, a popular tourist spot in western Jamaica.

Heavy rains and strong winds had hampered efforts to restore power in Jamaica, where 10,000 customers remained without power, according to the country’s main utility, Jamaica Public Service. The Jamaica Red Cross said that the storm had caused “significant infrastructural damage,” but that there had been no widespread reports of “direct damage to personal households.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/weat ... 778d3e6de3

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Intense West Coast Wind and Snow Knock Out Power and Close Roads

The “atmospheric river” storm disrupted travel and left at least two people dead in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.

Video: https://nyti.ms/3YWfh8t
A deadly weather system left tens of thousands without power in Washington. The “atmospheric river” storm from the Pacific Ocean also battered Oregon and Northern California.CreditCredit...David Ryder/Reuters

A wind-whipped storm was bringing heavy rain and snow to Northern California early Thursday, after knocking down trees, snarling highways and transit and leaving tens of thousands of people without power.

More intense rain and snow was forecast for Thursday evening, raising the risk of flash floods and landslides in the region, meteorologists said. The Weather Prediction Center said the total rainfall in Northern California could reach 12 to 16 inches by Friday morning.

The deluge, which has killed at least two people in the Pacific Northwest, was expected to stretch into the weekend. It was the season’s first major atmospheric river, a type of storm that can deliver large amounts of water from the Pacific Ocean.

The National Weather Service warned of a high risk that 210,000 people in Eureka, Calif., and the area south of the city were in a zone that would receive excessive rainfall, with possible flash floods Thursday evening.

Forecast risk of excessive rain for Thursday

Get notified about extreme weather risks in places you choose »
Source: National Weather Service Notes: This map indicates risk in up to three tiers: Some, there is at least some chance of extreme weather in the area; Moderate, it is likely that damaging weather will happen in the area; and High, extreme, dangerous weather is expected in the area. Data is as of Nov. 21 at 2:27 a.m. Eastern and is not available for Alaska and Hawaii. By The New York Times

The storm brought some of the worst damage to the Seattle area, where heavy wind gusts tore down power lines and knocked out substations late Tuesday, leaving half a million customers without electricity. “This is a major storm the likes of which we haven’t seen in over a decade,” said Melanie Coon, a spokeswoman for Puget Sound Energy.

The heaviest rain on Wednesday soaked a strip of the California coast that starts at the Oregon border and stretches hundreds of miles south to the North Bay region, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. Wind gusts in some places exceeded 90 miles per hour — equivalent to the winds of a hurricane.

Amtrak canceled trains across the Pacific Northwest, and the storm slowed service on Bay Area Rapid Transit, the San Francisco region’s major transportation system. Gusty winds forced Northern California drivers off roadways, where they crashed into other vehicles and struck power poles.

A truck tipped over on U.S. 101 in Marin County, just north of San Francisco, and temporarily blocked traffic, according to the California Highway Patrol. And a large S.U.V. overturned on a highway near the Napa Valley winery town of Calistoga.

Before surging into California from the north, the storm felled trees that killed at least two people in Washington. A tree crashed through the roof of a home in Bellevue, on the outskirts of Seattle, killing a woman who lived there, officials said. Another woman died after a tree fell on a homeless encampment in Lynnwood, Wash.

The storm also dumped snow at higher elevations, and blizzard conditions were a possibility in the Cascade mountain range, as well as other parts of the Pacific Northwest. Snow forced the authorities to temporarily close Interstate 5 just south of the Oregon-California border for a stretch of more than 50 miles.

Electricity was still out for about 364,000 customers in Washington and California early Thursday, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utilities. Officials warned that some of the outages could last for days because of the extent of the damage.

The storm led to more than 60 flight cancellations and 450 delays at San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday, according to data from FlightAware, a flight tracking website. Delays there were averaging at least an hour late Wednesday.

Utilities in the Seattle area flew helicopters to locate damaged lines, and crews worked to clear trees and debris. The storm caused the most outages in almost two decades, said Jenn Strang, a spokeswoman for Seattle City Light, a local utility.

California’s ski resorts are in for a bounty of snow. The Sierra Nevada peaks near Lake Tahoe could receive as much as five feet over the next week, said Matthew Chyba, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Reno, Nev.: “Our first good snow, I’d say.”

The impact of an atmospheric river can be most extreme when it stretches on for several days, or is immediately followed by another, as has happened in recent winters. Heavy rainfall saturates the ground so much that hillsides and highways can be swept away.

Climate change can make storms of all types more intense, because warmer air can hold more moisture. When it comes to atmospheric rivers in particular, scientists are studying whether global warming may be affecting the number that sweep through California each year and how long they last, though they don’t have clear answers yet.

The atmospheric river drenching the region this week was also made more destructive by its connection to another storm system off the coasts of Oregon and Washington. Called a “bomb cyclone” — a storm whose atmospheric pressure drops quickly over a short period — that system reached the lowest pressure reading ever recorded in the northeastern Pacific Ocean.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/weat ... 778d3e6de3