The disasters caused $306 billion in total damage in 2017, with 16 events that caused more than $1 billion in damage each. The bulk of the damage, at $265 billion, came from hurricanes.

“2017 was a historic year for billion-dollar weather and climate disasters,” said Adam Smith, an economist for NOAA, on a call with reporters.

The record-breaking year raises concerns about the effects of future natural disasters, as scientists fear climate change could make extreme weather events more damaging.

Hurricane Harvey, which sparked extreme flooding in Houston and the surrounding area in August and September, caused $125 billion in damage, the year’s most expensive disaster. Hurricane Maria, which in September set off a fatal and ongoing humanitarian crisis in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico and elsewhere, caused $90 billion in damage. Hurricane Irma raked across the Caribbean and hit Florida in September, causing $50 billion in total damage, NOAA reports.

The storms also caused 251 combined deaths, the report found. According to Smith, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria now join 2005’s Katrina and 2012’s Sandy among the five most costly U.S. hurricanes in the agency’s disaster record.

Western wildfires cost an additional $18 billion and 54 lives, the report found. This, too, was an annual record. Other large costs came from tornadoes, droughts, flooding and other severe weather events.

The previous most expensive disaster year was 2005, when events such as Hurricane Katrina caused $215 billion in U.S. damage when adjusted for inflation. NOAA’s record of billion-dollar natural disasters goes back to 1980.

(NOAA)

According to NOAA, there have been 215 U.S. disasters costing $1 billion or more since 1980, for a total of more than $1.2 trillion in damage. The year 2017 tied 2011 for the largest total number of such events, at 16.

With numbers like the ones above, it’s no wonder the insurance industry also took a massive hit during 2017, thanks in large part to the trio of hurricanes that ravaged parts of the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and parts of the South.

Insurers are set to pay out a record $135 billion stemming from natural disasters around the globe last year, according to data released this month from the world’s largest reinsurer.

Those huge payouts stem largely from last year’s deadly and devastating hurricanes, but those were far from the only disasters. Widespread flooding caused by monsoon rains in South Asia also contributed to the costs, as did a severe earthquake in Mexico, according to Munich Re, a German-based reinsurer.

Overall losses, which include uninsured losses, amounted to about $330 billion, the reinsurer said. That is second only to 2011, when a massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan fueled overall losses of more than $350 billion in today’s dollars.

The firm identified 710 natural catastrophes around the globe, significantly higher than the annual average of 605. But those in the United States were by far the most costly, accounting for roughly half of all insurance payouts.

Insurance officials also said they expect more such catastrophes ahead.

“Some of the catastrophic events, such as the series of three extremely damaging hurricanes, or the very severe flooding in South Asia after extraordinarily heavy monsoon rains, are giving us a foretaste of what is to come,” Torsten Jeworrek, a Munich Re board member, said in an announcement about the global losses. “Because even though individual events cannot be directly traced to climate change, our experts expect such extreme weather to occur more often in future.”

Indeed, the key question underlying the latest tally of disaster cost is to what extent climate change may be driving the United States and the rest of the world toward more numerous or more severe disasters.

NOAA experts demurred on this question on a media call, declining to apportion how much of the damage could be attributed to a changing climate as opposed to other factors. One key factor that is also known to be worsening damage is that there is more valuable infrastructure, such as homes and businesses, in harm’s way — along coastlines or in areas vulnerable to wildfire.

“For the purposes especially of this product, we do not try to parse those apart,” said Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring section at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “We’re more interested in quantifying what’s going on. Both the economists and physical scientists will retrospectively look at that, but those sort of happen at the speed of science.”

But one expert, Harvard oceanographer and climate expert James McCarthy, highlighted the role of climate change in a statement in response to the NOAA findings.

“We can expect extreme weather events and economic losses and costs associated with them to continue increasing unless we make dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy authored a recent report with Robert Watson, the former chairman of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Liliana Hisas, the executive director of the Universal Ecological Fund (FEU-US), arguing that U.S. $ 1 billion disasters are increasing over time and suggesting economic costs from such events will only increase under climate change.

“As we both know hurricanes, wild-fires, floods and severe weather events occur naturally,” said Watson by email. “However, the data shows an overall increased frequency in these events, and an associated increase in intensity.  The precautionary principle would suggest that we should assume a significant contribution from human activities and prepare to adapt and mitigate.”

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/08/hurricanes-wildfires-made-2017-the-most-costly-u-s-disaster-year-on-record/

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Nate — the first hurricane to make landfall in Mississippi since Katrina in 2005 — quickly lost power, with its winds diminishing to a tropical depression as it pushed northward into Alabama and toward Georgia with heavy rain. It was a Category 1 hurricane when it pushed ashore outside Biloxi early Sunday, its second landfall after initially hitting southeastern Louisiana on Saturday evening.

The storm surge from the Mississippi Sound littered Biloxi’s main beachfront highway with debris and flooded a casino’s lobby and parking structure overnight.

By dawn, however, Nate’s receding floodwaters didn’t reveal any signs of widespread damage in the city where Katrina had leveled thousands of beachfront homes and businesses.

A sailboat beached near Margaritaville and the Golden Nugget in Biloxi, Miss., on Sunday, after Hurricane Nate made landfall.  (Justin Sellers/The Clarion-Ledger via AP)

No storm-related deaths or injuries were immediately reported.

As Nate roared ashore, the hurricane-spawned storm surge in coastal areas, flooding the parking structure of the Golden Nugget casino in Biloxi and pushing water several blocks deep into the city.

“It kind of surprised us,” Mike Kovacevich, who lives two blocks north of U.S. 90, told Biloxi officials on their Facebook page. “We didn’t expect to be this deep. It come in pretty good — a lot of water.”

Biloxi public works employees clearing debris from U.S. 90 in Biloxi on Sunday.  (Justin Sellers/The Clarion-Ledger via AP)

Around 28,000 customers from multiple utility companies were without power in southern portions of the state, but officials from Mississippi Power, which covers all three counties on the state’s Gulf Coast, told Fox News they expect to fully restore power by Sunday night.

“Following Hurricane Nate, our dedicated team at Mississippi Power is actively assisting our customers and restoring service,” Mississippi Power CEO Anthony Wilson said. “The safety of our customers and employees is our top priority. We know how important electrical service is to restoring quality of life after a storm and we are working hard for our customers and their businesses.”

Combined, more than 100,000 residents in Mississippi and Alabama were without power Sunday morning, although some were starting to get electricity restored. About 6,800 customers lost power in Florida, Gov. Rick Scott said.

Mississippi’s Gulf Coast casinos got approval to reopen in midmorning after closing Saturday as the storm approached.

Pumpkins strewn around Highway 90 along the Gulf of Mexico in Pass Christian, Miss., in the aftermath of Hurricane Nate.  (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

In Alabama, the storm flooded homes and cars on the coast and inundated at least one major road in downtown Mobile.

At sunrise in Pensacola Beach, Florida, a small front-end loader scraped sand off a parking lot and returned it to the nearby beach. Sand also was blown onto the decks of beachside bars and restaurants.

In Alabama, Dauphin Island Mayor Jeff Collier said he woke up around 3 a.m. Sunday to discover knee-deep water in his yard. Although some homes and cars on the island had flooded, Collier said he hadn’t heard of anyone needing rescue.

“We didn’t think it would be quite that bad,” he said. “It kind of snuck up on us in the wee hours of the morning.”

Before Nate sped past Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula late Friday and entered the Gulf of Mexico, it drenched Central America with rains that left at least 22 people dead. Still, Nate didn’t approach the intensity of Harvey, Irma and Maria — powerful storms that left behind massive destruction during 2017’s exceptionally busy hurricane season.

“We are thankful because this looked like it was going to be a freight train barreling through the city,” said Vincent Creel, a spokesman for the city of Biloxi.

Fox News’ Travis Fedschun and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/10/08/hurricane-nate-unleashes-flooding-power-outages-on-gulf-coast.html

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Then Las Vegas, the nation’s playground, witnessed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history — the latest in this peerless series of catastrophes. Some were natural, some man-made. Together, they’ve shadowed a usually optimistic nation with a cloud of sorrow and anxiety.

You didn’t have to be in Vegas, Seattle, Houston, Key West or San Juan, or have relatives in Mexico, or live in the Inter-mountain West with a respiratory condition, to be worried. A nation that had thought itself numbed to tragedy is realizing that no matter how bad things are, they apparently can always get worse.

“Why?’’ asked country music star Blake Shelton in a tweet after the shooting. That was one question, shared many times by many others. There was another: “What’s next?’’

A summer that seemed destined to be remembered for its magnificent solar eclipse had lurched suddenly toward the eve of destruction. And autumn hasn’t been much better.

  So much has gone wrong so fast it’s fair to review the overlapping calamities:

• In the span of two weeks, two major hurricanes, Harvey and Irma, hit the continental U.S., the first time two category 4 storms have ever done so in a single season. Then a third storm, Maria, clobbered the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, producing a level of misery that still may not have crested.
• Mexico was shaken by two earthquakes 12 days apart that killed hundreds of people. The second occurred on the anniversary of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake that killed thousands. That quake had been commemorated, and a national earthquake drill held, just two hours before the ground again began to shake on Sept. 19.
• Wildfires, spurred by some of the driest, hottest late summer weather on record,  consumed an area in the West 50% larger than the state of New Jersey. As air quality plummeted across Washington State, the governor declared a state of emergency and told everyone in some areas to stay indoors.
• The leaders of the U.S. and North Korea traded insults and threats. President Trump ridiculed his own secretary of state’s efforts to negotiate with the Kim Jong Un regime to peacefully resolve the nuclear faceoff. Trump tweeted that Rex Tillerson “is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man…’’

The natural disasters produced images that unsettled even those nowhere near them.  Consider just the wildfires.

In normally wet Seattle, which on Aug. 8 recorded its record 52nd straight day without rain, ash from Central Washington fires fell like snow and covered the city with a dense smoke cloud. In Montana, wildfires closed the western part of Glacier National Park’s famous Going-to-the-Sun Road …. while the eastern portion was closed by ice and snow. In Oregon, a photo showed golfers in the foreground playing through as a huge forest fire roared in the background.

“Yes,’’ the Dallas Morning News editorialized last month, “it does feel like Mother Nature is just done with us.’’

The crises brought out the best in some people. Texas saw an American Dunkirk, with more than 15,000 rescued from high waters by a motley array of craft. And Mexicans spontaneously formed bucket brigades to remove rubble and search for survivors in the ruins of hundreds of collapsed schools and other buildings.

More: September was a hellish month for hurricanes. What will October bring?

More: The land of the stars & stripes has become a country of stress & strife.

More: Las Vegas shooting now tops list of worst mass shootings in U.S. history

More: Here are the worst hurricanes and floods in U.S. history

But for all too many, it was all too much.

Tamara Harpster, 54, of Lakeside, Calif., wrote on Facebook that when she learned of the shooting “I felt numb.’’ After the last month, “it seems like ‘Oh well, just another day in a sucky world now.’ … I feel such a loss of control and a realization that there is nothing an individual can do to stop these horrible things from happening.’’

And yet, she wrote, “I want somehow to fix things and make them stop.’’

Daniel Gardner, who teaches communications at Mississippi State, says that while most people in the rural South shake their heads over the troubles and move on, the millennials he teaches are different: With instantaneous communication via social media, they are “easily shaken emotionally, and prone to be more naive and gullible. … So the confluence of bad events makes them feel more vulnerable.’’

The question was why it seemed to be going there.

There was an obvious answer — coincidence — and on one level, it was all explicable.

Storms? That’s why they call this hurricane season. And until 2017 it had been 12 years since any hurricane of such intensity made continental U.S. landfall.

Quakes? Mexico sits on unstable tectonic plates.

Fires? Forests have been burning in North America since before any civilization.

Korea? The Korean War never officially ended when hostilities ceased in 1953. Sabers have been rattling ever since.

As for Las Vegas, America since Columbine has repeatedly demonstrated what happens when a wealthy, historically violent nation with many angry, mentally disturbed residents has loose gun laws.

Some blamed global warming for the storms and the fires; some blamed Trump for Korea and the halting Puerto Rico relief effort.

Others saw a higher authority in control.

‘What else is needed to get our attention?’’ asked Michael L. Brown, the conservative host of the nationally syndicated radio show, The Line of Fire.

 “We need to get on our faces before the Lord, acknowledging our own sins and shortcomings, not pointing the finger at others but rather at ourselves. And whatever our views on climate control and gun control and immigration reform and President Trump, we need to implore the only one who can heal our land.’’

In a video he posted online, actor Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains) called the hurricanes “a spectacular display of God’s immense power” and said, “weather is sent to cause us to respond to God in humility, awe and repentance.”

Was Judgement Day at hand? Several who studied the question had set the date at Sept. 23. But as the day passed and the tribulations continued, some didn’t need obscure scriptural passages or complicated astrological projections to feel the end was near.

That’s one theology. Another is held by the Rev. Ryan Moore of First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa. He told the Tulsa World that he doesn’t spend much time trying to predict when The End is coming, because a daily faith matters more.

“But with all that’s going on in the world,’’ he admits, “you can’t help but be a little bit apocalyptic.”

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/10/03/storms-quakes-fires-korea-and-now-vegas-shooting-whats-next/725889001/

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The high end of the range, released Thursday by Moody’s Analytics, represents almost an entire year’s economic output for Puerto Rico.

The estimate underscores “why officials are now suggesting that its economy may be set back decades,” Adam Kamins, a senior economist at the firm, wrote in an analysis.

The damage estimate from Moody’s is the highest yet. A more conservative estimate earlier this week from the disaster research group Enki Research put the total at $30 billion.

Damage to Puerto Rico has been catastrophic. People are scrambling for food, water, fuel and cash. Almost the entire island is without power, and outages are expected to last for months in some areas.

The Moody’s estimate says as much as $40 billion could be lost in economic output because of impassable roads and lost power. Property damage could total $55 billion.

For comparison: Moody’s estimates that Hurricanes Irma and Harvey combined caused more than $150 billion in damage after those storms hit major U.S. cities in Texas, Florida and Georgia.

“Given that Harvey and Irma disrupted far larger and more vibrant economies than that of Puerto Rico, this reflects the stunning amount of damage that Maria has wrought,” Kamins said.

Puerto Rico’s economy was already struggling. The island has been in recession for 11 years and has lost 10% of its population in that time. In May, it filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Kamins said fallout from Hurricane Maria could make it all worse. Puerto Ricans are American citizens and can freely move to the mainland.

“The end result could be a permanent increase in the rate of population decline, with many of those who remain too poor to move elsewhere,” he said. “Puerto Rico’s already murky future is now even more in doubt.”

The catastrophe modeling firm RMS released a damage estimate Thursday for the entire Caribbean that was also more conservative than Moody’s. It said damage to the region could be $30 billion to $60 billion.

Maria devastated several islands in the region, including Dominica and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/28/news/economy/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-damage-estimate/index.html

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Maria strengthened once again Tuesday afternoon and is now hurling 165 mph (265 kph) winds as it moves in on St. Croix.

“No generation has seen a hurricane like this since San Felipe II in 1928,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Tuesday. “This is an unprecedented atmospheric system.”

Rosselló urged Puerto Ricans to find safe shelters immediately, as emergency workers “will not be available to help you once the winds reach 50 mph.”

“We need to keep in mind that we must also protect the lives of these first responders. It’s time to act and look for a safe place if you live in flood-prone areas or in wooden or vulnerable structures,” Rosselló said.

Maria has already killed one man in Guadeloupe after he ignored orders to stay inside and was struck by a falling tree, the island’s government said.

Two other people are missing after a boat sank off the coast of La Désirade, a smaller island near the mainland of Guadeloupe. The government said about 80,000 people, or 40% of the households on the island, are without power.

The storm also caused “widespread devastation” in Dominica, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said Tuesday.

The hurricane shredded the prime minister’s house overnight and left much of the island — population 73,000 — in ruins.

“So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace,” Skerrit posted on Facebook Tuesday. He said his greatest fear was “news of serious physical injury and possible deaths as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains.”

A few hours earlier, the Prime Minister posted, “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.”

Maria is now the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in Dominica, a former French and British colony whose economy relies heavily on tourism and agriculture.

Now, Maria is taking aim on Puerto Rico and Islands already crippled by Hurricane Irma.

‘Don’t go out under any circumstances’

As of Tuesday afternoon, Maria was centered about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of St. Croix — putting the island within reach of Maria’s tropical-storm force winds — and was headed west-northwest at 10 mph. At the speed it was going, Maria was less than 24 hours from San Juan.

Sources: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/19/americas/hurricane-maria-caribbean-islands/index.html

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Five residents of a Hollywood nursing home that lost power in the storm died, authorities said Wednesday. They gave no immediate details on the cause. Police and fire crews began evacuating Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills after the deaths there.

In the Miami area, a Coral Gables apartment building was evacuated after authorities determined a lack of power made it unsafe for elderly tenants, while officers arrived at the huge Century Village retirement community in Pembroke Pines to help people on upper floors without access to working elevators. More than half the community of 15,000 residents lacked power.

Also, at least five people died and more than a dozen were treated for breathing carbon monoxide fumes from generators in the Orlando, Miami and Daytona Beach areas.

Aside from the nursing home deaths, at least 13 people in Florida were killed in Irma-related circumstances, in some cases during the cleanup, well after the storm. A Tampa man died after the chainsaw he was using to remove branches kicked back and cut his carotid artery.

Elsewhere, Irma was blamed for four deaths in South Carolina and two in Georgia. At least 37 people were killed in the Caribbean.

In the battered Florida Keys, meanwhile, county officials pushed back against a preliminary estimate from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that 25 percent of all homes in the Keys were destroyed and nearly all the rest were heavily damaged.

“Things look real damaged from the air, but when you clear the trees and all the debris, it’s not much damage to the houses,” said Monroe County Commissioner Heather Carruthers.

The Keys felt Irmay’s full fury when the hurricane roared in on Sunday with 130 mph (209 kph) winds.

President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, said the federal government was working to help Florida Keys residents secure shelter through rental assistance, hotels or pre-manufactured housing. Trump plans to visit Florida on Thursday.

Bossert told Fox News that during his visit, Trump “is going to make sure the troops that he’s put in place are doing their job and then to thank those folks that have been working around the clock.”

Irma’s economic toll on Florida already includes nearly $250 million in preparation and recovery expenses by 31 state agencies. And agriculture officials warily eyed storm damage to citrus crops.

The number of people without electricity in the steamy late-summer heat dropped to 9.5 million — just under half of Florida’s population. Utility officials warned it could take 10 days or more for power to be fully restored. About 110,000 people remained in shelters across the state.

While nearly all of Florida was engulfed by the massive storm, the Keys — home to about 70,000 people — appeared to be the hardest hit. Drinking water and power were cut off, all three of the islands’ hospitals were closed, and gasoline was extremely limited.

Search-and-rescue teams made their way into the more distant reaches of the Keys, and an aircraft carrier was positioned off Key West to help. Officials said it was not known how many people ignored evacuation orders and stayed behind in the Keys.

Crews also worked to repair two washed-out, 300-foot (90-meter) sections of U.S. 1, the sole highway that runs through the Keys, and check the safety of the 42 bridges linking the islands.

The Lower Keys were still off-limits, with a roadblock in place where the highway was washed out.

On the mainland, one of the evacuees taken from an apartment building that lacked power near Miami was a 97-year-old woman who is immobile and has heart problems.

Five firefighters went up the dark emergency stairwell in the Coral Gables building, strapped Cuban-born Ofelia Carrillo to a special evacuation chair and carried her down. Her daughter Madeleine Alvarez said they ultimately heeded firefighters’ isntructions, despite doctors warning of her mother’s fragile state.

“This is the most stressful situation I’ve lived in my life,” Alvarez said.

Dearen reported from the Keys. Associated Press writers Gary Fineout and Joe Reedy in Tallahassee; Jay Reeves in Immokalee; Terrance Harris in Orlando; Claire Galofaro in Jacksonville; and Jennifer Kay, Freida Frisaro, Curt Anderson and David Fischer in Miami contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.presstelegram.com/general-news/20170913/devastation-and-death-in-wake-of-hurricane-irma

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The post Hurricane Irma – the path of destruction first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Water levels are already rising on the coast of the US state where a huge storm surge is expected.

Some 6.3 million people had been told to evacuate, but the state governor said on Saturday it was now too late to leave for anyone remaining.

At least 24 people have died after Irma earlier hit several Caribbean islands.

With maximum sustained winds of 120mph (193km/h), Irma hurricane has now weakened to a category three hurricane after making landfall in Cuba’s north-east late on Friday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) says in its latest advisory at 03:00 GMT on Sunday.

But Irma is expected to strengthen and will remain a powerful hurricane as it approaches Florida, the NHC says.

It warns that a “life-threatening storm surge” is expected in the Florida Keys – a chain of small islands in Florida’s south – and also the west coast of Florida.

What is happening in Florida?
Irma is predicted to hit the coast on Sunday morning, but the outer bands are already affecting the south of the state and central Miami is being lashed by heavy rain.

The Florida Keys have suffered some minor damage and are expected to bear the brunt of the storm in the coming hours.

The head of emergencies agency Fema, Brock Long, told CNN there were “no safe areas within the Keys”.

“You put your life in your own hands by not evacuating,” he added.

“If you’re in an evacuation zone, you’ve got to get to a shelter need to get to a shelter… there’s not many hours left”, Florida Governor Rick Scott warned residents.

“The winds are coming, there is not gonna be a lot of time now to be able to drive very far.”

Thousands of people on the mainland are currently without electricity.

The western Gulf coast is expected to be worst affected, with cities such as Tampa and St Petersburg in the path of the storm.

The Tampa Bay area, with a population of about three million, has not been hit by a major hurricane since 1921.

Some 50,000 people have gone to shelters throughout the state, the governor said. Media reports say shelters in some areas have been filling up quickly and some people have been turned away.

Miami city and Broward county have imposed curfews to help clear the roads of traffic.

Which other areas have already been hit?

–Cuba: Officials have reported “significant damage”, without giving further details, but said there were no confirmed casualties yet, the AFP news agency reports

–St Martin and St Barthelemy: Six out of 10 homes on St Martin, an island shared between France and the Netherlands, now uninhabitable, French officials say. They said nine people had died and seven were missing in the French territories, while two are known to have died in Dutch Sint Maarten

–Turks and Caicos Islands: Widespread damage, although extent unclear

–Barbuda: The small island is said to be “barely habitable”, with 95% of the buildings damaged. Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne estimates reconstruction will cost $100m (£80m). One death has been confirmed

–Anguilla: Extensive damage with one person confirmed dead

–Puerto Rico: More than 6,000 residents of the US territory are in shelters and many more without power. At least three people have died

–British Virgin Islands:Widespread damage reported, and five dead

–US Virgin Islands: Damage to infrastructure was said to be widespread, with four deaths confirmed

–Haiti and the Dominican Republic: Both battered by the storm, but neither had as much damage as initially feared

What about Hurricanes Jose and Katia?
Another storm, Jose, further out in the Atlantic behind Irma, is now a category four hurricane, with winds of up to 145mph.

It is following a similar path to Irma and already hampering relief efforts in some of the worst affected areas.

Residents of Barbuda, left the island as Jose approached but it is no longer expected to hit.

However, hurricane warnings are in place for St Martin and St Barthelemy, both also hit by Irma.

Hurricane Katia, in the Gulf of Mexico, a category one storm with winds of up to 75mph, made landfall on the Mexican Gulf coast in the state of Veracruz late on Friday.

It has now weakened to a tropical depression.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41216890

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As the weather forecasts and warnings from officials grew increasingly dire, hundreds of thousands of people across Florida fled their homes in an effort to get out before the rapidly-closing window to escape Irma’s wrath slammed shut. Forecasters said Irma, a storm of remarkable size and power that has already battered islands across the Caribbean, would approach South Florida by Sunday morning and could slam ashore there before tracking up the state’s spine.

“It’s not a question of if Florida’s going to be impacted, it’s a question of how bad Florida’s going to be impacted,” William “Brock” Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said at a news briefing on Friday.

Even as emergencies were declared in Georgia and the Carolinas – where heavy rains and flooding are expected early next week – attention remained focused on Florida as the state anxiously prepared for Irma’s arrival, with forecasts calling for up to 20 inches of rain in some areas and thrashing winds no matter how the storm pivots before hitting the mainland United States.

“Irma is likely to make landfall in Florida as a dangerous major hurricane, and will bring life-threatening wind impacts to much of the state regardless of the exact track of the center,” the National Hurricane Center said Friday.

The center said that Irma, which had maximum sustained winds near 155 mph and higher gusts on Friday and passed between the Central Bahamas and north coast of Cuba, was expected “to remain a powerful Category 4 hurricane as it approaches Florida.”

Local, state and federal officials have offered ominous warning after warning as the storm zeroed in on Florida, making clear how much danger they felt the Sunshine State could face in the coming days. Long urged people from Alabama to North Carolina to monitor and prepare for Irma, calling the storm “a threat that is going to devastate the United States, either Florida or some of the southeastern states.”

Floridians are familiar with ominous forecasts and hurricane warnings, and many in the state have painful memories of Hurricane Andrew, which made landfall as a Category 5 monster in 1992, and other storms that brought lashing rain and winds. But when asked about people in South Florida who intend to ride out the storm at home, Long was blunt.

“I can guarantee you that I don’t know anybody in Florida that’s ever experienced what’s about to hit South Florida,” Long said. “They need to get out and listen and heed the warnings.”

Mark DeMaria, acting deputy director of the hurricane center, said Friday afternoon that the latest models showed the storm track shifting slightly to the west, putting southwest Florida in particular jeopardy for the most violent winds even as all of South Florida will have significant impacts.

“We really want to emphasize the very vulnerable Southwest Florida area,” DeMaria said.

Scott, the governor, has warned people that evacuation zones could expand and said that all Floridians “should be prepared” to leave their homes. Scott has also cited the memories of Andrew, calling Irma “more devastating on its current path,” and warned that much of the state could be imperiled.

“Based on what we now know, the majority of Florida will have major hurricane impacts with deadly storm surge and life-threatening winds,” Scott said. “And we can expect this along the entire east coast and the entire west coast.”

In addition to packing intense power, Irma was also an immense storm, forecasters say, with hurricane-force winds extending some 70 miles from the center – and tropical-storm force winds extending as far as 185 miles out.

Airports around the state said they would suspend flights and cease operations. Publix, the grocery store chain, announced plans to close stores across the state in waves and did not say when they would reopen. Tom Bossert, homeland security adviser to President Donald Trump, on Friday said that people need to have enough food and water to get by during a period when the rain and wind will prevent authorities from getting to them.

“We have pre-deployed and pre-staged, but we can’t actually get to that final point of care until conditions permit,” he said during a White House briefing Friday.

The hurricane center has issued a hurricane warning covering all of South Florida, where local officials have ordered evacuations along the coast. In Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous, mandatory evacuations were issued for about 660,000 people, including for Miami Beach and Key Biscayne. It was the largest evacuation ordered in Miami-Dade history, said Carlos Gimenez, the county’s mayor.

Miami City Hall, an Art Deco style building right on Biscayne Bay in Coconut Grove, an evacuation zone, was locked and mostly vacant on Friday. The only City Hall parking spot that was occupied? A black Ford Expedition in the spot labeled for Mayor Tomas Regalado.

Many people ordered to leave Broward and Palm Beach counties were directed to public schools, which have been shuttered across the state by Gov. Rick Scott, R, so they can serve as shelters and staging areas for first responders. Many public schools across the state had already canceled classes, while colleges had also shuttered campuses and rescheduled football games.

Pompano Beach High School, which sits just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean and is normally home of the Golden Tornadoes, was transformed Friday into a safe haven for about 150 people seeking shelter from Irma. Several volunteers said they expected the school, one of about 20 facilities Broward County is using as a shelter, to reach its capacity of 280 people by Saturday.

Those already packed into the school’s cafeteria had one thing in common: They were either unable or unwilling to leave the area, despite a mandatory evacuation order for several sections of the county, including anyone close to the nearby ocean. Only those who had registered starting at noon on Thursday were allowed into the school, and once capacity was reached, others who showed up were directed to venues with larger spaces.

Three Broward County Sheriffs deputies were at the front door on Friday, inspecting all bags for weapons, drugs and alcohol. Two paramedics were assigned to the shelter in three shifts, and two will be in the building 24 hours a day starting Saturday morning, along with at least a half dozen law enforcement officers. The men, women and children filing inside have been greeted by several volunteers and county employees who will be working around the clock starting Saturday at 8 a.m.

They’re staffing a facility that doesn’t quite have all the comforts of home – there are two bathrooms and no showers, cots or Wi-Fi – but there are a few. Two television sets were tuned to the Weather Channel, providing the latest news about Irma’s approach – all of it bad. There were also nine microwave ovens, plugs for cellphone sand computers and, eventually, a generator that will be put into use once the power fails, as is expected once the hurricane hits.

Still, according to one volunteer, the school was built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. Many occupants came fully-prepared, with a number of air mattresses, chaise lounges and sleeping bags set up in neat rows throughout the cafeteria. Three free meals a day will be served during the duration, and water, coffee and snacks are also available.

Someone brought in stacks of books, and others played checkers, cards, watched TV, read or took naps. An elderly couple came in concerned about keeping their insulin refrigerated. They were quickly assured by a paramedic they would be stored in a cafeteria fridge and available any time.

Suzie and Renè Wilhelm are here on vacation from the Netherlands. They were staying at a hotel a block from the nearby Fort Lauderdale beach, located in one of the evacuation zones.

Renè, a Mercedes Benz salesman back home, said they left Amsterdam for Orlando last Monday, not really aware of the monster storm gathering hundreds of miles away.

“We’ve been coming to Florida since 2000- Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and we had no idea this was happening,” Renè said, sitting on one of two chaise lounges he had purchased Friday morning at a nearby Target. “We’re used to snow, but not this.”

They stayed in Orlando for a day, then drove south on Wednesday hoping the storm still might veer away from South Florida.

“We knew it was coming,” said Suzie, who works in health care. “But we also heard it was coming to Orlando, so we didn’t know what to do. As we were driving here, I thought, ‘This is a stupid thing to do.’ I called our travel agent in the Netherlands, and also the same company here, to see if they could get us out, but they never even called me back or answered my emails. The woman at our hotel tried to book us somewhere else, but everything was filled.”

They tried one shelter, but were told there was no food and that they could not leave if they went in.

“It was terrifying, so we came here,” she said. “You can come and go. People have been very nice to us.”

Not far away, Bill and Jane Borum, both native Washingtonians and retirees, were also trying to get comfortable on newly-purchased lounges and reading to pass the hours. They live in a condo at the Bay Colony high-rise in Fort Lauderdale, just steps from the ocean, and left when the evacuation order was issued. They thought about driving north to get out of harm’s way, but “we really didn’t have any place to go,” said Jane, who attended Alice Deal Junior High and Wilson High School in Northwest Washington “many years ago” and retired to South Florida with her husband a few years ago.

“We saw that all of Florida was going to be covered (by the storm), so that didn’t make sense,” she said. “My girlfriend was going to stay with relatives in Tifton, Georgia. She left here at 7:30 Thursday morning and didn’t get there until 11:30 at night. The traffic was a mess. We didn’t want to do that.

“Our kids in Maryland wanted us to fly home, but we couldn’t get on a flight, so now we’re here,” she added. “It’s our first time in a shelter, and the last, I hope.”

Some hit the road but did not want to go too far. Joseph “Tony” Vincent, 82, braked his 3-wheeled bicycle to a stop in the Naples Mobile Home Park. He has seen many storms and planned to hit the road for Irma, but he was not heading far away – he has weekend room reservations at a modest motel just outside the park, along Tamiami Trail.

“I seen Hurricane Donna blow the river completely out of its banks in Fort Myers,” he declared Friday morning. “A 2-story frame house swayed in the wind. This one is even bigger. I’m not dumb. My mama didn’t raise no fool.”

Vincent said that even if he had the money, he wouldn’t leave his home state over a hurricane.

“Hell, you’d be safer here than taking a car on those roads. You might be killed before you get to Atlanta,” he scoffed.

Other Florida fixtures hunkered down. The Miami-Dade Zoological Park and Gardens – otherwise known as Zoo Miami, which sprawls across more than 700 acres and has more than 3,000 animals – closed down on Thursday but said it would not be moving its animals.

“We don’t evacuate our animals since hurricanes can change direction at the last minute and you run the risk of evacuating to a more dangerous location,” the zoo said in a statement. “Furthermore, the stress of moving the animals can be more dangerous than riding out the storm. The animals that are considered dangerous will stay in their secure night houses, which are made of poured concrete and welded metal.”

When Hurricane Andrew struck, the zoo was hit hard. Tropical birds were missing, cages torn apart and animals traumatized – through, miraculously, most of the animals were unharmed.

Across the main arteries out of Florida, some trips took more than twice as long as normal. At one point late Thursday night and into Friday, so many cars clogged the Florida Turnpike that it took four hours to go 20 miles. People who fled the state trekked into Georgia and South Carolina. Atlanta’s downtown was turned into a temporary home for many evacuees, some of whom spent all night making the trip from South Florida. In South Carolina, the attorney general’s office reported more than 200 complaints from residents about price-gouging related to gasoline.

Fleeing to safer ground was not an option for many in the Caribbean, where Irma had claimed at least 16 lives – a toll expected to increase – and had the prime minister of tiny Barbuda grasping for a word to describe the devastation. The island, said Gaston Browne, was now “rubble.” France’s minister for overseas territories, Annick Girardin, described “scenes of pillaging” on St. Martin as people cleaned out stores and roamed the streets in search of food and water.

On Haiti’s northern coast, the mayor of the city Fort Liberty, Louis Jacques Etienne, called it a “nuclear hurricane.”

“Crops are destroyed, cattle is dead, and my cities are broken. It is bad. Very very bad,” he said.

Even as this region struggled to grasp the toll of what had happened, another powerful hurricane was following in Irma’s wake. Hurricane Jose loomed as another threat, with the National Hurricane Center saying late Friday that it was “now an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane” expected to bring life-threatening flooding to the Leeward Islands, Virgin Islands and other areas already left reeling by Irma.

Berman reported from Washington. Patricia Sullivan in Naples, Florida, Lori Rozsa in Palm Beach County; Dustin Waters in Charleston, South Carolina; Perry Stein and Joel Achenbach in Miami; Anthony Faiola in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; and Brian Murphy, Jenna Johnson, Jason Samenow and Angela Fritz in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-hurricane-irma-20170908-story.html

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