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Hurricane Death Toll Reaches 19 In Flooded North Carolina

Hurricane Death Toll Reaches 19 In Flooded North Carolina

By Nicole Craine

KINSTON, N.C. (Reuters) – Rivers swollen by rainfall from Hurricane Matthew rose dangerously higher in North Carolina on Wednesday, prompting officials to go door to door urging residents to leave as a wide swath of the state faced its worst flooding in 17 years.

Floodwaters have swamped areas across the central and eastern part of the state, where drownings in recent days have brought the death toll to 19.

That figure represents more than half of the deaths in the U.S. Southeast linked to the fierce Atlantic storm, which killed around 1,000 people in Haiti and displaced hundreds of thousands as it tore through the Caribbean last week.

Matthew caused an estimated $10 billion in total U.S. property losses, about $5 billion of which are insured, according to a preliminary estimate by Goldman Sachs.

The damages continue to mount in North Carolina. Flooding has killed up to 5 million poultry birds, most of them chickens, in a blow to the local economy, said North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Donald van der Vaart.

The floodwaters have forced more than 3,800 residents to flee to shelters, closed down stretches of major interstate highways and shuttered 34 school systems, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory told reporters in Raleigh.

Emergency officials rescued dozens of people on Wednesday from flooded homes in areas including Robeson and Pender counties. There were no official estimates as to the number of people and homes still in harm’s way in the state.

Matthew‘s aftermath drew comparisons to Hurricane Floyd, which triggered devastating floods in North Carolina in 1999 and caused more than $3 billion in damages in the state.

In Kinston, where the Neuse River is expected to peak on Saturday at almost twice the 14-foot (4.3 meter) flood stage and just shy of the Floyd record, city officials warned residents not to be fooled by the water’s gradual rise.

“It’s not like it’s a tidal wave that’s coming. It’s a slow rise,” city manager Tony Sears said in a phone interview.

But, he added, “in the next 24 hours, it’s not whether I should go or not, it’s when you should go.”

Residents should be prepared to be out of their homes for more than a week, Sears said, with river levels expected to remain elevated into next week.

Kinston resident Toby Hatch, 60, who lived through Floyd and Hurricane Irene, which destroyed his home in 2011, heeded the city’s evacuation order this week and headed to a shelter.

“I didn’t really want to leave, but I was already looking at enough water that I was trapped,” he said.

Evacuations also continued in Greenville, where the Tar River was 10 feet (3 meters) above flood stage and forecast to crest even higher by Friday. Flooding has forced the city’s airport to close and classes were canceled for the week for East Carolina University’s 28,000 students.

In Goldsboro, where the Neuse River peaked on Wednesday at a record level, Tony Rouse, 56, had taken refuge at an elementary school with his wife. His home lost power and all the roads leading to it were inundated, he said.

“It’s kind of boring,” he said of life at the shelter, “but it beats not being able to eat.”

(Additional reporting by Gene Cherry; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott and Tom Brown)

Eric McClary of West Mulberry Lane checks flood levels while checking on his flooded home after the effects of Hurricane Matthew in Goldsboro, North Carolina, U.S., October 12, 2016. REUTERS/Randall Hill

Cartoon: South Carolina Searches For Answers

Cartoon: South Carolina Searches For Answers

Rain Spreads Havoc Across Houston

Rain Spreads Havoc Across Houston

By Molly-Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

HOUSTON — The Tuckers thought they were prepared.

The couple knew they lived in a flood-prone area: the Meyerland neighborhood, near Brays Bayou. That’s why, when they built their two-story brick home 27 years ago, they elevated it three feet, higher than the 100-year flood plain, and invested in a generator which they placed even higher in the back yard.

It didn’t flood during tropical storms or even Hurricane Ike in 2008.

“We always thought, boy, were we smart to build the house up,” said Jeff Tucker, a 68-year-old corporate lawyer who’s now retired.

But on Tuesday an overnight storm sent a foot of water gushing into their home. Family photos, Persian rugs, their new Lexus, even the generator — all left soaked.

“It looked,” Margaret Tucker said, “like we had a house in a lake.”

More than 11 inches of rain transformed their neighborhood and others in Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, into a disaster zone and those caught off-guard sheltered where they could overnight: in offices, the Galleria mall, an ice rink and even the Toyota Center, where about 1,000 Houston Rockets fans got stuck after a game. Highways were blocked. Public transportation shut down. Schools closed.

At least four people in the Houston area were killed, hundreds of cars flooded and at least 4,000 homes damaged overnight. One elderly couple was still missing late Tuesday after the fire rescue boat saving them capsized in Braes Bayou. The devastation in the Bayou City raised the death toll from weekend storms to 9 in Texas and 6 in Oklahoma.

Along the Blanco River in central Texas, the storms killed at least two, left 13 missing, 70 homes destroyed and about 1,400 damaged, according to Hays County Commissioner Will Conley.

Among the missing was a group of eight who disappeared after flood waters ripped their vacation home from its foundation, washed it downriver and slammed it into a bridge in Wemberley, about 40 miles southwest of Austin.

Jonathan McComb, 36, of Corpus Christi, was able to escape from the damaged home with a collapsed lung and broken bones and was listed in good condition at San Antonio’s Brooke Army Medical Center.

But his wife and two children, ages 6 and 4, remained missing, along with friends Randy and Michelle Charba, their 4-year-old son and Michelle Charba’s parents, Ralph and Sue Carey, all from Corpus Christi.

“These are great, great families that are affected by this. Three generations of one family are missing right now _ the grandparents, parents and a young child who plays with my grandchildren,” said Bill Pettus, a friend of the Careys in Corpus Christi.

Also killed was 18-year-old Alyssa Ramirez, student council president at Devine High School southwest of San Antonio, who officials said drowned after she became stranded Sunday in floodwater while driving home from her senior prom.

President Barack Obama said he had assured Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that he could count on help from the federal government as the state recovers from the floods.

Abbott, who traveled to Houston on Tuesday after touring flooded areas of central Texas by air on Monday, has declared disasters in 40 counties, including Houston’s Harris County.

At a briefing, Abbott said family members of one of his staffers were swept away during the “tsunami-style rise” of the Blanco River and remained missing.

“As far as flooding is concerned, this ranks right up there with Allison,” said Abbott, referring to Tropical Storm Allison, which caused 22 deaths in the Houston region in 2001.

At least 750 flooded cars were towed to city impound lots.

Two of the dead were found in their cars, while the other two were washed into Brays Bayou.

“We are investigating some other reports, so that number is likely to grow,” said Michael Walter, a spokesman for the city’s emergency operations center.

On the Tuckers’ street, firefighters rescued several elderly residents, according to Gerald McTigret, 53, who was house sitting.

“They had three rescue boats going house to house,” down the street, he said.

And firefighters were not the only boaters on the street Tuesday.

“There was also a guy with a sailboat,” McTigret said. “He didn’t have the sail up, but it was funny. Things you don’t expect to see!”

Further up the street, Rola Georges, awoke to find several feet of water rushing in.

“My kids were floating on their mattresses,” she said.

Georges and her husband climbed atop the furniture while she called 911. The water was knee deep. A sunken portion of the living room, which holds a pool table, had become a pool of brown water. Her husband saw a snake swim by.

She gave her 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter snacks and told them to stay put on their mattresses.

Georges, 40, spotted a fire department rescue boat outside the window and tried to hail it, to no avail. Instead, her family waited several hours until the floodwaters receded, then climbed down to start cleaning up.

“We tried to rescue some precious memories: photos and videos,” she said later as she stood beside her wedding portrait. “But when you have a house, it’s a home. Every single thing has a special meaning, a memory.”

(c)2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: A destroyed car is submerged in the Blanco River in Wimberley, Texas, after the flood on Tuesday May 26, 2015. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman/TNS)

Disease Fears Hit Pakistan, India Flood Survivors

Disease Fears Hit Pakistan, India Flood Survivors

dpa

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan was rushing Tuesday to treat outbreaks of malaria and dengue in the central province of Punjab, as the death toll in the wake of two weeks of flooding crossed 300.

Authorities dispatched medical aid including teams of doctors and paramedics to several towns of the flood-hit area, the National Disaster Management Authority said.

Several days of inundation had caused the outbreak, the authority’s spokeswoman Reema Zuberi said in the capital Islamabad, as floodwaters provided breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that transmit those diseases, and carry water-borne pathogens.

Mudslides and flooding have killed around 312 people in Punjab and parts of the Kashmir region, Zuberi said.

At least 2.4 million people had been displaced in Punjab and thousands more were being evacuated further downstream in the southern province of Sindh, Zuberi said.

Indian authorities said 200 people had died in their part of Kashmir.

Floodwaters were receding in the Srinagar, capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, but fears of disease were rising due to the widespread waterlogging.

“In this situation there is a possibility of the outbreak of waterborne diseases and our main focus now is to protect people from this,” Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said.

Heavy monsoon rains have pounded the northern Himalayan region since September 3.

In Jammu and Kashmir, rescue workers have reached more than 237,000, the Indian government said. But at least 100,000 were still trapped in their homes, IANS news agency reported citing unnamed officials.

The level of the Jhelum river in Srinagar had dropped below the danger mark and rations, drinking water, and medicine were being distributed, Abdullah said.

Over two dozen water filtering plants had been airlifted to Srinagar along with 13 tonnes of water purifying tablets, a Defense Ministry press release said.

AFP Photo/Punit Paranjpe

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