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Powerful Storm Hits Taiwan, Millions Without Power, Six Dead

Powerful Storm Hits Taiwan, Millions Without Power, Six Dead

By Michael Gold and Yimou Lee

TAIPEI/YILAN, Taiwan (Reuters) – A powerful typhoon battered Taiwan on Saturday with strong wind and torrential rain, cutting power to 3.62 million households as the death toll rose to six.

Four people were missing and 101 were injured, authorities said. Hundreds of flights were delayed or canceled and more than 9,900 people were evacuated from their homes.

Television footage shows trees uprooted and power poles toppled over, a moped being swept into the air by wind, and shipping containers piled on top of each other at a port.

“The storm will weaken but we expect more rain, particularly in southern Taiwan,” said Wang Shih-chien, an official with the island’s Central Weather Bureau.

The storm made landfall early on the island’s east-coast counties of Yilan and Hualien, bringing more than 1,000 mm (39 inches) of rain in mountainous areas and wind gusting up to 200 kph (124 mph).

Although the eye of Typhoon Soudelor passed Taiwan, and was heading toward mainland China, rain was expected to lash the island until Sunday morning.

“This is one of the worst typhoons I have ever seen,” said a sewage station engineer surnamed Jiang, who was inspecting pumping stations early on Saturday in eastern Taiwan.

“My car was shaking when I was driving. There are too many trees down, and I even saw six downed power poles.”

In the capital, Taipei, large steel sheets and rods were blown off a half-constructed stadium and city authorities shut down much public transport.

“The metal roof of the house next door to mine was completely blown away,” said resident Jack Lin. “I saw a car crushed to bits.”

Authorities issued flood and mudslide alerts and television showed mud trapping people and murky water nearly covering the roofs of cars in some areas.

Among the dead was one person who drowned in his flooded home and another who was killed by a falling tree.

Earlier, authorities said one adult and one child had drowned at sea, while a foreign worker was killed by a falling sign and a rescue worker was hit by a car and killed while clearing downed branches from a road.

Taiwan Power, the island’s main power company, said 3.62 million households had lost power. While some supplies had been restored, 1.5 million households were still without power on Saturday afternoon, it said.

Fears that Soudelor would be as devastating as Typhoon Morakot in 2009 were unfounded. Morakot cut a path of destruction over southern Taiwan, leaving about 700 people dead or missing and causing $3 billion worth of damage.

The Tropical Storm Risk website downgraded the typhoon to a category 1 storm by Saturday afternoon, on a scale of 1 to 5, and indicated it could weaken as it moves toward the Chinese province of Fujian, which it is due to hit late on Saturday.

Authorities there have evacuated people on the coast and begun canceling flights and trains. Fujian has issued its highest typhoon alert, media reported.

Typhoons are common at this time of year in the South China Sea and Pacific, picking up strength from warm waters but losing it over land.

(Additional reporting by Taipei newsroom; Writing by J.R. Wu; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Photo: People hold umbrellas in heavy rain as Typhoon Soudelor approaches, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, Taiwan, August 7, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer 

Storm Warnings Grip 17 States, Record Lows Expected

Storm Warnings Grip 17 States, Record Lows Expected

By Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Not content just to torture New England with blizzard after blizzard, Mother Nature is expected to unleash heavy snow and uncharacteristically bitter cold on the Midwest, the South and the East this week.

The governors of Virginia and North Carolina declared states of emergency Monday as a winter storm, lumbering their direction, dumped almost a foot of snow on parts of the Midwest and ice and sleet from Tennessee to Georgia.

As of midday Monday, winter storm warnings touching 17 states and affecting millions of residents stretched from Missouri to New Jersey.

Parts of Kentucky were still bracing for more than a foot of snow by the end of Monday, which would give the Bluegrass State a small taste of the weather that has hammered Boston in recent weeks, burying the city beneath several feet of snowy misery. Air traffic into and out of Louisville’s airport was significantly hampered Monday, as it was in Nashville and Memphis.

Worse yet, temperatures in the East will be 20 to 30 degrees lower than average for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.

“This will especially be the case after yet another arctic cold front moves through after the winter storm departs the East Coast,” the National Weather Service said in a Monday forecast advisory. “Numerous record low temperatures are expected!”

In Michigan on Sunday, the dramatic cold already set or tied record lows of minus 21 degrees in Gaylord, minus 23 in Pellston and minus 25 at the Houghton County Airport.

The freeze spread to Pennsylvania on Monday morning, where a low of minus 32 degrees was reported in Chandlers Valley, and Harrisburg’s much milder zero-degree low tied a 110-year-old record, the weather service reported. The cold spurred school closures in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

A cold front tagging along with Monday’s Midwestern snow storm also brought an unwelcome display of contrasts across the South.

As the cold swept through Victoria, Texas, on Monday morning, temperatures fell from about 70 degrees to 48 degrees in less than half an hour, or almost a degree a minute.

In Mississippi, the temperature in Hattiesburg was 72 degrees at the same time that the temperature in Oxford — more than 200 miles north — was 32 degrees.

By Tuesday morning, single-digit lows are expected as for eastern states north of the Appalachian Mountains, and as far south as Missouri and Kentucky.

California, as per usual, is expected to remain warm and dry, with no rain to help alleviate the drought.

Photo: A pedestrian crosses Main Street as heavy snow falls  across central Kentucky on Monday, Feb. 15, 2015 in Lexington, Ky. (Mark Cornelison/Lexington Herald-Leader/TNS)

Millions In Northeast U.S. Buckle Down For Monster Snowstorm

Millions In Northeast U.S. Buckle Down For Monster Snowstorm

New York (AFP) – Tens of millions of Americans along the northeast coast buckled down Tuesday for another day of a monstrous snowstorm that has shut down New York and other major cities.

As dawn approached, the accumulation seemed lighter than originally forecast in some areas, news reports said. But wind-whipped snow was still coming down steadily and the storm was forecast to last well into the day.

The hassle associated with the bruiser of a storm, the first of the winter season, piled up faster than the snow.

Thousands of flights were cancelled for Monday and Tuesday, and authorities ordered drivers off the streets in New York and Boston. Public transport closed early, and until further notice.

Broadway shows and NBA games were cancelled on Monday, with streets blanketed in white and largely deserted.

States of emergency were declared in seven states.

Forecasters had warned the snow could reach historic proportions, dumping up to three feet (up to a metre) of snow in some areas.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said it would “most likely be one of the largest blizzards in the history of New York City.”

But the National Weather Service said that as of 1:00 am, just over six inches had fallen in Central Park.

And in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which includes Boston, the accumulation was just 2.3 inches.

More than 7,100 flights were cancelled on Monday and Tuesday.

Manhattan was abandoned by panicked commuters rushing home early, leaving behind eerily quiet snowy streets.

On Monday night New York shut its transit system at 11:00 pm, made non-emergency road travel a criminal offense in 13 counties and closed tunnels and bridges connecting Manhattan to New Jersey.

“It could be a matter of life and death, and that’s not being overly dramatic, so caution is required,” New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo warned.

In the middle of the night CNN broadcast footage of New York’s Times Square empty but for snow plows and the odd pedestrian. Up and down the city’s broad avenues, traffic lights were red, one after another.

In New York City, the subway last closed for Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which killed more than 200 people and caused months-long power cuts.

With New England expected to be the worst affected by the “nor’easter,” public transit was also shut in Boston, as authorities implored residents used to winter storms to stay off the roads.

“Whiteout conditions and treacherous roads will make driving anywhere extremely dangerous,” Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker said as he declared a state of emergency at mid-day. “I can’t stress this part enough: Please stay off the roads.”

States of emergency were declared in states across the affected region as residents rushed to supermarkets to stockpile food.

“I have nothing to eat, I need some food. Who knows if tomorrow I’m going to leave my house,” said boutique worker Rosa Ramirez, queueing outside an upmarket Whole Foods store in Manhattan.

“What I do not know is how long I’ll have to wait,” she said, as snow and icy wind gusted through the queue of shoppers.

The snow was combined with winds of up to 70 miles an hour.

As well as blizzard warnings, flood warnings are also in effect, with officials fearing power outages and falling trees.

Cuomo called out several hundred National Guard for New York and Long Island, which juts out into the Atlantic.

Those caught out on the roads after the cut-off point would be liable for fines, Cuomo said.

Officials said virtually all flights at New York’s LaGuardia airport would be cancelled Tuesday and that John F. Kennedy International Airport would also see significant cancellations.

Boston’s Logan international airport will see no flights from Monday evening until Wednesday afternoon.

Weather reports indicated snowfall would likely fall short, however, of the city’s record 26.9 inches following a 16-hour storm in February 2006.

Schools will be closed on Tuesday and scheduled examinations cancelled.

The United Nations closed its headquarters early and was to remain shut, forcing the cancellation on Tuesday of an important event to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust.

AFP Photo/Jewel Samad

California Storm: Crews Work To Clear 4 Walls Of Mud That Cut Off Town

California Storm: Crews Work To Clear 4 Walls Of Mud That Cut Off Town

By Joseph Serna, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Hundreds of residents in Forest Falls in San Bernardino County remained stranded Monday morning as crews worked to clear the last of four mud walls caused by flash floods over the weekend that cut the town off.

“It’s like somebody threw a huge mud ball on the town and it’s just sitting there,” said San Bernardino County firefighter Ryan Beckers. “It’s one road in, one road out.”

On Sunday, a storm that hovered over Mount Baldy, Forest Falls, and a few other communities managed to pour several inches of rain onto the area, triggering mudslides and overflowing creeks and washes that sent campers and locals running for higher ground.

In Forest Falls, mudslides as high as 10 feet cut across Valley of the Falls Drive, which connects the town to Highway 38. Even when rain doesn’t fall directly onto the secluded town, its placement next to a creek and at the foot of three mountain peaks makes it susceptible to floods and slides, Beckers said.

Dozens of homes sustained damage, mostly from water and mud, but determining the severity of the damage to each home and final costs to the community could be days away, officials said.

In the history of floods to the area, “this was one of the bigger ones,” Beckers said.

At least one car was overturned, but no one was inside. Several power poles were tipped over and put slack into power lines, forcing utility workers to cut power to the lines so cleanup crews could clear the debris.

In terms of the potential for disaster, Beckers said they counted the community’s response to Sunday’s downpour a success. Locals were mostly prepared and camp employees kept visitors from panicking, he said.

Still, the flash flooding killed one person on Mount Baldy when his vehicle spilled off a mountain road and into a creek. The man was identified Monday as 48-year-old Joo Hwan Lee of El Segundo, Calif.

On Monday, crews were sweeping through the mountain communities to assess the damage. At Mount Baldy, one home suffered major damage and four sustained moderate damage, said San Bernardino County firefighter Chris Prater.

Several propane tanks were also dislodged and leaked fuel but were contained before any significant incident occurred, Prater said.

The thunderstorm system was expected to move out and into Central and Northern California on Monday, bringing with it the threat of lightning, which has been blamed for sparking dozens of destructive wildfires in recent weeks.

Photo via WikiCommons

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