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Tag: natural disasters
Louisiana Flood: Obama To Tour Area To Assess Damage

Louisiana Flood: Obama To Tour Area To Assess Damage

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will visit Louisiana on Tuesday to assess flood damage there, days after he was criticized for not cutting short his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard to view the devastation in the Gulf Coast state.

Obama, who returned on Sunday from his annual August vacation on the Massachusetts island, is expected to tour areas in the state capital, Baton Rouge, hit by record flooding and to meet with Louisiana officials to discuss recovery efforts.

The White House on Monday defended the president’s decision not to visit the state sooner, saying Obama was more focused on the federal response to the crisis than securing photo opportunities.

“There’s an all too common temptation to focus on the politics and to focus on the optics,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told a news briefing. “But the survivors of the flooding in Louisiana are not well served by a political discussion, they’re well served by a competent, effective, strong, coordinated government response.”

The deluge that dumped more than 2-1/2 feet (76 cm) of rain on parts of Louisiana has been described as the worst U.S. disaster since Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The floods have killed at least 13 people and damaged more than 60,000 homes.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump toured the state on Friday. He said Obama should have taken time from his break to travel to Louisiana.

On social media, some Louisiana residents and others urged Obama to visit, and Baton Rouge’s newspaper, The Advocate, voiced a similar view.

Obama received updates on the flooding during his vacation from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate, who have both visited Louisiana.

The president’s travel requires a huge retinue of Secret Service agents and assistance from local and state law enforcement officials, so the White House usually waits to visit disaster zones to avoid tying up police and emergency resources needed elsewhere.

Despite the criticism about the timing of Obama‘s visit, Earnest said FEMA had received bipartisan praise for its work in the aftermath of the flooding, unlike the criticism the agency faced following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 under then-President George W. Bush.

“I think the effectiveness of the response thus far speaks for itself,” Earnest said. “And I think frankly, it’s the most effective way to answer any of the politically motivated criticism that the president has faced.”

(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama holds a news conference at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S. August 4, 2016.  REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Storms Snarl U.S Travel, Threaten Rare Winter Tornadoes

Storms Snarl U.S Travel, Threaten Rare Winter Tornadoes

By Mary Wisniewski

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Snow, sleet and hail snarled transportation in large parts of the United States on Monday during one of the busiest travel times of the year, after dozens died in U.S. storms that were just some of the wild weather seen worldwide over the Christmas holiday period.

More than 40 people were killed by tornadoes and floods during the holiday season in the United States, where rare winter tornado warnings were issued in Alabama on Monday.

Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle were expected to bear the brunt of the of the day’s strongest storms, said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Michael Leseney.

As of about 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT), more than 1,940 U.S. flights had been canceled on Monday, according to FlightAware.com, while another 2,790 delays were reported. Chicago-area airports were worst hit with hundreds of flights canceled as the city was swept by sleet and hail.

More than a foot (30 cm) of snow was forecast for southwestern Wisconsin and southeastern Minnesota, and snow was also falling in Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri.

A flash flood warning was in effect in eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois, the National Weather Service said. Thirteen people died in flash floods in those two states during the weekend.

The U.S. storms came as other countries struggled with extreme weather and stressed holiday infrastructure.

In Britain, hundreds of troops were deployed and a government agency said a “complete rethink” of flood defenses was needed after swathes of northern England were inundated by rivers that burst their banks.

Severe weather also hit parts of Australia, where more than 100 homes were lost in Christmas Day brushfires.

Then on Sunday a freight train carrying sulphuric acid derailed in the Outback, and a Queensland Rail spokeswoman told local media that floods had stopped crews reaching the scene. (Video here)

‘RIPPED OUR WORLD APART’

The bad U.S. weather caused two candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, to cancel campaign events in Iowa.

Winter storms that brought ice and high winds to Oklahoma downed power lines and 54,000 customers were without power on Monday in Oklahoma City and surrounding areas, Oklahoma Gas & Electric said. Local news reports said there were 100,000 without power across the state.

Operators of the Kerr and Pensacola dams, about 160 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, warned they would have to release large amounts of water due to the storm and area residents might be forced to evacuate their homes.

Six tornadoes were reported on Sunday – three in Arkansas, one in Texas, and two in Mississippi.

Texas was cleaning up from weekend tornadoes that killed at least 11 people in the Dallas area and damaged about 1,600 structures and homes. One twister in the city of Garland had winds of up to 200 miles per hour (322 km per hour) and killed eight people, including a 30-year-old woman and her year-old son.

“We are very blessed that we didn’t have more injuries and more fatalities,” Garland’s Mayor Douglas Athas told CNN.

In the Dallas suburbs of Garland and Rowlett, which were devastated by tornadoes on Saturday, many residents turned to social media to tell stories of survival and to ask for help finding lost pets.

Briana Landrum posted a photo of her living room couch surrounded by wreckage where her house once stood in Rowlett. Her two cats are missing, she wrote, and the freezing rain has made searching for her “sweet babies” difficult.

“All I remember is the windows all shattering and insulation went everywhere,” she wrote. “The roof fell on us one second and the next, it was gone … The tornado ripped our world apart.”Ten deaths and 58 injuries were reported in Mississippi from the Christmas holiday storms, Governor Phil Bryant said at a news conference. Hundreds of homes were damaged.

In flooded southern Missouri, dozens of adults and children forced from their homes took refuge at Red Cross shelters.

Red Cross spokeswoman Julie Stolting said there was no telling when they might be able to return home. “But we’re feeding them, we’re sheltering them, we’re providing health services,” she said.

Some roads still were closed in New Mexico, where storms on Sunday dumped as much as 18 inches of snow on eastern parts of the state. Highways with difficult driving conditions included interstate highways 25 and 10.

(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago, Heide Brandes in Oklahoma City, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida, Lisa Maria Garza in Dallas, Laila Kearney in New York, Sara Catania in Los Angeles, and Emily Stephenson; Writing by Mary Wisniewski and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Bill Trott)

Photo: A sign sits underwater located in the downtown area of Elba, Alabama, December 26, 2015. REUTERS/Marvin Gentry

Eastern U.S. Sees Warm Christmas, Winter Storm Looms For Plains

Eastern U.S. Sees Warm Christmas, Winter Storm Looms For Plains

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – Much of the U.S. East Coast could see record high temperatures on Christmas Day and through the weekend even as a major winter storm looms for the southern Great Plains, forecasters said on Friday.

Temperatures are forecast to be more than 20 degrees above normal for the East Coast on Christmas Day, the National Weather Service said. Record highs were shattered on Thursday across the region, with Washington hitting 71 degrees Fahrenheit (21.7 Celsius) and New York topping out at 72 F (22.2 C).

Above-average temperatures will linger for the eastern United States through the weekend, with rain across the area raising the possibility of flash floods.

But in the western United States, winter was coming out in full force.

A storm system is expected to strengthen on Saturday and surge across the Rockies into the southern Great Plains, said lead forecaster Bob Oravec in College Park, Maryland.

“It’s going to be a pretty big, high-impact event coming up over the next few days,” he said.

An area from New Mexico to Oklahoma is under a blizzard and winter storm watch, with snow up to 2 feet (61 cm) possible for parts of New Mexico and northern Texas. Severe storms and heavy rain are possible in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

And in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains a winter storm dumped 2 feet (61 cm) of snow Thursday and Friday on Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly Mountain Resort, according to an online tally for the getaway spot. Snow was still falling on Friday.

Facing delays stemming in part from severe weather this week, package delivery company FedEx Corp said it was manning customer counters with volunteers on Christmas Day.

“FedEx is doing everything possible to get customer shipments delivered by Christmas,” FedEx, which is based in Memphis, Tennessee, said in a statement.

A storm system on Wednesday spawned tornadoes that killed at least 14 people in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. A spokesman for the Mississippi emergency agency said one person was still missing.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; and Leslie Adler)

Photo: Young boys play in a park during an unusually warm winter day in Brooklyn, New York December 15, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

 

Southern U.S. States Clean Up After Storms Kill At Least 10

Southern U.S. States Clean Up After Storms Kill At Least 10

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – Southern U.S. states began digging out on Thursday after severe storms including some 20 tornadoes pounded the region, flattening homes, downing trees and killing at least 10 people.

With about 100 million Americans expected to travel over the Christmas holidays, the National Weather Service forecast isolated severe thunderstorms from the mid-Atlantic region to the Gulf Coast and record warmth to New York.

The storm system on Wednesday packed high winds and triggered more than 20 tornadoes in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, authorities said.

A large tornado tore a 100-mile (160-km) path through northern Mississippi, demolishing or heavily damaging dozens of homes and other buildings in a six-county area before plowing into western Tennessee, authorities said.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency for seven of the state’s counties.

“This could have been a lot worse. We’re just praying everybody can have a recovery,” Kelvin Buck, the mayor of Holly Springs, Mississippi, told CNN.

He said he was out assessing the damage and emergency workers were looking for any other victims from the tornado, which killed a 7-year-old boy in the area.

A spokesman for the Mississippi Highway Patrol told CNN that six people were killed in the state and 40 were injured. Three people died in Tennessee and one in Arkansas, according to authorities.

Thirteen counties in Tennessee reported damage, with a post office destroyed and a state highway washed out. Up to 15 homes were damaged in McNairy County, the state emergency management office said.

Emergency crews in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee were searching for several people reported missing.

Scores of people were injured in the region.

An 18-year-old Arkansas woman died and a toddler was injured when a tree crashed into a house after being uprooted by powerful winds, according to emergency officials.

In Michigan and Wisconsin, about 15,000 homes and businesses were without electricity after winds reaching 50 miles per hour (80 km per hour) downed power lines. The National Weather Service issued a gale force wind warning for Lake Michigan, where waves could reach 15 feet (4.6 meters).

The storms on Wednesday snarled holiday travel plans in Florida, and the American Automobile Association predicted 100 million Americans were expected to travel during the holiday period beginning on Wednesday, 91 million of them by car.

(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere and Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Jason Neely, Jeffrey Benkoe and Paul Simao)

Photographed through raindrops on a window, a worker makes his way toward a plane parked at Reagan National Airport in Washington December 23, 2015.  REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque