Britain on Monday grappled with the fallout from Storm Dennis, with several major incidents declared due to flooding and hundreds of warnings still in place after it battered the country over the weekend.
The second severe storm in a week to hit Britain brought high winds of more than 90 miles (140 kilometres) an hour and more than a month's worth of rain in 48 hours in some places, leading officials to issue rare "danger to life" warnings.
The storm also pummelled much of France, with some 20,000 people still without electricity on Monday after suffering power cuts in the northwest of the country and rail traffic disrupted.
"This is not yet over," warned James Bevan, chief executive of the Environment Agency, which is responsible for flood protection in England.
"We still have many flood warnings in force and we may still see significant flooding in the middle of this week from larger rivers," he told BBC radio.
Bevan said more than 400 homes in England had been flooded while at least 1,000 agency staff were working around the clock alongside emergency officials "to protect and support those communities which have been hit".
- Major incidents declared -
More than 600 warnings and alerts -- a record number -- were issued on Sunday, extending from the River Tweed on the border of England and Scotland, to Cornwall in southwest England.
After a day of torrential rain, major flooding incidents were later declared in south Wales and parts of western England.
Some five "severe" warnings -- denoting lives could be endangered by the flooding -- remained active Monday on two rivers in Worcestershire and Herefordshire in west central England.
Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue service on Sunday airlifted to hospital one man pulled from the River Teme, who was in a stable condition on Monday.
But emergency responders suspended the search overnight for a missing woman also swept away by the floodwater near the town of flood-prone town of Tenbury, according to police.
"The search has continued this morning, including the use of the police helicopter," said Chief Superintendent Tom Harding, from West Mercia Police.
"Sadly, however, due to the circumstances of the length of time in the water and other conditions we believe that this will now be a recovery rather than rescue operation."
Two rivers in south Wales burst their banks, prompting rescue workers to launch operations in several places to evacuate people and their pets trapped in their homes.
Police said a man in his 60s died after entering the River Tawe, north of the Welsh city of Swansea but later clarified that the death was not "linked to the adverse weather".
On Saturday, the coastguard said the bodies of two men were pulled from rough seas off the south coast of England as the storm barrelled in.
One is thought to have been the subject of a search triggered when a tanker reported that one of its crew was unaccounted for.
- 'More extreme' -
In northern England, the defence ministry deployed troops in West Yorkshire, which suffered badly from flooding caused by last weekend's Storm Ciara.
There are fears rivers there could burst their banks later on Monday.
Newly appointed environment secretary George Eustice said the government had done "everything that we can do with a significant sum of money" to combat increased flooding.
"We'll never be able to protect every single household just because of the nature of climate change and the fact that these weather events are becoming more extreme."
France was also affected by the storm, especially northwestern Brittany where the Finistere and Morbihan regions were temporarily placed on orange alert for rain and flooding, according to the national weather service Meteo-France.
Electricity provider Enedis said it had deployed 450 staff to restore power to 30,000 homes in Brittany. Power cuts also hit parts of northern and central France.
The storm interrupted two high-speed TGV train services, one stopped by a fallen tree and the other by a power failure, the national rail company SNCF said.
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PEYREHORADE, France - Two pensioners have been killed and tens of thousands of homes left without electricity as gale force winds and flooding hit southwestern France.
Eleven departments remained on orange alert weather warnings late Saturday.
A 70-year-old man died in the Pyrenees-Atlantique in the Basque Country on Friday when his vehicle struck a fallen tree.
In Espiens in the Lot-et-Garonne region a 76-year-old man was swept away by rising waters when he went out to fetch his mail on Friday.
Rescuers found his body 24 hours later more than a kilometer from his home.
Five other people were injured, two seriously, when trees fell on their vehicles.
As many as 40,000 homes were without power on Saturday afternoon and some 15,000 remained so by the evening, electricity utility operator Enedis told AFP.
A company spokesperson added some 2,000 technicians had been deployed to restore power to those customers, urging people to call a dedicated hotline if they saw power lines had come down.
Overnight, some 400,000 homes had suffered power outages as floods inundated parts of the region with waters rising to up to nearly nine feet (2.7 meters) and by 30 centimeters per hour in some areas.
Flooding and landslides cut off access to the skiing stations of Gourette and Artouste, while the distribution of drinkable water in the commune of Laruns was interrupted.
In the nearby Landes department, about 600 people were evacuated on Friday as a preventive measure in areas where the Gaves de Pau and Oloron rivers converge.
"We are getting used to this now," a weary pensioner who gave his name as Christian told AFP.
"We put everything on the upper levels, and we clear out everything from the garage," he said.
But water levels were slowly falling in the area, local rescue force commander Olivier Loustau told AFP, and clean-up operations would probably start Sunday.
The Alps, where weather services had warned of heightened avalanche risk, were earlier downgraded from the orange alert level, as was upper Corsica where winds had been packing speeds of up to 150 km/h.
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MOUSOUNI ISLAND, India - Cyclone Bulbul hit India on Saturday, leaving at least two dead as authorities in the country and in neighboring Bangladesh ordered hundreds of thousands of people to get out of the path of the storm as it gained power.
The eye of the storm, packing winds of up to 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour, was expected to hit the Bay of Bengal coast late Saturday near the Bangladesh-India frontier.
Airports and ports were shut down and the deaths were reported before the full force of the cyclone had hit. One person was killed by an uprooted tree in Kolkata and another by a wall that collapsed under the force of the winds in Odisha state, authorities said.
More than 60,000 people were moved away from the coast on the Indian side of the border while the Bangladesh government said 400,000 were evacuated.
Bangladeshi troops were sent to some villages, while about 55,000 volunteers went door-to-door and making loudspeaker announcements in the streets to get people away from the danger zone in villages, many of which were below sea level.
A storm surge up to two meters (seven feet) high was predicted along the coast, Bangladesh's Meteorological Department said.
About 1,500 tourists were stranded on the southern island of Saint Martin after boat services were suspended due to bad weather.
Bangladesh's two biggest ports, Mongla and Chittagong, were closed because of the storm, and flights into Chittagong airport were halted.
Flights suspended
In India, flights in and out of Kolkata airport were suspended for 12 hours because of the storm.
On the West Bengal island of Mousouni, which lies in the path of the storm, frightened residents took shelter in schools and government buildings because they had not been able to escape.
Military planes and ships have been put on standby to help in emergencies, Indian authorities said.
Bulbul was expected to hit the coast at the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, which straddles Bangladesh and part of eastern India, and is home to endangered species including the Bengal tiger.
Bangladesh's low-lying coast, home to 30 million people, is regularly battered by cyclones that leave a trail of destruction.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in cyclones in recent decades.
While the frequency and intensity have increased, partly due to climate change, the death tolls have come down because of faster evacuations and the building of 4,000 cyclone shelters along the coast.
In November 2007, Cyclone Sidr killed more than 3,000 people. In May this year, Fani became the most powerful storm to hit the country in five years, but the death toll was about 12.
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DHAKA, Bangladesh - Bangladesh authorities have evacuated around 100,000 people from the country's low-lying coastal villages and islands, with Cyclone Bulbul set to slam into the country later on Saturday, officials said.
The Meteorological Department has asked local authorities and two ports to raise their highest alert, as the cyclone is expected to unleash a storm surge as high as two meters in coastal districts.
Bulbul, packing a maximum wind speed of 120 kilometers per hour, is on course to make landfall near the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, which straddles Bangladesh and part of eastern India and is home to the endangered Bengal tigers.
The cyclone is expected to hit the Bangladesh coast at around 8 p.m. (1400 GMT), disaster management secretary Shah Kamal told AFP, adding there are plans to evacuate some 1.5 million people before that.
Authorities have suspended a nationwide school test, cancelled the holidays of officials posted in coastal districts and called off a traditional fair that draws tens of thousands of people in the Sundarbans.
Operations at the country's two major ports -- Mongla and Chittagong -- have been suspended, Kamal said.
Some 55,000 volunteers have been mobilized to go door to door and alert people about the storm.
Bangladesh's low-lying coast, home to 30 million people, is regularly battered by powerful cyclones that leave a trail of devastation in their wake.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed over the last few decades in cyclones, whose frequency and intensity have increased.
Bangladesh has, however, improved its preparedness in recent years, cutting the number casualties since Cyclone Sidr killed more than 3,000 people in 2007.
In May this year, Fani became the most powerful storm to hit the country in five years, but just over a dozen people were killed.
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HOUSTON - Authorities reported the first death linked to Tropical Storm Imelda, which dumped torrential rains over the Houston-area, while rescuers in boats pulled hundreds of people from flooded cars, the city's airport temporarily halted flights and tens of thousands of people lost power on Thursday.
By late afternoon, the rains had mostly abated but officials warned millions of people in the area to stay put and not move, as it would take several hours for floodwaters to drain off.
"If you're at school, stay at school. If you're at home, stay at home. If you're at work, stay at work," said Lina Hidalgo, the Harris County judge, at a press conference as she declared a state of emergency for the Houston area. "Right now, it's about life safety."
One man southeast of Houston was electrocuted while trying to move his horse to safety, according to a statement on the Facebook page of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. No other details were provided.
George Bush Intercontinental Airport halted all flights for about two hours due to the storm, and Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster for over a dozen counties.
Hundreds of motorists were stranded in their vehicles as some of Houston's main roadways flooded, submerging cars. Firefighters, police and ordinary citizens were out in boats and all-terrain vehicles to pick up people trapped in their homes by the rising waters.
The storm knocked out power to around 100,000 people in Houston and southeast Texas, according to reports from energy companies, while work at oil refineries in the area was slowed or halted.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the city was better prepared to rescue stranded residents and deal with flooding than when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017, leading to dozens of deaths in Houston and billions of dollars in damage.
The small town of Winnie, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Houston, was badly hit. Officials there evacuated Riceland Hospital and tried to rescue people marooned in their vehicles after roads turned into lakes.
Parts of Interstate 10, a major east-west highway, were closed near Winnie.
Imelda made landfall as a tropical storm near Freeport, Texas on Tuesday. - with reports from JV Villar, ABS-CBN News
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KITTY HAWK, N.C. - Hurricane Dorian briefly made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina on Friday, hitting the beach-fringed barrier islands with powerful winds and battering waves days after reducing parts of the Bahamas to rubble.
The storm made landfall at Cape Hatteras at about 9 a.m. (1300 GMT) with maximum sustained winds of 150 kilometers per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. That was far weaker than its slow, deadly tour through the Bahamas earlier in the week that caused at least 43 deaths, according to news media accounts late Friday, and likely many more.
By late afternoon, Dorian was moving away from the mid-Atlantic states and headed towards Canada where it was expected to bring hurricane-force winds to parts of Nova Scotia by Saturday evening, the National Hurricane Center said.
The storm surge inundated the Outer Banks' Ocracoke Island, cutting off power and submerging many homes and buildings, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told reporters.
Floodwaters came halfway up to kitchen countertops and battered fences and boardwalks, according to images on social media. One island resident uploaded a video on social media showing people driving a speedboat down a flooded street.
"We estimate about 800 people remained on the island during the storm and have heard reports from residents who say the flooding there was catastrophic," Cooper said. "We're thankful not to have reports of serious injury or death since the storm arrived."
One resident in need of immediate medical attention was airlifted off Ocracoke, and helicopters will fly in food and water, the governor added.
The Outer Banks are a picturesque series of narrow islands known for their beaches, lighthouses and natural beauty.
The Kitty Hawk area, on the northern end of the Outer Banks, emerged from the storm with little damage. Many houses near the ocean lost power on Friday, but houses on higher ground continued to have power and cable television.
MASSACHUSETTS ISLANDS
Stacy and Ryan Marshall said their home, which is not on the oceanfront, came through unscathed. They drove to the beach on Friday afternoon to view the storm surge. "We got lucky, just lost a couple of boards on the fence," Stacy Marshall said.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster held a news conference with smiling officials, saying that the storm had not been as bad as had been feared and floodwaters had ebbed in coastal areas.
Dorian is expected to bring tropical storm winds to Nantucket Island and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts early on Saturday.
But it will likely spare much of the East Coast the worst of its rain and wind before making landfall in Canada's Nova Scotia that night, the hurricane center said.
The damage was far less severe than in the Bahamas, where at least 70,000 people were in need of immediate humanitarian relief after Dorian became the most damaging storm ever to hit the island nation.
Of at least four storm-related deaths reported in the United States, three were in Orange County, Florida, during storm preparations or evacuation, the mayor's office said. In North Carolina, an 85-year-old man fell off a ladder while barricading his home for Dorian, the governor said.
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An aerial view shows devastation after Hurricane Dorian hit the Abaco Islands in the Bahamas on Tuesday in this image obtained via social media. Dorian left at least 7 people killed and destroyed 13,000 homes, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
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The links between hurricanes and climate change are complex, but some aspects are getting clearer.
Tropical storms draw their energy from ocean heat — and more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions is being stored in the ocean. Storms that survive the cradle of formation can intensify quickly and become immensely powerful.
While it is common to hear the question, “Was it caused by climate change?” scientists argue that this is an unhelpful way to look at the issue. As Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, put it recently on Twitter, “that’s the wrong question. The right one is, ‘how much worse did climate change make it?’ ”
Like so many hurricanes, Dorian’s origins were unassuming. At 11 a.m. Aug. 24, the National Hurricane Center in Miami announced a new tropical depression east-southeast of the Lesser Antilles. At the time, it was just Tropical Depression Five.
Now, as that same storm slowly moves away from the Bahamas — which experienced a nightmare scenario of a Category 5 storm stalling over it for 24 hours — it begins its slow roll toward the East Coast of the United States.
A number of recent storms have stopped in one place for extended periods of time, including Harvey, which sat over Houston for days in 2017 and caused unprecedented flooding.
Recent research suggests that climate change has made stalled Atlantic storms more common since the mid-20th century and that they are more dangerous because they stay in one place for a longer period of time, potentially concentrating their destruction.
Jennifer Francis, a scientist with the Woods Hole Research Center, said, “This is yet another example of the kind of slow-moving tropical systems that we expect to see more often as a response to climate change. Upper-level steering winds are slowing over the continents during summer, so stalling weather systems are more likely.”
Hurricanes are steered in part by high-atmosphere winds not directly related to the storm. Dorian slowed to a crawl — about 1 mph — because the tropical winds that were pushing it westward over the Bahamas weakened, said Joel Cline, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Climate change is making hurricanes more destructive in many ways.
Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, said that some of the links between hurricanes and climate change are still being worked out. But, he said, some attributes of storms, particularly the increasing amount of rainfall associated with many of them, has reached a very strong consensus.
A similarly solid consensus has developed about storms getting stronger. There is somewhat less consensus, he said, around the idea that storms are likelier to stall.
The problem with looking for answers in individual storms, he said, is that “because these are rare events, it’s really hard to get good statistics. Picking out trends is difficult.” And so the field draws conclusions from physics and models, and “physics rules the system.”
One of the other characteristics of Dorian: Its course has, at times, been difficult to forecast. Gabriel Vecchi, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University, said that forecasts of the storm’s path have actually been “in relative agreement” but that people find the remaining degree of uncertainty unsatisfying. “The problem is our standards have gotten so high because the forecasts have gotten so good,” he said.
Cline said that over the previous two days, Dorian’s track had more closely matched the forecasts. As it travels up the East Coast the storm’s behavior may become even more predictable, he said, as it encounters the typical west-to-east wind flow that defines most of the weather in the mid-Atlantic region. That should drive Dorian increasingly to the northeast, he said.
Vecchi warned against trying to attribute too many elements of an individual storm to climate change right away, however, because attribution science has so far been most successful in terms of rainfall. He cautioned against saying that every intense storm was made more powerful because of global warming because “there have been intense storms in the past.”
Instead, he put it this way: Dorian “looks like what we’re going to have more of in the future.”
2019 The New York Times Company
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TOKYO - A powerful tropical storm lashed Japan Thursday, bringing strong winds and torrential rain that prompted warnings of landslides and flooding, and sparked evacuation advisories and travel chaos at a peak holiday period.
Severe Tropical Storm Krosa -- one notch below a typhoon -- was churning slowly just off the southwestern coast of Japan, packing wind gusts of up to 160 kilometers per hour.
Authorities issued a voluntary evacuation advisory to around 550,000 people in the storm's path and Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency said four people had sustained minor injuries with one person more seriously hurt.
The agency also said that a party of 18 people including children got stranded during a barbecue in a valley when the river rose rapidly. They have since been evacuated to higher ground and should be rescued later Thursday.
Krosa also sparked travel chaos as people returned to major cities following the Obon holiday.
More than 600 domestic flights were cancelled to and from cities in western Japan and bullet train services were either scrapped or sharply reduced.
Ferries connecting the southern Shikoku island and other parts of Japan were also cancelled as high waves lashed the coast.
Krosa weakened significantly from earlier in the week as it stalled in the Pacific Ocean but it boasts an unusually large eye, meaning it is likely to dump rain over a wide area.
It is also moving very slowly -- 20 kilometers per hour -- so the rain is expected to last for an extended period.
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SHANGHAI -- Thousands of people have been stranded and at least 5 killed as torrential rain pounded central and southern China, with authorities bracing themselves for at least another 4 days of downpours, state media reported on Tuesday.
The official China Daily said floods had wiped out 10,800 hectares of crops and destroyed hundreds of houses in the Jiangxi province by Monday, with a total of 1.4 million people affected and direct economic losses amounting to 2.65 billion yuan ($382.41 million).
In the region of Guangxi in the southwest, 20,000 households had their power cut and roads, bridges and other infrastructure were severely damaged, the China Daily said.
Rainfall in Jiangxi reached as much as 688 millimeters (27 inches), according to a notice by China's meteorological administration. It said rain in parts of Jiangxi and Hunan had hit record highs for June.
The administration said rainstorms were expected to spread to Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan and Taiwan by Thursday. It also warned authorities to be on their guard against severe thunderstorms and the possibility of small rivers bursting their banks in coming days.
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LOS ANGELES - As the US Midwest and East Coast thawed out from days of bitter, deadly cold, Californians on Friday battened down the hatches ahead of a fierce winter storm carrying heavy rains and high winds that could touch off urban flooding and mudslides.
Though the sun was out in Los Angeles on Friday afternoon and temperatures hovered in the low 60s Fahrenheit, the National Weather Service (NWS) said rain would begin to fall later in the evening and continue without let-up through Saturday night.
"This is a very big storm coming through Southern California" from the eastern Pacific Ocean, said National Weather Service meteorologist Rich Thompson.
The NWS predicted up to 3 inches of rain in coastal and valley areas with 7 to 8 inches forecast for mountain areas. Central and Northern California were also expected to be hit by rain and high winds.
Thompson said the weather service was not expecting the rain to be significant and sustained enough to cause widespread, damaging mudslides in areas left blackened and denuded of trees by major California wildfires late last year.
"There might be the potential for minor mud and debris flows. Traffic accidents, urban flooding. Things like that," he said, adding that trees could fall amid high winds and saturated soil and that coastal waters could be dangerous for boaters.
Winter storm watches were issued for the areas damaged by wildfires, including the foothills above the post seaside community of Malibu left blackened by the Woolsey Fire in November.
An Arctic air mass sent south by a disruption in the polar vortex jet stream brought bone-chilling cold to a large swath of the United States this week, causing more than a dozen deaths, closing schools and halting mail service.
The cold eased on Friday as the jet stream retreated, with temperatures forecast into the mid-40s to low 50s Fahrenheit through the weekend and Monday.
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ROME - The death toll from fierce storms battering Italy has risen to nine, civil protection authorities said Tuesday, as wild weather caused schools to close and trapped dozens of tourists in the north of the country.
With ferocious storms lashing the country, winds reached up to 180 kilometers an hour (110 mph) in some areas, toppling trees and causing flooding.
Five people were confirmed dead on Monday.
In addition, authorities Tuesday reported a woman died when her home was engulfed by a mudslide and rocks in the northern region of Trentino, a man was killed in the northeastern region of Veneto when by a falling tree, and a firefighter died during relief operations in South Tyrol.
Elsewhere, a man was killed while kitesurfing on Monday afternoon near the town of Cattolica on the Adriatic coast, with the local press saying strong winds had blown his board into the rocks.
A man is also missing at sea off Calabria in the southwest, after his boat was discovered empty washed up on the rocks along the coast.
Italian media have also reported that around 170 people, tourists and hotel staff, were stranded by heavy snowfall at the Stelvio Pass on the Swiss border.
In the northern, canal-ringed city of Venice, rain-soaked tourists were barred from St. Mark's Square on Monday as local authorities said the "acqua alta" (high water) peaked at 156 centimeters (61 inches).
The waters have only topped 150 centimeters five times before in recorded history.
Genoa's airport is set to remain closed until 1300 GMT as authorities clear the runways of detritus carried by the heavy rains, wind and tides.
Schools in the city are also closed for the day, with Rome and several other regions also halting classes due to the weather.
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MEXICO CITY - Hurricane Willa strengthened to a rare category 5 storm on Monday as it barreled toward tourist spots on Mexico's Pacific coast, with landfall expected on Tuesday afternoon or evening, the US National Hurricane Center said.
On Monday morning, Willa had maximum sustained winds of near 160 miles per hour (260 kph), with higher gusts, the Miami-based hurricane center said. It was about 135 miles southwest of the Pacific town of Cabo Corrientes.
"Willa is expected to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the coast of Mexico," the NHC said.
Category 5 is the top level of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane and wind scale.
Willa is expected to produce an extremely dangerous storm surge, pushing ocean water into portions of the coast by Tuesday.
The hurricane center said Willa was expected to strike near Mazatlan, a popular beach resort, and several other local tourist destinations also are in the storm's path.
The storm could strengthen throughout Monday but is expected to weaken slightly on Tuesday.
Willa is expected to douse coastal states Jalisco, Nayarit and Sinaloa with 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 cm) of rain, likely triggering flash floods and landslides, the NHC said. Some areas may see as much as 18 inches (45 cm) of rainfall.
Nearly three years ago to the day, Hurricane Patricia, one of the most powerful storms on record, struck Mexico's Pacific coast with winds that tore down trees, moved cars and forced thousands of people to flee homes.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Vicente, with maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour (72 kph), was churning some 365 miles (590 km) southeast of Manzanillo. The storm is expected to approach the southwestern coast of Mexico on Tuesday.
While Vicente is expected to weaken to a tropical depression by Monday night or Tuesday, it could produce major rainfall and the risk of flash floods and landslides, the NHC said.
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PANAMA - Hurricane Michael intensified Tuesday as it barreled toward the Florida coast, becoming a category 3 major storm as the governor of the southern US state warned residents to prepare immediately for a "monstrous" hit.
Michael was now packing winds of 120 miles per hour (195 kilometers per hour) as it aimed for the Florida panhandle, the finger-shaped strip of land on the Gulf of Mexico.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the storm was expected to make landfall on Wednesday afternoon, bringing hurricane force winds, a "life-threatening storm surge" and heavy rainfall.
"Hurricane Michael is a monstrous storm and the forecast keeps getting more dangerous," said Florida Governor Rick Scott, who has activated 2,500 members of the National Guard in response. "The time to prepare is now.
"Hurricane Michael poses a deadly threat," Scott said, warning that it could be the "most destructive storm to hit the Florida panhandle in decades."
Panama City Beach fire department chief Larry Couch urged residents to evacuate.
"If they decide to stay, there will be a point where we can't get to them," Couch said. "We will shut down operations at a certain point and when we do that, they're on their own.
"Be safe and leave," he said.
President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration for the state, freeing up federal funds for relief operations and providing the assistance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
"It is imperative that you heed the directions of your State and Local Officials. Please be prepared, be careful and be SAFE!" Trump tweeted.
State officials also issued disaster declarations in Alabama and Georgia, both of which are also expected to feel the impact from the storm.
As of 5:00 pm Eastern time, Michael was about 295 miles (470 kilometers) south of Panama City and moving north at 12 miles per hour (19 kph).
FLASH FLOOD, TORNADO WARNINGS
The NHC said some areas of the Florida coast could expect storm surge of nine to 13 feet, and as much as a foot of rain.
The heavy rains could cause flash floods, the NHC said, and spawn tornadoes in northwestern Florida.
Some 120,000 residents were under mandatory evacuation orders in Bay County in the panhandle, a low-lying area of beachfront resorts and retirement communities.
Michael was forecast to have the power to uproot trees, block roads and knock out power for days when it hits Florida. It is expected to weaken as it moves up into the southeastern United States.
The storm is a category three out of five on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale.
Drivers waited in long lines at gas stations and residents hurried to fill sandbags, while tolls were suspended on some roads to aid movement ahead of the storm's landfall.
"Since 6:00 am it's been backed up. We're just now running out of regular (gasoline)," Danny Hess, an employee at a gas station in Panama City, told local WJHG television.
The Carolinas are still recovering from Hurricane Florence, which left dozens dead and is estimated to have caused billions of dollars in damage last month.
It made landfall on the coast as a Category 1 hurricane on September 14 and drenched some parts of the state with 40 inches of rain.
Last year saw a string of catastrophic storms batter the western Atlantic -- including Irma, Maria and Harvey, which caused a record-equaling $125 billion in damage when it flooded the Houston metropolitan area.
Scientists have long warned that global warming will make storms more destructive, and some say the evidence for this may already be visible.
At their most fearsome, these low-pressure weather fronts pack more power than the energy released by the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima.
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MANILA - The international community and global organizations have sent their sympathies to the Philippines following the devastation of Typhoon Ompong (international name: Mangkhut) over the weekend.
Ompong, the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year, left at least 74 people dead and dozens other trapped after a landslide buried an emergency shelter in Itogon, Benguet.
AUSTRALIA
Australia said it was giving A$800,000 (P31 million) in humanitarian assistance for victims of Ompong.
The aid will be distributed through the Philippine Red Cross and includes sleeping mats, blankets, and hygiene and shelter kits for up to 25,000 people in typhoon-ravaged areas.
CANADA
Canada on Tuesday extended its condolences to the Philippines, saying it is "ready to assist as appropriate to help areas affected."
“Our thoughts are with the many people affected by super typhoon Mangkhut (local name Ompong), which is causing significant devastation in the Philippines and is now hitting Hong Kong, Macau and mainland southern China," Global Affairs Canada said.
"Canada offers its sincerest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who have lost their lives, and we hope for a swift recovery for those injured," it added.
CHINA
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday told President Rodrigo Duterte that Beijing was mourning the fatalities due to Ompong's devastation.
In his message to the Philippine leader released by the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines, Xi said China shared the sadness of the Philippine people over their sufferings and is willing to help as much as possible.
Xi also expressed sympathy for those injured, bereaved families and residents in affected areas.
Ompong also ripped through southern China after roaring through northern Luzon.
JAPAN
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a message of condolences to Duterte following Ompong's onslaught, Japan's foreign ministry said.
"On behalf of the Japanese government and people, I would like to extend my heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families, and express my sympathy to those who were affected," Abe told Duterte in a message last Saturday, Sept. 15.
The Japanese leader added that Tokyo was ready to provide the "maximum possible assistance including provision of emergency relief goods to the Philippines."
"Like the Philippines, we fully understand the hardship caused by severe damages of typhoons. Japan always stands with the Philippines in overcoming this time of difficulties," Abe said.
Japan was devastated earlier this month by the strongest typhoon to hit the mainland in a quarter century.
EUROPEAN UNION
The European Commission is sending an emergency aid package
worth €2 million (P125.06 million).
“Our contribution will help provide crucial support to those most in need and help them face the challenges during this time of need," said Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides in a statement.
The EU said the aid will be used for shelter, emergency relief items distribution, water and sanitation, food security and humanitarian protection for victims of the typhoon.
UNITED KINGDOM
The United Kingdom said it was coordinating with the Philippine government in assessing the damage left by Ompong and offered its assistance.
"We offer our assistance to the Philippine Government in response to Typhoon Ompong, and are actively assessing needs in cooperation with DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) and OCD (Office of Civil Defense), and international partners," its embassy in Manila said in a tweet.
UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt added that London was "ready to support the Philippines in its relief effort."
UNITED NATIONS
The United Nations World Food Program said Sunday it would transport 20,000 bags of rice to be distributed as rations to victims of the typhoon.
"The rice is transported from the National Food Authority in Valenzuela to the DSWD National Resource Operations Center," it said in a statement.
The agency added that it would also help in assessing the food security situation in areas badly-hit by the typhoon, namely the Cagayan Valley and Cordillera Administrative Region.
UNITED STATES
US Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim said Washington was in close contact with Manila and remains ready to assist victims of the deadly typhoon.
"My thoughts are with the families who lost loved ones in the flooding and landslides from Ompong. We are in close contact with the Government of the Philippines, and remain ready to assist," Kim said in a tweet Sunday.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SPIVEY'S CORNER, North Carolina - Francisco Javier Jaramillo and Victor Chavez should be picking sweet potatoes at a North Carolina farm and sending much-needed money to their families in Mexico.
Instead, Hurricane Florence has forced the migrant workers to evacuate their farm and seek refuge at a school-turned-shelter near the tiny hamlet of Spivey’s Corner, where they sleep in school hallways, wait and worry.
"If the sweet potato fields are flooded, we cannot work. If we cannot work, we will be sent home. We will have nothing," said Chavez, 39.
When Florence tore through the Carolinas last week, bringing wave after wave of wind and rain, the storm not only disrupted a harvest but also jeopardized its harvesters.
Known for its fields upon fields of sweet potatoes, tobacco and peanuts, North Carolina's agricultural engine is powered by more than 83,000 migrant workers.
Many come from Mexico and other Latin American countries to toil on restrictive contracts working fields that double as floodplains when the weather sours.
The contracts guarantee a certain number of working hours but that can be nullified if a farmer declares an act of god if, for example, fields are so flooded or hurricane-battered their crop cannot be salvaged. That would mean these workers get sent home without the hours, or money, promised.
A spokeswoman for North Carolina’s agriculture department said there are no estimates yet of the extent of crop damage.
At peak harvest in 2016 there were more than 83,000 migrant workers on North Carolina farms, according to the Employment Security Commission.
Workers on an H2A visa for temporary agricultural workers are among the most vulnerable people hit by a hurricane, according to advocates, lawyers and outreach workers who talked with Reuters. They have the least means to cushion the blow and the most to lose.
“H2A workers are very isolated, very vulnerable," said Lariza Garzon, with the Episcopal Farmworkers Ministry. "They may not know their rights.”
Lee Wicker, deputy director of the 700-farmer North Carolina Growers Association, said maybe decades ago that might have been true but now resources are in place to ensure workers have the supports they need.
About 20,000 of the workers come to North Carolina every year on H2A visas, which tether them to an employer on whom they rely for housing, transportation and, in many cases, information about the outside world, said Caitlin Ryland, a supervising attorney with Legal Aid of North Carolina's farmworker unit.
They are frequently housed in areas close to farmland that can be prone to flooding, Ryland said.
Wicker said that sometimes happens, but said storms like Florence have outsize effects.
For workers like Jaramillo and Chavez, in a precarious labor position and with limited access to outside information, leaving camps for a few days to wait out a storm can be daunting.
Misinformation is rampant: many believe fleeing a storm can get them deported and barred from returning.
If their employer reports them as having abandoned their job, under the terms of the H2A visa it can start the clock ticking on having to leave the United States, Ryland said.
Fleeing for their lives in the face of a storm does not count as abandoning a job, she said, but many workers may not know that.
A spokeswoman for North Carolina’s Department of Labor wrote in an email that "the Agricultural Safety and Health Bureau has not received any complaints from migrant workers concerning unsafe housing conditions due to the storm.”
Five migrant workers Reuters spoke with at a supermarket outside Clinton, in Sampson County about 35 miles (56 km) east of Fayetteville, had elected to stay in their work camps despite the threats presented by the weather.
Explaining why he stayed, Miguel Hernandez motioned to the cement blocks used to build his barracks in an area under a flash-flood warning - surely they could withstand a storm, he said.
But Luis Alberto, a 25-year-old migrant worker from the Mexican state of Nayarit, was scared for his life when he and four friends decided to go to a shelter several miles away.
Luis Alberto, who asked not to use his last name, regularly sends money home to support his family. What worries him now is what happens next – if the crop is destroyed, if they cannot get the contracted hours of work they need.
"We want to know what is going to happen to us," he said. "Can we keep working? Will we be sent back to Mexico?"
source: news.abs-cbn.com
A boat sits in a backyard after the passing of Hurricane Florence in New Bern, North Carolina, on Sunday. At least 17 people were reported killed and 900 rescued after Hurricane Florence dumped at least 40 inches of rain in North Carolina displacing thousands of residents.
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WILSON, North Carolina - Tropical Storm Florence was likely to weaken on Sunday as it swept through the Carolinas but dozens of communities are devastated and "epic" amounts of rain could still fall, officials said.
The storm is expected to become a Tropical Depression as it trudged inland early Sunday, knocking out power and causing at least eight deaths as flood waters kept rising.
North Carolina officials have reported at least seven storm-related fatalities with unconfirmed reports of a further three deaths. South Carolina authorities reported one death.
"This is still a catastrophic, life threatening storm," said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Center's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
Winds have dropped to about 40 miles per hour (65 kph) since it roared ashore along the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast on Friday as a hurricane and it is crawling west over two states at 6 mph (9 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said early Sunday.
Taylor said the storm already dumped 30 inches of rain on some parts of the NC.
"This storm is still deadly and dangerous and it's expected to turn northward later today into Virginia and the mid-Atlantic," he said.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said: "This system is unloading epic amounts of rainfall, in some places measured in feet and not inches." Rivers will continue to rise days after the rain has stopped, he said.
Around 50 stranded people were airlifted by helicopter in North Carolina, said Petty Officer Michael Himes of the US Coast Guard. More than 26,000 hunkered down in shelters.
Roads were closed and authorities warned of landslides, tornadoes and flash floods, with dams and bridges in peril as rivers and creeks swelled. As of Saturday, about 676,000 homes and businesses were without power in North Carolina, along with 119,000 in South Carolina.
The White House said President Donald Trump approved making federal funding available in some affected counties.
Trump, who plans to visit the region next week and he tweeted his "deepest sympathies and warmth" to the families and friends of those who had lost their lives.
WORST YET TO COME
Florence was drifting westward over South Carolina, reaching about 25 miles southeast of Columbia SC at 2 a.m. Sunday, the NHC said.
Up to 40 inches (102 cm) of rain are expected along coastal areas of the Carolinas and up to 10 inches in southwestern Virginia, it said.
In Fayetteville, a North Carolina city of about 210,000 people about 90 miles inland, authorities told thousands of residents near the Cape Fear River and Little River to get out of their homes by Sunday afternoon because of the flood risk.
"If you are refusing to leave during this mandatory evacuation, you need to do things like notify your legal next of kin because the loss of life is very, very possible," Mayor Mitch Colvin said at a news conference.
"The worst is yet to come," he added.
The storm made landfall on Friday near Wilmington, a city of about 120,000 squeezed between North Carolina's Atlantic coastline and the Cape Fear River.
Near the Sutton Power Plant in Wilmington, coal ash leaked from a Duke Energy landfill. The site lost enough material to fill around two-thirds of an Olympic-sized pool, the company said in a statement, adding that it did not believe the incident posed a risk to health or the environment.
Officials had warned before the storm rains could taint waterways with murky coal ash and toxic hog waste.
Florence has already set a North Carolina record for rainfall totals, exceeding that of Hurricane Floyd, which struck in 1999 and caused 56 deaths. Floyd produced 24 inches of rain in some parts of the state, while Florence has already dumped about 30 inches in areas around Swansboro.
In New Bern, about 90 miles northeast of Wilmington at the confluence of two rivers, Florence overwhelmed the town of 30,000 and left the downtown area under water. Some area residents described a harrowing retreat as the storm hit.
"It was pitch black and I was just scared out of my mind," said Tracy Singleton, who with her family later drove through torrential rain and high winds from her home near New Bern.
South Carolina authorities said law enforcement officers were guarding against looting in evacuated areas, while Wilmington set a curfew on Saturday evening in response to looting in one area.
As the United States dealt with Florence, a super typhoon swirled towards Hong Kong and the Chinese coast on Sunday, gaining in strength over the South China Sea after hurtling through the Philippines, where it wreaked havoc that killed at least 25.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
NEW BERN, N.C.—Junia MacDaniel just wants to get home to her Chihuahuas. All 14 of them are back in the double-wide trailer MacDaniel shares with her husband in New Bern, North Carolina.
The MacDaniels are seeking shelter from the monster storm Hurricane Florence, and they decided it was best to leave their little dogs behind.
They were among 12,000 North Carolinians staying in shelters after being displaced by the slow-moving storm that is expected to bring powerful storm surges and dozens of inches of rain to the eastern part of the state.
“This has been a really large evacuation and sheltering operation, probably the largest we've done, so that has not been an easy lift. I think it’s working,” said Keith Acree of North Carolina's Department of Emergency Management.
North Carolina began feeling the effects of Florence's wind and heavy rain on Thursday afternoon but the storm was not expected to make landfall until late night or early on Friday.
Avis Miner, 57, brought her friend and five grandchildren to a shelter in Washington, about 100 miles east of Raleigh, after leaving their trailer home in Aurora. She worried that if they stayed home “we’d be blown away.”
In shelters on Thursday, people crowded on cots, inflatable mattresses and blankets on the floors and in hallways of gymnasiums, clustering in corners to talk and outside to smoke.
More than 200 people had arrived at Wilmington’s Trask Middle School by Wednesday afternoon, along with 20 dogs, nine cats and a bird. More sought safety at another shelter in the city.
“It wasn’t safe,” said David Sullivan, a 76-year-old retired tow boat captain who evacuated his downtown Wilmington apartment. “I just figured come here and be safe.”
Debbie Green, director of social services for Pamlico County, said she is always worried about people being too isolated and vulnerable to make it to a shelter and, she said, “There are always people that are not willing to leave.”
Still, the shelter she is overseeing in Grantsboro, about 130 miles east of Raleigh, was 81 percent full by noon on Thursday and Green expected that number to swell. "People will come in the middle of a storm,” she said.
MacDaniel, who has sat out previous storms, said everyone told her that Florence would be different.
“All the other storms we stayed put. But they told us this storm was the doozy,” MacDaniel said. “We have never flooded before but we didn’t really want to take no chances.”
Now, she’s counting the hours until she can return home to her Chihuahuas.
“When it clears up just a little bit, momma’s going home ... I just miss my dogs.” (Additional reporting By Ernest Scheyder in Wilmington, North Carolina Editing by Frank McGurty, Toni Reinhold)
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WILMINGTON, N.C. - Fears about Hurricane Florence spread south on Wednesday, with Georgia declaring a state of emergency after officials in the Carolinas urged people to evacuate the coast ahead of the storm's expected pounding winds and rain-driven floods.
Florence weakened slightly to a Category 3 storm on a five-step scale but had maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour (201 km per hour) as of 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), down from 130 mph earlier in the day. Its trajectory showed its center most likely to strike the southern coast of North Carolina by late Thursday or early Friday, the National Hurricane Center said.
Updated NHC forecasts showed the storm lingering near the coast of the Carolinas, carrying days of heavy rains that could bring intense inland flooding from South Carolina to Virginia. Parts of North Carolina could get 40 inches (1 meter) of rain.
Jeff Byard of the Federal Emergency Management Agency invoked a former boxing champion to warn residents that Florence would bring "a Mike Tyson punch to the Carolina coast."
"Heed the warnings," said Byard, adding there was "well over $20 billion" in FEMA's disaster relief fund.
Tens of thousands of homes and businesses could be flooded in North Carolina, Governor Roy Cooper warned.
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, concerned the storm would bring its devastation south, issued an emergency declaration for all 159 counties in his state.
More than 1 million people have been ordered to evacuate the coastlines of the Carolinas and Virginia.
Duke Energy Corp expected between 25 percent and 75 percent of its 4 million customers would lose power in the Carolinas. Spokesman Howard Fowler said restoration could take "weeks instead of days," even though 20,000 workers, including crews from outside the area, were standing by.
The NHC said the first tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph (63 kph) would hit the region early on Thursday with the storm's center reaching the coast Friday.
GETTING READY
Emergency preparations in the area included activating 2,800 National Guard troops in North Carolina, stockpiling food, setting up shelters, switching traffic patterns so that major roads led away from shore and securing 16 nuclear power reactors in the three-state region.
Wilmington, North Carolina, just north of where the hurricane is expected to come ashore, was sunny around midday on Wednesday as the town appeared to be emptying.
"I'm not approaching Florence from fear or panic," said Brad Corpening, 35, who planned to ride out the storm in his boarded-up delicatessen in Wilmington. "It's going to happen. We just need to figure out how to make it through."
Officials in New Hanover County, which includes Wilmington, have stockpiled enough food and water for 60,000 people for four days, along with more than 28,000 tarps. Shelters in the city were filling and some people were being bused inland to Raleigh, even though some residents there were told they might have to evacuate because of flooding.
"It's going to be bad," said Woody White, chairman of the New Hanover County Commissioners. "But no matter how bad it's going to be, it will pass and our job will be to rebuild this community together, and that's what we're going to do."
Even miles away from the Atlantic, North Carolina residents in low-lying areas are boarding up and emptying stores. "A lot of our storefronts are boarded up," said Lynn Davis, town manager for Belhaven which sits at sea level in northeastern North Carolina. "People are taking down awnings and U-Haul trucks have come in and take the entire contents of stores."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
