Tag Archives: Florida

Floridians return to shattered homes as Irma crosses into Georgia

Residents walk through flood waters left in the wake of Hurricane Irma in a suburb of Orlando, Florida, U.S., September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Gregg Newton

By Andy Sullivan and Robin Respaut

FLORIDA CITY/MARCO ISLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – Shocked Florida residents returned to their shattered homes on Monday as the weakened Hurricane Irma pushed inland, flooding cities in the northeastern part of the state and leaving millions without power.

Downgraded to a tropical storm early on Monday, Irma had ranked as one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes recorded. It cut power to millions of people and ripped roofs off homes as it hit a wide swath of Florida on Sunday and Monday and moved into neighboring states.

Authorities said the storm had killed 39 people in the Caribbean and one in Florida, a man found dead in a pickup truck that had crashed into a tree in high winds on the Florida Keys over the weekend.

With sustained winds of up to 60 mph (100 kph), Irma had crossed into Georgia and was located about 47 miles (76 km)northeast of the Florida state capital Tallahassee, the National Hurricane Center said at 2 p.m. ET.

In Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, people returned to the wreckage of trailers shredded by the storm after the city escaped the worst of Irma’s winds but experienced heavy flooding.

Melida Hernandez, 67, who had ridden out the storm at a nearby church, found her home split down the middle by a tree.

“I wanted to cry, but this is what it is, this is life,” Hernandez said.

High winds snapped power lines and left about 7.3 million homes and businesses without power in Florida and elsewhere in the U.S. Southeast, state officials and utilities said. They said it could take weeks to complete repairs.

Miami International Airport, one of the busiest in the country, halted passenger flights through at least Monday.

Police in Miami-Dade County said they had made 29 arrests for looting and burglary. Fort Lauderdale police said they had arrested 19 people for looting.

Some residents who had evacuated the Florida Keys archipelago, where Irma roared ashore on Sunday with winds up to 130 mph (209 kph), grew angry as they tried to return to their homes on Monday.

A few dozen people argued with police who turned them away from the first of a series of bridges leading to the island chain, which officials warned still lacked power, water and cellphone service.

White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert said it might be weeks before many residents of the Keys were able to return. “The Keys are going to take a while,” Bossert told a regular White House briefing. “I would expect that the Keys are not fit for re-entry for regular citizenry for weeks.”

Irma hit Florida after powering through the Caribbean as a rare Category 5 hurricane. It killed 39 people there, including 10 in Cuba, which was battered over the weekend by ferocious winds and 36-foot (11-meter) waves.

A week earlier Hurricane Harvey flooded a wide swath of Houston. Nearly three months remain in the official Atlantic hurricane season.

Northeastern Florida cities including Jacksonville were flooding on Monday, with police pulling residents from waist-deep water.

“Stay inside. Go up. Not out,” Jacksonville’s website warned residents. “There is flooding throughout the city.”

The city also warned residents to be wary of snakes and alligators driven into the floodwater.

 

BILLIONS IN DAMAGE

The storm did some $20 billion to $40 billion in damage to insured property as it tore through Florida, catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimated.

That estimate, lower than earlier forecasts of up to $50 billion in insured losses, helped spur a relief rally on Wall Street as fears eased that Irma would cut into U.S. economic growth.

Shares of insurance companies were among the big winners, with Florida-based Federated National, HCI Group and Universal Insurance all up more than 12 percent.

Some 6.5 million people, about one-third of Florida’s population, had been ordered to evacuate their homes ahead of Irma’s arrival. More than 200,000 people sought refuge in about 700 shelters, according to state data.

As shelters began to empty on Monday, some 7,000 people filed out of Germain Arena in Estero, south of Fort Myers. The crowd included Don Sciarretta, who rode out the storm with his 90-year-old friend, Elsie Johnston, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

Sciarretta, 73, spent two days without sleep, holding up a slumped-over Johnston and making sure she did not fall out of her chair. He relied on other people in the shelter to bring the pair food, often after waiting in hours-long lines.

“For the next storm, I’ll go somewhere on my own like a hotel or a friend’s house,” Sciarretta said. “I’m not going through this again.”

Shelters across western Florida opened, filled up – and often closed because of overcrowding – after the storm made a western shift on Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, attending a ceremony at the Pentagon on the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, vowed a full response to Irma as well as ongoing federal support for victims of Hurricane Harvey, which flooded Texas.

“These are storms of catastrophic severity and we are marshalling the full resources of the federal government to help our fellow Americans,” Trump said.

On Marco Island, where the storm made its second landfall on Sunday, residents were cleaning up damaged homes and dealing with the downed trees that knocked out power lines and crushed cars.

Salvatore Carvelli, Jr., 45, rode out the storm in DaVinci’s, his Italian restaurant.

“It sounded like a train going through,” Carvelli said.

The winds tore the air conditioner from his restaurant’s roof, he said, adding that the storm surge added to the danger.

“There was no road that you could see,” Carvelli said. “The parking lot was gone, you could fish.”

 

(Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Orlando, Bernie Woodall, Ben Gruber and Zachary Fagenson in Miami, Letitia Stein in Detroit, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Doina Chiacu and Jeff Mason in Washington, Scott DiSavino in New York and Marc Frank in Havana; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Frances Kerry, Howard Goller and Paul Sim

Tropical Storm Irma floods northern Florida cities after hammering south

A partially submerged car is seen at a flooded area in Coconut Grove as Hurricane Irma arrives at south Florida, in Miami, Florida, U.S., September 10, 2017.

By Zachary Fagenson and Daniel Trotta

MIAMI/KISSIMMEE, Fla. (Reuters) – Downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm, Irma flooded several northern Florida cities with heavy rain and a high storm surge on Monday as it headed out of the state after cutting power to millions and ripping roofs off homes.

Irma, once ranked as one of the most powerful hurricanes recorded in the Atlantic, hit a wide swath of Florida over the past day, first making landfall on the Florida Keys archipelago and then coming ashore south of Naples before heading up the west coast.

Now a tropical storm with sustained winds of up to 70 miles per hour (110 km per hour), Irma was located about 35 miles (56 km) west of Gainesville and headed up the Gulf Coast, the National Hurricane Center said at 8 a.m. ET (1200 GMT).

The Cuban government reported on Monday that 10 people had been killed after Irma battered the island’s north coast with ferocious winds and 36-foot (11-meter) waves over the weekend. This raised the overall death toll from Irma’s powerful rampage through the Caribbean to 38.

Northeastern Florida cities including Jacksonville were facing flash flooding, with the city’s sheriff’s office pulling residents from waist-deep water.

“Stay inside. Go up. Not out,” Jacksonville’s website warned residents. “There is flooding throughout the city and more rain is expected.”

 

HEART-POUNDING NIGHT

After what she called a terrifying night bunkered in her house in St. Petersburg, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, with her children and extended family, Julie Hally emerged with relief on Monday. The winds had toppled some large tree branches and part of a fence, but her house was undamaged.

“My heart just pounded out of my chest the whole time,” said Hally, 37. “You hear stuff hitting your roof. It honestly sounds like somebody is just whistling at your window the whole night. It’s really scary.”

Governor Rick Scott said he would travel later on Monday to the Florida Keys. Irma first came ashore at Cudjoe Key as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of up to 130 mph (215 kph.)

U.S. President Donald Trump in a ceremony at the Pentagon to remember the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks vowed a full response to Irma, as well as continued federal support for victims of Hurricane Harvey, which flooded Texas.

“These are storms of catastrophic severity and we are marshalling the full resources of the federal government to help our fellow Americans,” Trump said. “When Americans are in need, Americans pull together and we are one country.”

The state’s largest city, Miami, was spared the brunt of the storm but still saw heavy flooding. Utility crews were already on the streets there clearing downed trees and utility lines. All causeways leading to Miami Beach were closed by police.

As it traveled through the center of the state early on Monday, Irma brought gusts of up to 100 mph (160 kph) and torrential rain to areas around Orlando, one of the most popular areas for tourism in Florida because of its cluster of theme parks, the National Weather Service said.

A piece of a McDonald’s “golden arch” sign hung in a tree near the fast-food restaurant in the central Florida city of Kissimmee on Monday morning. Valerie Gilleece, 55, had ridden out the storm in the city because her wheelchair-bound husband insisted on it, she said.

“I’m just thanking God to be alive,” Gilleece said. “I wanted to go from the start but he’s stubborn as hell.”

Over the weekend, Irma claimed its first U.S. fatality – a man found dead in a pickup truck that had crashed into a tree in high winds in the town of Marathon, in the Florida Keys, local officials said.

During its passage through the Caribbean en route to Florida, Irma was ranked at the rare top end of the scale of hurricane intensity, a Category 5, for days. It carried maximum sustained winds of up to 185 mph (295 kph) when it crashed into the island of Barbuda on Wednesday.

Ahead of Irma’s arrival, some 6.5 million people in southern Florida, about a third of the state’s population, were ordered to evacuate their homes. Some 200,000 were housed in shelters during the storm, according to federal officials.

 

DAMAGE ESTIMATES

The storm did some $20 billion to $40 billion in damage to insured property as it tore through Florida, catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide estimated.

That estimate, lower than earlier forecasts of up to $50 billion in insured losses, drove insurance company shares higher on Monday. Florida-based insurers Federated National, HCI Group and Universal Insurance were all up more than 12 percent. Meanwhile, Europe’s insurance index was the biggest sectoral gainer, up 2 percent and set for its best day in more than four months.

High winds snapped power lines and left about 5.8 million Florida homes and businesses without power, state data showed.

Miami International Airport, one of the busiest in the country, halted passenger flights through at least Monday. According to the FlightAware.com tracking site, a total of 3,582 U.S. flights were canceled on Monday, mostly as a result of the storm.

Irma was forecast to cross the eastern Florida Panhandle and move into southern Georgia later in the day, dumping as much as 16 inches (41 cm) of rain, government forecasters said.

Police in Miami-Dade County said they had made 29 arrests for looting and burglary.

 

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall, Ben Gruber and Andy Sullivan in Miami, Letitia Stein in Detroit, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Doina Chiacu and Jeff Mason in Washington, Scott DiSavino in New York and Marc Frank in Havana; Writing by Scott Malone and Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Frances Kerry and Paul Simao)

 

Irma knocks out power to nearly 6 million: authorities

A lifeguard hut is pictured as Hurricane Irma arrives in Hollywood, Florida. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

By Scott DiSavino

(Reuters) – Hurricane Irma knocked out power to about 5.8 million homes and businesses in Florida, even as the storm weakened as it crept up the state’s west coast, according to state officials and local electric utilities.

Irma hit Florida on Sunday morning as a dangerous Category 4 hurricane, the second-highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. It gradually lost strength and weakened to a tropical storm by Monday morning as it headed toward Georgia, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT)..

Maximum sustained winds were at 70 miles (110 km) per hour, the forecaster said.

Power losses in Georgia, which were at about 152,000 as of 8:45 a.m. EDT, were expected to increase as the storm moved north.

In Florida, the state’s biggest electric company said its outages came to more than 3.6 million by 8:30 a.m. on Monday. A total of 4.2 million Florida Power & Light customers have been affected, with about 570,000 getting service restored, mostly by automated devices.

Full restoration of power could take weeks in many areas due to expected damage to FPL’s system, the NextEra Energy Inc unit said.

As the storm pushed north, outage figures were increasing at other large utilities, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc.

Duke’s outages jumped to more than 860,000 overnight; the company said they could ultimately exceed 1 million. Emera’s Tampa Electric utility reported 300,000 homes and businesses lost power by Monday morning.

FPL said its two nuclear plants were safe. Both units at its Turkey Point facility, located about 30 miles (48 km) south of Miami, were shut by early Monday.

The company closed Turkey Point’s Unit 3 on Saturday as Irma approached the coast but decided not shut Unit 4 at that time because the hurricane track shifted away from the plant toward the western part of the Florida Peninsula. FPL, however, shut Unit 4 on Sunday night due to a possible valve issue that was probably not related to Irma, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said on Monday.

At its St Lucie nuclear plant located about 120 miles (190 km) north of Miami, FPL started to reduce power at Unit 1 due to salt buildup from Irma in the switchyard, NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said. The plant’s other reactor, Unit 2, continued to operate at full power.

Duke’s retired Crystal River plant, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Tampa, has spent nuclear fuel, but Hannah said that was not a problem.

As the storm loomed and came ashore, gasoline stations struggled to keep up as people evacuated Florida. In the Atlanta metropolitan area, about 13.2 percent of stations were out of the fuel, according to information service Gas Buddy.

Irma is expected to sap demand for fuel for a time, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note on Monday, but they cautioned that supply could remain strained due to refining capacity offline in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which hit Texas two weeks ago.

 

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York; Additional reporting by Ruthy Munoz in Houston; Editing by Frances Kerry and Lisa Von Ahn)

 

Florida braces for Hurricane Irma as storm rips through Cuba

Hurricane Irma downgraded as it tears into Cuba's northern coast

By Sarah Marsh

REMEDIOS, Cuba (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma pounded Cuba’s northern coast on Saturday and barreled toward Florida as authorities scrambled to complete an unprecedented evacuation of millions of residents hours before the storm would engulf the state.

The outer band of Irma, which has killed at least 22 people in the Caribbean, was already lashing South Florida with tropical storm-force winds and left nearly 25,000 people without power, Governor Rick Scott said.

The brunt of the hurricane, one of the fiercest Atlantic storms in a century, is due to arrive in Florida early Sunday.

Irma could inflict major damage on the fourth-largest U.S. state by population, which is braced for winds well in excess of 100 miles per hour and a huge storm surge that could trigger coastal flooding.

“This is a deadly storm and our state has never seen anything like it,” Scott said at a Saturday morning news conference.

Irma, located about 225 miles (365 km) south of Miami on Saturday morning, still ranked as a Category 5 storm when it crashed into Cuba in the early hours of Saturday. It weakened to a Category 3 as it tore along the island’s northern coastline, downing power lines, bending palm trees and sending huge waves crashing over sea walls.

Maximum sustained winds dipped to around 130 miles per hour (215 km per hour) by 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

But Irma will regain strength as it moves over the warm open water as it approaches Florida, according to the NHS, which expects the storm to arrive in the Keys, an archipelago off the peninsula’s southern tip, on Sunday morning.

On Florida’s West Coast, a long line of people in Estero, north of Naples, lined up to enter an arena that officials converted into an evacuation shelter, one of hundreds that have opened up across the state.

“We got the house all buttoned up,” said Montgomery Campbell, 82, as he stood in line.

Luise Campana Read was one of those who chose to ignore warnings and stay in her home. She said by phone she planned to ride out the storm in her beachfront condo in Fort Lauderdale, with her elderly mother and other family members.

“With a 97-year-old, there was no way I was going to have her sleep on a cot or a blow-up mattress” in a shelter, she said.

The destruction along Cuba’s north central coast was similar to that seen on other Caribbean islands over the last week as Irma plowed into Ciego de Avila province around midnight.

State media said it was the first time the eye of a Category 5 storm had made landfall since 1932. In the days before Irma struck, the island’s Communist government evacuated tens of thousands of foreign tourists from resorts on the northern coast.

In Ciego de Avila province, Irma was forecast to generate waves of up to 7 meters (23 feet), with flooding expected as far west as the capital Havana, authorities said on Saturday.

Antonia Navarro, 56, a resident of the northern Cuban port town of Nuevitas in Camaguey, said a local ice cream factory was destroyed and glass windows at a hospital were blown out.

“We are praying to God and the Virgin of Charity that nothing grave happens to the people of Florida, and in particular Miami,” said Navarro, an officer worker. “We have to pray a lot for our relatives who live there.”

“RUNNING OUT OF TIME”

With the storm barreling toward the United States, officials in Florida raced to overcome clogged highways, gasoline shortages and move elderly residents to safety.

A total of 5.6 million people, or 25 percent of the state’s population, were ordered to evacuate Florida, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

The United States has been hit by only three Category 5 storms since 1851, and Irma is far larger than the last one in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 ended slightly lower as investors braced for potential damage and massive insurance claims from Irma. Many economists are predicting that third-quarter gross domestic product will take a hit due to the hurricanes.

President Donald Trump said in a videotaped statement that Irma was “a storm of absolutely historic destructive potential” and called on people to heed recommendations from government officials and law enforcement. In Palm Beach, Trump’s waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate was ordered evacuated.

Trees sway in the wind at the main square as Hurricane Irma passes by Remedios, Cuba September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

MANDATORY EVACUATIONS, GASOLINE SHORTAGES

Irma was set to hit the United States two weeks after Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, struck Texas, killing about 60 people and causing property damage estimated at up to $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana. Officials were preparing a massive response, the head of FEMA said.

About 9 million people in Florida may lose power, some for weeks, said Florida Power & Light Co, which serves almost half of the state’s 20.6 million residents.

Amid the exodus, nearly one-third of all gas stations in Florida’s metropolitan areas were out of gasoline, with scattered outages in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to Gasbuddy.com, a retail fuel price tracking service.

Mandatory evacuations on Georgia’s Atlantic coast and some of South Carolina’s barrier islands were due to begin on Saturday. Virginia and Alabama were under states of emergency.

The governors of North and South Carolina warned residents to remain on guard even as the storm took a more westward track, saying their states still could experience severe weather, including heavy rain and flash flooding, early next week.

As it roared in from the east, Irma ravaged small islands in the northeastern Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, flattening homes and hospitals and ripping down trees.

Irma is seen costing at least 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy, a French public reinsurance body said on Saturday.

But even as they came to grips with the destruction, residents of the islands faced the threat of another major storm, Hurricane Jose.

Jose, expected to reach the northeastern Caribbean on Saturday, is an extremely dangerous storm nearing Category 5 status, with winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph), the NHC said.

(For a graphic on how Irma compares to other major hurricanes, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2gTxfqJ)

(Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Havana, Makini Brice in Cap-Haitien, Haiti,; Delana Isles in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, Bernie Woodall, Robin Respaut and Brian Thevenot in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Ben Gruber and Andy Sullivan in Miami, Bate Felix, Richard Lough and Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Neil Hartnell in Nassau, Bahamas; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Helen Popper, Dale Hudson and Diane Craft)

Hurricane Irma downgraded as it tears into Cuba’s northern coast

Hurricane Irma downgraded as it tears into Cuba's northern coast

By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma weakened slightly on Saturday as it battered Cuba’s northern coast while millions of Florida residents were told to evacuate after the storm killed 21 people in the eastern Caribbean and left devastation in its wake.

Downgraded as a Category 4 storm, Irma moved along the Camaguey Archipelago with 155 mph (250 kph) winds early on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. It has shifted between the Category 4 and Category 5 classification, which is used for the most powerful storms.

Irma, one of the fiercest Atlantic storms in a century, was expected to hit Florida early on Sunday, causing major damage due to high winds and flooding to the fourth-largest U.S. state by population.

The scenes of destruction along Cuba’s north central coast were similar to those seen in other Caribbean islands over the last week as Irma barreled in for a direct hit at Ciego de Avila province around midnight.

Choppy seas, gray skies, sheets of rain, bending palm trees, huge waves crashing over sea walls and downed power lines filled state-run television’s evening news bulletin.

Irma was forecast to bring dangerous storm surges of up to 6 feet (two meters) to parts of the island’s northern coast and the central and northwestern Bahamas.

Meteorologists warned that by early Saturday far greater devastation was sure to be caused as Irma moved westward through Sancti Spiritus and Villa Clara provinces where it is forecast to turn north toward Florida.

Irma was about 245 miles (395 km) south-southeast of Miami, the NHC said in its latest advisory.

Shoppers encounter empty bread shelves ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Irma at a supermarket in Kissimmee, Florida, U.S. September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Gregg Newton

Shoppers encounter empty bread shelves ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Irma at a supermarket in Kissimmee, Florida, U.S. September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Gregg Newton

“RUNNING OUT OF TIME”

With the storm barreling toward the United States, officials in Florida ordered an unprecedented evacuation, racing to overcome clogged highways, gasoline shortages and move elderly residents to safety.

“We are running out of time. If you are in an evacuation zone, you need to go now. This is a catastrophic storm like our state has never seen,” Governor Rick Scott told reporters.

A total of 5.6 million people, or 25 percent of the state’s population, were ordered to evacuate Florida, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

The United States has been hit by only three Category 5 storms since 1851, and Irma is far larger than the last one in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

President Donald Trump said in a videotaped statement that Irma was “a storm of absolutely historic destructive potential” and called on people to heed recommendations from government officials and law enforcement. In Palm Beach, Trump’s waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate was ordered evacuated.

MANDATORY EVACUATIONS, GAS SHORTAGES

Irma was set to hit the United States two weeks after Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, struck Texas, killing about 60 people and causing property damage estimated at up to $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana. Officials were preparing a massive response, the head of FEMA said.

About nine million people in Florida may lose power, some for weeks, said Florida Power & Light Co, which serves almost half of the state’s 20.6 million residents.

Amid the exodus, nearly one-third of all gas stations in Florida’s metropolitan areas were out of gasoline, with scattered outages in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to Gasbuddy.com, a retail fuel price tracking service.

Mandatory evacuations on Georgia’s Atlantic coast and some of South Carolina’s barrier islands were due to begin on Saturday. Virginia and Alabama were under states of emergency.

The governors of North and South Carolina warned residents to remain on guard even as the storm took a more westward track, saying their states still could experience severe weather, including heavy rain and flash flooding, early next week.

As it roared in from the east, Irma ravaged small islands in the northeastern Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, flattening homes and hospitals and ripping down trees.

But even as they came to grips with the destruction, residents of the islands faced the threat of another major storm, Hurricane Jose.

Jose, expected to reach the northeastern Caribbean on Saturday, is an extremely dangerous storm nearing Category 5 status, with winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph), the NHC said.

(For a graphic on how Irma compares to other major hurricanes, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2gTxfqJ)

(Additional reporting by Makini Brice in Cap-Haitien, Haiti,; Delana Isles in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, Sarah Marsh in Caibarien, Cuba, Bernie Woodall in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Ben Gruber and Andy Sullivan in Miami, Bate Felix, Richard Lough and Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Neil Hartnell in Nassau, Bahamas; Writing by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Helen Popper)

Miami hospitals prepare for surge in births during Hurricane Irma

Miami hospitals prepare for surge in births during Hurricane Irma

By Julie Steenhuysen and Jilian Mincer

(Reuters) – While many Miami hospitals are shutting down as Hurricane Irma bears down on Florida, some are offering shelter to their pregnant patients, bracing for the increase in births that often accompanies these large storms.

At least three of the city’s hospitals have plans in place to care for women with advanced or high-risk pregnancies.

They could be busy.

When Houston was hit by Hurricane Harvey, the number of women who gave birth spiked. According to a Memorial Hermann Health System representative, at least five of the not-for-profit system’s 11 Houston-area hospitals with labor and delivery units reported increases in the number of deliveries during Hurricane Harvey. In three, deliveries doubled.

The reason may have something to do with a drop in barometric pressure that accompanies a hurricane. A 2007 study published in the Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics noted a causal relationship between low barometric pressure and spontaneous delivery.

But overall, the evidence is inconclusive, said Dr. Shannon Clark, an associate professor in the division of maternal fetal medicine at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, on the Gulf of Mexico.

“There’s some studies that show an association and some that don’t. It’s kind of mixed,” Clark said in a telephone interview.

Even so, she said, “It’s still worth it to forewarn pregnant women in areas that are going to get hit that there could be a potential complication.”

In Miami, Jackson Health System alerted women who are at least 34 weeks pregnant or who have a high-risk pregnancy that they may take shelter in one of three of its hospitals, as long as they have registered with the hospital in advance. These women are allowed to bring in one guest, but no pets.

Tania Leets, a spokeswoman for the public health system which serves Miami-Dade County, said they offered the same service last year during Hurricane Matthew.

Baptist Health South Florida offers shelter to women in Miami who are at least 36 weeks pregnant or who have a high-risk pregnancy in one of its four area hospitals. A pregnant woman and one adult companion can set up camp in a waiting room area; those who come must bring their own food, water and bedding. The shelter opens at 8 a.m. on Saturday and closes when the storm has passed, Baptist Health South said in a statement.

Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach will likewise shelter women who are at least 36 weeks pregnant or those with high-risk pregnancies, according to a statement on its website.

At Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital in Houston, deliveries started to soar two days before Hurricane Harvey arrived, requiring five managers to help with patient care.

“We all know in this business – full moons and storms are a problem,” said Kim Kendall, director of the hospital’s family birth center.

Staff made an effort to close the shades, redirect the conversation and focus on the delivery. “We tried to maximize the experience and minimize the hurricane,” said Kendall.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen and Jilian Mincer; Editing by Richard Chang and Jonathan Oatis)

Help us with the coming challenges by donating to the Hurricane Relief Fund!

Search for survivors in Texas as storm Harvey heads north

By Kami Klein

John 14:27 (MEV) 27 Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

The challenges upon all of us right now are very real. Unprecedented events are bringing hunger, thirst, survival, right to center stage. As hurricanes batter our shores, earthquakes rumble across Mexico, and fires burn out of control in our western states, we must remember Christ’s call for us to love one another. As a part of the family of God, we must take action. That is why we have created the Hurricane Relief Fund, and that is why Pastor Jim and Lori Bakker, along with a team from Morningside, went to Texas to serve the people. What they saw were people in great need. And now with Hurricane Irma, there will be many, many more whose lives will be in complete upheaval.

James 2:15-17 (MEV) If a brother or sister is naked and lacking daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” and yet you give them nothing that the body needs, what does it profit? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Many are now fleeing Irma, the second catastrophic hurricane to hit the U.S. in less than a month. Thousands more will be suffering in the coming days. Despair and fear are bound to follow. The time is now to be prepared to help them! We need your help!!! Please donate so that we can help our churches in devastated areas provide food, safe drinking water, and shelter and to help these people rebuild their lives!

For those that are now going through these tragic and terrifying times let our actions bring a reminder that in the midst of all of the these things, God is with them!

Joshua 1:9 (MEV) Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

YOU are the hands and feet of Christ! Please donate today!

Hurricane Irma will ‘devastate’ part of U.S.: emergency services head

A member of the Emergency Operations Committee monitors the trajectory of Irma in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. REUTERS/Ricardo Rojas

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Anticipating that Hurricane Irma will “devastate” part of the United States, U.S. officials were preparing a massive response to the storm, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said on Friday.

With Irma set to hit Florida as early as Saturday night, parts of Florida was expected to lose electricity for days, if not longer, and more than 100,000 people may need shelter, FEMA Administrator Brock Long warned at a news conference.

“Hurricane Irma continues to be a threat that is going to devastate the United States in either Florida or some of the southeastern states,” Long said.

Irma was a Category 5 hurricane, the most dangerous measure by the National Hurricane Center, before being downgraded to Category 4 early Friday after pummeling islands in the Caribbean.

The United States has experienced only three Category 5 storms since 1851 and Irma is far larger than the last one to hit the United States in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to Long.

He warned people not to ignore evacuation orders.

“They need to get out and listen and heed the warnings,” Long said.

A man looks out to the flooded street in Puerto Plata.

A man looks out to the flooded street in Puerto Plata.
REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

Officials have thousands of personnel ready to respond and millions of meals and liters of water in place nearby, Long said.

The National Weather Service said that Friday was the last day to evacuate before winds would start to reach unsafe speeds in Florida.

Airlines added extra flights from Florida on Thursday before announcing plans to halt service from some southern Florida airports starting Friday afternoon.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price called Irma a “remarkably dangerous storm and the window to get yourself in the right spot … is closing rapidly.”

Price said the main hospital in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands was closed after being damaged by Irma, and critically ill patients were being evacuated to Puerto Rico or other islands.

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted 80-17 to approve a measure to more than double funding to $15.25 billion to FEMA and for local block grants to handle natural disasters. FEMA’s disaster assistance fund could run out of money Friday without action, senators said.

The House is expected to approve the measure on Friday. It had already approved $7.85 billion on Wednesday.

A worker covers the windows of a restaurant with plywood in preparation for Hurricane Irma in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S., September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

A worker covers the windows of a restaurant with plywood in preparation for Hurricane Irma in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S., September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

(Editing by Bill Trott and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Irma powers toward Florida, leaving behind path of death, destruction

Irma powers toward Florida, leaving behind path of death, destruction

By Delana Isles

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos (Reuters) – Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, drove toward Florida on Friday after lashing the Caribbean with devastating winds and torrential rain, killing 19 people and leaving a swathe of catastrophic destruction.

Irma was about 450 miles (724 km) southeast of Miami, Florida, early Friday after saturating the northern coasts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti and pummeling the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The “extremely dangerous” hurricane was downgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 4 early Friday but still packed winds as strong as 150 miles per hour (240 km per hour), the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in an advisory at 8 a.m EDT (noon GMT).

Irma hit the Bahamas on Friday, where it was forecast to bring 20-foot (six-meter) storm surges before moving to Cuba and then slamming into southern Florida on Sunday.

In Miami, hundreds lined up for bottled water and cars looped around city blocks to buy gas on Thursday. Shortages in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area worsened on Thursday, with sales up to five times the norm.

In Palm Beach, the waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate owned by U.S. President Donald Trump was ordered evacuated, media reported. Trump also owns property on the French side of St. Martin, an island devastated by the storm.

A mandatory evacuation on Georgia’s Atlantic coast was due to begin on Saturday, Governor Nathan Deal said. The storm comes two weeks after Hurricane Harvey struck Texas, claiming around 60 lives and causing property damage estimated at as much as $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana.

Irma ravaged a series of small islands in the northeast Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, flattening homes and hospitals and ripping down trees.

A Reuters witness described the roof and walls of a solidly built house shaking hard as the storm rocked the island of Providenciales and caused a drop in pressure that could be felt in people’s chests.

Throughout the islands in Irma’s wake, stunned locals tried to comprehend the devastation as they were getting ready for another major hurricane, Jose, a Category 3 due to reach the northeastern Caribbean on Saturday.

A storm batters as Hurricane Irma descends on Providenciales, in the Turks and Caicos Islands, in this still image taken from September 7, 2017 social media video. MANDATORY CREDIT Aneesa Khan/via REUTERS

A storm batters as Hurricane Irma descends on Providenciales, in the Turks and Caicos Islands, in this still image taken from September 7, 2017 social media video. MANDATORY CREDIT Aneesa Khan/via REUTERS

DEATHS RISE

The death toll from the storm has risen as emergency services got access to remote areas pummeled by heavy winds and rain. French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said on Friday that nine people were killed and at least seven were missing after the hurricane crashed into France’s Caribbean islands of St. Martin and St. Barthelemy.

“One hundred and twelve people were injured,” Collomb said, adding there could be more victims.

Four people died in the U.S. Virgin islands, a government spokesman said, and a major hospital was badly damaged by the wind. A U.S. amphibious assault ship arrived in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Thursday and sent helicopters for medical evacuations from the destroyed hospital.

A man was reported missing after trying to cross a river in Cerca La Source in Haiti’s Central Plateau region.

On Barbuda one person died and the eastern Caribbean island was reduced “to rubble,” Prime Minister Gaston Browne said. In the British overseas territory of Anguilla, another person was killed and the hospital and airport were damaged, emergency service officials said.

Three people were killed in Puerto Rico and around two-thirds of the population had lost electricity, Governor Ricardo Rossello said after the storm rolled by the U.S. territory’s northern coast. A surfer was also reported killed in Barbados.

The storm passed just to the north of the island of Hispaniola, shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, causing damage to roofs, flooding and power outages as it approached the impoverished Haitian side, but did not make landfall there..

Cuba evacuated some of the 51,000 tourists visiting the island, particularly 36,000 people at resorts on the northern coast. In Caibarien, a coastal town in the hurricane’s predicted path, residents headed farther inland.

Irma is the strongest hurricane recorded in the Atlantic Ocean and one of the five most forceful storms to hit the Atlantic basin in 82 years, according to the NHC.

(For a graphic on historical perspective of Irma, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/STORM-HARVEY/010050K2197/index.html)

(Reporting by Makini Brice in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Bate Felix and Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Dan Flynn; Editing by Larry King and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Hurricane Irma threatens power losses for millions in Florida

Hurricane Irma threatens power losses for millions in Florida

By Scott DiSavino

(Reuters) – Hurricane Irma poses a bigger menace to power supplies in Florida than Hurricane Harvey did in Texas because Irma is packing near 200 mile-per-hour winds (320 km/h) that could down power lines, close nuclear plants and threats to leave millions of homes and businesses in the dark for weeks.

Irma’s winds rival the strongest for any hurricane in history in the Atlantic, whereas Harvey’s damage came from record rainfall. Even as Houston flooded, the power stayed on for most, allowing citizens to use TV and radio to stay apprised of danger, or social media to call for help.

“When Harvey made landfall in Texas it made it fully inland and weakened pretty quickly. Irma, however, could retain much of its strength,” said Jason Setree, a meteorologist at Commodity Weather Group.

Irma has killed several people and devastated islands in the Caribbean.

Current forecasts put almost the entirety of the Florida peninsula in the path of the storm, which made landfall in the Caribbean with wind speeds of 185 mph (295 km/h).

The threat of the Category 5 storm, at the top of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, is grave enough that electricity generator Florida Power & Light (FPL) plans to shut its two nuclear power plants in the state, and officials warned that it may have to rebuild parts of its power system, which could take weeks.

Most Florida residents have not experienced a major storm since 2005, when total outages peaked around 3.6 million during Hurricane Wilma. Some of those outages lasted for weeks.

Setree compared the projected path of Irma to Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which knocked out power to about 1.2 million FPL customers in October.

FPL, a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc, restored service to most customers affected by Matthew in just two days. But FPL spokesman Chris McGrath said: “With a storm as powerful as Irma, we want customers to prepare for damage to our infrastructure and potentially prolonged power outages.”

He said it was too soon to speculate on the number and location of customers Irma could affect.

In a statement this week, FPL estimated about half of its near five million customers – particularly in the trio of populous southeast counties Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward – had not experienced a major hurricane since 2005.

“Should Irma’s worst fears be realized, our crews will likely have to completely rebuild parts of our electric system. Restoring power through repairs is measured in days; rebuilding our electric system could be measured in weeks,” FPL Chief Executive Eric Silagy said.

FPL, Florida’s biggest power provider, said it had invested nearly $3 billion since 2006 to strengthen its grid, including placing 60 main power lines underground and installing nearly five million smart meters and other devices.

Other publicly traded utilities in the Sunshine State, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc, said in statements that they had also invested in intelligent, self-healing devices.

Smart meters allow utilities to see outages as they occur, rather than waiting on customer calls, and utilities also use automated devices that can reenergize lines without damage that were taken offline because of contact with trees or other objects, said Jay Apt, director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center in Pittsburgh.

Olivia Ross, a spokeswoman for CenterPoint Energy, which serves the greater Houston area, said these devices helped the utility keep the lights on for more people in the aftermath of Harvey as some issues were resolved remotely.

But such devices can only do so much. Harvey’s outages were limited to 312,000 customers, of which CenterPoint was responsible for about 109,000, as it quickly lost force after landfall and turned into a tropical storm. By contrast, Ross noted, Hurricane Ike in 2008 caused 2.1 million of CenterPoint’s customers to lose power when it hit the Texas coast near Houston.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Richard Chang)