Tag Archives: Georgia

Floridians, Southeast coast urged to evacuate as Hurricane approaches

By Gabriel Stargardter and Harriet McLeod

MIAMI/CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – People along the southeast U.S. coast fled inland, stocked up on groceries and queued for gasoline on Wednesday as President Barack Obama and state governors urged millions to evacuate or brace for a potentially devastating Hurricane Matthew.

Matthew pummeled the Bahamas and took aim at the United States as the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, appearing likely to hit Florida with powerful winds, storm surges and heavy rain on Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

“I want to emphasize to the public – this is a serious storm,” Obama said after a briefing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “If there is an evacuation order in your community, you need to take it seriously.”

Federal emergency response teams had arrived in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, and were coordinating with state officials and stockpiling supplies, Obama said. Governors in those states have declared states of emergency, enabling them to mobilize the National Guard.

Matthew, a major Category 3 storm, had sustained winds of about 115 miles per hour (185 km per hour) on Wednesday night, the Miami-based hurricane center said, adding that it was too soon to predict where Matthew was likely to do the most damage.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has ordered an evacuation of more than a million people in coastal areas, about a quarter of whom were expected to comply.

In Georgia, Governor Nathan Deal expanded a state of emergency declaration to include 17 additional counties in the southeastern part of the state, bringing the total to 30 counties, his office said late on Wednesday.

Workers remove umbrellas at the Starlite Hotel in anticipation of Hurricane Matthew in South Beach, Florida,

Workers remove umbrellas at the Starlite Hotel in anticipation of Hurricane Matthew in South Beach, Florida, U.S. October 5, 2016. REUTERS/Javier Galeano

Florida Governor Rick Scott urged those in vulnerable areas to evacuate early, even if orders had not yet been issued, and to use state shelters.

Scott requested that Obama declare a pre-landfall emergency for Florida, which would bring federal resources such as food, water and tarps, and added an additional 1,500 National Guard members to an already active force of 1,500.

Evacuations, some of them mandatory, were underway in about a dozen of Florida’s coastal counties, and at least four hospitals were being cleared, Scott said. More than 1.5 million Florida residents reside in evacuation zones, Scott’s office said.

“If it turns at the last minute, you are not going to have time to get ready,” Scott said. “You are going to put your life and your family’s life at risk.”

In South Carolina, where the effects of the storm were expected on Saturday morning, drivers reported gridlock and  long delays. The city of Charleston handed out sandbags and shovels.

Some gasoline stations posted “out of gas” signs but state officials said they were unaware of any significant shortages.

Lynn Pagliaro, 76, was filling up extra cans of gasoline and loading them into his sport utility vehicle in Charleston, saying he had no choice but to head inland.

“I live at (a retirement community) and they’re shutting off the power,” he said. “I like to get out of town anyway and take the burden off local resources. I was here for Hurricane Hugo. It made a last-minute turn.”

Hugo, a more powerful Category 4 hurricane, slammed into Charleston in September 1989, killing 21 people and causing $7 billion worth of damage on the U.S. mainland, the hurricane center said.

In Miami, the owner of an Exxon gas station in the Brickell district set up cones to form an orderly line of cars that at times stretched an entire block.

“Everybody is filling up. We’re about to run out of gas,” said Jesus Ramirez, 56.

At a nearby Publix supermarket, staff said trade was brisk with customers buying water and canned goods, concerned they might be stuck at home for days. “It’s chaos,” said one employee, who was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Floridians on social media said they were stocking up on groceries and preparing their homes with hurricane shutters.

“The grocery store shelves are practically empty,” said Facebook user Sonja Smith of Boca Raton, Florida.

American Airlines said it was canceling Thursday flights at three south Florida airports and all Friday afternoon flights in and out of Jacksonville.

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein and Amy Tennery; Editing by Daniel Trotta, Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)

Colonial expects restart of gasoline line on Wednesday after leak

Vehicles wait in line for gas at a Twice Daily gas station on Franklin Road in Brentwood, Tennessee, U.S.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – United States.Colonial Pipeline Co said it expects a full restart of its gasoline line by Wednesday evening after its biggest leak in nearly two decades squeezed supply and led to increased prices at the pump in southeast

The biggest refined products system in the U.S. restarted parts of the line a few days after a leak was discovered on Sept. 9. The damaged section of the 1.3 million-barrel-a-day line that connects the refining hub of the Gulf Coast to the East Coast has been shut for more than 12 days.

Motorists have faced long lines and shortage of fuel in many states across the southeast, such as North Carolina and Tennessee.

Consumers are expected to feel the pinch for slightly longer, until the supply chain is fully restored after the 6,000-8,000 barrel leak in Shelby County, Alabama.

Prices in Georgia, one of the most affected, inched up by another cent on Wednesday, with a gallon of regular gasoline currently at $2.372, about 28 cents higher than last week’s average prices, according to motorist advocacy group AAA.

The outage led to a record drop in inventories in the East Coast and sent Gulf Coast gasoline stockpiles soaring to record highs.

The company built a section of pipe to bypass the damaged portion, in order to restart operations quickly. The U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) approved the operation of the bypass as a temporary measure to restore service, late Tuesday.

That approval, however, does not affect the terms of the Corrective Action Order PHMSA issued on Sept. 16.

Colonial said it successfully tested and completed the connection of the bypass segment to the main line on Wednesday morning.

After the line is restarted, Colonial will work with federal, state and local officials to remove the damaged segment of the original line and also try to determine the cause of the leak. It was discovered on Sept. 9 by a mining inspector who smelled a fuel odor.

(Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in New York; Editing by Chris Reese)

Gasoline prices spike as Colonial begins bypass around damaged line

Out of fuel signs are pictured on gas pumps at a Mapco gas station at Spence Lane and Lebanon Pike in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.

By David Gaffen

(Reuters) – Retail gasoline prices surged due to continuing problems with Colonial Pipeline Co’s gasoline line that carries fuel to the U.S. East Coast, as the company started to construct a bypass line around the leak.

Colonial said on Saturday evening that it would construct a bypass that circumvents the leak, which occurred more than a week ago in Shelby County, Alabama. It is unclear when construction will be completed but the company has previously said it anticipates reopening the line, which can carry up to 1.2 million barrels of gasoline a day, later this week.

The volume of the spill is estimated to be between 6,000 and 8,000 barrels.

The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in Georgia rose to $2.26 as of Sunday morning, according motorists’ advocacy group AAA, up more than six cents overnight and more than 15 cents in a week. Prices were up 4 cents in North Carolina to $2.136 and 4 cents in South Carolina to $2.011.

Local media reports have shown gasoline lines forming across the U.S. Southeast due to the shutdown and analysts believe that retail prices could be affected for more than two weeks. New York gasoline futures are up 9 percent in the past week, and rose 0.68 percent to $1.4715 a gallon after the market opened for trading at 6 p.m. EDT on Sunday (0000 GMT Monday).

Colonial shut its main gasoline and distillate lines that run from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast on Sept. 9 after the leak was discovered. The damaged Line 1 can carry 1.2 million barrels of gasoline per day and runs from Houston to Greensboro, North Carolina.

Several states in the Southeast have issued emergency orders waiving certain rules that restrict transport of fuel by road in order to keep filling stations stocked with fuel. It is unclear how quickly the pipeline will be fixed.

“I don’t take much solace in Colonial’s updates,” said Patrick DeHaan, a petroleum analyst who writes a blog called Gas Buddy.

He said prices are moving up roughly one-tenth of 1 cent every hour and that it could take several weeks before prices return to normal.

A Colonial spokeswoman had no immediate response to DeHaan’s assertion.

However, James Williams of WTRG in London, Arkansas, said the projected timeline for restart is possible, even with testing required by federal authorities. He also said consumers’ tendencies to top off their tanks when this type of news hits is not necessarily cause for alarm, either.

“The shortage appears greater because people are filling up more often so you are certain there is a shortage because there are lines at the station but on average they are only purchasing the quarter of a tank of gas instead of three-quarters,” he said.

DeHaan said prices at non-branded chains were rising more quickly than those with larger, branded operations, because larger regional gasoline companies have the ability to tap supply more quickly.

Coming into this week, U.S. East Coast inventories of total motor gasoline, which includes blending components, was higher seasonally than in the past 10 years, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

(Reporting By David Gaffen and Dan Freed in New York; Editing by Bill Trott)

Storm Julia weakens into a depression, meandering off of U.S. coast

Map of Tropical Storm Julia

(Updates with details)

Sept 15 (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Julia weakened into a depression and is expected to meander off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina for the next few days, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Thursday.

Julia is located about 60 miles (95 km) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph), the Miami-based weather forecaster said.

“A slow and erratic motion is expected over the next couple of days, and the track forecast keeps Julia meandering offshore of the Georgia and southern South Carolina coastlines into Saturday,” the NHC said.

Julia, the 10th named storm of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, was moving northeast at 2 mph just off the U.S. coast, as little change TO its strength was expected during next two days, it said.

Heavy rain combined with high tides raised concerns of flooding in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, and other coastal parts of the state into Thursday morning, forecasters said.

Some residents in coastal communities were offered sandbags to prepare for flooding in low-lying areas.

Since late Tuesday, Julia has dumped heavy rains and toppled trees in the region, but has not caused significant damage, the National Weather Service said.

On Thursday morning, the hurricane center also was tracking a tropical depression that was expected to bring heavy rains to the Cape Verde islands off West Africa. On its forecasted track, the system would remain far away from the coastal United States through early next week.

(Reporting by Karen Rodrigues in Bengaluru and Brendan O’Brien
in Milwaukee; Editing by Alison Williams)

Storm Julia dumping heavy rains on Georgia and South Carolina coasts

Tropical Storm Julia and other storms lined up in the Atlantic

(Reuters) – Tropical Storm Julia dumped heavy rains along coastal Georgia and South Carolina on Wednesday, weakening as it drifted north along the U.S. Southeast coast, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm, centered around southeastern Georgia, had gusting winds as strong as 40 mph (65 kph). Heavy rain and high tides threatened low-lying coastal areas prone to flooding, such as parts of Charleston, South Carolina, forecasters said.

“It’s weakening, but it will still continue to produce heavy rain and that is the main hazard that we are concerned with,” said Bob Bright, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston.

Julia, the 10th named storm of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, is expected to weaken to a tropical depression on Wednesday as it moved north at 7 mph, the Miami-based hurricane center said.

At 8 a.m. (1200 GMT), Julia was about 10 miles (16 km) west of Brunswick, Georgia, the hurricane center said.

Northeast Florida felt the storm’s strong blasts and bands of rain after it came ashore late on Tuesday around Cape Canaveral, forecasters said.

The National Weather Service in Jacksonville, Florida, whose coverage area includes southeastern Georgia, had received reports of toppled trees, but not significant structural damage on Wednesday morning, meteorologist Scott Cordero said.

“We had some pretty good winds associated with it,” he said. “She is starting to lose her tropical characteristics, as she is remaining mainly landlocked.”

(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla., Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, and Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Heavens and James Dalgleish)

Georgian army begins U.S. led military excersize, angering Russia

Georgian servicemen attend an opening ceremony of U.S. led joint military exercise "Noble Partner 2016" in Vaziani

By Margarita Antidze

TBILISI (Reuters) – The Georgian army began two weeks of military exercises with the United States and Britain on Wednesday, drawing an angry response from former Soviet master Russia which called the war games “a provocative step”.

About 650 soldiers from the United States, 150 from Britain and 500 from Georgia were taking part in the maneuvers, with Washington dispatching an entire mechanized company including eight Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and, for the first time, eight M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks.

Georgia’s Defence Minister Tina Khidasheli said the drills were an important event for the South Caucasus republic.

“This is one of the biggest exercises that our country has ever hosted, this is the biggest number of troops on the ground, and the largest concentration of military equipment,” Khidasheli told Reuters.

But the exercises went down badly in Moscow where the Russian Foreign Ministry last week warned they could destabilize the region, a charge denied by Georgian officials.

“These exercises are not directed against anyone. There is no trace of provocation,” Georgia’s Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili said in a statement.

Russia defeated Georgia in a short war in 2008 over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, and Moscow continues to garrison troops there and to support another breakaway region, Abkhazia.

The exercises were run out of the Vaziani military base near Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

Russian forces used to be based there until they withdrew at the start of the last decade under the terms of a European arms reduction agreement.

“The importance of these exercises is to improve interoperability between Georgia, the United States and the United Kingdom. … It enables us to prepare Georgia’s contribution to a NATO response force,” Colonel Jeffrey Dickerson, the U.S. director of the exercises, told Reuters.

The United States has spoken favorably of the idea that Georgia might one day join NATO, something Russia firmly opposes.

(Editing by Alexander Winning/Andrew Osborn)

Atlanta airport evacuated as U.S. on alert after Brussels attacks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Atlanta’s airport was briefly evacuated on Wednesday over a suspicious package while U.S. law enforcement agencies and travelers were on edge a day after deadly suicide bombings by Islamist militants rocked Brussels.

Passengers were ordered out of public areas of the domestic terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the United States’ busiest by passenger volume, but the site was quickly cleared and operations resumed, airport officials said.

Parts of Denver airport were also evacuated on Tuesday, hours after at least 31 people were killed and 271 wounded in attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train, as airports across the United States tightened security.

U.S. officials were trying to find Americans missing after the attacks, which the officials said injured about a dozen U.S. citizens including three Mormon missionaries, a U.S. Air Force airman, and four members of his family.

Among those missing were U.S. government personnel, a State Department spokesman told reporters in Washington.

“We still have not accounted for every official U.S. government employee or their family members on the ground,” said the spokesman, Mark Toner. “Partly that reflects the size of the mission or three missions: there’s a bilateral mission, there’s a mission to the EU, as well as a mission to NATO.”

The situation, Toner added, remains “very fluid.” He could not confirm whether any Americans were killed.

Representative Devin Nunes of California, chairman of the U.S. House intelligence committee, said the attacks may have been aimed at U.S. citizens, noting that the airport blast struck close to U.S. airline counters and that the metro station hit was near the U.S. embassy.

“It looks like it was targeted toward Americans to some degree,” Nunes told reporters.

Apart from the eight Americans confirmed as wounded, U.S. media reported on Wednesday that relatives of at least four other Americans who had been traveling in Belgium were still trying to track them down.

Husband and wife Justin and Stephanie Shults, originally from Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively, but now living in Belgium, have not been heard from since they dropped a relative at the airport shortly before the blasts, a family member said.

“We haven’t been able to contact them going on 30 hours,” Justin Shults’ brother, Levi Sutton, told Reuters in a Facebook message. “Stephanie’s mom is fine but she was separated from Justin and Stephanie.”

DEATH TOLL COULD RISE

Sister and brother Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski, who had been living in New York, remain unaccounted for, the New York Daily News reported. The Pinczowskis’ citizenship was unclear. A woman who identified herself on social media as Alexander Pinczowski’s girlfriend said she had been unable to contact him since Tuesday morning.

Belgian officials have said the death toll could increase because some victims at the subway station were blown to pieces and hard to identify, and several survivors were in critical condition.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said on Wednesday that one of its missionaries, Richard Norby, 66, was in a medically-induced coma after lengthy surgery to address shrapnel wounds and second-degree burns.

The attacks sent shockwaves across Europe and around the world, with authorities racing to review security at airports and on public transport systems.

Islamic State, which controls areas of Syria and Iraq and has sympathizers worldwide, claimed responsibility for the Brussels bombings, fueling debate and controversy in the United States about how to stop such attacks.

U.S. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said the United States and Europe should take a “harder look” at protocols at airports and other “soft sites” outside security perimeters.

U.S. Republican presidential campaign hopeful Donald Trump has advocated torturing militant suspects to obtain information, while another Republican candidate, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, called for heightened police scrutiny of neighborhoods with large Muslim populations.

President Barack Obama, a Democrat, rejected singling out Muslims and said while on a visit to Argentina that any such approach “is not only wrong and un-American, but it also would be counterproductive because it would reduce the strength, the antibodies that we have to resist the terrorism.”

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden said the United States was offering Belgium all assistance to help bring the bombers to justice. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Belgium on Friday, a State Department spokesman said.

(Additional reporting by Megan Cassella, Amanda Becker and Susan Heavey in Washington, Barbara Goldberg in New York, Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Jeff Mason in Buenos Aires; Writing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Bill Trott and Grant McCool)

Remnants of Tropical Storm Erika Cause Flooding

Tropical Storm Erika collapsed before making landfall in Florida but the remnants of the storm are wreaking havoc across parts of three states.

Parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are being doused with torrential rains which has led to flooding and even mudslides.

“It is difficult to pinpoint exactly which locations will see the heaviest rainfall on any given day, but a general swath from the Florida peninsula to the coastal plain of the Carolinas may see heavy rainfall through the first half of the new week,” The Weather Channel said.

ABC 4 Charleston reported that 6.43 inches of rain fell by 10 a.m. making the day already the fifth wettest in the city’s history with the rest of the day to go.  Schools across the region were closed and even the city’s trolley service had to be shut down by the flooding.

Fire officials said there was at least one water rescue.

They also reported a dangerous animal situation: a gator was photographed swimming down a flooded residential street.  Officials even used drones to patrol the area to make sure the gator couldn’t sneak up on some of the animal control officials sent to capture it.

Much of the city of Charleston is at or just above sea level and the rainfall struck the same time as high tides.

Erika claimed 21 lives before it broke apart after crossing Cuba.

Georgia Football Team Helps 5-Year-Old With Rare Brain Disorder Obtain Dream

A five-year-old boy from Georgia was told by doctors that he would never be able to play football because of a very rare brain disorder.

Ben Holloway was diagnosed with brain dural arteriovenous fistual (BDAF) last year.

“Last spring, my wife was telling me that Ben’s eye looked like it was bulging, and though I didn’t think much of it, she was very persistent,” his dad, Joshua Holloway, told ABCNews. “We brought him to a pediatrician after a few days, and he knew something was wrong.”

The doctors immediately rushed Ben to the ER where a CT scan confirmed the BDAF diagnosis.  BDAF is a condition where there is an abnormal connection between blood vessels inside and outside the the brain’s fibrous covering, or dura.

“You can have side effects and devastating problems such as bleeding in the brain, which can lead to stroke, and other problems such as swelling in eyes that can cause vision loss,” Dr. Nicholas Bambakidis said. “In children, these fistulas seem to form spontaneously, whereas adults usually acquire them from trauma such as gunshot wounds.”

Ben had to undergo surgeries to deal with the problems associated with BDAF including an abnormal tangle of blood vessels that brought excess blood the size of a golf ball into his head.  Doctors gave him a 50/50 chance of a stroke and even 20 percent chance of dying during surgery.

A week before a third surgery, the players and coaches of Murray County High School heard about Ben, his love of football and how doctors said he could never play the game.

And they decided to prove the doctors wrong.

Ben was invited to a scrimmage game where he was surprised with his own uniform and equipment including shoulder pads and a helmet.  He was told to suit up and be ready when his number was called.

In the first half of the game, the offense called on Ben to be the running back in a “shotgun draw.”  The quarterback took the snap and handed it to Ben who then ran it in for a touchdown with the entire team cheering him on.

Video of the event has gone viral.

“He was like a kid at Christmas time,” Joshua Holloway said. “It was like Christmas morning for him — it really was.”

“We still watch the video every night,” he added.

Ben had a third surgery the following week that was so successful he may not have to undergo a fourth surgery.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family’s unexpected medical costs.

Multitude of Sinkhole Development During Last Two Days

A multitude of sinkholes around the country has struck in the last two days.

A massive Florida sinkhole that opened in February 2013 under the home of Jeff Bush, swallowing the man and his bedroom, reopened on Wednesday.  The sinkhole is now part of vacant lots after the government destroyed homes surrounding it and was filled in again for a second time.

“It brings back memories,” the victim’s brother Jeremy Bush told CNN affiliate WFLA with tears in his eyes. “I think about it every day. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it.”

Another sinkhole in Leesburg, Virginia knocked out water to residents and left a 30 foot by 40 foot hole in the middle of a street.  The city has been monitoring the hole for further movement.

In Athens, Georgia, a sinkhole opened near a local business and swallowed an ice machine and the end wall of a car wash. Lynn Taylor, a neighbor to the business, said she heard noises beginning around midnight and awoke to find the hole the following morning.

“It sounded like somebody was ruffling my doors,” Taylor said.

Finally, Interstate 93 in Concord, New Hampshire reopened Thursday after a sinkhole closed the road down on Wednesday.  The 20-foot sinkhole closed the northbound highway between Exits 13 and 14 around Noon Wednesday.

In a fortunate situation, a staffer for the Department of Transportation was driving over the sinkhole as it began to collapse and they were able to stop traffic before anyone drove into it.