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Floods

Sheriff

Toronto officer disciplined for posing as flooded train passenger


Yahoo! Canada News
Tue, 16 Jul 2013 00:00 UTC
Philip Cheung For The Globe and Mail

A GO Train full of passengers is stuck on the flooded tracks during a major rainstorm in downtown Toronto on July 8, 2013.
Toronto police Chief Bill Blair says an officer has been disciplined for posing as a stranded passenger on a waterlogged commuter train during major flooding last week.

Blair told radio station Newstalk 1010 the officer was "shameful" to pretend he was one of the 1,400 riders on the GO train when it became trapped by flood waters during the evening rush hour.

CBC said the officer was Const. Nickolas Dorazio. The network said he was working to help rescue the passengers, but told their TV crew he was stuck on the stranded train and even draped an orange towel around his shoulders for effect.

Blair says the force has disciplined the officer for his "stupid behaviour" that Monday night.

The police chief says the officer's conduct was an "eyebrow raiser" that undermined public confidence in the force.

Police and firefighters used small inflatable boats to ferry the trapped passengers a short distance to higher ground, with the evacuation taking some seven hours.
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Bizarro Earth

Mysterious disaster in India seen from space

Larry O'Hanlon
Discovery News
Mon, 15 Jul 2013 14:48 UTC
Mystery Landslide
© Indian National Remote Sensing Center
The village of Rambara is one of scores that were wiped off the map by the monsoon-triggered floods and debris flows in northern India last month.
Animated Image
It has taken some time for the news to come out of India, but there has been a major landslide disaster that has claimed an estimated 6,000 lives. In the remote, mountainous north of the country, steep slopes have given way and launched flows of rock and water that have destroyed or seriously damaged some 240 villages and small towns.

A very good place to get the details of the events, as well as analysis of the causes over the last few weeks, is via The Landslide Blog, by landslide expert Dave Petley of Durham University in the United Kingdom (full disclosure: I am the AGU blogosphere manager, where Petley's blog appears).

Among the dead are pilgrims, tourists and residents of a number of villages, including the temple town of Kedarnath. The cause of the disaster is the exceptionally heavy monsoon rains that have hit the region. Videos of the actual flooding can be seen here.

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Cloud Precipitation

From record heat and wildfires to record rainfall - mudslide sweeps away car in Colorado


The Guardian
Thu, 11 Jul 2013 13:27 UTC

A mudslide in Colorado sweeps away a car on Wednesday after heavy rainfall caused flooding. The car is believed to have been empty at the time. The flooding shut down four miles of a motorway for nearly three hours. More than 100 people were evacuated from the area but there have been no reports of injuries

Source: ITN
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Cloud Precipitation

Sichuan, China bridge collapse triggered by floods; 3 rescued from raging river


Huffington Post
Tue, 09 Jul 2013 15:48 UTC
Sichuan flood bridge
© AP Photo
In this image taken by mobile phone camera, what remains of the Qinglian bridge that was swept away by heaving flood waters is seen in the city of Jiangyou in the western province of Sichuan on Tuesday, July 9, 2013.
Three people were pulled from a raging river but six others remained missing following a bridge collapse Tuesday in mountainous western China amid heavy flooding that has forced thousands to evacuate their homes.

The official Xinhua News Agency said one sedan, three minivans and one SUV fell into the torrent when the more than 40-year-old Qinglian bridge broke apart just before noon in the city of Jiangyou in the western province of Sichuan.
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Cloud Lightning

Another Canadian city under water: Toronto battered by storm, flooding; 300,000 residents without power after deluge breaks rainfall record three-fold


CTV News
Mon, 08 Jul 2013 21:56 UTC
Toronto Flooding
© Jorge Costa
A car is partially submerged on Highway 427 in Toronto on Monday, July 8, 2013
Hundreds of thousands of residents are without power in the Greater Toronto Area and streets are flooded with rainwater after severe thunderstorms dumped nearly 100 millimetres of water across the region.

As of late Monday evening, 91 mm of rain fell in the city while rainfall totals measured 106 mm at the suburban Pearson International Airport after the storms blew through. The rain began at 4 p.m. local time, stranding commuters in cars, buses and subway trains as the busy rush hour was getting underway.

Toronto Hydro reported late Monday that approximately 300,000 residents remained without power across the city. The agency advised residents to call 416-542-8000 to report an outage.

Tanya Bruckmueller, public affairs advisor at the agency, said Monday evening it was impossible to guess when power will be restored.

She said extra work crews were on standby ahead of the storm's arrival, and more were being called in.

Comment: 22 June 2013: Calgary, Alberta devastated in deluge of biblical proportions

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Cloud Lightning

Video summary of extreme weather events of June 2013

2011Message / fidockave213
Youtube
Wed, 03 Jul 2013 10:00 UTC

Comment: To put things in perspective, we have decided to put these video summaries in one place. For context on recent weather and geological changes, listen to our podcast on the subject:

Ice Age Cometh? Extreme Weather Events and 'Climate Change'




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Cloud Lightning

Flash floods force evacuations in East-Central New York


Indian County Today Media Network
Fri, 28 Jun 2013 21:54 UTC
Image
© Facebook
CNY flooding Prospect Street in Herkimer, New York, on June 28, 2013.


Flooding fueled by heavy rains has driven hundreds of residents of east-central New York State from their homes in several counties, including Oneida, Chenango, Madison and Herkimer.

Many downtown Oneida streets were inundated on Friday June 28 after the levy along Oneida Creek overflowed, the Oneida Dispatch reported. The water was expected to crest in the early afternoon, said Dave Nicosia of the National Weather Service, speaking to the Dispatch. Oneida creek was at "record levels," he said, up at 16.7 feet, which surpassed the previous record of 15.6 in September 2011.

The Oneida Animal Hospital had to be evacuated as well, and numerous residents were moved to a shelter set up by the Red Cross at the city's armory. In addition severe rainstorms and flooding led the town of Kirkland to declare a state of emergency, the Dispatch reported.

The National Weather Service also warned resident in vulnerable areas along streams and creeks to expect flooding and poor drainage conditions, according to Syracuse.com.

"I haven't seen it this bad since the 1950s," said 71-year-old Joe Salerno to the Dispatch as he watched Oneida Creek overtake his back yard and flow into the cellar of his childhood home, where his son now lives.
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Attention

More evacuations as rail cars get stuck on collapsing bridge in Calgary

Josh Wingrove and Jeff Jones
The Globe and Mail
Thu, 27 Jun 2013 12:00 UTC
bow river bridge
© Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
A Canadian Pacific freight train sits derailed on a failing bridge over the Bow River in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, June 27, 2013.
A collapsing Calgary rail bridge appears to have "stabilized somewhat," city officials say, but five cars carrying a flammable, diesel-like substance remain stranded and at risk of falling into the Bow River.

Officials now hope to use heavy cables to secure the final five cars, as well as a sixth empty one, and keep them out of the river.

"The last thing we want is these cars running down the river, and causing problems downstream at other bridges or anything else," Acting Fire Chief Ken Uzeloc said Thursday morning, after earlier stressing: "Right now, the public is safe."

Emergency crews evacuated an 800-metre radius of the site after the 3:30 a.m. derailment. The evacuated section includes a section of Deerfoot Trail, a major Calgary thoroughfare. That closure will further leave traffic in near-gridlock in Alberta's biggest city, as flooding closures were already causing extensive delays.

The CP rail train was mostly over the bridge early Thursday morning when its crew noticed it had partially derailed. They called 911.

There were no injuries and no leaks are yet reported, CP spokesman Ed Greenberg said in an e-mail. "The cause is under investigation," he added.

Crews are setting up booms downstream, to catch some of the diesel-like substance if it is ultimately spilled.
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Cloud Precipitation

Floodwaters force hundreds to evacuate northeast Iowa town

David Pitt
Source
Tue, 25 Jun 2013 16:43 UTC
The northeast Iowa town of New Hartford was mostly deserted Tuesday after authorities went door-to-door before dawn, warning residents a flooded stream would inundate most of the small community.

"Everybody was notified and told to evacuate," said Butler County emergency management coordinator Mitch Nordmeyer as he surveyed the town, about 90 miles northeast of Des Moines. "If they stayed they were staying at their own risk."
Image
© Associated Press/Charlie Neibergall
Jim Johnson rows his boat down Main Street, Tuesday, June 25, 2013, in New Hartford, Iowa
Although most of New Hartford's 500-plus residents heeded warnings and left town, some stayed behind and there was no sense of panic.

Residents had seen the normally placid Beaver Creek flood before. And after some areas upstream received more than 7 inches of rain on Monday, few seemed surprised the stream was surging out of its banks again.
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Cloud Precipitation

Record rainfall dumped on Pilbara, Western Australia

Elle Farcic
The West Australian
Tue, 25 Jun 2013 16:09 UTC
Parts of the Pilbara have been inundated with rainfall overnight that would usually only fall during a cyclone.

The highest rainfall in the region was recorded in Karratha, where 209.2mm of rain has fallen since 9am yesterday.

The rainfall smashed Karratha's daily June record of 60mm.

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