Floods
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Bizarro Earth

Death Toll Rises As Storm Lashes Eastern U.S.


Reuters
Sat, 02 Oct 2010 16:25 UTC
Tropical storm Nicole lashed the eastern United States with heavy rain and high winds again on Friday, causing more flooding and leaving one Pennsylvania woman dead in a weather-related traffic accident.

The woman drove her car into a rain-swollen creek, bringing the U.S. death toll from the storm to at least six, after five people were killed earlier this week in North Carolina.

The governor of North Carolina declared a state of emergency, with officials there warning that creeks and rivers would continue to rise even after the storm passed.

Flood warnings were in effect for parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C.

The deluge that started on Wednesday set records in several areas, said Dan Peterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
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Bizarro Earth

Tropical Storm Nicole Kills Nine in Jamaica

Kevin Gray
Reuters
Sat, 02 Oct 2010 05:43 UTC
Short-lived Tropical Storm Nicole triggered flash flooding that killed at least nine people in Jamaica and dumped heavy rain on Florida, Cuba, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas on Wednesday.

The broad and ragged storm formed on Wednesday morning and dissipated Wednesday afternoon. U.S. and Cuban meteorologists disagreed on whether it ever actually became a tropical storm at all.

Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami pegged its peak sustained winds at 40 miles per hour, just over the 39 mph threshold to become a named storm.

Cuban forecasters put the top winds at 37 mph and disagreed that it was a tropical storm when it crossed the island. "No tropical storm exists," Cuba's top meteorologist, Jorge Rubiera, said on national television.

U.S. forecasters said Nicole had a poorly defined center of circulation and had been "a marginal system."
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Bizarro Earth

Canada, Quebec: Nun dies in Sherbrooke flooding


CBC News
Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:51 UTC
Image
© CBCAuthorities closed major roads into Sherbrooke because of flooding.
Torrential rain over the past two days has caused major flooding across Quebec's Eastern Townships, killing at least one person.

More than 95 millimetres of rain have fallen in the region, which includes the city of Sherbrooke in the last 24 hours, causing nearby rivers to spill their banks.

A 66-year-old Sherbrooke nun plunged to her death Friday morning while trying to track down a leak on her roof. The woman, who lived on Évangéline Street, fell several metres from a ladder as she tried to climb down, according to eyewitnesses.

About 100 people were forced out of their homes because of high water levels in the Saint-François River, which rose to seven metres on Friday.

Transport authorities shut down at least two major arteries into the downtown core, Saint-François North Street and Grandes-Fourches Street because of water accumulation.
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Attention

Germany: Evacuations begin amid record flooding in Brandenburg


The Local
Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:40 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Emergency services in Brandenburg are preparing to evacuate the towns of Elsterwerda and Bad Liebenwerda amid flooding caused by record high water levels on the Elster River, officials said Wednesday.

Students of the Elsterschloss secondary school in Elsterwerda were forced to evacuate the school building on Wednesday, a police spokesman said.

In Bad Liebenwerda, the water level had already exceeded the maximum stage four flood alert by 30 centimetres. According to the state's Environment Ministry, the situation was intensifying in that town, with flood waters spilling over the dykes.

"This is no normal flood. We have the highest-ever measured water levels on the Elster," said ministry head Matthias Freude.

In places the flood waters could no longer be contained, making evacuations unavoidable, he said.

In particular danger was the area around the town of Pulsnitz in Saxony and the Schwarzer Elster River.

More than 800 emergency workers have been deployed and 150,000 sandbags transported to the area to contain the rising water.

The head of Ministry for the Cottbus region, Wolfgang Genehr, described the situation as "extremely critical."
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Bizarro Earth

US: Mighty Rains Deluge Cars, Close Roads in Northeast

Frank Eltman and Jim Fitzgerald
The Associated Press
Fri, 01 Oct 2010 10:04 UTC
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© Matt Rourke/AP PhotoAmel Sincere empties out her car after receded floodwaters submerged the parking lot of the Waterford Apartments in Havertown, Pa., Friday.
Torrential downpours from a faded tropical storm inundated the Northeast on Friday, forcing evacuations, toppling trees, cutting power to thousands and washing out roads during a snarled morning commute. Water pooled so deeply in a Philadelphia suburb that a car literally floated on top of another car.

The storm that killed five people in North Carolina on Thursday soaked a great swath of the Northeast by the Friday morning commute, including New York City and Philadelphia. Flights coming into LaGuardia Airport in New York City were delayed three hours and traffic coming into Manhattan was delayed by up to an hour under a pounding rain.

Firefighters in the Philadelphia area used a ladder truck to pull residents through the upper-floor windows of a building. Cars were submerged up to their windows, and a graphic artist found another vehicle floating atop his car.

Rainfall totals in the Philadelphia area topped 10 inches.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Rain Pounds North Carolina as Storm Moves Up the East Coast

Tom Breen
The Associated Press
Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:19 UTC
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© Chuck Burton/AP PhotoA man cleans his car at a flooded car wash in Carolina Beach, N.C., Thursday, Sept. 30, 2010.
Driving rain from a storm system moving up the East Coast brought flooding to parts of North Carolina on Thursday, caused soggy morning commutes in the Northeast and prompted worries of additional flooding as far north as Maine.

Tornado watches were issued from North Carolina to New Jersey.

In North Carolina, the nearly 21 inches collected in Wilmington since rain started falling Sunday topped Hurricane Floyd's five-day mark of 19 inches set in 1999, the National Weather Service said.

In the eastern part of the state, officials evacuated about 70 people overnight from a mobile home community in Kinston because of high water, Roger Dail, director of emergency services in Lenoir County, said.

"The water's still up," Dail said. "I would suspect it's going to be later today, maybe tomorrow, before the water goes out of there."
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Bizarro Earth

Hundreds Feared Dead After Landslide Buries Mexico Town


MSNBC
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:39 UTC
Image
© European Press Agency A landslide in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico. Reports suggest up to 1,000 people may have died in the remote area of south-western Mexico
'We can't even see the homes,' survivor says; 8,000 people impacted, more slides feared

Hundreds of people were buried in their homes early Tuesday after a rain-soaked mountainside gave way in southwestern Mexico, officials said.

Donato Vargas, an official in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec reached by phone, said 500 people were missing and that 300 homes were buried after the slide around 4 a.m. local time.

"We were all sleeping and all I heard was a loud noise and when I left the house I saw that the hill had fallen," Vargas said.

"It has been difficult informing authorities because the roads are very bad and there isn't a good signal for our phone," Vargas said shortly before the call dropped.

Reached by the news agency AFP, Vargas added that "we fear that those missing are buried inside their homes because we've already searched nearby areas."
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Bizarro Earth

US: State Of Emergency Declared In Seven Wisconsin Counties


Chanel3000.com
Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:03 UTC
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© Unknown
Buffalo, Jackson, Marathon, Portage, Wood Counties Added In Wake Of Flooding

Madison -- Gov. Jim Doyle declared a state of emergency in Buffalo, Jackson, Marathon, Portage and Wood counties on Friday following strong storms that caused flooding in the area.

Seven counties are currently under a state of emergency. Doyle announced a state of emergency in Clark and Trempealeau counties on Thursday.

According to state officials, Wisconsin's Emergency Management and Department of Natural Resources officials are working with the National Guard to assist in recovery efforts.

State officials say the declaration is a response to widespread flooding and storm damage in the affected counties. The storms caused damage to homes and businesses, flooding roads and bringing down power lines.

In Clark County, officials have reported at least three bridges washed away and damage estimates nearing $500,000.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Flooding Forces Mass-Evacuation of Wisconsin City Homes


The Associated Press
Thu, 23 Sep 2010 09:10 UTC
A powerful storm system passing through the upper Midwest has flooded a small Wisconsin city where police are urging more than half of residents to leave their homes for higher ground.

Arcadia City Clerk Angela Berg says officials are going door to door to tell up to 1,500 of the city's 2,500 residents to evacuate their homes. Berg says about 15 businesses were closed downtown due to flooding.

Classes in Arcadia schools have been canceled and two highways leading into town have been closed.

Berg says two creeks burst their banks in the city, which sits along the Trempealeau (TREMP'-eh-loh) River.
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Bizarro Earth

Typhoon Fanapi Kills 54 in China


Agence France-Presse
Thu, 23 Sep 2010 06:00 UTC
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© Agence France-Presse79,000 people have been evacuated due to Fanapi, according to Xinhua news agency
Typhoon Fanapi, one of the strongest storms to hit China in years, has left 54 people dead and 42 missing in flooding and landslides in the south of the country, state media said on Thursday.

Xinhua news agency said 79,000 people had been evacuated due to Fanapi, which hit China on Monday a day after raking Taiwan with heavy rains, killing two people and leaving more than 100 injured on the island.

All of China's deaths occurred in the southern province of Guangdong, which has been battered by its worst rains in a century, it said.

Authorities in Guangdong had to use helicopters to air-drop relief supplies to victims in some areas, it added, quoting provincial flood control authorities.

Of those missing, 25 people disappeared in a rain-triggered mudslide, state media reports had said.
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