[hurricane season 2005] Katrina op ramkoers met New Orleans

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BALTIMORE (May 19, 2005) —
Hurricane Adrian had killed two people and was damaging Central America’s Pacific coast by Thursday evening.

Some 2,500 people were evacuated from El Salvador, where schools were closed and fishing activities were banned, according to reports from Action by Churches Together (ACT), a global alliance of churches and related agencies that responds to emergencies worldwide.


The two deaths occurred in Guatemala, when a mudslide blamed on Adrian buried two construction workers near the Mexican border.


Forecasters warned Adrian could spawn flooding and mudslides in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The region was told to expect about 10 inches of rain, with as much as 20 inches in mountain areas.


Adrian was a Category 1 hurricane Thursday night, was expected to pick up speed before hitting El Salvador's coast.


By Thursday evening, Adrian was about 90 miles southwest of El Salvador's capital, San Salvador, with winds near 85 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.


Faith-based groups were working closely with government officials in the region to prepare for the storm and to deploy an immediate response.


The ACT National Forum in El Salvador was activated to coordinate disaster preparedness activities with local community networks in Cara Sucia on the southwest coast.


In Guatemala and Honduras, government officials were setting up temporary shelters, and making transportation is available for evacuation activities. ACT Forums in both countries were activated to follow the situation.


In Nicaragua, people living in the lower areas of Managua - those living close to Xolotlan Lake - were evacuated. The local government announced it does not have the resources to assist the population with the evacuation, according to ACT.


The Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN) was also planning to activate. SATERN helps train and acquire personnel skilled in emergency communications and message handling in disaster situations.


Adrian’s damage was not expected to approach that of Hurricane Mitch, which hit Central American in 1998, killing about 10,000 people in Honduras and Nicaragua.


The first hurricane of the Pacific season, Adrian has taken an unusual path - east instead of the usual west - toward the Caribbean. It is forecast to move across Central America, where it will likely break up over the mountains and be downgraded again to a tropical storm or tropical depression.


By Friday afternoon, the system was expected to continue on into the Caribbean and keep moving closer to Cuba. Forecasters said it would likely be out of the Caribbean by Monday morning. If the storm loses the circulation over the mountains and reforms over the Caribbean, it will get the name Arlene, the first name on the Atlantic names list for 2005.


According to weather historians, at least three storms have survived the trip over Central America in the past. The last one - an unnamed tropical storm - was in 1965. In 1923 and 1902, hurricanes survived the trek from the Pacific into the Gulf of Mexico.


The good news: Adrian might help relieve Cuba’s current drought.


Posted May 19, 2005 10:43 PM

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Hurricane Adrian Fizzles over Honduras

Posted May 20, 2005 6:53PM

Salvadoran President Tony Saca told local Channel 12 that officials were evaluating the damage, but said activities were turning to normal after the concern caused by the first hurricane on record to directly hit El Salvador.

Hurricane Adrian fizzled over Honduras Friday after slamming into El Salvador's coast and forcing the evacuation of 23,000 people, officials said.
The hurricane, first of the eastern Pacific season, caused relatively little damage and no reported deaths. It struck west of El Salvador's capital overnight with maximum sustained winds of almost 75 mph.

By midday, the rapidly moving storm had largely broken up over neighboring Honduras, leaving scattered showers, some flooding, blocked roads and the loss of a few shacks.

Officials linked one death to the storm. Rodrigo Flores, deputy chief of civil defense in Nicaragua, said a person drowned Thursday night during flooding in that country's capital, about 240 miles from the storm's center.

In Honduras, "there were no deaths or damage to mourn," said President Ricardo Maduro. "So we are fortunate."

Salvadoran President Tony Saca told local Channel 12 that officials were evaluating the damage, but said activities were turning to normal after the concern caused by the first hurricane on record to directly hit El Salvador.

He said most of the 23,000 people evacuated in El Salvador had returned home. The Salvadoran-based airline TACA also resumed service.

In Honduras, schools were closed as a precaution and many public workers were on a half-day schedule.

Officials in Guatemala and Nicaragua also reported some small-scale evacuations and flooding.

In 1998, Hurricane Mitch rolled across the region from the Caribbean side and killed at least 9,000 people.

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Hurricane Dennis pummels Havana, 32 dead in Caribbean

By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA, July 9 (Reuters) - Deadly Hurricane Dennis pummeled Havana into the early morning hours on Saturday, uprooting trees and leaving the city's 2.2 million people in darkness after earlier killing 32 people in southeastern Cuba and Haiti.

The storm weakened as it crossed Cuba from a ferocious Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale to a less severe Category 2, but its 110-mph (180 kph) winds still screamed through the deserted streets of the Cuban capital, where many live in decrepit colonial buildings.

Residents said trees were plucked from the ground.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Dennis -- the strongest hurricane recorded so early in an Atlantic storm season -- would strengthen again on Saturday as it re-emerged over warm open water and skipped south of the Florida Keys.

Thousands of tourists and residents were evacuated from the vulnerable and low-lying island chain at the southern tip of the Florida peninsula, and many more prepared to leave coastal homes along the U.S. Gulf Coast, where Dennis was expected to land on Sunday evening.

Natural gas and oil production was also curtailed as oil platforms in the U.S. Gulf, where a quarter of U.S. crude and natural gas comes from, were evacuated.

Cuban authorities had evacuated more than 600,000 people in different parts of the country as Dennis approached the southern city of Cienfuegos. But the measures, which usually allow the Communist island to escape hurricane strikes with minimal casualties, failed to prevent 10 deaths on Thursday night.

Cuban President Fidel Castro said most of the victims died in collapsed houses in two coastal towns in Granma province. An 18-day-old baby was among those who died, he said on state television, calling the hurricane a "diabolical force."

Officials said 15,400 of the adjacent towns' 20,000 homes were destroyed or damaged. Television images showed rows of clapboard houses flattened by the storm.

On Friday, gusts of up to 149 mph (240 kph) also caused extensive damage in Cienfuegos, where the storm made landfall. It ripped up trees and downed electricity lines, but no casualties were reported there.

In southern Haiti, 15 people died when a swollen river tore away a bridge. The total number of deaths in Haiti reached 22, according to various officials.

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BP in race against time to secure tilting platform
NEW YORK (Reuters) - BP workers in the Gulf of Mexico are racing to level the company's Thunder Horse oil platform, which is tilting precariously following Hurricane Dennis, before the possible arrival of another storm.
Thunder Horse, the largest semi-submersible oil platform in the world, had become more secure overnight, BP said on Wednesday.

A team of engineers on board is inspecting the damage and working to start pumps in an attempt to level the platform, which is listing 20 degrees, with its lower deck almost touching the water.

The tilting was discovered Monday, after the facility was evacuated Friday due to the approach of Hurricane Dennis.

Their work could be hindered by Tropical Storm Emily, which is moving westward from the Atlantic.

BP, the world's second-largest oil company by market capitalization, has said it does not know what caused the problem.

Thunder Horse, which cost $1 billion (567,996 billion pounds), is seen as the biggest hope for a small recovery in U.S. crude production, which has been falling since the 1970s. It was scheduled to start producing oil and gas in the fourth quarter of 2005.

"Chances are it will be delayed, how long and how much is still being discussed," said Mir Yousufuddin, an upstream oil analyst at the U.S Energy Information Administration.

BP owns 75 percent of Thunder Horse, with Exxon Mobil holding the rest. Both majors self-insure their portions of the platform.

BP said a survey by unmanned miniature submarines had not found any damage to Thunder Horse's hull. Analysts said this suggested a problem with its ballast tanks.

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Eastern Caribbean wary as Emily draws near
Jul 13, 05: MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane alerts were issued on Tuesday for some small eastern Caribbean islands as Tropical Storm Emily raced across the Atlantic Ocean.

Residents of Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Grenada, which was devastated by Hurricane Ivan last year, were told they could face hurricane conditions within 24 hours.

The government of energy-rich Trinidad and Tobago issued a tropical storm warning for the island of Tobago. France cautioned residents of Martinique to be ready for storm conditions.

Emily, the fifth tropical storm or hurricane of the busy Atlantic season, formed late on Monday and by 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) on Tuesday was about 475 miles east-southeast of Barbados, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Sustained winds had grown to 50 mph (80 kph) and the storm was moving to the west at about 20 mph (32 kph).

Forecasters said Emily could reach hurricane strength, with 74 mph (119 kph) winds, by the time it reaches the Windward Islands, on the eastern rim of the Caribbean Sea, by late Wednesday or early Thursday.

Hurricane Ivan damaged 90 percent of Grenada's housing when it hit in September. It caused $2.2 billion in damage, more than double the island's annual economic output, and officials said it would take Grenada 10 years to fully recover.

Emily follows hot on the heels of Hurricane Dennis, which rampaged through the Caribbean and then slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Sunday.

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EMILY TAKES DANGEROUS PATH ACROSS YUCATAN
Tourists caught in hurricane's grip seek shelter as resorts are hit
^{By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle}

TULUM, MEXICO - Thousands of tourists and locals fled Hurricane Emily's 135 mph winds Sunday as it began churning across the Yucatan Peninsula and heading toward northern Mexico and South Texas.

After crossing the peninsula, Emily is expected to gather strength over the Gulf of Mexico, and could bring high winds and rain to South Texas by late Tuesday. Some residents were already bracing for it.

"We're boarding up the windows with wood," said Sophie Trevino, 23, a Cameron County Sheriff's Department dispatcher in Brownsville. "We think we'll get some wind and at least some rain."

Copying the path that the deadly Hurricane Gilbert took in 1988, the compact but fierce Category 4 Emily — the strongest storm this early in the hurricane season since record-keeping began 140 years ago — was expected to
make landfall again in Tamaulipas state, south of Brownsville.

In Tulum, the surge ahead of the storm came up to the first floors of some beachside hotels, according to radio reports. Tens of thousands of tourists were evacuated from the main hotel strip in Cancun, Islas Mujeres and the island of Cozumel late Sunday night.

After shutting off 63 offshore oil wells Saturday, Mexico began closing oil-exporting ports in the southern Gulf on Sunday. The state oil monopoly, Pemex, continued to operate its refinery in Tabasco state, but output was down by a quarter.

Two pilots died when their helicopter crashed during evacuation of 15,000 workers from oil platforms in the Bay of Campeche, on the western side of the Yucatan.

In Jamaica, four people were swept away in a car.

In the Yucatan, tourists and residents who could leave did so by the thousands. Those who couldn't get out spent Sunday arranging shelter.

"I tried to get out of here and there is just no way," said Jeani Bedore, 49, a school principal and mother of two from Oregon who owns a condominium in Playa del Carmen, about 45 miles south of Cancun. "Talk about freaky."

State officials said 20,000 tourists had flown out of Cancun airport Saturday and Sunday. But many flights were canceled, and the airport was closed at 5 p.m. Sunday.

At least 4,000 tourists were taken to public shelters while several thousand others bedded down in 32 hotel lobbies, city authorities said.

Hundreds of mostly foreign tourists lay shoulder-to-shoulder on thin foam pads in a sweltering gymnasium near the center of Cancun, authorities said. Power was knocked out to most of Cancun and Playa del Carmen.

In a heavily Maya Indian area south of Cancun, residents refused to evacuate.

"They don't want to leave," a frustrated Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez told state radio after flying into the area to persuade the villagers. "They don't see a need to."

When Gilbert hit 17 years ago, Cancun had just 8,000 hotel rooms and perhaps 75,000 residents. Dubbed the Maya Riviera by promoters, today the city has 50,000 rooms and 300,000 inhabitants.

Mexican officials, who once viewed hurricanes with some nonchalance, have begun taking them more seriously.

"We now have a hurricane culture," Francisco Tenreiro said as he tied down the boats he rents on the beach in Playa del Carmen.

The government of Quintana Roo state urged residents in more vulnerable areas — especially the slums surrounding Cancun and some coastal towns — into shelters.

"The trouble is that a lot of people just arrived here and have no idea about hurricanes," said Samuel Gonzalez, a manager at a beachfront hotel in Playa del Carmen. "They don't pay attention to the government bulletins because they don't understand them."

Itinerant construction workers, who have flocked here from across southern Mexico for $90-a-week jobs, are accustomed to sleeping at the construction sites. Many were turned out by the police Sunday morning.

"We're surrounded by water, so this isn't safe at all," said Gaspar Perez, 18, from Tabasco. "We're used to such storms in my town, but not so powerful and not so direct. This is very dangerous here."

Other storms have hit the Yucatan since Gilbert, but none as powerful as Emily.

Reporter Dale Lezon and Chronicle wire services contributed to this report.