Tag: landforms and ecosystems

‘Like going to the moon’: The world’s most terrifying ocean crossing | CNN

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It’s the body of water that instils fear and inspires sailors in equal measure. Six hundred miles of open sea, and some of the roughest conditions on the planet – with an equally inhospitable land of snow and ice awaiting you at the end of it.

“The most dreaded bit of ocean on the globe – and rightly so,” Alfred Lansing wrote of explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1916 voyage across it in a small lifeboat. It is, of course, the Drake Passage, connecting the southern tip of the South American continent with the northernmost point of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Once the preserve of explorers and sea dogs, the Drake is today a daunting challenge for an ever-increasing number of travelers to Antarctica – and not just because it takes up to 48 hours to cross it. For many, being able to boast of surviving the “Drake shake” is part of the attraction of going to the “white continent.”

But what causes those “shakes,” which can see waves topping nearly 50 feet battering the ships? And how do sailors navigate the planet’s wildest waters?

For oceanographers, it turns out, the Drake is a fascinating place because of what’s going on under the surface of those thrashing waters. And for ship captains, it’s a challenge that needs to be approached with a healthy dose of fear.

At around 600 miles wide and up to 6,000 meters (nearly four miles) deep, the Drake is objectively a vast body of water. To us, that is. To the planet as a whole, less so.

The Antarctic Peninsula, where tourists visit, isn’t even Antarctica proper. It’s a thinning peninsula, rotating northwards from the vast continent of Antarctica, and reaching towards the southern tip of South America – the two pointing towards each other, a bit like a tectonic version of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel.

That creates a pinch point effect, with the water being squeezed between the two land masses – the ocean is surging through the gap between the continents.

“It’s the only place in the world where those winds can push all around the globe without hitting land – and land tends to dampen storms,” says oceanographer Alexander Brearley, head of open oceans at the British Antarctic Survey.

Winds tend to blow west to east, he says – and the latitudes of 40 to 60 are notorious for strong winds. Hence their nicknames of the “roaring forties,” “furious fifties” and “screaming sixties” (Antarctica officially starts at 60 degrees).

But winds are slowed by landmass – which is why Atlantic storms tend to smash into Ireland and the UK (as they did, causing havoc, with Storm Isha in January buffeting planes to entirely different countries) and then weaken as they continue east to the European continent.

With no land to slow them down at the Drake’s latitude anywhere on the planet, winds can hurtle around the globe, gathering pace – and smashing into ships.

“In the middle of the Drake Passage the winds may have blown over thousands of kilometers to where you are,” says Brearley. “Kinetic energy is converted from wind into waves, and builds up storm waves.” Those can reach up to 15 meters, or 49 feet, he says. Although before you get too alarmed, know that the mean wave height on the Drake is rather less – four to five meters, or 13-16 feet. That’s still double what you’ll find in the Atlantic, by way of comparison.

And it’s not just the winds making the waters rough – the Drake is basically one big surge of water.

“The Southern Ocean is very stormy in general [but] in the Drake you’re really squeezing [the water] between the Antarctic and the southern hemisphere,” he adds. “That intensifies the storms as they come through.” He calls it a “funneling effect.”

Then there’s the speed at which the water is thrashing through. The Drake is part of the most voluminous ocean current in the world, with up to 5,300 million cubic feet flowing per second. Squeezed into the narrow passage, the current increases, traveling west to east. Brearley says that at surface level, that current is less perceptible – just a couple of knots – so you won’t really sense it onboard. “But it does mean you’ll travel a bit more slowly,” he says.

For oceanographers, he says, the Drake is “a fascinating place.”

It’s home to what he calls “underwater mountains” below the surface – and the enormous current squeezing through the (relatively) narrow passage causes waves to break against them underwater. These “internal waves,” as he calls them, create vortices which bring colder water from the depths of the ocean higher up – important for the planet’s climate.

“It’s not just turbulent at the surface, though obviously that’s what you feel the most – but it’s actually turbulent all the way through the water column,” says Brearley, who regularly crosses the Drake on a research ship. Does he get scared? “I don’t think I’ve ever been really fearful, but it can be very unpleasant in terms of how rough it is,” he says candidly.

One other key thing that makes the Drake so scary: our fear of the Drake itself.

Brearley points out that until the Panama Canal opened in 1914, ships going from Europe to the west coast of the Americas had to dip round Cape Horn – the southern tip of South America – and then trundle up the Pacific coast.

“Let’s say you were shipping goods from western Europe to California. You either had to offload them in New York and do the journey across the US, or you had to go all the way around,” he says. It wasn’t just large cargo ships, either; passenger ships made the same route.

There’s even a monument at the tip of Cape Horn, in memorial of the more than 10,000 sailors who are believed to have died traveling through.

“The routes between the south of South Africa and Australia, or Australia or New Zealand to Antarctica, don’t really lie on any major shipping routes,” says Brearley. “The reason it’s been so feared over the centuries is because the Drake is where ships really have to go. Other parts [of the Southern Ocean] can be avoided.”

Navigating the Drake is an extremely complex task that demands humility and a side of fear, says Captain Stanislas Devorsine, one of three captains of Le Commandant Charcot, a polar vessel of adventure cruise company Ponant.

“You have to have a healthy fear,” he says of the Drake. “It’s something that keeps you focused, alert, sensitive to the ship and the weather. You need to be aware that it can be dangerous – that it’s never routine.”

Devorsine made his Drake debut as a captain over 20 years ago, sailing an icebreaker full of scientists over to Antarctica for a research stint.

“We had very, very rough seas – more than 20 meter [66 feet] swells,” he says. “It was very windy, very rough.” Not that Ponant’s clients face anything like that. Devorsine is quick to point out that the comfort levels for a research ship – and the conditions it will sail in – are very different from those for a cruise.

“We are extremely cautious – the ocean is stronger than us,” he says. “We’re not able to go in terrible weather. We go in rough seas but always with a big safety margin. We’re not gambling.”

Even with that extra safety margin, though, he admits that crossing the Drake can be a hairy experience. “It can be very rough and very dangerous, so we take special care,” he says.

“We have to choose the best time to cross the Drake. We have to adapt our course – sometimes we don’t head in our final direction, we alter the course to have a better angle with the waves. We might slow down to leave a low pressure path ahead, or speed up to pass one before it arrives.”

The ‘Drake shake’ and broken plates

Of course, every time you get on a ship – whether it’s a simple ferry ride or a fancy cruise – the crew will already have meticulously planned the journey, checking everything from the weather to the tides and currents. But planning for a crossing of the Drake is on a whole new level.

Weather forecasting has improved in the two decades since Devorsine’s first ride, he says – and these days crew start planning the voyage while passengers are making their way to South America from all over the globe.

Sometimes they leave late; sometimes they head back early, to beat bad weather. Devorsine – who makes the return journey about six to eight times per year – estimates that the unusually calm “Drake lake” effect happens once in every 10 crossings, with particularly rough conditions (that “Drake shake”) once or twice in every 10 journeys.

Of course, he knows what’s in store long before the passengers reach the ship.

“We look ahead to have the best option to cross. Normally I look at the weather 10 days or a week before, just to have an idea of what it could be,” he says.

“Then I check the forecast once per day, then two or three days before departure I start looking at it twice per day. If it’s going to be a challenging passage you look every six hours. If you have to adjust your departure time, then you look at it very closely to be very accurate.”

His safety margin means that he’s calculating a route that will get you across not just alive, but also as comfortably as possible. Hearing an anecdote about broken crockery and furniture on another operator, he sighs, “That’s a bit too far for me.”

“Before you have any issue with a storm, you have to keep a comfortable ship,” he says. The safety margin is to be sure that the guests will enjoy being in Antarctica, and that we won’t turn around because we have a problem… like injured people.”

In extreme conditions, he orders extra weather advice from Ponant HQ, but if you’re imagining the staff on the bridge desperately radioing for advice as waves batter the ship, think again.

“It would never happen to be in the middle of the Drake with bad conditions, needing assistance from headquarters because it would mean we didn’t have any safety margin before departure. When we cross and it’s going to be challenging, we have a big safety margin and the ship is not at all in danger.”

They are in contact with headquarters with high level satellite antennae throughout the crossing, with both satellite and radio backup if needed – Devorsine says he can’t imagine ever losing contact, whatever the weather.

Devorsine, who now spends 90% of his time sailing in polar waters, feels at home on the Drake. “When I was a little child, I read books about the maritime adventures of sailors and polar heroes,” he says. “I was attracted by tough things – I like challenges. This is why I followed the path to be able to sail in these areas.”

His first experience of the area was doing a “race around the world” in a sailboat as a youngster, heading south from his native France and rounding Cape Horn.

“It was my dream because it’s difficult, dangerous and challenging,” he says.

He’s not the only one. Some guests are drawn to Antarctica trips because of the tough journey. “I guess [they] are attracted by these areas [of the Southern Ocean] because it’s wild, it can be rough, and it’s a unique experience to go there,” he says.

Not everone’s a thrill-seeker though. As managing director of Mundy Adventures, an adventure travel agency, Edwina Lonsdale is dealing with a clientele already used to discomfort – yet she says crossing the Drake is a “conversation topic” during booking.

“it’s something we would raise to make sure people are completely aware of what they’re buying,” she says. “[Going to Antarctica] is a huge investment – you need to talk through every aspect and make sure nothing’s an absolute no.”

Lonsdale advises that passengers nervous of feeling sick should choose their ship carefully. In the past, vessels heading to Antarctica tended to be uncomfortable metal boxes built to take a heavy beating. But in recent years, companies have introduced more technically advanced vessels: like Le Commandant Charcot, which was the world’s first passenger vessel with a Polar Class 2 hull – meaning it can go deeper and further into the ice in polar regions – when it debuted in 2021.

Two of Aurora Expeditions’ ships, the Greg Mortimer and Sylvia Earle, use a patented inverted bow, designed to slide gently through the waves, reducing impact and vibration and improving stability, rather than “punching” through the water as a regular bow shape does, which makes the bow rock up and down.

Lonsdale says that the fancier the vessel and the offerings onboard, the more distractions you’ll have if bad weather hits. Newer boats often have more spacious rooms and bigger windows so that you can watch the horizon, which helps to lessen seasickness. If the budget allows, she says, book a suite – you won’t just get more space, you’ll (likely) have floor-to-ceiling windows, too.

But a word of advice – she recommends a careful selection not just of the right operator for you, but of the ship itself.

“Just because a company has a fleet with a very modern ship doesn’t mean the whole fleet will be like that,” she says.

So you’ve conquered your fears, booked your ticket and you’re about to set sail. Bad news: the captain is predicting the Drake shake. What to do?

Hopefully you’ve come prepared. Most ships have ginger candies on offer during bad weather, but bring your own, as well as any anti-seasickness medication you want to take. Some passengers swear by acupressure “seeds”: tiny spikes, attached to your ears with a sticking plaster, designed to stimulate acupuncture points. Some ships offer acupuncture onboard; alternatively you can get it done beforehand, since the seeds last for some time.

Devorsine’s top tips are to keep your eyes on the horizon, hold onto the handrail when walking around, be careful around doors, and “don’t jump out of bed.”

Jamie Lafferty, a photographer who leads excursions on Antarctic cruises, says that of his 30-odd crossings, “I’ve had one where it felt like I was going to fall out of bed and that was the second time, way back in 2010 when there was a lot more guesswork involved. Crossing the Drake Passage is much, much more benign than it used to be thanks to the accuracy of modern forecasting models and stabilizers on more modern cruise ships. This doesn’t mean it’ll be smooth, but it’s vastly less chaotic and unpredictable than it used to be.”

His top tip? “Take seasickness medication before heading out into open sea – once you start spewing, tablets aren’t going to be any use.”

Warren Cairns, senior researcher at the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy, has a bit of extra help.

“The only thing that works for me is going to the ship’s medic for a scopolamine patch,” he says. “It’s so rough, normal seasickness pills are just to get me to the infirmary.” Although he has it worse than the average tourist – on trips to Antarctica, their research ships have to pause for house to take samples. “The waves come from all sorts of directions as the thrusters keep it in place,” he says. “When you’re underway it’s a much more regular motion.”

Lonsdale says it’s important not to fight it if you feel ill: “Just go to bed.” But equally, she says, don’t expect it: “It may be calm. You may not feel ill.”

People suffer differently from seasickness she says. “The Pacific has very long, slow swells, Channel crossings [between the UK and France] have quite a bouncy experience. Lots of people say crossing the Drake in very rough weather is uneven enough to not make them ill at all.” On that plate-smashing crossing, for example, this reporter – who was watching 40-foot waves from the observation deck – never got sick.

Remember that however it feels, you’re safe. “There’s an extraordinary level of safety in the build of those ships doing this,” says Lonsdale. Add in the safety margins that the likes of Devorsine build in, and you’re in uncomfortable, but not dangerous, territory.

And if all else fails, remember why you’re there.

“The motivation and excitement to discover those latitudes is very important to fight the seasickness,” says Devorsine. Lonsdale agrees.

“If you were going to the moon, you’d expect the journey to be uncomfortable but it’d be worth it,” she says. “You just have to think, ‘This is what I need to get from one world to another.’”

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February 4, 2024
Puerto Rico Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
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Here’s a look at the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a self-governing US territory located in the Caribbean.

(from the CIA World Factbook)

Area: 9,104 sq km

Population: 3,057,311 (2023 est.)

Capital: San Juan

The people of Puerto Rico are US citizens. They vote in US presidential primaries, but not in presidential elections.

First named San Juan Bautista by Christopher Columbus.

The governor is elected by popular vote with no term limits.

Jenniffer González has been the resident commissioner since January 3, 2017. The commissioner serves in the US House of Representatives, but has no vote, except in committees. Gonzalez is the first woman to hold this position.

It is made up of 78 municipalities.

Over 40% of the population lives in poverty, according to the Census Bureau.

Puerto Ricans have voted in six referendums on the issue of statehood, in 1967, 1993, 1998, 2012, 2017 and 2020. The 2012 referendum was the first time the popular vote swung in statehood’s favor. Since these votes were nonbinding, no action had to be taken, and none was. Ultimately, however, Congress must pass a law admitting them to the union.

In addition to becoming a state, options for Puerto Rico’s future status include remaining a commonwealth, entering “free association” or becoming an independent nation. “Free association” is an official affiliation with the United States where Puerto Rico would still receive military assistance and funding.

1493-1898 – Puerto Rico is a Spanish colony.

July 25, 1898 – During the Spanish-American War, the United States invades Puerto Rico.

December 10, 1898 – With the signing of the Treaty of Paris, Spain cedes Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States. The island is named “Porto Rico” in the treaty.

April 12, 1900 – President William McKinley signs the Foraker Act into law. It designates the island an “unorganized territory,” and allows for one delegate from Puerto Rico to the US House of Representatives with no voting power.

March 2, 1917 – President Woodrow Wilson signs the Jones Act into law, granting the people of Puerto Rico US citizenship.

May 1932 – Legislation changes the name of the island back to Puerto Rico.

November 1948 – The first popularly elected governor, Luis Muñoz Marín, is voted into office.

July 3, 1950 – President Harry S. Truman signs Public Law 600, giving Puerto Ricans the right to draft their own constitution.

October 1950 – In protest of Public Law 600, Puerto Rican nationalists lead armed uprisings in several Puerto Rican towns.

November 1, 1950 – Puerto Rican nationalists Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola attempt to shoot their way into Blair House, where President Truman is living while the White House is being renovated. Torresola is killed by police; Collazo is arrested and sent to prison.

June 4, 1951 – In a plebiscite vote, more than three-quarters of Puerto Rican voters approve Public Law 600.

February 1952 – Delegates elected to a constitutional convention approve a draft of the constitution.

March 3, 1952 – Puerto Ricans vote in favor of the constitution.

July 25, 1952 – Puerto Rico becomes a self-governing commonwealth as the constitution is put in place. This is also the anniversary of the United States invasion of Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.

March 1, 1954 – Five members of the House of Representatives are shot on the House floor; Alvin Bentley, (R-MI), Ben Jensen (R-IA), Clifford Davis (D-TN), George Fallon (D-MD) and Kenneth Roberts (D-AL). Four Puerto Rican nationalists, Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero and Irving Flores Rodriguez, are arrested and sent to prison. President Jimmy Carter grants Cordero clemency in 1977 and commutes all four of their sentences in 1979.

July 23, 1967 – Commonwealth status is upheld via a status plebiscite.

1970 – The resident commissioner gains the right to vote in committee via an amendment to the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970.

September 18, 1989 – Hurricane Hugo hits the island as a Category 4 hurricane causing more than $1 billion in property damages.

November 14, 1993 – Commonwealth status is upheld via a plebiscite.

September 21, 1998 – Hurricane Georges hits the island causing an estimated $1.75 billion in damage.

August 6, 2009 – Sonia Sotomayor, who is of Puerto Rican descent, is confirmed by the US Senate (68-31). She becomes the third woman and the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

November 6, 2012 – Puerto Ricans vote for statehood via a status plebiscite. The results are deemed inconclusive.

August 3, 2015 – Puerto Rico defaults on its monthly debt for the first time in its history, paying only $628,000 toward a $58 million debt.

December 31, 2015 – The first case of the Zika virus is reported on the island.

January 4, 2016 – Puerto Rico defaults on its debt for the second time.

May 2, 2016 – Puerto Rico defaults on a $422 million debt payment.

June 30, 2016 – President Barack Obama signs the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), a bill that establishes a seven-member board to oversee the commonwealth’s finances. The following day Puerto Rico defaults on its debt payment.

January 4, 2017 – The Puerto Rico Admission Act is introduced to Congress by Rep. Gonzalez.

May 3, 2017 – Puerto Rico files for bankruptcy. It is the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history.

June 5, 2017 – Puerto Rico declares its Zika epidemic is over. The Puerto Rico Department of Health has reported more than 40,000 confirmed cases of the Zika virus since the outbreak began in 2016.

June 11, 2017 – Puerto Ricans vote for statehood via a status plebiscite. Over 97% of the votes are in favor of statehood, but only 23% of eligible voters participate.

September 20, 2017 – Hurricane Maria makes landfall near Yabucoa in Puerto Rico as a Category 4 hurricane. It is the strongest storm to hit the island in 85 years. The energy grid is heavily damaged, with an island-wide power outage.

September 22, 2017 – The National Weather Service recommends the evacuation of about 70,000 people living near the Guajataca River in northwest Puerto Rico because a dam is in danger of failing.

October 3, 2017 – President Donald Trump visits. The trip comes after mounting frustration with the federal response to the storm. Many residents remain without power and continue to struggle to get access to food and fuel nearly two weeks after the storm hit.

December 18, 2017 – Gov. Ricardo Rosselló orders a review of deaths related to Hurricane Maria as the number could be much higher than the officially reported number. The announcement from the island’s governor follows investigations from CNN and other news outlets that called into question the official death toll of 64.

January 22, 2018 – Rosselló announces that the commonwealth will begin privatizing the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.

January 30, 2018 – More than four months after Maria battered Puerto Rico, the Federal Emergency Management Agency tells CNN it is halting new shipments of food and water to the island. Distribution of its stockpiled 46 million liters of water and four million meals and snacks will continue. The agency believes that amount is sufficient until normalcy returns.

February 11, 2018 – An explosion and fire at a power substation causes a blackout in parts of northern Puerto Rico, according to authorities.

May 29, 2018 – According to an academic report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, an estimated 4,645 people died in Hurricane Maria and its aftermath in Puerto Rico. The article’s authors call Puerto Rico’s official death toll of 64 a “substantial underestimate.”

August 8, 2018 – Puerto Rican officials say the death toll from Maria may be far higher than their official estimate of 64. In a report to Congress, the commonwealth’s government says documents show that 1,427 more deaths occurred in the four months after Hurricane Maria than “normal,” compared with deaths that occurred the previous four years. The 1,427 figure also appears in a report published July 9.

August 28, 2018 – The Puerto Rican government raises its official death toll from Maria to 2,975 after a report on storm fatalities is published by researchers at George Washington University. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, a critic of the Trump administration, says local and federal government failed to provide needed aid. She says the botched recovery effort led to preventable deaths.

August 29, 2018 – Trump says the federal government’s response to the disaster was “fantastic.” He says problems with the island’s aging infrastructure created challenges for rescue workers.

September 4, 2018 – The US Government Accountability Office releases a report revealing that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was so overwhelmed with other storms by the time Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico that more than half of the workers it was deploying to disasters were known to be unqualified for the jobs they were doing in the field.

September 13, 2018 – In a tweet, Trump denies that nearly 3,000 people died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. He expresses skepticism about the death toll, suggesting that individuals who died of other causes were included in the hurricane count.

July 9, 2019 – Excerpts of profanity-laden, homophobic and misogynistic messages between Rosselló and members of his inner circle are published by local media.

July 10, 2019 – Six people, including Puerto Rico’s former education secretary and a former health insurance official, are indicted on corruption charges. The conspiracy allegedly involved directing millions of dollars in government contracts to politically-connected contractors.

July 11, 2019 – A series of protests begin in response to the leaked messages and the indictment, with calls for Rosselló to resign.

July 13, 2019 – The Center for Investigative Journalism publishes hundreds of leaked messages from Rosselló and other officials. Rosselló and members of his inner circle ridicule numerous politicians, members of the media and celebrities.

July 24, 2019 – Rosselló announces he will resign on August 2.

August 7, 2019 – Puerto Rico’s Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez Garced is sworn in as the third governor Puerto Rico has had in less than a week. Earlier in the day, the August 2nd swearing-in of Rosselló’s handpicked successor, attorney Pedro Pierluisi, is thrown out by the Supreme Court, on grounds he has not been confirmed by both chambers of the legislature.

September 27, 2019 – The federal control board that oversees Puerto Rico’s finances releases a plan that would cut the island’s debt by more than 60% and rescue it from bankruptcy. The plan targets bonds and other debt held by the government and will now go before a federal judge. The percentage of Puerto Rico’s taxpayer funds spent on debt payments will fall to less than 9%, compared to almost 30% before the restructuring.

December 28, 2019 – A sequence of earthquakes of magnitude 2.0 or higher begin hitting Puerto Rico, including a 6.4 magnitude quake on January 7 that killed at least one man, destroyed homes and left most of the island without power.

February 4, 2020 – A magnitude 5 earthquake strikes Puerto Rico. It is the 11th earthquake of at least that size in the past 30 days, according to the US Geological Survey.

November 3, 2020 – Puerto Ricans vote in favor of statehood, and Pierluisi is elected governor.

January 2, 2021 – Pierluisi is sworn in.

April 21, 2022 – The Supreme Court rules that Congress can exclude residents of Puerto Rico from some federal disability benefits available to those who live in the 50 states.

August 4, 2022 – Vázquez is arrested in San Juan on bribery charges connected to the financing of her 2020 campaign.

September 18, 2022 – Hurricane Fiona makes landfall along the southwestern coast of Puerto Rico, near Punta Tocon, with winds of 85 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. The hurricane causes catastrophic flooding, amid a complete power outage. Two people are killed.

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December 15, 2023
Norma weakens to tropical storm after Mexico landfall, while Tammy bears down on Leeward Islands | CNN

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CNN
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Norma weakened to tropical storm strength Saturday after bringing hurricane-force winds, flash flooding and storm surge to Mexico’s Pacific coast. Meanwhile, another late-season storm continued to threaten island nations in the Atlantic.

Norma made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 80 mph over the far southern portion of Mexico’s Baja California Sur – which includes Cabo San Lucas – Saturday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center said.

Meanwhile in the Atlantic, Hurricane Tammy made landfall in Barbuda as a Category 1 storm Saturday night, churning maximum sustained winds of 85 mph. Tammy has triggered hurricane warnings, with strong winds and heavy rainfall across portions of the Leeward Islands, a chain of several island nations and territories between the Caribbean Sea and the open Atlantic.

Neither storm is a threat to the US mainland.

Norma’s maximum sustained winds decreased to 70 mph, and the tropical storm was centered about 30 miles north-northeast of Cabo San Lucas as of Saturday night, the hurricane center said.

The tropical storm is expected to cross the southernmost portion of Baja California Sur in the evening before emerging over the southern Gulf of California on Sunday.

Mexico’s government downgraded the hurricane warning spanning from Todos Santos to Los Barriles to a tropical storm warning Saturday night, the hurricane center said.

However, threats from Norma still remain, as it could bring life-threatening conditions to a tourist-friendly region of Mexico, home to a few hundred thousand people. A dangerous storm surge “is likely to produce coastal flooding in areas of onshore winds within the hurricane warning area” Saturday, the hurricane center said.

Heavy rains and flash flooding from Norma are forecast to persist through the weekend, the hurricane center said.

“Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves,” the hurricane center said.

Norma will bring heavy rainfall and flooding to the area. Rainfall totals of 6 to 12 inches with isolated totals approaching 18 inches are possible.

The weakening cyclone should turn toward the northeast and east-northeast and slowly approach the coast of Sinaloa in western Mexico on Sunday night into early Monday as a tropical storm, according to the hurricane center.

Norma is forecast to move inland by early Monday and dissipate over the rugged terrain of western Mexico by Tuesday.

Hurricane Tammy battering Leeward Islands

In the Atlantic, Tammy maintained maximum sustained winds of 85 mph by Saturday night, with slow strengthening possible over the next few days, the National Hurricane Center said in its update at 8 p.m. ET Saturday.

Tammy is expected to move near or over portions of the Leeward Islands – including Antigua and Barbuda – through Saturday night, and then move north of the northern Leeward Islands on Sunday.

Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 25 miles from the storm’s center and tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 125 miles.

Hurricanes in this part of the Atlantic are rare for late October. Tammy is only the third hurricane to form this far southeast in the Atlantic since 1900, according to hurricane expert Michael Lowry.

It’s also the latest-forming hurricane in this part of the Atlantic since 1966, according to Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University.

Experts previously warned hurricanes could form in unusual areas later in the season this year because of the exceptionally warm Atlantic Ocean.

A storm surge of 1 to 3 feet is possible for parts of the Leeward Islands.

Heavy rainfall will be one of the storm’s most serious threats and could result in flash flooding and mudslides. Rainfall totals for the Leeward Islands are expected to be 4 to 8 inches, but could reach a foot in places where the heaviest rain sets up. Rain should be lighter in Puerto Rico and the British and US Virgin Islands, where 1 to 2 inches of rain is most likely.

Conditions will begin to improve from south to north across the island chain by late Sunday as the storm moves north out of the region.

With Tammy in the Atlantic, only two names are left – Vince and Whitney – on the standard Atlantic storm name list before the hurricane center turns to an alternate list of names.

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October 21, 2023
The family who left America to live in their ancestral Italian cave | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Sign up to CNN Travel’s Unlocking Italy newsletter for insider intel on Italy’s best loved destinations and lesser-known regions to plan your ultimate trip. Plus, we’ll get you in the mood before you go with movie suggestions, reading lists and recipes from Stanley Tucci.

CNN
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There’s an island off the coast of Rome where locals have been living in cozy grottoes since the dawn of time.

The shores and fishermen village of Ponza – the largest island of the Pontine archipelago, which sits offshore between Rome and Naples – are dotted with cave dwellings cut into the ragged sea cliffs, offering stunning views.

These homes, fresh in summer and warm in winter, require neither heating or air conditioning. They’re the island’s gem, and now popular with vacationers.

Since the 19th century, locals have been emigrating abroad, mainly to the US in search of a new life. However, they’ve held on to their traditions – which includes their traditional housing style.

One family to emigrate were the Avellinos. Luigi Avellino was the first of his family to leave Ponza at the beginning of the 20th century, initially going back and forth between the island and New York, before settling in the US permanently.

Attilio Avellino – one of his nine children, and born on Ponza – joined his father in the Big Apple in 1946.

But now, after decades in the US, their descendants are back on the island – living inside their old casa grotta (cave home), which they’ve renovated to a modern standard.

Brigida Avellino, 70 – Attilio’s daughter – lives with her daughter Loredana Romano, 44, in one of Ponza’s most beautiful cave homes. It has thick, rough whitewashed walls, and a terrace with views of the uninhabited island of Palmarola. Couches, chairs, benches, stairs, beds, tables and cupboards are all cut out from the cave.

“These grottoes are part of our DNA and heritage – each time a new baby was born the parents would dig another room inside the cliff, expanding the cave home,” Romano tells CNN Travel.

The younger generations moved to Ponza in 1980 when Attilio Avellino had a heart attack in New York. His doctor there recommended fresh air, no smog and a peaceful place to live – so the family returned to his birthplace.

Avellino has fond memories of her childhood in the US. While Ponza offers a slower-paced lifestyle, she misses the Big Apple’s hectic world.

“I have learned that you can take a girl away from the big city, but you can’t take the big city away from her. It sticks, even if I’ve been back in Ponza for decades now,” she says.

Avellino moved to New York alongside her mother in 1955 when she was two years old. Her father and grandfather were already living and working there, alongside her uncles and aunts.

“I worked in a steel factory for 22 years. I loved the chaos, the traffic, the buzz, the noise and all those people rushing to work at all times of the day,” says Avellino now.

Her father and grandfather did all sorts of jobs when they landed in the US, from running a fishery to working on container ships, cooking Italian cuisine and building skyscrapers.

“Call me crazy, but I really miss New York’s beat. I used to go around the whole time on weekends, take the trains, go to the movies with my friends, to restaurants, to the hairdresser, and just walk, walk walk. I still dream of that city energy,” says Avellino. On Ponza, she says, there are no hairdressers in winter.

Despite her age and growing health issues, she says she’d love to go back to experiencing the thrill of the frenetic, pro-active New York City lifestyle that allowed her to meet many people.

“NYC gave me the chance to have so many experiences and job opportunities. It was an exciting life,” says Avellino.

“I miss everything of the Big Apple: the workaholics, the traffic and the constant noise. The buzz of the steel factory and the supermarket’s quick beat, where I also worked. I was always on the run. Ponza is beautiful, the panorama is stunning but there’s nobody here.”

During summer, the island’s population rises to over 20,000 people, with hordes of beachgoers cramming Ponza’s paradise-like beaches. But in winter there are barely 1,000 residents in Le Forna district, where Avellino and Romano live. It is the most offbeat neighborhood, far from the touristy spots, where Ponza’s oldest families still live.

Ponza natives live off farming and fishing, but mainly seasonal tourism. The island comes to life from June to October, with the remainder of the year being quite “dead and sleepy,” as Romano calls it.

Avellino, who says she feels more American than Ponzese, says that she’s happy she got an American education and passport, which she keeps in her bedside closet.

In fact, she says, it was a blow for her when she eventually had to return to Ponza after her father had a heart attack. On Ponza, she met her future husband, Silverio – a native Ponzese – and gave birth to Loredana, who kept ties with relatives back in the US.

She went back and forth between the US and Ponza between the ages of 20 and 30, working as a waitress at one of her aunt’s restaurants in Florida. Today, she’s now proud to be living in the cave home which her great-grandfather dug from the cliff with his own bare hands.

She’s now on a mission to recover her ancestral origins.

“I inherited this cave, which I recently lavishly restyled. My great-grandpa built it just before leaving for the US for work. He wasn’t really an economic migrant, nor was he poor, he just wanted to change life and look for new opportunities on the other side of the Atlantic,” says Romano.

The 860-square-foot cave dwelling is located in Ponza’s most scenic spot, overlooking two natural sea pools sheltered by white granite cliffs. It has direct access to the tropical-like waters.

The living room features an old well used in the past as a cistern to collect rainwater, which Romano still exploits when there’s little running water during summer.

This year, she redid the cave’s façade, and planted a small garden and vegetable plot of eggplants and zucchini, with which she makes local recipes.

Unlike her mother, Romano – who works in Ponza’s tourism sector – doesn’t feel nostalgic of the US lifestyle.

“In Florida I lived in the Italian neighborhood. Americans are extremely kind – they always say hello – but when you live in a metropolis with tons of people and you don’t know many, you really find yourself alone and more isolated than on an island,” she says.

Americans, in her view, live only to work. They don’t have time to go to the grocery to buy fresh food or to spend quality time with friends and relatives. They don’t cook but prefer to eat out, she says.

Ponza, on the other hand, is a small island which makes Romano feel safer. Neighbors watch out for one another, and partake in sorrows and joys.

“Here, when there is good news, like a wedding or birth, the entire neighborhood parties, we’re a big family. When there’s a funeral, we’re all sad.”

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October 16, 2023
Extreme heat might have been the ‘nail in the coffin’ for these critical Florida coral | CNN

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This summer’s record-breaking marine heat wave may have been the “nail in the coffin” for an iconic species of coral that serves as a building block of marine life around Florida. Still, scientists see other “signs of hope” in the state’s reefs.

Elkhorn coral populations – which had already been teetering on the brink of local extinction in Florida – have been “decimated” by the extreme ocean heat, according to Liv Williamson, a coral expert and assistant scientist from the University of Miami.

“This heat wave was the nail in the coffin for these populations,” Williamson said. “There were already so few elkhorn coral individuals on Florida’s reefs that various genetic rescue plans were underway, but now almost all the corals we would have used for such efforts have died.”

Elkhorn and staghorn coral are some of the only so-called branching corals found in the Carribean. They were also the first coral species to gain protected status under the Endangered Species Act, Jennifer Moore, a threatened coral expert for NOAA told CNN.

The branching part of these corals is key; their tree-like appendages grow faster than other coral and spread out like a rainforest canopy, providing protection for fish and other vertebrates, which helps the overall ecosystem thrive.

Both coral species are slightly more heat-tolerant than other corals to begin with, Moore told CNN, but more likely to die once they bleach – a process in which they turn white as they expel their algal food source in response to heat stress.

This summer’s die-off happened to both wild elkhorn and to corals bred to be more heat-tolerant. Coral conservationists have been trying for years to use those varieties to restore the disease-ravaged population.

Some of the planted corals were bred to withstand ocean temperature up to 2 degrees Celsius above normal. But the water around Florida and the Caribbean this summer was up to 3 degrees Celsius above normal, causing mass bleaching and the die-off, Williamson said.

As the world continues to warm because of human-caused climate change, marine heat waves are becoming more common and extreme, scientists say.

“This summer has just illuminated how extreme things can get so quickly and I just don’t think we are prepared for that,” Williamson told CNN.

Back in the 1960’s and 70’s elkhorn and staghorn corals “were so common it was like blades of grass,” Moore told CNN, but have become so rare “you cry in your mask when you see a live one on the reef.”

A 2020 study of the elkhorn coral population in the upper Florida Keys found it was “functionally extinct,” or unable to reproduce effectively on its own and contribute to the ecosystem, and may face local extinction over the next 6 to 12 years. The researchers said the trends likely applied to all of Florida’s elkhorn.

“There are simply too few, too far away from each other,” Williamson said.

“Although there are a small number of individuals still alive, the species has dwindled so much that they no longer play an effective role in the ecosystem in the way that they once did, and they no longer have a viable population,” Williamson said.

Any deaths would have a “dramatic impact” at restoration sites just starting to see enough coral density to make an ecological impact, Moore said.

Staghorn coral may have faired slightly better than elkhorn this summer, Williamson said, but still faces similar long term challenges.

The grim news comes despite other signs of hope at the region’s reefs. Florida reefs are only just able to start recovering now that ocean temperatures have dropped from bathtub-like 90s to levels the heat-sensitive corals can better tolerate.

Scientists have known since the summer that a mass bleaching event and die-off was happening, but they still don’t know the full extent of it or how bad it will be in the long run. Bleached coral may still be alive and recover now that water temperatures are cooler. Conversely, more coral could die because of vulnerability to disease in the months that follow bleaching, coral experts said.

“We are definitely looking at a major mortality event, we just won’t know the extent of it for a couple more months,” Moore told CNN.

For now, some coral scientists like Moore are hanging their hats on “shockingly fast” signs of recovery at reefs recently surveyed and on the prospects of using science learned from this event to give the species a better chance to survive the next heat wave.

“To see corals that were 100% bleached two or three weeks ago regaining their algae and regaining their color also shows there’s resilience in the system,” Moore said. “That gives me a lot of hope. I don’t really know where it’s all going to land, so I can’t really tell you if it’s worse or better than I feared in July, but I am cautiously optimistic because of these little glimmers of hope. We just need to figure out how to maximize it so that we can help this system recover.”

Others are still struggling to cope with the loss and the prospect of what feels like a Sisyphean effort to save such a vital species, especially in the face of climate change. Scientists like Williamson are left feeling “heartbroken” after witnessing their life’s work obliterated in a matter of weeks.

“It’s hard to express the loss that my fellow coral conservationists and I feel, watching the pillars of this vital reef ecosystem collapse and the fruits of our labors destroyed,” Williamson wrote on Instagram.

“Even if we do plant these nursery fragments back onto the reefs, what’s to say they will survive next summer, or the one after that?” Williamson told CNN.

The prospects for coral recovery lie in a herculean rescue effort this summer. Coral conservationists moved corals to deeper water, cooler nurseries and harvested diverse genetic specimens and then put them in a “living gene bank” on land. Scientists like Moore plan to use the specimens to plant corals yet again.

“Emotional fatigue was across everyone, because in some cases these were corals that they grew from babies and put out on the reef,” Moore said. “To see them bleach and potentially die is really, really emotionally draining. Yet, because we didn’t just sit there and watch them die – that’s what give me hope.”

“I think we have lots of tools to prevent extinction and I’m not going to quit,” Moore told CNN.

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October 8, 2023
Tropical Storm Ophelia makes landfall in North Carolina and will now trek up the East Coast | CNN
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Tropical Storm Ophelia is heading up the East Coast after making landfall near Emerald Isle, North Carolina, early Saturday, delivering heavy rain, strong winds and coastal flooding well beyond its center.

Here are the storm’s latest impacts:
70,000-plus homes and businesses lost power across North Carolina and the mid-Atlantic Saturday morning, according to utility tracking site PowerOutage.us.

Storm surge flooding of more than 3 feet hit coastal North Carolina where water was seen covering roadways

States of emergency were declared in Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland

Two MLB games have been postponed: Braves-Nationals in Washington, D.C., and Diamondbacks-Yankees in New York
The tropical storm roared ashore around 6:15 a.m. with 70 mph sustained winds – just shy of hurricane strength. Tropical-storm force winds extend up to 320 miles from Ophelia’s core, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm had 50 mph winds as of 11 a.m. and will continue to weaken as it moves farther inland, but power outages could grow as it affects more areas.

TRACK THE STORM

Ophelia is on track to move across eastern North Carolina and then travel through southeastern Virginia, before heading farther north across the Delmarva Peninsula on Saturday and Sunday, the hurricane center said.

The threat of rain postponed two Major League Baseball games scheduled for Saturday. The Atlanta Braves and the Washington Nationals will replay their game on Sunday, while the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees have yet to announce when they will take to the diamond.

The storm’s shield of rain extends hundreds of miles from its center and is already dumping heavy rain across a large swath of the mid-Atlantic, including Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and New York.

But coastal areas in North Carolina are bearing the brunt of impacts as the center of the expansive storm barges into the state.

Storm surge flooded coastal areas and inlets in North Carolina overnight and winds gusting to 73 mph hit Cape Lookout, along the state’s Outer Banks.

The flooding began on Friday, when roads were submerged in communities along North Carolina’s coast. In coastal Cedar Island, water collected on Highway 12, though it was open and passable, the state transportation department said.

“But please don’t go out tonight unless you absolutely have to. There is sand and water on the roadway, and it’s dark and stormy,” the department said in a social media post.

In New Bern, which sits along two rivers in North Carolina about 120 miles east of Raleigh, roads were flooded and water creeped inland as the levels rose in the downtown area, city officials said on Facebook. Photos posted on the city’s page show a flooded children’s park and ducks floating down the street on floodwaters.

Water levels also rose overnight in the Chesapeake Bay, along the coasts of Virginia and Maryland.

“If you can avoid driving or being out during the storm please do so. We are expecting an extended period of strong winds, heavy rainfall, and elevated tides,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said.

Ophelia will deliver several key threats through the weekend:

Heavy Rainfall: Some places in eastern North Carolina and southeast Virginia could see between 3 and 5 inches of rain, with locally higher amounts. Other states in the Mid-Atlantic could pick up 2 to 4 inches on rain Saturday night through Sunday. Meanwhile, 1 to 3 inches of rain are forecast across southern New York through southern New England beginning Saturday into Monday.

Coastal Threats: One to 5 feet of storm surge is possible in some coastal areas, particularly in inlets and rivers from around Surf City, North Carolina, to the Virginia Tidewater. Storm surge flooding could peak Saturday afternoon with another high tide, particularly in the lower Chesapeake Bay.

The storm will also bring dangerous surf and rip currents along East Coast through the weekend, the hurricane center warned.

Strong and Gusty winds: Tropical-storm-force wind gusts – between 39 and 73 mph – will impact a wide area of the East Coast throughout the day Saturday. Winds will lessen with time, but stronger gusts could down trees and power lines.

Severe weather: A few tornadoes also are possible in parts of the coastal mid-Atlantic and North Carolina.
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September 23, 2023
Lee knocks out power to tens of thousands as it brings fierce winds and coastal flooding to Maine and Canada | CNN

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Post-tropical cyclone Lee is bringing heavy rain, destructive winds and coastal flooding to Canada and Maine, knocking out power to tens of thousands, lashing the coasts with big waves and spurring calls to stay indoors.

Lee, once a powerful hurricane, is churning maximum sustained winds of 60 mph as it spreads north after making landfall Saturday on Long Island in Nova Scotia, one of Canada’s Atlantic provinces, according to the National Hurricane Center.

It’s expected to steadily weaken over Sunday and Monday, with conditions improving across rain and wind-battered areas of the northeast US and Canada.

The cyclone is forecast to turn eastward and move quickly to the northeast, across the Canadian Maritimes on Sunday, and into the North Atlantic by early Monday, National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said in a video update Saturday.

For now, tropical storm force winds are extending out about 290 miles from what’s left of Lee’s core on Saturday, downing trees and power lines and leaving many in the dark.

In Nova Scotia, 130,250 customers are without power Saturday while 38,000 in New Brunswick were in the dark, according to an outage map by Nova Scotia Power.

In Maine, nearly 60,000 homes and businesses were without power, according to poweroutage.us. Photos from across the state showed toppled trees near homes and on roadways as powerful winds battered the area.

Winds of 83 mph were recorded in Perry, Maine, and 63 mph in Roque Bluffs, Maine.

Utility power crews were out assessing damages and actively responding to downed utility lines and other damage caused by the storm Saturday.

On top of the fierce winds, Lee is also stirring up dangerous surf and life-threatening rip currents along the US East Coast, Atlantic Canada and other areas.

“We’ll see very high waves and coastal erosion and minor coastal flooding,” Brennan said.

Another inch of rain was expected over parts of eastern Maine and New Brunswick, and Lee continues to threaten flooding in urban areas of eastern Maine in the United States and New Brunswick in Canada, according to the hurricane center.

In Canada’s New Brunswick province, north of Maine, officials cautioned residents to prepare for power outages and stock up on food and medication for at least 72 hours as they encouraged people to stay indoors during what they forecast would likely turn into a storm surge for coastal communities.

“Once the storm starts, remember please stay at home if at all possible,” said Kyle Leavitt, director of New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization. “Nothing good can come from checking out the big waves and how strong the wind truly is.”

In the US, states of emergency have been declared in Maine and Massachusetts. President Joe Biden has authorized the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to step in to coordinate disaster relief and assistance for required emergency measures.

Boston’s Logan International Airport saw a spike in flight cancellations Saturday with 23% of all flights into Boston and 24% of flights originating out of the city canceled, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.

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September 16, 2023
China unveils ‘blueprint’ for Taiwan integration while sending warships around the self-ruled island | CNN

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CNN
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China on Tuesday unveiled a plan to deepen integration between the coastal province of Fujian and self-governing Taiwan, touting the benefits of closer cross-strait cooperation while sending warships around the island in a show of military might.

The directive, issued jointly by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council, vows to make Fujian a “demonstration zone” for integrated development with Taiwan, and the “first home” for Taiwanese residents and businesses to settle in China.

The document, hailed as a “blueprint” of Taiwan’s future development by Chinese experts cited in state media, comes at a delicate moment in cross-strait relations as Taiwan gears up for its presidential election in January.

It also comes as China continues to ramp up military pressure on Taiwan, a vibrant democracy of 24 million people that Beijing’s ruling Communist Party claims as its territory — despite never having controlled it.

Ahead of Beijing’s release of its integration plan, a Chinese aircraft carrier and around two dozen Chinese warships were spotted gathering in waters near Taiwan this week, according to Taiwanese authorities.

China has long taken a carrot and stick approach to Taiwan, threatening it with the prospect of military invasion while offering opportunities for business and cultural exchanges to those it believes are more amenable to Beijing’s point of view.

Given the extent to which cross-strait ties have frayed in recent years, it remains unclear how receptive those in Taiwan will be to China’s sweeping proposal.

On Wednesday, Wang Ting-yu, a Taiwanese lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, said the integration plan was “ridiculous.”

“China should think about how it can take care of its bad debts, but not how it can conduct united front work against Taiwan,” Wang said in a video message, referring to government-affiliated efforts to advance Beijing’s goals overseas.

The concept of turning Fujian into a zone for integrated development with Taiwan first appeared in China’s official document in 2021, but it did not provide any details at the time.

In June, when a senior Chinese leader raised the integration plan at a forum, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council called the proposal “meaningless” and “futile,” saying it was not in line with Taiwan’s public expectations and “belittles” Taiwan.

CNN has reached out to Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council for comment.

In the directive, Beijing vows to improve the environment for Taiwanese firms to do businesses in Fujian, deepen industrial and capital cooperation, and encourage Taiwanese companies to list on Chinese stock exchanges.

In a first, Taiwanese companies will be allowed to invest in and set up radio and television production companies in Fujian in a pilot program.

The directive also seeks to attract Taiwanese workers and families to settle in Fujian. It vows to enhance social welfare programs to make it easier for Taiwanese people to live and work in the province – including buying property, and promises equal treatment for Taiwan’s students to enroll in public schools.

Chinese observers noted “the document is equivalent to outlining the future development blueprint of Taiwan island, which is expected to gain a broader driving force and development prospect by integrating with Fujian,” the state-run Global Times said.

Fujian, a province of 40 million people on the western side of the Taiwan Strait, is the closest to Taiwan both geographically and culturally.

Many Taiwanese are descendants of Fujian immigrants who arrived in waves over the centuries, bringing with them the dialect, customs and religion that formed the backbone of the traditional culture among Taiwan’s majority Han population.

China’s ruling Communist Party has long attempted to use the geographic, historic and cultural proximity between Fujian and Taiwan as an argument for closer economic and social integration – and eventual unification – with the island.

A particular focus of Beijing’s integration efforts falls on Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu, which are located much closer to Fujian than Taiwan and have shared the strongest ties with the mainland historically.

In Tuesday’s directive, Beijing pledges to further speed up integration between the city of Xiamen and Kinmen – which are only a few miles apart.

It vows to explore cooperation on infrastructure projects between the two cities, which will allow electricity and gas to be transported from Xiamen to Kinmen, and to connect the two cities with a bridge. Kinmen residents will also be able to enjoy the same treatment as local residents in Xiamen, according to the plan.

Similar integration measures are also laid out for the city of Fuzhou and Matsu.

To some residents of Kinmen, the plans to promote greater connectivity may be appealing. This year, a cross-party alliance of eight local councilors in Kinmen proposed to build a bridge to Xiamen to boost economic ties, as part of a wider proposal to turn Kinmen into a demilitarized zone, or so-called “peace island.”

Sitting on the front line between Taiwan and China, Kinmen had faced numerous amphibious assaults and shelling by the Chinese military in the years following the Chinese civil war.

The councilors’ proposal envisages removing all of Taiwan’s troops and military installations from the islands and turning Kinmen into a setting for Beijing-Taipei talks aimed at “de-escalating tensions.”

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September 13, 2023
Hurricane Lee is forecast to restrengthen as East Coast faces hazardous beach conditions this week | CNN

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As Hurricane Lee fluctuates in intensity over open Atlantic waters, its effects may soon be felt at beaches up and down the East Coast in the form of life-threatening rip currents and dangerous shoreline conditions.

Lee is forecast to continue moving well north of Puerto Rico, the British and US Virgin Islands and the northern Leeward Islands, but it will have an impact there and at other Caribbean islands. It remains too early to determine its long-term track for later this week and how significant the impacts could be for northeastern US states, Bermuda and Atlantic Canada.

The East Coast, however, is expected to face large swells and rip currents in an increasing manner through this week – much as the Caribbean is being affected now.

“Swells generated by Lee are affecting portions of the Lesser Antilles,” the National Hurricane Center warned Friday night. The British and US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas and Bermuda also face swells this weekend that can bring life-threatening surf and rip conditions.

Waves breaking at 6 to 10 feet were forecast for Sunday, according to the National Weather Service office in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Larger waves were expected this week along east- and north-facing beaches.

“Beach erosion and coastal flooding is possible,” the office posted on social media.

Lee, which was a Category 1 storm Thursday, intensified with exceptional speed into Category 5 status as it moved west across the Atlantic, more than doubling its wind speeds to 165 mph in just a day.

Vertical wind shear and an eyewall replacement cycle – a process that occurs with the majority of long-lived major hurricanes – has since led to the weakening of Lee, the hurricane center said.

Now a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, forecasters expect Lee to regain strength “during the next couple of days, followed by gradual weakening,” the hurricane center said early Sunday. Lee is centered around 280 miles northeast of the northern Leeward Islands as of 5 a.m. ET Sunday and moving in a west-northwest direction at 9 mph.

Computer model trends for Lee have shown the hurricane taking a turn to the north early this week. But exactly when that turn occurs and how far west Lee will manage to track by then will play a huge role in how close it gets to the US.

Several steering factors at the surface and upper levels of the atmosphere will determine how close Lee will get to the East Coast.

An area of high pressure over the Atlantic, known as the Bermuda High, will have a major influence on how quickly Lee turns. A strong Bermuda High would keep Lee on its current west-northwestward track and slow it down a bit.

As the high pressure weakens this week, it will allow Lee to start moving northward. Once that turn to the north occurs, the position of the jet stream – strong upper-level winds that can change the direction of a hurricane’s path – will influence how closely Lee is steered to the US.

Scenario: Out to Sea

Lee could make a quick turn to the north early this week if high pressure weakens significantly.

If the jet stream sets up along the East Coast, it will act as a barrier that prevents Lee from approaching the coast. This scenario would keep Lee farther away from the US coast but could bring the storm closer to Bermuda.

Scenario: Close to East Coast

Lee could make a slower turn to the north because the high pressure remains robust, and the jet stream sets up farther inland over the Eastern US. This scenario would leave portions of the East Coast, mainly north of the Carolinas, vulnerable to a much closer approach from Lee.

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September 10, 2023
Rhode Island and Utah hold special election primaries for House seats | CNN Politics

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Rhode Island and Utah voters are choosing party nominees for US House seats on Tuesday with the two states each holding a special primary election.

In Rhode Island, a crowded Democratic field will be narrowed down to one in the race to succeed Democrat David Cicilline in the state’s 1st Congressional District. Cicilline resigned in May to lead the Rhode Island Foundation.

In Utah, Republicans will decide their nominee in the state’s 2nd Congressional District, which GOP Rep. Chris Stewart is expected to vacate on September 15. Stewart announced in June that he would be departing Congress, citing his wife’s health concerns.

Both seats are not expected to change party hands in November, given the partisan leans of each district, so the outcome of Tuesday’s primaries will be critical to determining who their next members of Congress will be.

Rhode Island’s general election is set for November 7, while the general election in Utah will take place on November 21.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island’s 1st District covers the eastern part of the state, including East and North Providence, Pawtucket and Portsmouth. Eleven Democrats are vying for the chance to succeed Cicilline.

The district is a Democratic stronghold – Cicilline won a seventh term by 28 points last fall, and President Joe Biden would have carried the district by a similar margin in 2020 under its present lines. A Republican hasn’t held the seat since 1995.

Former state Rep. Aaron Regunberg has raised the most funds of the Democrats currently in the race, bringing in $630,000 through August 16. Former White House official Gabe Amo and Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos trailed with $604,000 and $579,000, respectively.

Regunberg is running on a progressive platform, focused on issues such as fighting climate change and housing insecurity. He has the backing of multiple prominent progressives, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, and the endorsement of the campaign arm of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He has faced criticism over support he’s received from a super PAC primarily funded by his father-in-law. After an unsuccessful bid for Rhode Island lieutenant governor in 2018, he earned a law degree from Harvard and worked as a judicial law clerk.

Amo, the son of Ghanaian and Liberian immigrants, has worked in both the Obama and Biden administrations. He has received endorsements from high-profile Democrats such as former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who represented the 1st District for eight terms before Cicilline, and former White House chief of staff Ron Klain. He also has the backing of the campaign arm of the Congressional Black Caucus and Democrats Serve, which supports candidates with public service backgrounds.

Amo, a former deputy director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, has made preventing gun violence a top priority, noting that during his White House tenure, he “was often the first call to a mayor following a mass shooting.”

Matos, who emigrated to the US from the Dominican Republic at the age of 20, could make history as the first Afro-Latina in Congress. She has the backing of the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and EMILY’s List, which backs Democratic women who support abortion rights.

Matos’ campaign endured controversy this summer following allegations her campaign had submitted falsified nominating signatures. Hundreds of signatures were thrown out, but her campaign submitted enough valid signatures to make the ballot. The incident is being investigated by the state attorney general. Matos has blamed an outside vendor for submitting the alleged false signatures.

In another controversy leading up to the primary, businessman Don Carlson, who had loaned his campaign $600,000, ended his bid a little over a week ago following allegations of an inappropriate interaction he had with a college student in 2019. While his name remains on the ballot, the state Board of Elections ordered local boards to post a notice that he’d withdrawn, Chris Hunter, a spokesman for the state board told CNN. Carlson has endorsed state Sen. Sandra Cano, a Colombian immigrant who has made education a top priority in her campaign and has labor support.

Marine veteran Gerry Leonard Jr., who had the endorsement of the state GOP, will win the party nomination, CNN projected Tuesday evening.

Utah’s 2nd District covers the western portion of the state, stretching from the Salt Lake City area to St. George. Republicans are heavily favored to hold the seat – Stewart won a sixth term last fall by 26 points, while former President Donald Trump would have carried it under its current lines by 17 points in 2020.

Three Republicans are looking to succeed Stewart: Former Utah GOP Chairman Bruce Hough, former Stewart aide Celeste Maloy and former state Rep. Becky Edwards.

Maloy, who has Stewart’s backing, earned her spot on the ballot by winning a nominating convention in July, while Hough and Edwards qualified by collecting sufficient signatures.

Edwards and Hough, boosted by significant self-funding, both outraised Maloy through August 16.

Edwards raised $679,000 – $300,000 of which she loaned to her campaign – while Hough raised nearly $539,000, including $334,000 of his own money. Maloy had brought in $307,000 through August 16.

Maloy, who worked as a counsel in Stewart’s Washington office, has faced questions over her eligibility for the special election primary ballot over voter registration issues. She was marked inactive in the state’s voter database because she did not cast a ballot in 2020 and 2022, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, after she relocated to Virginia to work for Stewart. But the state GOP submitted her name for the ballot, noting that no objections to her candidacy were filed before the convention.

On the campaign trail, Maloy said she’s been focusing on government overreach. She has proposed defunding federal agencies to eliminate “anything they’re doing that Congress hasn’t authorized.”

Voters are “worried that these executive branch agencies have too much power, they’re not checked and they’re too involved in our lives,” Maloy told CNN affiliate KUTV in an interview. “And I happen to agree.”

Maloy’s campaign has received financial support from VIEW PAC, which is dedicated to recruiting and electing Republican women to Congress.

Hough – the father of professional dancers Julianne and Derek Hough, who rose to fame on “Dancing with the Stars” – is focusing on debt reduction and deficit control, citing his family as one of the reasons why he’s running.

“With 22 grandkids, 10 kids and a $32 trillion (US) debt, I’m very anxious about their future and about the future of all Americans and all Utahns,” Hough told ABC4 in a video posted in June. “It’s time that we actually do something about it.”

Hough, who until recently had been Utah’s Republican national committeeman, has positioned himself as the candidate most supportive of Trump.

Edwards, meanwhile, challenged GOP Sen. Mike Lee in a primary last year as a moderate opposed to Trump and took 30% of the vote. On the trail, she has touted her experience as a state lawmaker, focusing on priorities such as health care, education and fiscal responsibility.

Edwards, who backed Biden in 2020, expressed “regret” for that support at a debate in June, saying she had been “extremely disappointed” with his administration, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The winner of Tuesday’s GOP primary will face Democratic state Sen. Kathleen Riebe in November. Riebe won her party’s nomination at a June convention.

This story has been updated with a CNN projection.

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September 5, 2023
Death investigated at Burning Man while 70,000 festival attendees remain stuck in Nevada desert after rain | CNN

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CNN
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Authorities are investigating a death at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert as thousands of people remain trapped on site after heavy rains inundated the area and created thick, ankle-deep mud which sticks to campers’ shoes and vehicle tires.

Attendees were told to shelter in place in the Black Rock Desert and conserve food, water and fuel after a rainstorm swamped the area, forcing officials to halt any entering or leaving of the festival.

“A little over 70,000 people,” remained stranded Saturday, Sgt. Nathan Carmichael, with the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office, told CNN Sunday morning. Some people have left the site by walking out but “most of the RVs are stuck in place,” he said.

On Sunday morning, event organizers said roads remained closed as they were “too wet and muddy” and more uncertain weather was likely on the way. While some vehicles were able to leave, others got stuck in the mud, organizers said on the event’s website.

“Please do NOT drive at this time,” they added. “We will update you on the driving ban after this weather front has left the area.”

The remote area in northwest Nevada was hit with 2 to 3 months’ worth of rain – up to 0.8 inches – in just 24 hours between Friday and Saturday morning. The heavy rainfall fell on dry desert grounds, whipping up thick, clay-like mud festivalgoers said was too difficult to walk or bike through.

The sheriff’s office said it is investigating “a death which occurred during this rain event.” Authorities did not publicly name the person or provide details on the circumstances of the death.

“The family has been notified and the death is under investigation,” the sheriff’s office said in a late Saturday news release.

The individual was found on the playa and lifesaving procedures to revive them were not successful, Carmichael said Sunday, but did not share further details.

Playa is the term used to describe sunken dry lake beds in deserts where water evaporates rather than running off, and even a small amount of rain can quickly soak a large area.

Event organizers said they plan to burn the Man – the huge totem set on fire at the festival’s culmination – on Sunday night, if weather allows.

The rainy conditions forecast over the area for Sunday afternoon had mostly passed to the east of the festival site, according to a social media post from organizers, though there is still a chance of showers and thunderstorms “for the rest of daylight hours” into the evening.

Drone video shows vehicles stranded and stuck at Burning Man

Authorities have not provided information on when roads could reopen, but the sunshine is expected to return Monday.

“We do not currently have an estimated time for the roads to be dry enough for RVs or vehicles to navigate safely,” Burning Man organizers said in a Saturday evening statement. “Monday late in the day would be possible if weather conditions are in our favor. It could be sooner.”

Organizers noted the rain falling on an already saturated playa overnight and Sunday “will affect the amount of time it takes for the playa to dry.”

For now, the gate and airport into Black Rock City remain closed and no driving is allowed into or out of the city except for emergency vehicles, the organizers said on social media. Black Rock City is a temporary metropolis erected annually for the festival and comes complete with emergency, safety and sanitary infrastructure.

The rain “made it virtually impossible for motorized vehicles to traverse the playa,” the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said, noting people were advised to shelter in place until the ground has dried enough to drive on safely.

Vehicles trying to drive out will get stuck in the mud, Burning Man organizers said Saturday. “It will hamper Exodus if we have cars stuck on roads in our camping areas, or on the Gate Road out of the city,” the organizers added.

“If you are in BRC, please shelter in place & stay safe,” organizers said.

Storms and heavy rains across Nevada flooded other parts of the state and may have led to another death. In Las Vegas, authorities found a person unresponsive and “entangled with debris,” on Saturday morning who is believed to be “a drowning victim,” according to Jace Radke, a spokesperson for the city. An investigation is ongoing, Radke said in a news release.

Some festivalgoers hiked miles on foot in the thick mud to reach main roads while others stayed at their camps, hoping for conditions to improve.

Hannah Burhorn, a first-time attendee at the festival, told CNN people were trudging through the mud barefoot or with bags tied around their feet.

“People who have tried to bike through it and have gotten stuck because it’s about ankle deep,” Burhorn said. The mud is so thick it “sticks to your shoes and makes it almost like a boot around your boot,” she added.

It’s unclear exactly how many people are stranded at the festival, but typically more than 70,000 people attend the weeklong event. It’s being held from August 28 to September 4 this year.

There weren’t any reports of injuries as of Saturday afternoon, Sean Burke, the director of emergency management for Pershing County, told CNN.

Amar Singh Duggal and his friends managed to leave the festival after hiking about 2 miles in the mud, he told CNN. He estimated it took them about 2 hours to get to a main road where they arranged to be picked up and taken to Reno, about a 120-mile drive from the event grounds.

“We made it, but it was pure hell (walking) through the mud,” Duggal said. “Each step felt like we were walking with two big cinder blocks on our feet.”

Among those attending the festival was DJ Diplo and comedian Chris Rock.

Rock posted a video on Instagram of thick mud and Diplo posted a series of videos in which he said a fan offered him and Rock a ride out of the site.

The DJ said they walked several miles and were able to get to a nearby airport.

Meanwhile, attendees who typically dedicate their time to making art and building community are now also focused on rationing supplies and dealing with connectivity issues.

“There is super limited bandwidth and a lot of people at the camp (are) trying to cancel flights and arrange for extended time here” due to the weather, Burhorn told CNN via text message from a Wi-Fi camp.

Still, the poor conditions have not stopped the creativity, said Burhorn, who had traveled from San Francisco.

“People are building mud sculptures,” she said.

Andrew Hyde, another attendee stuck at the Burning Man, said despite the muddy conditions making it difficult to walk, the weather has taken the meaning of the event back to its roots.

“You come out here to be in a harsh climate, and you prepare for that,” Hyde told CNN’s Paula Newton. “So in many ways, everybody here just kind of made friends with their neighbors and it’s a community event.”

Morale at the event is OK and there’s generally no panic among the attendees, Hyde said, describing music returning overnight.

There are worries about the additional rain causing delays, however, and the unknowns of worsening conditions.

“I think the concern is if we have another rain,” he said. “People need to go back to their jobs, back to the responsibilities they have back home.”

Organizers announced Saturday night they’ll be putting mobile cell trailers in different positions, configuring the organization’s Wi-Fi system for public access and deploying buses to nearby Gerlach to take people who might walk off the playa to Reno.

“This is not likely a 24-hour operation at this time,” the festival said in a statement on its website.

Organizers are also resourcing four-wheel-drive vehicles and all-terrain tires to help ferry medical and other urgent situations to the blacktop.

There have been people who managed to walk to a main road and were waiting for transport from the festival organizers Saturday night, the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said.

Resources have been brought in from around northern Nevada to help people with medical needs on the event grounds, the sheriff’s office said.

“Burning Man is a community of people who are prepared to support one another,” Burning Man said on its website. “We have come here knowing this is a place where we bring everything we need to survive. It is because of this that we are all well-prepared for a weather event like this.”

“We have done table-top drills for events like this,” organizers added. “We are engaged full-time on all aspects of safety and looking ahead to our Exodus as our next priority.”

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September 3, 2023
Tens of thousands at Burning Man told to conserve water and food after heavy rains leave attendees stranded in Nevada desert | CNN

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Tens of thousands of people attending the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert are being told to conserve food, water and fuel as they shelter in place in the Black Rock Desert after a heavy rainstorm pummeled the area, festival organizers said.

Attendees were surrounded by thick, ankle-deep mud and organizers halted vehicles from traveling in or out of the festival after heavy rains started saturating the area Friday evening.

Hannah Burhorn, a first-time attendee at the festival, told CNN in a phone interview Saturday the desert sand has turned into thick clay and puddles and mud are everywhere. People are wrapping trash bags and Ziploc bags around their shoes to avoid getting stuck, while others are walking around barefoot.

“It’s unavoidable at this point,” she said. “It’s in the bed of the truck, inside the truck. People who have tried to bike through it and have gotten stuck because it’s about ankle deep.”

The gate and airport into Black Rock City, a remote area in northwest Nevada, remain closed and no driving is allowed into or out of the city except for emergency vehicles, the organizers said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Do not travel to Black Rock City! Access to the city is closed for the remainder of the event, and you will be turned around,” one statement read.

More than 70,000 people attend the weeklong event annually, which this year is being held from August 28 to September 5. It’s unclear how many of those were stranded due to the weather.

The city is expecting more showers overnight on Saturday, organizers said in a weather forecast update. The National Weather Service said showers and thunderstorms are expected to return Saturday evening and continue throughout Sunday, with temperatures ranging from highs in the 70s to a low overnight of 49 degrees.

Rainfall reports from the National Weather Service suggest up to 0.8 inches of rain fell in the area from Friday morning through Saturday morning – approximately two to three months of rainfall for that location this time of year. Even small rainfall totals can lead to flooding in the dry Nevada desert.

Flood watches were in effect in northeast Nevada, to the east of Black Rock City. Those watches noted individual storms were producing up to one inch of rainfall, but higher totals — as much as 3 inches — would be possible through the weekend.

The Bureau of Land Management, which has jurisdiction over the land the festival is held on, is advising people heading to Burning Man to “turn around and head home,” as roads remain closed in the area, according to a statement obtained by the Reno Gazette-Journal.

“Rain over the last 24 hours has created a situation that required a full stop of vehicle movement on the playa. More rain is expected over the next few days and conditions are not expected to improve enough to allow vehicles to enter the playa,” the statement read.

The festival, which began in 1986, is held each summer in Black Rock City – a temporary metropolis that is erected annually for the festival. The city comes complete with planning services, emergency, safety and sanitary infrastructure.

It is best known for its concluding event, in which a large wooden symbol of a man is ignited. The event attracts tens of thousands each year and in the past, celebrities from Sean “Diddy” Combs to Katy Perry have attended.

The tens of thousands of attendees travel to and from the city along a two-lane highway to get to the festival, according to its website. The festival was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Burning Man participants dedicate their time to making art and building community. They can learn how to spin fire, or to pole dance, to make shrink art jewelry or build a giant sculpture of two people embracing and burn it down.

Some on-site preparations for this year’s Burning Man were impacted by tropical storm Hilary in August, with high winds, rainfall and even flooding reported in the desert, CNN reported.

Amber Kramer, a resident of Kings Beach, California, told CNN she’s staying in an RV with her group and “feels fine as long as we have food and water.”

“My camp and I are on the roof [of the RV] trying to make the best of it,” Kramer said. She said she’s concerned for those staying in tents because the area is forecast to see more rain.

“People with RVs have been asked by camp leaders if they have room for people with tents because they are expecting another storm,” she said.

Kramer said she’s seen many people trudging around the camp with garbage bags strapped to their feet with duct tape in order to maneuver through the mud.

Burhorn, who traveled from San Francisco, California, said the mud is so thick that it “sticks to your shoes and makes it almost like a boot around your boot,” making it even more difficult to move around, she added.

She added she and her friends were not expecting any rain – only extreme heat. Burhorn said people trapped in the desert have limited cell service, making it almost impossible to get news on weather conditions or receive updates from festival organizers.

“It’s all been completely word of mouth,” she said. “I just talked to my boyfriend on the phone who gave me a weather update. I was like, ‘can you tell me what’s going on in the news? We have no clue.’”

Burhorn said the mud is so thick that it “sticks to your shoes and makes it almost like a boot around your boot,” making it even more difficult to move around, she added.

The silver lining, Burhorn said, is people are walking from camp to camp to check on others and make sure they have enough food and water. “People are still really looking out for each other, which is like a bubble of love.”

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September 2, 2023
The ways Hurricane Idalia has already made history | CNN

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Hurricane Idalia remained an active threat to the Southeast on Wednesday afternoon, but it has already left its mark on history, proving to be a once-in-a-lifetime storm for parts of Florida.

Idalia made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 125 mph Wednesday morning in Florida’s Big Bend region – where the panhandle meets the peninsula – near Keaton Beach.

Follow live updates: Idalia spreading damage across the Southeast

Idalia’s journey since it first formed in the Caribbean Sea over the weekend has been anything but ordinary. Here are some of its most notable superlatives:

With maximum winds of 125 mph, Idalia was the strongest hurricane to make landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region in more than 125 years.

The last storm of Idalia’s strength to slam the region was an unnamed Category 3 hurricane in 1896. The unnamed hurricane also had sustained winds of 125 mph at landfall.

Idalia was the first major hurricane – Category 3 or stronger – on record to track through Florida’s Apalachee Bay, a northern inlet in the Big Bend.

Idalia’s storm surge was record-breaking from Tampa to the Big Bend.

More than 8 feet of storm surge sent water levels in Cedar Key, Florida, to 6.8 feet above their highest normal tides on Wednesday morning. This shattered the previous high water level of 5.99 feet from Hurricane Hermine in 2016.

In Tampa Bay, water levels surpassed 4.5 feet on Wednesday morning, exceeding the previous high water mark of 3.79 feet from Tropical Storm Eta in 2020.

Clearwater Beach also set a new record-high water level at 4.05 feet, surpassing the previous record of 4.02 feet from the 1993 Storm of the Century.

Storm surge rushing through the Steinhatchee River in Steinhatchee, Florida, also caused water levels there to rise 9 feet in two hours and hit record levels there.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee issued two extreme wind warnings on Wednesday morning as the strongest winds from Idalia came ashore. These types of warnings are only issued when sustained winds of 115 mph or greater are expected in an area.

Until Wednesday, only 27 extreme wind warnings had ever been issued in the continental US. The majority of these warnings have been issued in Florida.

Hurricane Idalia went through a period of rapid intensification Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning as it tracked over the exceptionally warm water of the Gulf of Mexico.

Scientists have been alarmed at how warm ocean temperatures have been this year, including in the Gulf if Mexico and around southern Florida, where sea surface temperature climbed to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit earlier this summer.

Average sea surface temperature in Idalia’s path was recently measured at nearly 88 degrees Fahrenheit — a record there since data began in the early 1980s.

With an enormous pool of warm-water energy to draw from, the hurricane’s sustained winds increased a staggering 55 mph over the course of 24 hours. Rapid intensification is defined as an increase of at least 35 mph within a 24 hour period.

Idalia was a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph sustained winds early Tuesday morning. By early Wednesday, it was a monstrous Category 4 with sustained winds of 130 mph.

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August 30, 2023
Hurricane Idalia intensifies to a dangerous Category 4 hurricane ahead of its landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Affected by the storm? Use CNN’s lite site for low bandwidth.

CNN
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Hurricane Idalia has intensified into a dangerous Category 4 hurricane, packing monster winds of 130 mph as it turns streets to rivers and knocks out power along Florida’s western shore ahead of an expected landfall Wednesday morning on the state’s Gulf Coast.

With residents warned to flee and the National Guard prepping for rescues, the “extremely dangerous” storm is expected to strike the Big Bend coast linking Florida’s panhandle and peninsula with once-in-a-lifetime damaging winds and a life-threatening storm surge of up to 16 feet, the National Hurricane Center said.

“There is great potential for death and catastrophic devastation,” warned the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office, in the Big Bend region southeast of Tallahassee.

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Still rapidly intensifying around 5 a.m. about 60 miles west-southwest of Cedar Key, Florida, Idalia also is now expected to stay a hurricane for longer, with hurricane warnings issued for southeastern Georgia and South Carolina, the hurricane center said.

And a tornado watch is in place for nearly 12 million people across central and northern Florida and southeast Georgia until 3 p.m., Wednesday, as conditions continue to deteriorate, with coastal streets and lots flooding in places including Tampa, St. Petersburg and Fort Myers Beach as ocean water pushes ashore, rain pours down and winds whip.

Track Idalia here >>

As its eye moves onshore in the Big Bend region, Idalia’s core will bring destructive winds and storm surge high enough to stack a wall of seawater halfway up the second floor of an average building. It could be the first major hurricane at Category 3 or stronger to hit the area.

“This has the makings of an unprecedented event for this part of the state,” the National Weather Service in Tallahassee said. “There are NO major hurricanes in the historical dataset going back to 1851 that have tracked into Apalachee Bay. None.

“Don’t mess around with this one.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned of “significant, significant impact” to the Big Bend region, saying first responders will not be able to reach the few people who have stayed in evacuation zones until after the storm passes.

“You really got to go now,” he urged Big Bend residents Tuesday evening. “Now’s the time.”

Do not try to “‘ride’ this one out,” police told residents in the Big Bend city of Perry, adding storm surge higher than 15 feet is “not survivable if you are caught in it.” Storm surge accounts for nearly half of all hurricane-related fatalities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says.

In Tampa, well south of the projected landfall zone, Idalia’s storm surge began to flood streets Tuesday within a half-hour, Police Chief Lee Bercaw said.

“I witnessed for myself people driving in the water,” he said at a storm briefing Tuesday. “Don’t be that person. Remember: Turn around, don’t drown.”

Storm surge could cut off Cedar Key, on the southern side of the Big Bend, National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said.

“This storm is worse than we’ve ever seen. My family has been here for many generations, we haven’t seen a storm this bad, ever,” Mayor Heath Davis said Tuesday, warning that all emergency services would stop Tuesday evening as winds pick up.

Here are other developments around the state:

• Evacuations in at least 28 counties: Alachua, Baker, Citrus, Dixie, Franklin, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hamilton, Hernando, Hillsborough, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon, Levy, Madison, Manatee, Marion, Nassau, Pasco, Pinellas, Putnam, Sarasota, Suwannee, Sumter, Taylor, Union, Volusia and Wakulla have all issued evacuation orders, some mandatory.

• Power knocked out: Nearly 66,000 customers have no power early Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.com.

• Travel halted: Hundreds of flights have been canceled as Tampa International Airport suspended commercial operations and St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport Terminal building closed Tuesday.

• National Guard is deployed: Around 5,500 National Guard troops have been deployed, bracing to help with any search and rescue efforts after landfall.

• Hospitals suspend services: Patients were being transferred from at least three hospitals: HCA Florida Pasadena Hospital, HCA Florida Trinity West Hospital and HCA Florida West Tampa Hospital. Meanwhile, Tampa General Hospital was constructing a water-impermeable barrier to remain open for emergency care.

• Bridges will close: DeSantis warned residents in the path of Hurricane Idalia that once winds reach 40 mph or more, bridges will not be “safe to traverse” and will be shut down. High winds led officials to close the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which connects St. Petersburg to Manatee County, Pinellas County Emergency Management announced Wednesday morning.

• Schools and universities close: 50 county school districts have issued closures, as did dozens of college and university systems across Florida.

• Thousands of inmates evacuated: Roughly 4,000 inmates were evacuated or relocated to facilities better equipped to handle the storm, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

• Much of Florida under state of emergency: DeSantis has issued an emergency declaration to 49 of 67 Florida counties.

Florida won’t be the only state feeling Idalia’s impacts. After the storm makes landfall, damaging winds and heavy rain will spread far inland into Florida, parts of Georgia and even the Carolinas.

After hitting Florida, Idalia’s center is forecast to move near or along the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina late Wednesday and Thursday, the hurricane center said.

“Idalia is likely to still be a hurricane while moving across southern Georgia, and possibly when it reaches the coast of Georgia or southern South Carolina late today,” the hurricane center said Wednesday morning.

North Carolina and Georgia have also declared states of emergency as they prepare for floods and hurricane force winds.

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August 30, 2023
Tropical Storm Idalia is expected to rapidly intensify as it aims for Florida’s Gulf Coast, threatening to hit as a Category 3 hurricane | CNN
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CNN
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Florida is bracing for “major impact” as Tropical Storm Idalia is expected to rapidly strengthen into a powerful Category 3 hurricane and aim for its Gulf Coast, threatening dangerous storm surge and winds, authorities said.

Idalia is expected to intensify over the coming hours before it makes landfall in the Sunshine State on Wednesday morning near the Big Bend of Florida – a rare event for a natural, storm surge-prone divot along the coast stretching from Tampa to just south of Tallahassee.

“Idalia could become a hurricane later this morning, and is forecast to become a major hurricane by early Wednesday,” the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm is churning maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, roughly 190 miles southwest of the Dry Tortugas, where tropical storm conditions were expected Tuesday morning, the hurricane center said in a 2 a.m. ET Tuesday update.

“This is going to be a major hurricane,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a Monday news conference.

On its current track, Idalia’s center is forecast to soon pass near or over western Cuba, trek over the eastern Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, before slamming into the Gulf coast of Florida Wednesday – though its impacts could be felt from the Florida Keys as soon as Tuesday.

It’s not just Florida that’ll feel the impacts. After the storm makes landfall, damaging winds and heavy rain will spread far inland into Florida, parts of Georgia and even the Carolinas.

The storm is expected to dump 4 to 8 inches of rain from Tuesday into Thursday across parts of the west coast of Florida, the Florida Panhandle, southeast Georgia and the eastern Carolinas – where streets could flood.

As the storm makes its way to Florida, preparations could be seen across the state. Here’s the latest:
Airports close: Tampa International Airport will suspend all commercial operations beginning Tuesday and stay closed until it can assess any damages later in the week, airport officials announced. The St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport Terminal building will close Tuesday afternoon.
Evacuations in at least 10 counties: Hillsborough, Franklin, Taylor, Levy, Citrus, Manatee, Pasco, Hernando, Pinellas and Sarasota counties have all called for residents to evacuate certain at-risk areas.
Schools close: 32 County School Districts have issued closures, as did multiple colleges and universities, including Florida State University, the University of Florida and Florida A&M University.
Emergencies declared: DeSantis expanded an emergency declaration to 46 of 67 Florida counties on Monday morning. Several local jurisdictions have also declared emergencies.
The Florida National Guard activated: More than 5,000 National Guard members were activated to help respond to the storm.
US Navy ships begin leaving: Navy ships have begun leaving Florida ahead of Tropical Storm Idalia’s landfall, the Navy said Monday.

Power outages expected: DeSantis told residents to prepare to be without power. “If you are in the path of the storm, you should expect power outages so please prepare for that,” the governor told residents Sunday.

Hospital system suspending services: Patients will be transferred from at least three hospitals: HCA Florida Pasadena Hospital, HCA Florida Trinity West Hospital and HCA Florida West Tampa Hospital.
“We want everyone to take this storm seriously,” Barbara Tripp, Tampa’s Fire Rescue Chief said during a news conference.

The Fire Chief also asked citizens to clear debris from property ahead of the storm’s arrival and look out for neighbors who may need help.

“Once the wind reaches a certain miles per hour, Tampa Fire Rescue will not be able to respond,” Tripp warned.

With the storm forecast to strengthen quickly as it tracks through the Gulf of Mexico, it’ll be tapping into some of the warmest waters on the planet ahead of making landfall in Florida.

If it does so, it would join a growing list of devastating storms like monster Hurricane Ian — which leveled coastal Florida and left more than 100 dead — to rapidly intensify before landfall in recent years.

Idalia posed a “notable risk” of this phenomenon, the National Hurricane Center warned Monday, as it travels through the Gulf of Mexico.

Water temperatures around southern Florida climbed to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas this summer, and temperatures in the Gulf overall have been record-warm, with more than enough heat to support rapid strengthening.

Life-threatening storm surge up to 12 feet is possible in Florida’s Big Bend – a danger that will only be worsened by waves fueled by hurricane-force winds stronger than 100 mph.

Storm surge, which is when a storm blows the ocean onshore, is one of the deadliest aspects of a hurricane and the reason behind most storm evacuations.

Cedar Key could be cut off by the high storm surge, National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said.

“I’m especially concerned for them,” Rhome said during a briefing on Facebook Live. “If you’re watching from Cedar Key, it is imperative that you take this very seriously and if ordered to evacuate, heed those evacuations immediately. The entire island could be completely cut off with conditions like that.”

Rhome stressed that evacuation orders that have been issued along the coast are in place because of the projected storm surge.

Storm surge accounts for nearly half of all hurricane-related fatalities, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It’s not just the coastal areas that could flood.

Inland areas, where people may evacuate to, could see hazardous flooding and heavy rainfall from Idalia.

Andrew Kruczkiewicz, senior researcher at the Columbia University’s Climate School, warns that heavy rainfall-related hazards can also occur as far as 100 miles away from where the storm center tracks.

“This is something that we’re seeing more and more, and this is a climate change connection because we’re seeing wetter tropical cyclones and wetter hurricanes,” he told CNN. “So we need to pay more attention to the risks associated with intense precipitation, especially in areas that are distant from the coastline.”
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August 29, 2023
Australian surfers rescued in waters off remote Indonesian island after 38 hours missing at sea | CNN

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Four Australian surfers who went missing after their boat was struck by a storm in a remote part of Indonesia have been rescued after more than 38 hours at sea, according to parents of the missing tourists.

Australians Steph Weisse, Will Teagle, Jordan Short and two unnamed Indonesian nationals were found “bobbing on surfboards” by a surf charter boat involved in the frantic rescue to locate the group.

Dramatic video of that moment showed both the stranded castaways on their surfboards cheering and hollering alongside their rescuers as they realized they had successfully found each other in a vast expanse of ocean.

A further search picked up Australian Elliot Foote, however one Indonesian crew member remains missing.

Foote’s father, Peter Foote, said his son was separated from the rest of the group because he’d gone looking for assistance.

“He left his mates bobbing in the water to go to search for help. The charter boat found them and then went and found Elliot,” Peter said.

“I’m really happy it’s all turned out well and I hope he continues with his holiday,” Peter told CNN.

“He’s in a great place to celebrate, with his girlfriend [Weisse] and 10 mates in paradise. He’s still got eight nights to enjoy then I’m looking forward to him coming straight home.”

The group’s boat was last seen Sunday evening local time after they encountered bad weather and heavy rain on a journey to the remote Pinang island from Nias, a popular surfing destination some 150 kilometers from Indonesia’s Sumatra Island.

A second boat with the rest of the party successfully reached Pinang Island Sunday evening, the families said, helping to raise the alarm.

While Indonesian authorities conducted search and rescue efforts with support from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the families of the four Australians said the surf charter boats made all the difference by using their local knowledge of the currents to locate where the group may have drifted.

According to their families, the four Australians were on a surf trip in Indonesia to celebrate Foote’s 30th birthday.

Friends in Australia have hailed what they described as a near miraculous rescue.

“Now that all four have been found we can just be so so grateful,” Ellie Sedgwick, who described herself as Weisse’s best friend since they were 17, told CNN.

“Her mum and I were speaking the whole way through, just saying if anyone can survive this, it’s Steph,” she added.

“It’s funny because Steph actually had that conversation with us before she left. The last thing she said to us was, it’s amazing that you know we only get one life…we kept replaying that conversation over and over in our heads.”

In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, DFAT said “the Australian Government expresses its deep gratitude” to those involved in the search and rescue efforts.

Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong said in a tweet that the government will “continue to provide support to the four Australians and their families.”

“The search continues for a crew member who is still missing,” she wrote. “Our thoughts are with them and their loved ones.”

The names of the Indonesian crew who were on board the boat have not been shared yet by authorities.

Indonesia has long been a popular destination for Australian tourists thanks to its proximity and a wealth of budget flights to places like Bali.

The western island of Sumatra is one of Indonesia’s less commonly traveled destinations but the coral-fringed islands around Nias are popular with intrepid surfers and boast multiple world class breaks, particularly around Lagundri Bay.

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August 15, 2023
These factors are making it hard to combat the deadly Maui wildfires | CNN

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CNN
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The wind-whipped fires in Maui spread swiftly and created a deadly tinderbox, overwhelming residents and local officials in one of the nation’s deadliest wildfires.

“It’s very strange to hear about severe wildfires in Hawaii – a wet, tropical island – but strange events are becoming more common with climate change,” Jennifer Marlon, a research scientist and lecturer at the Yale School of the Environment, told CNN.

Fueled by a combination of strong winds and dry conditions – and complicated by the island’s geography – the fires have killed at least 36 people.

“For those of us who’ve been working on this problem, it just makes us feel sick,” said Clay Trauernicht, an assistant specialist who studies tropical fire at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Maui’s wildfire appears to be one of the deadliest in modern US history. The fire already ranks as the second deadliest in the past 100 years, trailing California’s Camp fire, which killed 85 people in November 2018, according to CalFire.

Trauernicht said it was by far the deadliest wildfire in Hawaii’s history.

These are some factors making it difficult to combat the fires that have plunged a state known for its stunning natural beauty into an unprecedented crisis:

Drought worsened in Hawaii over the past week, leading to fire spread, according to the US Drought Monitor released Thursday. Severe level drought conditions in Maui County ticked up to 16% from 5% last week, while statewide moderate drought levels jumped to 14% from 6%.

Dried-out land and vegetation can provide fuel for wildfires, which then can swiftly turn deadly if strong winds help fan the flames toward communities.

“It’s more a fuels problem than a climate problem – which means that it’s a problem we can tackle,” Trauernicht said in a phone interview.

“There are tangible actions that we could be taking that would reduce the risk of something like this happening in the future,” he added, referring to measures such as the creation of fuelbreaks to reduce fire-prone vegetation and support for agricultural land use.

“It’s a priority when the fires are burning. But at that point, it’s too late.”

While scientists try to fully understand how the climate crisis will affect Hawaii, they have said drought will get worse as global temperatures rise: Warmer temperatures increase the amount of water the atmosphere can absorb – which then dries out the landscape.

Drought conditions are becoming more extreme and common in Hawaii and other Pacific Islands, according to the Fourth US National Climate Assessment, released in 2018. Rainfall has generally been decreasing in Hawaii over time, with the number of consecutive dry days increasing, scientists noted in the report.

And the climate crisis has caused droughts that previously may have occurred only once every decade to now happen 70% more frequently, global scientists reported in 2021.

“Combining abundant fuels with heat, drought, and strong wind gusts is a perfect recipe for out-of-control fires,” Marlon said by email.

“But this is what climate change is doing – it’s super-charging extreme weather. This is yet another example of what human-caused climate change increasingly looks like.”

Evacuation orders in parts of Hawaii as wildfires grow

Hurricane Dora, a fast-moving and powerful Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 140 mph, isn’t helping matters.

As the storm roared south of Hawaii, a strong high-pressure system stayed in place to the north, with the two forces combining to produce “very strong and damaging winds,” according to the National Weather Service.

“These strong winds coupled with low humidity levels are producing dangerous fire weather conditions” through Wednesday afternoon, the weather service said.

The high winds, ongoing drought conditions and dry relative humidity are “ingredients to spark those fires and to fan the flames,” CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam said.

“The problem is that this wind – similar to, let’s say, Santa Ana winds in Southern California – is that it dries out and it warms up as it (travels down) the mountains, and it creates these very dry, timber-like conditions,” he said.

Hurricane Lane in 2018 was also associated with large fires on Maui and Oahu, noted Abby Frazier, a climatologist and geographer at Clark University in Massachusetts.

“Wildfire is a bigger issue in Hawaii than many people may realize,” Frazier said via email from Hawaii, where she has been working on a research project in Oahu.

“During the wet season, fuels are built up and then dry out over the dry season,” she added. “When you combine these dry fuels with the high winds and low humidity we have right now from Hurricane Dora, we have extremely dangerous fire weather.”

Another compounding factor is El Niño, Frazier said. The climate pattern originates in the Pacific Ocean along the equator and impacts weather all over the world.

“This means higher than usual hurricane activity in the central Pacific this summer,” she wrote.

“While we tend to see wetter conditions during El Nino summers (which builds up fire fuels), Hawaii should expect drought conditions likely this winter, which will dry out the fuels and usually leads to an earlier start to our fire season for next year.”

A hurricane is fueling wildfires in Hawaii. Meteorologist explains how

Nonnative species now cover nearly a quarter of Hawaii’s total land area, and invasive grasses and shrubs become highly flammable in the dry season, Trauernicht said.

Hawaii also has lost large plantations and ranches, with fire-prone grasses overtaking fallow lands, he said.

“When plantations were active, firefighters would show up on scene … people would be there opening the gates, all the roads were maintained, there was water infrastructure and equipment. And they would have support from the people working on these plantations,” Trauernicht said.

“As that has changed, and land use has changed. It’s all on the firefighters right now.”

Hawaii also has suffered from dramatic shifts in rainfall patterns.

The area burned each year in Hawaii is now about 1% of the state’s total land area – comparable to and often exceeding the 12 Western states on the mainland where fires are most common, according to Trauernicht and the Pacific Fire Exchange.

The geography of Hawaii – an island chain in the Pacific – and limited firefighting resources also complicate efforts.

Personnel at the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife are primarily natural resource managers, foresters, biologists and technicians – not full-time wildland firefighters, according to the agency website.

“West Maui is kind of a perfect example – one highway through the whole place,” Trauernicht told CNN. “Our resources are limited to what’s on island. The resources … are going to be spread thin.”

Fewer than 300 firefighting personnel responded to the state’s second-largest fire, on the Big Island in 2021, Trauernicht said.

“If you compare that to the mainland, there would have been probably a couple of thousand firefighters,” he said.

“That gives you a sense of the kind of … limitations that we have here. This fire right now, I guarantee it, anyone who’s available to respond is responding. We don’t really have the ability to definitely bring in resources from other states. That’s not happening.”

By Thursday, meanwhile, the wildfires had killed at least 36 people on the island, compared to six deaths reported just a day earlier.

“I think this is going to be far worse than anything we’ve ever seen, unfortunately,” Trauernicht said.

Despite warnings it seems many were taken by surprise.

“The National Weather Service issued a kind of heads up. We had a few days lead time about the weather conditions,” Trauernicht said.

“We anticipated the high winds and dry conditions. But managing fuels at the scale in which we need to, those are actions that need to be taken at minimum months in advance of these fires and these conditions.”

Longer-term planning and prevention efforts are needed to fight the growth of invasive grasses and shrubs, Trauernicht said.

“This is something that we’ve been saying for decades,” he said. “We can create landscapes that are far less likely to burn, far less sensitive to these fluctuations in climate or in weather that create such dangerous conditions.

“We sort of owe it to these guys that are fighting this thing right now.”

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August 10, 2023
At least 6 dead as Maui wildfires overwhelm hospitals, sever 911 services and force people to flee into the ocean | CNN

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CNN
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At least six people have died as a result of the fires that are continuing to ravage parts of Maui, the island’s mayor, Richard Bissen Jr., said at a Wednesday morning news conference.

“I’m sad to report that just before coming on this, it was confirmed we’ve had six fatalities,” he said. “We are still in a search and rescue mode.” He did not offer further details about the deaths.

More than a dozen people had to be rescued from the ocean, among them two young children, officials in Maui County said.

Several people are also unaccounted for, Bissen added.

“As a result of three fires that have occurred that are continuing here on our island we have had 13 evacuations from different neighborhoods and towns, we’ve had 16 road closures, we’ve opened five shelters,” Bissen said, noting more than 2,000 people were staying at shelters.

“We’ve had many dwellings – businesses, structures – that have been burned, many of them to the ground,” the mayor said, adding most were in the western town of Lahaina.

Bissen said helicopters that could not safely fly a day earlier due to high winds were in the sky Wednesday and using water drops to help suppress the flames. It will be impossible to estimate the extent of the damage until the blazes are put out, he added.

The flames have torched hundreds of acres and are still not contained.

“Local people have lost everything,” said James Kunane Tokioka, the state’s business, economic development and tourism director, at the news conference. “They’ve lost their house, they’ve lost their animals and it’s devastating.”

Video footage shot by Air Maui Helicopter Tours over parts of the Lahaina area shows entire blocks were decimated by the flames, with little but ruins and ashes left, and everything still engulfed in a thick, hazy smoke.

“We were not prepared for what we saw. It was heartbreaking, it looked like an area that had been bombed in the war,” Richie Olsten, the director of operations for the tour agency, told CNN’s Jake Tapper Wednesday. “It’s just destroyed.”

“In my 52 years of flying on Maui, I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” Olsten added.

Hawaii’s governor, who was on a personal trip this week, said he was rushing back to the state Wednesday.

The true scope of devastation on the idyllic Hawaiian island remains unknown.

That’s because the infernos have knocked out cell service, hindered emergency communications and trapped residents and tourists on the island, which is home to about 117,000.

The wildfires – fueled in part by Hurricane Dora churning some 800 miles away – have cut off 911 service and other communications in many parts of Maui.

“911 is down. Cell service is down. Phone service is down,” Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke told CNN on Wednesday.

“Our hospital system on Maui, they are overburdened with burn patients, people suffering from inhalation,” she said. “The reality is that we need to fly people out of Maui to give them burn support because Maui hospital cannot do extensive burn treatment.”

The disaster also has wiped out power to more than 12,000 homes and businesses in Maui, according to PowerOutage.us.

Tourists are being discouraged from going to Maui, Luke told reporters Wednesday.

“Today we signed another emergency proclamation which will discourage tourists from going to Maui,” she said. “Even as of this morning, planes were landing on Maui with tourists. This is not a safe place to be.”

In certain parts of the island, there are shelters that are overrun, Luke added: “We have resources that are being taxed.”

Hawaii isn’t the only US state grappling with devastating wildfires – a trend some experts had predicted for this season. Parts of Texas are under a critical fire risk Wednesday, a day after a brush fire engulfed an apartment building in the Austin area.

But the crisis unfolding in Maui is extraordinary, Hawaii’s lieutenant governor said.

“We never anticipated in this state that a hurricane which did not make impact on our islands, will cause this type of wildfires,” Luke told reporters at Wednesday’s news conference. “Wildfires that wiped out communities, wildfires that wiped out businesses, wildfires that destroyed homes.”

Alan Dickar just learned one of his rental properties went up in flames when he saw Lahaina, an economic hub, get swallowed by wildfire.

“Front Street exploded in flame,” Dickar told CNN Wednesday.

Dickar, who has lived in the area for 24 years, said there was little time to flee.

“I grabbed some people I saw on the street who didn’t seem to have a good plan. And I had told them, ‘Get your stuff, get in my truck,’” he said.

“And there’s only one road that leads out of Lahaina, so obviously it was backed up,” Dickar said. “I dropped everybody else off and then I went to a place in another part of Maui that’s far away. And as soon as I got there, that whole area had to evacuate because of a totally different fire. … Just as I arrived, that whole area got evacuated.”

Dickar eventually fled to a remote part of Maui. “I figured that was enough, and I’m safe here at least from a fire evacuation because it’s a rainforest,” he said.

Clint Hansen took drone video Tuesday night that showed wildfires spreading just north of Kihei.

“Lahaina has been devastated,” Hansen told CNN. “People jumping in the ocean to escape the flames, being rescued by the Coast Guard. All boat owners are being asked to rescue people. It’s apocalyptic.”

Live Updates: Wildfires burn in Maui, prompting rescues in Lahaina

And it’s not clear where the disaster will head next.

Maui fire officials warned that erratic wind, challenging terrain, steep slopes and dropping humidity, plus the direction and the location of the fire conditions make it difficult to predict path and speed of a wildfire, according to Maui County officials.

“The fire can be a mile or more from your house, but in a minute or two, it can be at your house,” Maui County Fire Assistant Chief Jeff Giesea said. “Burning airborne materials can light fires a great distance away from the main body of fire.”

State officials are working with hotels and a local airline to try to evacuate tourists to another island, Luke said. But severed communications have hindered efforts.

“Resorts and visitors and commercial districts have lost communication due to downed cell towers and landlines that only work within very local areas. “As a result, 911 service is currently down,” said Mahina Martin, chief communications officer from Maui Emergency Management Agency.

Maui County officials have not been able to communicate with many people on the west side – including those in the Lahaina area, Luke said.

Satellite phones have been the only reliable way to get in touch with some areas, including hotels, the lieutenant governor said.

The Kahului Airport was sheltering about 1,800 travelers from “canceled flights and flight arrivals,” the Hawaii Department of Transportation posted on social media.

Members of the Hawaii National Guard are assisting with the calamity in Maui – with more on the way.

“Hawaii National Guardsmen have been activated and are currently on Maui assisting Maui Police Department at traffic control points,” Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, Hawaii’s adjutant general, posted on Facebook.

The overnight deployment was hastened by the dynamic fire conditions, Hara wrote, adding more National Guard personnel would arrive in the counties of Maui and Hawaii later Wednesday.

Dora, a powerful Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 130 mph, was about 795 miles southwest of Honolulu as of Wednesday morning, the National Hurricane Center said. No coastal watches or warnings were in effect.

As Dora travels south of the islands, a strong high-pressure system remains in place to the north. The area of high pressure in combination with Dora is producing “very strong and damaging winds,” the National Weather Service said.

Winds as high as 60 mph are expected through the overnight in Hawaii, then will begin to diminish through the day on Wednesday.

“These strong winds coupled with low humidity levels are producing dangerous fire weather conditions that will last through Wednesday afternoon,” the weather service said.

By Wednesday afternoon, the area of high pressure, as well as Dora, will both drift westward, allowing the winds to subside.

Two brushfires were burning Tuesday on the Big Island, officials said in a news release, one in the North Kohala District and the other in the South Kohala District. Some residents were under mandatory evacuation orders as power outages were impacting communications, the release said.

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August 9, 2023
We’re going to need a bigger drone: The technology keeping swimmers safe at one New York beach | CNN Business

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Warmer and cleaner waters off the coast of Long Island, New York, in recent years have brought growing numbers of bait fish to the area — and with them, the bigger fish that eat them, including sharks. In some ways, it’s a good sign for the environment. But it’s a different story for swimmers, surfers and beach goers.

Safety officials at one New York beach are ramping up the use of drones to try to prevent potentially dangerous interactions between humans and sharks.

Lifeguards and New York State Park Police officers at Jones Beach — a state park that stretches 6.5 miles along the Southern coast of Long Island and sees six million visitors a year — are using the technology to monitor the waters off the shore. When they spot sharks or unusual sea life activity, they can warn swimmers to stay on the beach.

The tracking program began in 2017 but has taken on new urgency following a rash of shark attacks at New York beaches this summer. While the risk of being attacked by a shark remains low, just this week, a 65-year-old woman was hospitalized after being bitten by a shark at Rockaway Beach in Queens. The next day, lifeguards at Jones Beach closed the water three times after possible shark sightings, two of which were made with drones.

“I can’t predict whether or not there’s going to be more bites or shark attacks, but what I can tell you is … the more drones that are flying in the air, there’s more of a chance of seeing these animals in their natural habitat,” Park Police Captain Rishi Basdeo told CNN last month, prior to the latest attack (which occurred at a different beach from where his team monitors). “Just by merely warning people, that in itself is [paying] dividends,” he said.

With more sharks along the beach, police are using these drones to protect swimmers

The New York State Park Police operates a fleet of 19 drones along Jones Beach, used by lifeguards with backup from officers who can do more enhanced monitoring via a mobile command center that travels up and down the beach if something unusual has been spotted in the water. Inside the command center van, officers can watch a livestream of the drone footage on a TV screen to determine if swimmers should be removed from the water.

“You’re getting with the drone a real supreme aerial view of what’s going on in real time on the waterway,” Basdeo said, adding that if a shark is within 400 feet of the shore, officials consider closing the water. “If a shark is in close proximity to the bathing area — or even before we get schools [of fish] there — we are already making that decision … and the lifeguards will stop people from swimming and just safely guide people out of the water.”

On the day last month that Park Police officers gave CNN a demonstration of the drone tracking program, the cameras picked up only a few skate fish just off the shore. But the drones — which have cameras powerful enough to see beneath the surface of the water even from about 25 feet in the air — have previously caught footage of sharks swimming solo and feeding on large schools of fish.

Operating the program is not cheap — even the more low-tech drone kits used by lifeguards to do regular monitoring cost around $6,000 each and require operators trained in Federal Aviation Administration rules, according to Basdeo. But he says it’s worth it to avoid safety risks to people enjoying the beach. And, he added, “It’s actually cheaper than calling in a police helicopter.”

The technology has uses beyond searching for sharks, too. The drones can be augmented with an infrared camera, spotlights and speakers to help in search and rescue capacities, and could even carry a life preserver out to a distressed swimmer before a lifeguard could get to them.

For example, “If we get a report that an individual is missing at night, we have an ability aside from calling in a police helicopter … we can send our drones up and put in the infrared capability in the camera and actually see in the dark,” Basdeo said. “Five years ago, we didn’t have this drone capability in our agency, but now it’s spreading and it’s catching on.”

Basdeo also stressed that the drones are used for only limited, safety-related applications.

“We’re on strict guidelines when we fly and operate these drones. It is not used to surveil the public. It is used to keep them safe,” Basdeo said. “We don’t fly, or we try not to fly, over large groups of people. There are designated emergency lanes on the beach … where it’s sparsely populated” that operators use to navigate the drones out to the water, he said.

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August 2, 2023
EPA slashes federally protected waters by more than half after Supreme Court ruling | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The Environmental Protection Agency and US Army on Tuesday released a new rule that slashes federally protected water by more than half, following a Supreme Court decision in May that rolled back protections for US wetlands.

The rule will invalidate an earlier definition of what constitutes the so-called waters of the United States, after the Supreme Court ruled Clean Water Act protections extend only to “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are waters of the United States in their own rights.”

It could impact up to 63% of US wetlands by acreage and around 1.2 million to 4.9 million miles of ephemeral streams, an EPA spokesperson told CNN. An ephemeral stream is one that typically only has water flowing through it during and immediately after rain events.

The decision excluded wetlands and smaller tributaries from being protected as they had been for the last 45 years. The new rule will take effect immediately, according to a press release from the agencies.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan registered his displeasure with the spring SCOTUS decision but said the agency has worked swiftly to finalize it.

“While I am disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Sackett case, EPA and Army have an obligation to apply this decision alongside our state co-regulators, Tribes, and partners,” Regan said in a statement. “We’ve moved quickly to finalize amendments to the definition of ‘waters of the United States’ to provide a clear path forward that adheres to the Supreme Court’s ruling. EPA will never waver from our responsibility to ensure clean water for all.”

The newly finalized rule from the Biden administration means the US Army Corps of Engineers can resume issuing jurisdictional determinations that had been paused after the Supreme Court decision.

The decision provoked an outcry among environmental groups and drew a rare rebuke from conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who dissented with the liberal justices. The majority had “rewritten the Clean Water Act” and ignored its text as well as “45 years of consistent agency practice,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Kavanaugh also wrote that the lands to be regulated did not have to physically touch an adjacent waterway to constitute “waters of the United States,” but that they could include wetlands that are “separated from a covered water only by a man-made dike or barrier, natural river berm, beach dune or the like.” He noted that eight different administrations since 1977 had recognized such wetlands as being protected.

The statutory text, Kavanaugh wrote, “does not require a continuous surface connection between those wetlands and covered waters.”

“By narrowing the (Clean Water) Act’s coverage of wetlands to only adjoining wetlands,” Kavanaugh wrote, “the court’s new test will leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States.”

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August 2, 2023