Earth Watch Report – Friday August 31st, 2012
August 31, 2012 by desertrose
Storms / Flooding
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| Name of storm system | Location | Formed | Last update | Last category | Course | Wind Speed | Gust | Wave | Source | Details |
| Ileana (EP09) | Pacific Ocean – East | 28.08.2012 | 31.08.2012 | Hurricane II | 335 ° | 139 km/h | 167 km/h | 3.05 m | NOAA NHC |  |
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| Kirk (AL02) | Atlantic Ocean | 29.08.2012 | 31.08.2012 | Hurricane III | 335 ° | 157 km/h | 194 km/h | 5.49 m | NOAA NHC | |
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| Leslie (AL12) | Atlantic Ocean | 30.08.2012 | 31.08.2012 | Tropical Depression | 280 ° | 83 km/h | 102 km/h | 3.66 m | NOAA NHC | |
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Death toll from S. Korea typhoon rises to 18
by Staff Writers
Seoul (AFP)
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South Korean rescuers Wednesday recovered two more bodies near two wrecked Chinese fishing boats, bringing the confirmed death toll from a powerful typhoon to 18.
Typhoon Bolaven — the strongest to hit the South for almost a decade — left a trail of death and damage in southwestern and south-central regions of the country.
It drove two Chinese fishing ships aground early Tuesday off the southern island of Jeju, sparking a dramatic rescue operation.
Coastguards wearing wetsuits struggled through high waves and pulled a total of 12 people to safety, and six swam ashore. Eight bodies had been recovered as of Wednesday and seven were still missing, the coastguard in Jeju said.
Dozens of divers are involved in the ongoing search. The coastguard said in a statement it would make “utmost efforts” to account for all the missing.
Most of the other deaths, confirmed by the public administration ministry, were caused by wind gusts that toppled walls or roofs or blew victims off their feet.
Typhoon alerts covering most of the country were lifted as ferries and flights returned to normal and schools reopened. But South Korea is now on watch for another typhoon, Tembin.
Bolaven moved on to North Korea, damaging crops and toppling some 3,700 roadside trees, the North’s official news agency said. Human casualties were not reported.
In North Hwanghae Province, the typhoon deactivated television relay facilities and destroyed or damaged some 20 houses and public buildings, the agency said, adding that “a lot of houses and roads” were submerged in other provinces.
Bolaven crossed the Yalu border river into China early Wednesday.
In South Korea, the typhoon was the strongest since 2003 in terms of wind speed. A maximum speed of 214 kilometres per hour (134 miles per hour) was recorded at Mount Mudeung in the southwestern city of Gwangju.
Power cuts of five minutes or longer hit nearly two million homes, a record in the country, the public administration ministry said.
The storm toppled nearly 8,000 trees and damaged 42 ships or boats and 35 houses. A total of 6,418 hectares (15,852 acres) of farmland was damaged.
Typhoon Tembin, located about 350 kilometres northeast of the Taiwanese capital Taipei early Wednesday, is approaching South Korea at a speed of 20 kilometres an hour.
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Situation in Braithwaite grim; flooding is massive
The situation was bleak in some Eastbank Plaquemines Parish neighborhoods that were inundated by water as Hurricane Isaac pushed across the region.
Officials said an 18-mile stretch of levees was overtopped by water from the Mississippi River early Wednesday. The resulting flood brought as much as 10 feet of water to residential areas, early reports indicated.
The area includes a stretch from Braithwaite to White Ditch. Those communities were under a mandatory evacuation order because of safety concerns.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told WDSU that the problem was limited to overtopping, and not a breach. He described the situation as “serious.”
The National Weather Service noted: “This will result in significant deep flooding in this area.”
The levee is not part of the federal Corps of Engineers protection system.
WDSU reporter Travers Mackel said flood gates were closed to contain the water. He said there was concern that some people were trapped in dangerous conditions.
In nearby St. Bernard Parish, trees blocked roadways, making driving nearly impossible.
More than 400,000 Entergy customers on the south shore were without power.
WDSU reporter Gina Swanson said water was encroaching on an evacuation shelter in Raceland, in Lafourche Parish.
Jefferson Parish reported flooding in Lower Lafitte and water levels in the bayou that were up two feet from Tuesday.
The Harvey and Belle Chasse tunnels were closed — a move that followed the shut-down of the Lake Pontchartrain Causevay Tuesday evening.
Several fires, including major ones in Gretna and Arabi, were also reported.
Armstrong International Airport was closed, with all flights cancelled.
Viewers Send in Video of Massive Waves and Wind
(MOBILE, Ala.) – While Louisiana appears to be taking the heaviest blow from Hurricane Isaac, there’s no doubt the storm is impact our stretch of the Gulf.
One viewer send in video of waves churning in Mobile Bay ripping up a dock, and a man in Pensacola uploaded video of driving wind and rain from his pool.
Thousands have been without power in Mobile County but crews have been out trying to make those repairs today.
| Today | Technological Disaster | USA | State of Louisiana, [Lake Tangipahoa region] |  |
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Technological Disaster in USA on Friday, 31 August, 2012 at 04:46 (04:46 AM) UTC.
| Description | |
| Lake Tangipahoa, a 450 to 500-acre lake at Percy Quinn State Park just north of the Mississippi state line, was swollen from Isaac’s rain, undermining a dam that, if it failed, would release the body of water into the Tangipahoa River that meanders down the parish’s length to Lake Pontchartrain. “That’s going to inundate an already flooded river,” said National Guard Col. Rodney Painting, the incoming commander of the Guard’s 225th Engineer Brigade who started his day helping oversee the evacuation of flooded areas in LaPlace and would end it in his native Tangipahoa helping oversee what appears to be the largest such effort in the state since Isaac made landfall Tuesday. Authorities in Mississippi tried to ease the pressure by releasing some of the water, an effort said to be working. Louisiana officials are taking no chances.State and parish officials called a mandatory evacuation for communities from Kentwood to Robert. If the dam breaks, the National Guard will go into the affected communities with high-water vehicles and small boats, “that we can get through the flooded woods or streets if we have to,” said Painter, who during the Isaac state of emergency has helped coordinate evacuation sites at Zephyr Field in Metairie and in Slidell before moving to Laplace and Amite. In the “controlled release” using spillways, the water from the lake flooded out into a sparsely inhabited area of Mississippi on Thursday afternoon, relieving pressure on a dam scoured by Hurricane Isaac that threatened to push water levels in the Tangipahoa River up to 17 feet in Louisiana. Officials believe the controlled release of waters through emergency spillways will allow the water level to stabilize and lessen pressure on the dam until crews can breach the edge of Tangipahoa Lake near McComb and drain another 8 feet of water.While the release is expected to protect communities on the north shore, officials in Mississippi said about 20 homes on their side of the state line will be flooded out and emergency crews conducted a door-to-door effort to warn residents to leave their homes. Meanwhile, a more massive effort was occurring miles downriver, as National Guard units and other state assets attempted to get 40,000 to 60,000 people out of their homes. Though the water level in the lake was dropping and Mississippi officials downplayed the seriousness of the dam’s condition, Gov. Bobby Jindal continued to urge residents to leave potential flood zones in Tangipahoa Parish Thursday night. “The worse thing that could happen is that people get a false sense of confidence and then if there be a breach overnight it would be a lot harder for people to evacuate,” Jindal said. From the Florida Parishes Arena, troops drove school buses to collection points, where they’re driving evacuees to evacuation shelters set up at schools. School buses have been brought in from as far as Avoylles Parish and Terrebonne Parish, each driven by soldiers. “I’ve already got buses on the road full of people,” said Lt. Col. Vincent Tallo. About 200 coaches and school buses are being rushed to Tangipahoa, said First Sgt. Rufus Jones of 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, a Guard combat unit whose soldiers, all armed with M4 rifles, waited in the arena for missions that would likely would include security details. By Thursday night, Tallo said he expected 300 National Guard troops in the parish, assisting the evacuation. The National Guard received the mission at 10 a.m., Thursday, said Maj. Scott Slaven, who commands the 205th Engineer Battalion in Bogalusa. Troops and equipment are staged on both sides of the Tangipahoa River, Slaven said. At Pontchatoula High School, Darryl Holliday of Kajun Kettle Foods Inc., which has a state contract to feed evacuees, was told to brace for 2,000 people. At 6:30 p.m., none of the evacuees had reached the school on Louisiana 22. Holliday said he was told that 40 people were en route. Painter said the plan calls for keeping evacuees in Tangipahoa Parish. At the Florida Parishes Arena, employees of the state Department of Children and Family Services prepared to account for the evacuees with forms, in part designed to identify families. The damage to dam prompted Parish President Gordon Burgess to order mandatory evacuations along the Tangipahoa River, which were carried out with the assistance of the state and National Guard units. The first reports of problems with the dam came into emergency operations officials at 8 a.m., when crews noticed two “sloughs” where dirt was sliding down the sides of the earthen structure, said Greg Flynn, spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. Those sloughs are the first sign of a problem with the integrity of a dam, Flynn said. The damage was caused by rain from Hurricane Isaac, which raised the water level of the recreational fishing lake by several feet, said Richard Coghlan, Emergency Coordinator for Pike County. “The dam appears very stable at this time,” Coghlan said. Mississippi officials stressed that reports Thursday that the waters had breached or overtopped the dam were incorrect. Opening the spillways will bring the water level back to normal but could cause flooding in a wide, sparsely populated stretch of Mississippi. Coghlan said residents had been warned and were planning on leaving for at least a night. Those homes would also have been flooded in the event that the dam failed, he said. Once the water level drops back to normal, a process that could take days, crews will dig a trench out of the lake with the intention of causing a more serious drop in the water levels, Coghlan said. That will allow maintenance crews to go in and repair the dam, he said. Louisiana state officials estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 homes would take on some water should the river flood. Many of those were outside the mandatory evacuation zone, which extended one mile on either side of the Tangipahoa River from Kentwood to Robert. It was unclear on Thursday exactly how many people lived in that area or how many were evacuated by the end of the day. |
| 30.08.2012 | Flash Flood | USA | State of Louisiana, [Plaquemines Parish region] |  |
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Flash Flood in USA on Thursday, 30 August, 2012 at 12:33 (12:33 PM) UTC.
| Description | |
| Officials rushed to evacuate more than 100 nursing home residents from Plaquemines Parish, an area with a reputation for weathering storms and perhaps the hardest hit by Isaac. In this hardscrabble, mostly rural parish, even the sick and elderly are hardened storm veterans. Other residents in the Riverbend Nursing and Rehabilitation Center were loaded into ambulances and taken to a nearby naval station. By midafternoon Wednesday, Isaac had been downgraded to a tropical storm. The Louisiana National Guard ceased rescue operations in Plaquemines Parish, saying it felt confident it had gotten everyone out. There were no serious injuries. National Guard spokesman Capt. Lance Cagnolatti said guardsmen would stay in the area over the coming days to help. By early Thursday, Isaac’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to 45 mph and the National Hurricane Center said it was expected to become a tropical depression by Thursday night, meaning its top sustained winds would drop below 39 mph. The storm’s center was on track to cross Arkansas on Friday and southern Missouri on Friday night, spreading rain as it goes. |
| 30.08.2012 | Flash Flood | United Kingdom | England, Milton [Staffordshire] |  |
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Flash Flood in United Kingdom on Thursday, 30 August, 2012 at 10:08 (10:08 AM) UTC.
| Description | |
| Torrential rain left motorists battling flooded roads and residents using sandbags to stem the flow of flash floods. And yesterday’s downpour means the county is on track to record one of the wettest Augusts in recent years as families rue the summer that never was. The rain – which hit Staffordshire during yesterday morning and afternoon – forced local authorities and members of the emergency services to attempt to combat a number of deep floods. Weather experts said yesterday’s adverse conditions mean the region is on course to have endured a worse summer than the previous year. Figures from the Met Office have revealed the first two weeks of August saw 36mm of rain fall in the county. In July the region was hit with 139mm. Yesterday’s downpour caused problems across the city, along with Newcastle and the Staffordshire Moorlands. Staff from Staffordshire Moorlands District Council’s street cleaning team handed out sandbags to residents in Endon, Blythe Bridge, Stockton Brook and Brown Edge in a bid to tackle flooding. Firefighters were sent out to close off Endon’s Brook Lane after a flooded ford resulted in the area being deluged in 3ft high water. Crews from Leek and Endon also helped residents safely turn off their electricity and gas as water swept through the area. Last night motorists were being advised to avoid Brown Edge’s Breach Lane. A spokesman for Staffordshire Fire and Rescue said: “We’d urge people to monitor warnings given by the Environment Agency and to avoid driving in areas where there is localised flooding.” |
