TheState.com: Hurricanes

Working from home a post-Sandy challenge

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 21:05 EDT

Nearly every office dweller fantasizes about the joys of working from home: Dressing in PJs instead of suits, eating from the fridge and not the vending machine, listening to birds chirp instead of the boss bark.

But Superstorm Sandy has created legions of people who can’t wait to get back to the office.

They include parents who have struggled to juggle conference calls while their kids scream in the background. Also families who have fought for days over the use of a single home computer. And even execs who conducted business with the only device they had with reliable Internet access: their smartphone.

About one-third of Americans typically work from home, but massive flooding, power outages, transit shutdowns and school closings that followed Sandy forced thousands more from North Carolina to Maine to do so. And many learned that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Michael Lamp, a media strategist who has been working out of his one-bedroom apartment in the Brooklyn borough because his office in the Manhattan borough is closed, sums it up on his Twitter page: “I’m getting sicker of it with every hour that passes. I might be slowly losing it.”

PHOTOS: Sandy Aftermath Nov. 2

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 23:34 EDT

PHOTOS: Sandy Aftermath

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 11:23 EDT

Long lines were the norm in areas most heavily affected by the Sandy. Some of the sights on day three after the superstorm.

Northeast airports, transit systems slowly start moving again after Hurricane Sandy

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:55 EST

Hurricane Sandy brought every mode of transportation to a halt in the most populous region of the country this week, and getting people and goods moving normally again could take days, if not weeks, and add to costs that already are in the tens of billions of dollars.

The powerful storm idled buses and trains, closed bridges and tunnels and shut down airports from Washington to Boston. Floodwaters will have to recede from roads and airport runways. Inundated highway and subway tunnels will need to be pumped dry. Bridges will have to be inspected. Fallen trees and other debris will have to be cleared. Electricity will have to be restored to power commuter trains and subways.

The Northeast Corridor is home to the country’s busiest airspace, and 13,000 flights were canceled. The region is also more dependent on mass transit than any other in the country. Some systems resumed limited operations Tuesday, including Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston.

Many major roads and bridges reopened Tuesday after officials completed safety inspections. But the millions of commuters in New York who usually depend on subways and commuter trains will have to find some other way to get to work on Wednesday.

“Our transportation system has never faced a disaster as devastating as Hurricane Sandy, which has caused an unparalleled level of damage,” said Joseph J. Lhota, chairman of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Sandy’s damage worse than Irene, far from Katrina

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:55 EST

Residents along most of the East Coast on Tuesday began cleaning up the wreckage left behind by Hurricane Sandy, and it was immediately clear that all Americans will get slapped with the astronomical bill for the late-season storm.

“One of the big lessons here is there is going to be a very large gap between the insured losses and the total direct losses, and the overall economic losses due to Hurricane Sandy,” said Cynthia McHale, director of insurance services for the business advisory firm Ceres.

The insured losses from Sandy are initially estimated by Ceres and others to come between $5 billion and $10 billion. That’s a fraction of the total losses, however, since damage from flooding and Sandy’s storm surge would be covered not by the private sector but rather by the National Flood Insurance Program. Only a small percentage of homeowners – 5.6 million policies nationwide last year – are thought to actually have the federally provided insurance coverage.

That means taxpayers may be on the hook for a lot of the disaster assistance as well as the low-interest rebuilding loans given to residents and businesses in affected states along or near the East Coast.

“All of society is going to be affected by this,” said McHale.

PHOTOS: Superstorm Sandy - Day After

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:34 EDT

A statistical look at Hurricane Sandy

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 13:05 EDT

Courtesy of AccuWeather, here is a statistical look at Hurricane Sandy:

Sandy is not the strongest hurricane north of Cape Hatteras. A near-record low barometric pressure occurred with Sandy offshore Monday afternoon. The pressure bottomed at 27.76 inches. For a storm north of Cape Hatteras, NC. Hurricane Gladys of 1977 holds the record at 27.73 inches. Gladys was a Category 4 hurricane which remained off the US coast.

HIGHEST RAINFALL TOTALS BY STATE:

Lorain, Ohio: 4.29"

Martinsburg, W.Va.: 4.06"

Panicked evacuations mix with nonchalance in storm’s path

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:07 EDT

They streamed out of low-lying New York apartments and grand Connecticut shore homes, a steady, often reluctant parade of evacuees with rolling suitcases and duffel bags; birds and cats in cages; Fruit Roll-Ups and stacks of magazines.

Hundreds of thousands of residents from East Haven, Conn., to Cape May, N.J., were ordered to leave their homes Sunday as Hurricane Sandy bore down on the Eastern Seaboard. Many complied, departing by car or ferry, school bus or subway train, though not without stress or anger, as people in Lower Manhattan jostled tensely for taxis and yelled at others for jumping ahead of them. The exodus out of Connecticut was so large that some gas stations ran out of fuel.

“Everyone is panicky — oh my God, they bring in any kind of container they can think of and fill it up with gas!” said Ann Persaud, owner of the South 7 Citgo station in New Milford.

Some evacuations were more complicated: Some 60 patients and 180 nursing home residents were moved by ambulance and bus from Long Beach Medical Center to higher ground in Nassau County and elsewhere.

“We’re all being taken out; I don’t want to go,” said Carol Mule, 74, a patient. “But it’s better than staying here being flooded to death.”

Oil and gas production ramping up after Isaac

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 00:17 EDT

The nation’s oil and gas hub along the Gulf Coast is slowly coming back to life in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac.

Offshore oil platforms are beginning to ramp up production as crews are returning. Refineries are beginning to restart units as power is restored and floodwaters are cleared out.

While a substantial amount of oil and gas production remains off line, production is coming back as expected. No major damage to oil platforms or refineries have been reported, and no further storm-related spikes in energy prices are expected.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said Monday that 800,000 barrels per day of oil production remained offline, 58 percent of Gulf of Mexico production. About 100,000 barrels per day of production was restored between Sunday and Monday.

At the height of the storm 1.3 million barrels per day of oil production was suspended. The U.S. consumes an average of 19 million barrels of petroleum every day.

Isaac sprinkles some relief on scorched, wilting Corn Belt

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 23:08 EDT

All through the scorching summer, as their crops withered under cloudless skies, Corn Belt farmers waited and prayed for this moment. Now, thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Isaac, it has finally arrived: three days of rain to soak their parched fields and soften the cracked soil.

“It’s a dead-still, straight-down rain,” Greg Schneider, who lost 80 percent of his corn crop to this summer’s drought, said as he watched the storm from his dining room window. “This is exactly the kind of rain we needed.”

But the timing was off. They needed this rain – and more – two months ago, when their shriveled corn was broiling in its husks, their pastures were dying and their soybeans were dropping from the vines. Farmers from Missouri to Indiana to Ohio welcomed the 3 to 5 inches of rain Isaac deposited as it churned east across the Midwest, but they said it came too late to save much of this year’s failed crop.

“Ain’t much we can do at this point,” Schneider said.

This is corn country, and for the most part, the battle to save the corn is already lost. Nationwide, the government has drastically reduced its estimates for the year’s corn yield to the lowest levels since 1995.

Intensifying Isaac churns through Gulf; S.C. teams mobilize to help

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 07:56 EDT

Storm tracking video

Huge and slow, Tropical Storm Isaac lumbered up through the Gulf of Mexico from Florida toward Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday night, growing stronger by the hour and putting coastal residents on notice of an extremely wet and potentially destructive next few days.

The tracking forecasts reached a consensus that the storm, which was a little over 200 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and on the verge of becoming a hurricane, would land this afternoon somewhere around southeastern Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane. But Isaac has been fickle and confounded predictions all along, and its intensification was just beginning.

The most serious danger may not be from the 100-mph winds but by the enormous amount of water the storm will bring with it and push in front of it. Officials encouraged those in low-lying areas to leave, warning of 12-foot storm surges along a broad swath of the coast and days of nonstop rainfall, in some places possibly adding up to 20 inches.

“A slow-moving, large system poses a lot of problems,” Rick Knapp, the director of the National Hurricane Center, said in a conference call with reporters, describing the risks as “life-threatening, potentially.”

Video playlist: Tracking Isaac

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 07:49 EDT

Video from the Weather Channel and other partners keeping tabs on Tropical Storm Isaac and other weather events.

Debby’s South Carolina impact expected to be minimal

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:22 EDT

Computer models are still less than certain about the path of Tropical Storm Debby, but the consensus hints that South Carolina’s beaches could get some rough surf this weekend.

The National Hurricane Center’s five-day forecast has the currently stalled center of the system moving from the Gulf of Mexico across northern Florida late in the week and into the Atlantic on Friday or Saturday. At that point, the system is expected to parallel the coast (possibly pumping waves and some strong winds toward the South Carolina beaches) or continue out into the Atlantic.

The system is unlikely to raise above tropical storm strength, according to the forecasts.

Joey Holleman

Beryl blamed in at least one death

Thu, 31 May 2012 00:11 EDT

Tropical system Beryl hit some inland areas harder than the coast, dumping more than 5 inches of rain, knocking down many trees and contributing to at least one death early Wednesday in the state’s central I-95 corridor.

Donald Hickson, 51, of Orangeburg died after a tree fell on the Chevrolet Tahoe he was driving on S.C. 400 around 2:10 a.m. Wednesday in Orangeburg County, according to the S.C. Highway Patrol. The Orangeburg airport’s weather station reported winds around 30 mph and heavy rain at that time.

Beryl’s major impact on the state involved heavy rain. Rain gauges picked up rainfall totals of 6.47 inches in the Cameron area of Calhoun County, 5.23 inches in the Vance area of Orangeburg County and 5.07 inches in Barnwell, according to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network.

Other readings above 3 inches were recorded in Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Denmark, Givhans, Loris, Manning, Orangeburg, Ridgeland, St. Matthews, Summerton and Summerville. Most of those hard-hit areas were along the I-95 corridor in the middle of the state.

While there were a few flash flooding reports along the coast, the most common problems were trees falling on roads. Law enforcement officials reported trees down in Charleston, Dorchester and Jasper counties along the coast, and the most downed-tree reports were in Orangeburg and Calhoun counties between 11 p.m. Tuesday and 1 a.m. Wednesday.

Falling tree kills driver in Orangeburg County

Wed, 30 May 2012 09:57 EDT

Tropical Storm Beryl could be responsible for a highway fatality in Orangeburg County.

A 51-year-old Orangeburg man, whose identity has not been released pending notification of family members, was driving a Chevrolet Tahoe east on SC 400 when a tree fell on the vehicle in heavy rain and 30-mph winds around 2:10 a.m. Wednesday.

The driver, who was the only person in the SUV, died at the scene, SC Highway Patrol Lance Cpl. Judd Jones said.

Kelly Davis

Beryl could do more good than harm in S.C.

Wed, 30 May 2012 00:07 EDT

What’s left of Tropical Depression Beryl will make today blustery and soggy in South Carolina, especially in the coastal counties. The chance of rain Werdnesday is 40 percent and is expected to clear later, according to the National Weather Service.

The tropical system promises to be more beneficial than destructive.

SEVERE STORM POTENTIAL: There’s a slight chance of tornados as the low pressure system continues moving up the coast today, but the most likely problems will be gusty winds and heavy rainfall. Gusts near the center of the storm as it crosses South Carolina are expected to be only about 30 mph, or about as strong as a line of summer thunderstorms.

WILL RAIN HELP S.C. DROUGHT CONDITIONS? Rainfall in the range of 3-5 inches is possible in coastal counties, with rainfall of 1-3 inches in the lower Midlands, according to the Weather Service. That comes on the heels of heavy coastal rains two weeks ago. But the region had been in a moderate drought before those rains. Depending on where the rain falls and how much comes down, portions of the coastal region might be moved from moderate to incipient drought conditions when the state drought committee meets next week, according to state climatologist Hope Mizzell. While, the seven counties in severe drought in the upper northwest portion of the state are expected to get little rain from Beryl, an outer band did drop more than an inch in three hours in the Anderson area Tuesday.

RAINFALL SO FAR: The outer bands of Beryl created crazy weather along the coast and in the Midlands over the Memorial Day weekend. Sunny skies quickly gave way to thunderstorms, then the sun returned. Rough waves and stinging, wind-driven sand made beaches less fun than normal. Oddly, the top two official rain totals in the state over the past three days were near the coast in Hampton County and well inland in Blythewood. One band sat on the Blythewood area Monday and dumped 1.82 inches in one location and 1.42 in another late Monday, according to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network.

When are Beryl’s rains coming to SC? (+live video)

Mon, 28 May 2012 11:41 EDT

View a live webcam of Folly Beach at the end of this story.

The Midlands are expected to dodge most of the effects of Tropical storm Beryl over the next few days.

On Monday, the chance of the rain is 40 percent, said National Weather Service forecaster David Schuetrum.

“We could have some showers and possibly a thunderstorm,” said Schuetrum. He is based at Columbia Metropolitan Airport.

Winds will average 5-10 mph, with gusts up to 20 mph, with highs in the middle 80s, he said. There will be little chance of any harmful spinoff weather, such as a tornado, he said.

UPDATED: It's Tropical Storm Beryl, now

Sun, 27 May 2012 22:06 EDT

This story is updated here.

View a live Folly Beach webcam at the end of this story

UPDATE, 5:30 P.M. Tropical Storm Beryl -- with sustained winds at a maximum of 65 mph -- is still projected to make landfall around Jacksonville, Fla. Storm trackers predict the storm will remain inland for two or three days. South Carolina will get the bulk of rains from this storm on Tuesday.

Reported from The Associated Press mid-afternoon Sunday:

Rescue crews are searching near Charleston for a missing swimmer as Tropical Storm Beryl approaches.

Storm could spoil S.C. beach holidays

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:11 EDT

Beryl might spoil Memorial Day weekend beach trips in South Carolina.

A low pressure system off Florida has the potential to gather into a weak tropical storm this weekend, according to the National Hurricane Center. The official chance at 5 p.m. Friday was 80 percent that the system would be the second named storm of the season – Beryl.

The track of the potential Beryl remains iffy, but the best guess is that the center would come ashore in northern Florida or Georgia on Sunday with a small core of 35-45 mph winds, according to Mark Malsick, severe weather liaison with South Carolina’s State Climate Office.

Conditions aren’t right for the storm to strengthen significantly, Malsick said.

For South Carolina’s beaches, the storm likely will bring larger-than-normal waves, getting rougher Sunday and Monday, according to surf forecasts. The Beaufort-Hilton Head area could get 25 mph gusts, with Sunday likely the worst day for wind and rough surf.

SC revises hurricane emergency procedures

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:27 EDT

Voluntary evacuation orders no longer are part of the hurricane plan in South Carolina.

One of the major tweaks in the 2012 plan is the elimination of the voluntary order, which was a bit of an oxymoron. If it’s time to evacuate in the future, the governor will issue one evacuation order, which should be considered mandatory. That way there’s no misinterpretation of the danger.

The change, part of the annual streamlining of state emergency procedures, will be included in the state hurricane plan updated Sunday on the Emergency Management Division’s website. Hurricane season begins June 1.

“We’re one of the last states to have a voluntary evacuation order,” said Derrec Becker, spokesman for the emergency division. “Instead, we’ll just have an evacuation order by the governor, and that’s it.”

Experience indicated few people heeded voluntary evacuation orders. But the orders required state agencies and the Red Cross to begin deploying resources, Becker said. If nobody evacuated, those resources were wasted.

Katia looming, lawmakers fight for 'hurricane hunter' funds

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 06:54 EDT

WASHINGTON — With the cleanup from Hurricane Irene ongoing and Katia looming in the Atlantic Ocean, some lawmakers and top federal scientists are making the case to maintain healthy research budgets that sharpen the accuracy of hurricane forecasts.

At issue are planned cuts to research flights by the three-plane "Hurricane Hunter" squadron based at Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A spending plan that the House Appropriations Committee passed in May would slash the budget for such research flights from $29 million to $17 million.

As Congress returns to Washington next week, the debate over how much money to spend on those flights — as well as how to pay for future natural disasters in tight fiscal times — is expected only to intensify. There's a looming fight over not only research budgets, but also the amount of money the Federal Emergency Management Agency has on hand to pay for tornado response in the Midwest and other disasters across the country.

The emergency money, once routinely approved by Congress, got caught up in the politics of federal spending this week when Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said that any spending on emergency relief would have to be offset in other parts of the federal budget.

"Why do we have to keep going through these kinds of battles?'' said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who vowed Thursday after a tour of the National Hurricane Center in Miami to restore the budget for the NOAA flights.

Galleries: Hurricane Irene

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:39 EDT

Galleries: Aftermath | Sunday | Saturday | Friday Share: Do you have SC photos related to Irene? Share in our weather album.

Gusty winds prompt cancellation of tonight’s concert

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:58 EDT

The Village of Sandhill in Northeast Columbia has canceled tonight’s “Music at Sandhill Presented by Michelob Ultra” concert that was scheduled to start at 7 p.m.

In making the announcement, general manager Jeff Harper said the winds kicked up by Hurricane Irene - with gusts up to 25 miles per hour – prompted the cancellation.

“Better to be safe than sorry,” he said in a statement.

The concert series ends next Friday.

“We’ll close out the concert series next Friday with not only live music, but a University of South Carolina College Colors Day Pep Rally and more,” Harper said.

Faraway hurricane pushing up waves in S.C.

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 07:21 EDT

People visiting South Carolina beaches this weekend need to look out for Hurricane Igor, even though the powerful storm isn’t expected to come within 1,000 miles of the state.

The National Weather Service warns that large waves pushed up by Igor could cause rip currents. Waves are expected to grow each day this week, peaking about around 6 feet on Sunday. The long, period waves from distant hurricanes are popular with surfers but dangerous for swimmers because they often cause rip tides.

Carolinas weather Hanna with few problems

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 19:54 EDT

Town-by-town damage report

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MYRTLE BEACH | Tropical Storm Hanna downed trees, flooded roads and caused scattered power outages after hitting land near the North Carolina state line early Saturday, but caused no serious problems in the Carolinas.

Hours after dumping rain and damaging two hotel awnings, the drone of leaf blowers drowned out the calls of seagulls along Myrtle Beach as workers at beachfront hotels cleaned pathways and brought chairs back to the shoreline.

Jason Webb, 24, hit the beach first thing in the morning and said he was glad he wasn't going to lose much time outside for his vacation from Hendersonville, N.C.

Charlotte area spared

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:37 EDT

CHARLOTTE -- Tropical Storm Hanna is racing northward after raking the Carolina coast overnight, soaking eastern North Carolina but sparing all but the eastern fringes of the Charlotte region.

And even there, effects were minimal. Up to 3 inches of rain has fallen in far eastern Union County, and eastern Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties got some rain, too. But nothing fell west of Interstate 77, and any rain should be long gone by later this morning as Hanna bolts up the Atlantic coast, said Rodney Hinson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Greer, S.C.

"The rain's already ending, really," Hinson said.

Hanna's center is just north of Fayetteville and is expected to reach the Virginia line by early afternoon. It never reached hurricane strength, but it continues to pack maximum sustained winds of 60 mph.

Forecasters on Friday issued a flash flood warning for the Charlotte area, fearing 2 or 3 inches of rain might overwhelm ground already saturated last week by the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay. But no flooding was reported, and even the wind stayed to the east: Eastern Union County reported gusts up to about 20 mph, Hinson said -- standard for mild thunderstorms.

In Raleigh, rain dampens spirits

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:40 EDT

Tropical Storm Hanna is forecast to lumber into North Carolina on Saturday morning, dumping rain in stop-start bursts and whipping the Triangle with 40 mph winds.

The tropical cyclone that teased the state for a week is expected to wrap up the worst of its show by dawn and spare the state major damage.

On the coast, half the businesses in downtown Wilmington shut their doors early Friday, some hammering plywood over their windows rather than risk Hanna damage. But storm-seasoned residents figured their skittish neighbors had their eye on the weekend rather than the storm.

"People just need an excuse for a day off," said Shauna Cooper, working in a downtown coffee shop.

In the Triangle, forecasters expected up to 5 inches of rain and issued a flash-flood warning as Hanna advanced. By 7 p.m. Friday, water had already begun to back up city storm drains and vendors began packing up their hot dogs from the Raleigh Wide Open festival downtown.

Ike strengthens to Category 4 hurricane

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:01 EDT

But as Hanna takes aim at the East Coast, storm watchers also were tracking two other storms churning westward in the open ocean, including Ike, which rapidly swelled late Wednesday evening into a ferocious Category 4 hurricane.

At 5 a.m. Thursday, Ike had maximum sustained winds near 145 mph (230 kph). The National Hurricane Center in Miami called Ike "an extremely dangerous" hurricane.

Ike was roaring far out in the Atlantic, 550 miles (885 kilometers) northeast of the Leeward Islands, and forecasters said it was too early to say if it would threaten land. It was moving toward the west-northwest at 17 mph (28 kph).

Ike is the third major hurricane of the Atlantic season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. The other two were Bertha and Gustav.

Meanwhile, forecasters said Josephine, the tropical storm behind Ike, was getting stronger early Thursday after weakening on Wednesday. Josephine had maximum sustained winds near 60 mph (95 kph) and was moving toward the west-northwest near 10 mph (17 kph).

At a glance: Warnings, 3-day tracks for current storms

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:08 EDT

Latest advisories: | Subscribe to NHC's Hanna feed

Other tracks and feeds (Understanding the advisories):
Local hurricane news section | RSS
From the NHC: Gustav: | Ike: 3-day track, | Josephine: 3-day track,

Get hurricane advisories on your cell phone: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/mobile/index.html

Eastern Atlantic storm overview

Place your mouse cursor over areas of interest for more information

Share your past hurricane memories

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:38 EDT

South Carolinians have lived through their share of hurricances -- Hugo in 1989, Hazel in 1954, even Floyd in 1999.

Share your survival stories here; whether you were hunkered down in in the storm's path or waiting it out elsewhere.

Events moved due to hurricane

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:44 EDT

Cancellations due to the threat of Hurricane Hanna:

Fundraiser previously planned for Saturday, September 6th for SOLD (Sustainable Opportunities for Life & Dreams) transitional housing shelter for women and children featuring the cast of the show Army Wives has been postponed to Saturday, September 27th.

Do you have a storm-related cancellation to report? E-mail us. You can also fax reports of cancellations to (803) 771-8430.

The impending threat of Hanna has forced coastal high schools to move or consider moving their Friday night football games this week. Click here for a list of rescheduled games