JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun,(HEATING UP-SOLAR ECLIPSES) and in the moon,(MAN ON MOON-LUNAR ECLIPSES) and in the stars;(ASTEROIDS ETC) and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear,(TORNADOES,HURRICANES,STORMS) and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth:(DESTRUCTION) for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.(FROM QUAKES,NUKES ETC)
THE FIRST JUDGEMENT OF THE EARTH STARTED WITH WATER-IT ONLY MAKES SENSE THE LAST GENERATION WILL BE HAVING FLOODING
GENESIS 7:6-12
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
GOD PROMISED BY A RAINBOW-THE EARTH WOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED TOTALLY WITH A FLOOD AGAIN.BUT FLOODIING IS A SIGN OF JUDGEMENT.
Hurricane Irma rips through Cuba as it heads for Florida-[Reuters]-By Sarah Marsh-YAHOONEWS-September 9, 2017
REMEDIOS, Cuba (Reuters) - Hurricane Irma pounded Cuba's northern coast on Saturday as it headed for Florida, where millions of residents were told to evacuate after the storm killed 22 people in the Caribbean and left devastation in its wake.Still a Category 5 storm when it crashed into Cuba in the early hours of Saturday, Irma weakened slightly as it tore along the island's northern coastline, downing power lines, bending palm trees and sending huge waves crashing over sea walls.Maximum sustained winds dropped to around 130 miles per hour (215 km per hour) by 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, ranking it a dangerous Category 4 storm, the second-highest level.However, the NHC said Irma would regain strength as it moved away from Cuba and was expected to remain a powerful hurricane as it approaches Florida, arriving in the Keys on Sunday morning.One of the fiercest Atlantic storms in a century, Irma is expected to cause major damage due to high winds and flooding to the fourth-largest U.S. state by population.The destruction along Cuba's north central coast was similar to that seen on other Caribbean islands over the last week as Irma plowed into Ciego de Avila province around midnight.State media said it was the first time the eye of a Category 5 storm had made landfall since 1932. In the days before Irma struck, the island's Communist government evacuated tens of thousands of foreign tourists from resorts on the northern coast.In Ciego de Avila province, Irma was forecast to generate waves of up to 7 meters (23 feet), with flooding expected as far west as the capital Havana, authorities said on Saturday."I am absolutely terrified. I have lived through tropical storms before but nothing like this," said Maybelis Viareal, 30, a receptionist at a hotel in the northern Cuban town of Remedios, as employees frantically tried to barricade doors that were busting open in the winds.-"RUNNING OUT OF TIME"-With the storm barreling toward the United States, officials in Florida ordered an unprecedented evacuation, racing to overcome clogged highways, gasoline shortages and move elderly residents to safety.With the storm still 225 miles (365 km) south of Miami on Saturday morning, winds and high rains were lashing Florida's largest city."We are running out of time. If you are in an evacuation zone, you need to go now. This is a catastrophic storm like our state has never seen," Governor Rick Scott told reporters.A total of 5.6 million people, or 25 percent of the state's population, were ordered to evacuate Florida, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.The United States has been hit by only three Category 5 storms since 1851, and Irma is far larger than the last one in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).On Wall Street, the S&P 500 ended slightly lower as investors braced for potential damage and massive insurance claims from Irma. Many economists are predicting that third-quarter gross domestic product will take a hit due to the hurricanes.President Donald Trump said in a videotaped statement that Irma was "a storm of absolutely historic destructive potential" and called on people to heed recommendations from government officials and law enforcement. In Palm Beach, Trump's waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate was ordered evacuated.A shelter in southwest Miami filled to capacity just hours after it opened its doors, with many people there remembering the damage caused by Hurricane Andrew, the most destructive to hit the state.-"I'm scared because it is bigger than Andrew," said Ann Samuels, 49. "They say to not stress and not worry, but how can you not?"-MANDATORY EVACUATIONS, GASOLINE SHORTAGES-Irma was set to hit the United States two weeks after Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, struck Texas, killing about 60 people and causing property damage estimated at up to $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana. Officials were preparing a massive response, the head of FEMA said.About 9 million people in Florida may lose power, some for weeks, said Florida Power & Light Co, which serves almost half of the state's 20.6 million residents.Amid the exodus, nearly one-third of all gas stations in Florida's metropolitan areas were out of gasoline, with scattered outages in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to Gasbuddy.com, a retail fuel price tracking service.Mandatory evacuations on Georgia's Atlantic coast and some of South Carolina's barrier islands were due to begin on Saturday. Virginia and Alabama were under states of emergency.The governors of North and South Carolina warned residents to remain on guard even as the storm took a more westward track, saying their states still could experience severe weather, including heavy rain and flash flooding, early next week.As it roared in from the east, Irma ravaged small islands in the northeastern Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, flattening homes and hospitals and ripping down trees.Irma is seen costing at least 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy, a French public reinsurance body said on Saturday.The French interior ministry said 10 people had been reported dead on the two islands, raising the toll by one.But even as they came to grips with the destruction, residents of the islands faced the threat of another major storm, Hurricane Jose.Jose, expected to reach the northeastern Caribbean on Saturday, is an extremely dangerous storm nearing Category 5 status, with winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph), the NHC said.(Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Havana, Makini Brice in Cap-Haitien, Haiti,; Delana Isles in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, Bernie Woodall in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Ben Gruber and Andy Sullivan in Miami, Bate Felix, Richard Lough and Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Neil Hartnell in Nassau, Bahamas; Writing by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Helen Popper and Dale Hudson)
Hurricane Irma may cut power to over 9 million people in Florida: utility-[Reuters]-By Scott DiSavino-YAHOONEWS-September 8, 2017
(Reuters) - Hurricane Irma threatens to knock out power to more than 4.1 million homes and businesses served by Florida Power & Light (FPL), affecting around nine million people based on the current storm track, the utility's chief executive said on Friday."Everyone in Florida will be impacted in some way by this storm," Eric Silagy said at a news conference, urging FPL customers to be prepared for a multiweek restoration process.FPL is the biggest power company in Florida serving almost half of the state's 20.6 million residents.Outages across the state will likely top 4.1 million customers since other utilities, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc, will also suffer outages but have not yet estimated how many.Irma poses a significantly bigger menace to power supplies in Florida than Hurricane Harvey did in Texas because Irma is packing 150 mile-per-hour winds (240 km/h) that could down electric lines and close nuclear and other power plants."This storm is unprecedented as far as strength and size. We are preparing for the worst and will likely have to rebuild parts of our service territory," Silagy said, noting the kinds of winds expected could snap concrete poles.Irma's winds have rivaled the strongest for any hurricane in history in the Atlantic, whereas Harvey's damage came from record rainfall. Even as Houston flooded, the power stayed on for most, allowing citizens to use TV and radio to stay apprised of danger, or social media to call for help."When Harvey made landfall in Texas it made it fully inland and weakened pretty quickly. Irma, however, could retain much of its strength," said Jason Setree, a meteorologist at Commodity Weather Group.Irma has killed several people and devastated islands in the Caribbean.Current forecasts put almost the entirety of the Florida peninsula in the path of the storm, which made landfall in the Caribbean with wind speeds of 185 mph.The threat of the Category 4 storm, the second highest rung on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, is grave enough that FPL plans to shut its two nuclear power plants in the state, and officials warned that it may have to rebuild parts of its power system, which could take weeks.One of those nuclear plants, Turkey Point, is located south of Miami near the southern tip of Florida, putting it near where Irma is expected to make landfall early Sunday morning. The other nuclear plant, St. Lucie, is on a barrier island on the east coast about 120 miles (193 km) north of Miami.Most Florida residents have not experienced a major storm since 2005, when total outages peaked around 3.6 million during Hurricane Wilma. Some of those outages lasted for weeks.Setree compared the projected path of Irma to Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which knocked out power to about 1.2 million FPL customers in October.FPL, a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc, restored service to most customers affected by Matthew in just two days.In a statement this week, FPL estimated about half of its near five million customers - particularly in the trio of populous southeast counties Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward - had not experienced a major hurricane since 2005.FPL said it had invested nearly $3 billion since 2006 to strengthen its grid, including placing 60 main power lines underground and installing nearly five million smart meters and other devices.Other utilities in the Sunshine State said in statements that they had also invested in intelligent, self-healing devices.Smart meters allow utilities to see outages as they occur, rather than waiting on customer calls, and utilities also use automated devices that can reenergize lines without damage that were taken offline because of contact with trees or other objects, said Jay Apt, director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center in Pittsburgh.Olivia Ross, a spokeswoman for CenterPoint Energy, which serves the greater Houston area, said these devices helped the utility keep the lights on for more people in the aftermath of Harvey as some issues were resolved remotely.But such devices can only do so much. Harvey's outages were limited to 312,000 customers, of which CenterPoint was responsible for about 109,000, as it quickly lost force after landfall and turned into a tropical storm. By contrast, Ross noted, Hurricane Ike in 2008 caused 2.1 million of CenterPoint's customers to lose power when it hit the Texas coast near Houston.(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Richard Chang)
Hurricane Jose on track to pass close to northern Leeward Islands-[Reuters]-YAHOONEWS-September 9, 2017
(Reuters) - Hurricane Jose, a Category 4 storm, was a track to pass close to the northern Leeward Islands on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.The storm was about 190 miles (305 km) east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands with sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km), the center said.The core of Hurricane Jose will pass close to or just east of the islands on Saturday. After it passes it is expected to gradually weaken, the center said.(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien; editing by Jason Neely)
Katia weakens to depression in Mexico; rains still a threat-[Reuters]-YAHOONEWS-September 9, 2017
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Storm Katia weakened to a tropical depression on Saturday as it moved into the interior of Mexico, but it could still dump heavy rains on areas that have absorbed large amounts of precipitation and been shaken by a massive earthquake in recent days.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said that as a depression, Katia was blowing maximum sustained winds of nearly 35 miles (56 km) per hour and should dissipate over the mountains of central eastern Mexico later on Saturday.Mexico is dealing with the aftermath of a huge quake that struck on Thursday night, and President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Friday that Katia could be especially dangerous in hillsides rocked by the magnitude 8.1 tremor.The earthquake, the strongest to strike Mexico in more than 80 years, killed at least 61 people.Katia, which brought rain to the state of Veracruz when hitting the coast late on Friday, was about 115 miles (185 km) west northwest of the Gulf Coast port of Veracruz early on Saturday morning, the NHC said.Officials in Veracruz say Katia could cause landslides and flooding. They urged people living below hills and slopes to be ready to evacuate.Mexico's national emergency services said this week that Katia was worrying because it is very slow-moving and could dump a lot of rain on areas that have been saturated in recent weeks.State energy company Pemex [PEMX.UL] has installations in and around the coast of Veracruz but has not reported any disruption to its operations there.As Katia reached the Mexican Gulf Coast, Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, walloped Cuba's northern coast.Millions of Florida residents were ordered to evacuate after the storm killed 21 people in the eastern Caribbean and left catastrophic destruction in its wake.Meanwhile, Hurricane Jose continued to move northwestward in the Atlantic and was blowing winds of 145 mph as a Category 4 storm about 160 miles east of the Northern Leeward Islands early on Saturday morning.(Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
Deadly quake, Hurricane Katia a one-two punch for Mexico-[Associated Press]-CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN-YAHOONEWSSeptember 9, 2017
JUCHITAN, Mexico (AP) — One of the most powerful earthquakes ever to hit Mexico was followed by a Gulf coast hurricane, dealing a one-two punch to the country, killing at least 61 people as workers scrambled to respond to the twin national emergencies.The 8.1 quake off the southern Pacific coast just before midnight Thursday toppled hundreds of buildings in several states. Hardest-hit was Juchitan, Oaxaca, where 36 people died and a third of the city's homes collapsed or were uninhabitable, President Enrique Pena Nieto said late Friday in an interview with the Televisa news network.In downtown Juchitan, the remains of brick walls and clay tile roofs cluttered streets as families dragged mattresses onto sidewalks to spend a second anxious night sleeping outdoors. Some were newly homeless, while others feared further aftershocks could topple their cracked adobe dwellings."We are all collapsed, our homes and our people," said Rosa Elba Ortiz Santiago, 43, who sat with her teenage son and more than a dozen neighbors on an assortment of chairs. "We are used to earthquakes, but not of this magnitude."Even as she spoke, across the country, Hurricane Katia was roaring onshore north of Tecolutla in Veracruz state, pelting the region with intense rains and winds.The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported Katia's maximum sustained winds had dropped to 75 mph (120 kph) when it made landfall. And it rapidly weakened even further over land into a tropical depression before dawn. The center said Katia was stalling over Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains, where it could bring 10 to 15 inches (25 to 37 centimeters) of rain to a region with a history of deadly mudslides and flooding.Pena Nieto announced that the earthquake killed 45 people in Oaxaca state, 12 in Chiapas and 4 in Tabasco, and he declared three days of national mourning. The toll included 36 dead in Juchitan, located on the narrow waist of Oaxaca known as the Isthmus, where a hospital and about half the city hall also collapsed into rubble.Next to Ortiz, 47-year-old Jose Alberto Martinez said he and family members have long been accustomed to earthquakes. So when the ground started moving, at first they simply waited a bit for it to stop — until objects began falling and they bolted for the street."We felt like the house was coming down on top of us," Martinez said, accompanied by his wife, son and mother-in-law.Now, he didn't feel safe going back inside until the home is inspected. Right next door, an older building had crumbled into a pile of rough timbers, brick and stucco, while little remained of a white church on the corner.Rescuers searched for survivors Friday with sniffer dogs and used heavy machinery at the main square to pull rubble away from city hall, where a missing police officer was believed to be inside.The city's civil defense coordinator, Jose Antonio Marin Lopez, said similar searches had been going on all over the area.Teams found bodies in the rubble, but the highlight was pulling four people, including two children, alive from the completely collapsed Hotel Del Rio where one woman died."The priority continues to be the people," Marin said.Pena Nieto said authorities were working to re-establish supplies of water and food and provide medical attention to those who need it. He vowed the government would help rebuild."The power of this earthquake was devastating, but we are certain that the power of unity, the power of solidarity and the power of shared responsibility will be greater," Pena Nieto said.Power was cut at least briefly to more than 1.8 million people, and authorities closed schools in at least 11 states to check them for safety.The Interior Department reported that 428 homes were destroyed and 1,700 were damaged just in Chiapas, the state closest to the epicenter."Homes made of clay tiles and wood collapsed," said Nataniel Hernandez, a human rights worker living in Tonala, Chiapas, who worried that inclement weather threatened to bring more structures down."Right now it is raining very hard in Tonala, and with the rains it gets much more complicated because the homes were left very weak, with cracks," Hernandez said by phone.The earthquake also jolted the Mexican capital, more than 650 miles (1,000 kilometers) away, which largely lies atop a former lakebed whose soil amplifies seismic waves. Memories are still fresh for many of a catastrophic quake that killed thousands and devastated large parts of the city in 1985.Mexico City escaped major damage, though part of a bridge on a highway being built to a new international airport collapsed due to the earthquake, local media reported.The quake's power was equal to Mexico's strongest in the past century, and it was slightly stronger than the 1985 quake, the U.S. Geological Survey said. However its impact was blunted somewhat by the fact that it struck some 100 miles offshore.The epicenter was in a seismic hotspot in the Pacific where one tectonic plate dives under another. Such subduction zones are responsible for some of the biggest quakes in history, including the 2011 Fukushima disaster and the 2004 Sumatra quake that spawned a deadly tsunami.In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, tourists abandoned coastal hotels as winds and rains picked up ahead of Hurricane Katia's landfall and workers set up emergency shelters."The arrival of (hashtag)Katia may be particularly dangerous for slopes affected by the earthquake. Avoid these areas," Pena Nieto tweeted.___Associated Press writers Peter Orsi and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
Hurricane Irma poses toughest test for U.S. nuclear industry since Fukushima-[Reuters]-By Scott DiSavino and Timothy Gardner-YAHOONEWS-•September 8, 2017
(Reuters) - Hurricane Irma will pose the toughest test yet for U.S. nuclear power plants since reactors strengthened their defenses against natural disasters following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan in 2011.Irma was on course to hit South Florida early on Sunday as a Category 4 storm, packing winds of up to 145 miles (233 kilometers) per hour and bringing a storm surge of as much as 12 feet to a state that is home to four coastal nuclear reactors.The National Hurricane Center's forecast track shows Irma making landfall on the southwest side of the Florida Peninsula, west of the two nuclear reactors at the Turkey Point plant.The operator, Florida Power & Light (FPL), has said it will shut Turkey Point well before hurricane-strength winds reach the plant. The reactors are about 30 miles (42 kilometers) south of Miami.FPL said it will also shut the other nuclear plant in Florida at St Lucie, which also has two reactors on a barrier island on the state's east coast, about 120 miles (193 km) north of Miami."We will shut the reactors down 24 hours before Category 1 force winds are forecast to hit," FPL Chief Executive Eric Silagy told a news conference.FPL said both Turkey Point and St Lucie were designed to withstand storms stronger than any ever recorded in the region and both plants are elevated 20 feet (6 meters) above sea level to protect against flooding and extreme storm surges.But South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard said he was concerned about the potential for floods to damage power generators at Turkey Point, which in turn might threaten the ability of the plant to keep spent nuclear fuel rods cool. At Fukushima in Japan, an earthquake and tsunami disrupted power supplies and caused the fuel in some units to meltdown."The whole site is pretty well able to handle dangerous wind, the real problem from my perspective is water," Stoddard said. He said he was more worried about the nuclear waste than the reactors."The real question is can they keep the spent fuel cool."Peter Robbins, an FPL spokesman, said “Mayor Stoddard is wrong. Turkey Point is safe and is ready for Hurricane Irma.”U.S. nuclear operators have taken steps to improve preparations for disasters since Fukushima. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) required plants to install portable pumps and generators to keep water moving over fuel rods and the spent fuel pool even if offsite power supply was lost.Nuclear plants also hired more staff and stored equipment needed to deal with reactor problems."Things are better today than in March 2011. Time will tell whether better proves good enough," said Dave Lochbaum, director of a watchdog group, the nuclear safety project, at the Union of Concerned Scientists.The NRC said it was posting more inspectors at the two Florida plants and was considering sending more inspectors to plants in Georgia and South Carolina should the storm head that way.The NRC said the plants should not be compromised by Irma's storm surge."The storm surge forecasts that we have seen so far do not challenge the sites' designs," said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell.Both Florida reactors have previously weathered major storms. Turkey Point took a hit from Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm, in 1992. Andrew damaged a smokestack at the plant. Repairs cost about $90 million.St Lucie withstood the back-to-back impact of Hurricanes Frances (Category 2) and Jeanne (Category 3) in 2004.FPL shut St Lucie last October as Hurricane Matthew skirted the Florida coast.Lochbaum said the NRC and the industry could do more to reduce vulnerability to flooding.In January 2014, about 50,000 gallons of rainwater leaked into the St Lucie plant after a heavy downpour. An NRC study blamed degraded and missing flood seals that were not discovered during checks after Fukushima.There is also spent nuclear fuel at the site of a third power plant in Florida which stopped operating in 2009. That is the Crystal River plant, owned by Duke Energy Corp.Duke is in the process of transferring used fuel from the spent fuel pool at the plant to dry cask storage as part of work to decommission the plant. Once in storage, the fuel no longer needs cooling.The NRC's Burnell said Duke has suspended work to transfer the rods ahead of Irma. He said the fuel was safe and the plant also has backup power, even though it has been shut for years.Irma is expected to disrupt much of Florida's power supply. FPL, the state's largest electric company, has warned Irma could cut service to about 4.1 million of its nearly 5 million customers. FPL is one of four large publicly traded utilities in Florida.Other natural disasters since Fukushima have shut some plants. An earthquake in Virginia in 2011 shut Dominion Energy Inc's North Anna plant for about 2-1/2 months, the time it took to complete a full damage inspection. That plant sustained no major damage.Hurricane Sandy in 2012 caused three reactors in the U.S. Northeast to shut but inflicted no serious damage.(Editing by Simon Webb and David Gregorio)
LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun,(HEATING UP-SOLAR ECLIPSES) and in the moon,(MAN ON MOON-LUNAR ECLIPSES) and in the stars;(ASTEROIDS ETC) and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear,(TORNADOES,HURRICANES,STORMS) and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth:(DESTRUCTION) for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.(FROM QUAKES,NUKES ETC)
THE FIRST JUDGEMENT OF THE EARTH STARTED WITH WATER-IT ONLY MAKES SENSE THE LAST GENERATION WILL BE HAVING FLOODING
GENESIS 7:6-12
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
GOD PROMISED BY A RAINBOW-THE EARTH WOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED TOTALLY WITH A FLOOD AGAIN.BUT FLOODIING IS A SIGN OF JUDGEMENT.
Hurricane Irma rips through Cuba as it heads for Florida-[Reuters]-By Sarah Marsh-YAHOONEWS-September 9, 2017
REMEDIOS, Cuba (Reuters) - Hurricane Irma pounded Cuba's northern coast on Saturday as it headed for Florida, where millions of residents were told to evacuate after the storm killed 22 people in the Caribbean and left devastation in its wake.Still a Category 5 storm when it crashed into Cuba in the early hours of Saturday, Irma weakened slightly as it tore along the island's northern coastline, downing power lines, bending palm trees and sending huge waves crashing over sea walls.Maximum sustained winds dropped to around 130 miles per hour (215 km per hour) by 8 a.m. (1200 GMT) on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, ranking it a dangerous Category 4 storm, the second-highest level.However, the NHC said Irma would regain strength as it moved away from Cuba and was expected to remain a powerful hurricane as it approaches Florida, arriving in the Keys on Sunday morning.One of the fiercest Atlantic storms in a century, Irma is expected to cause major damage due to high winds and flooding to the fourth-largest U.S. state by population.The destruction along Cuba's north central coast was similar to that seen on other Caribbean islands over the last week as Irma plowed into Ciego de Avila province around midnight.State media said it was the first time the eye of a Category 5 storm had made landfall since 1932. In the days before Irma struck, the island's Communist government evacuated tens of thousands of foreign tourists from resorts on the northern coast.In Ciego de Avila province, Irma was forecast to generate waves of up to 7 meters (23 feet), with flooding expected as far west as the capital Havana, authorities said on Saturday."I am absolutely terrified. I have lived through tropical storms before but nothing like this," said Maybelis Viareal, 30, a receptionist at a hotel in the northern Cuban town of Remedios, as employees frantically tried to barricade doors that were busting open in the winds.-"RUNNING OUT OF TIME"-With the storm barreling toward the United States, officials in Florida ordered an unprecedented evacuation, racing to overcome clogged highways, gasoline shortages and move elderly residents to safety.With the storm still 225 miles (365 km) south of Miami on Saturday morning, winds and high rains were lashing Florida's largest city."We are running out of time. If you are in an evacuation zone, you need to go now. This is a catastrophic storm like our state has never seen," Governor Rick Scott told reporters.A total of 5.6 million people, or 25 percent of the state's population, were ordered to evacuate Florida, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.The United States has been hit by only three Category 5 storms since 1851, and Irma is far larger than the last one in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).On Wall Street, the S&P 500 ended slightly lower as investors braced for potential damage and massive insurance claims from Irma. Many economists are predicting that third-quarter gross domestic product will take a hit due to the hurricanes.President Donald Trump said in a videotaped statement that Irma was "a storm of absolutely historic destructive potential" and called on people to heed recommendations from government officials and law enforcement. In Palm Beach, Trump's waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate was ordered evacuated.A shelter in southwest Miami filled to capacity just hours after it opened its doors, with many people there remembering the damage caused by Hurricane Andrew, the most destructive to hit the state.-"I'm scared because it is bigger than Andrew," said Ann Samuels, 49. "They say to not stress and not worry, but how can you not?"-MANDATORY EVACUATIONS, GASOLINE SHORTAGES-Irma was set to hit the United States two weeks after Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, struck Texas, killing about 60 people and causing property damage estimated at up to $180 billion in Texas and Louisiana. Officials were preparing a massive response, the head of FEMA said.About 9 million people in Florida may lose power, some for weeks, said Florida Power & Light Co, which serves almost half of the state's 20.6 million residents.Amid the exodus, nearly one-third of all gas stations in Florida's metropolitan areas were out of gasoline, with scattered outages in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to Gasbuddy.com, a retail fuel price tracking service.Mandatory evacuations on Georgia's Atlantic coast and some of South Carolina's barrier islands were due to begin on Saturday. Virginia and Alabama were under states of emergency.The governors of North and South Carolina warned residents to remain on guard even as the storm took a more westward track, saying their states still could experience severe weather, including heavy rain and flash flooding, early next week.As it roared in from the east, Irma ravaged small islands in the northeastern Caribbean, including Barbuda, St. Martin and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, flattening homes and hospitals and ripping down trees.Irma is seen costing at least 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy, a French public reinsurance body said on Saturday.The French interior ministry said 10 people had been reported dead on the two islands, raising the toll by one.But even as they came to grips with the destruction, residents of the islands faced the threat of another major storm, Hurricane Jose.Jose, expected to reach the northeastern Caribbean on Saturday, is an extremely dangerous storm nearing Category 5 status, with winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph), the NHC said.(Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Havana, Makini Brice in Cap-Haitien, Haiti,; Delana Isles in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, Bernie Woodall in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Ben Gruber and Andy Sullivan in Miami, Bate Felix, Richard Lough and Dominique Vidalon in Paris, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Neil Hartnell in Nassau, Bahamas; Writing by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Helen Popper and Dale Hudson)
Hurricane Irma may cut power to over 9 million people in Florida: utility-[Reuters]-By Scott DiSavino-YAHOONEWS-September 8, 2017
(Reuters) - Hurricane Irma threatens to knock out power to more than 4.1 million homes and businesses served by Florida Power & Light (FPL), affecting around nine million people based on the current storm track, the utility's chief executive said on Friday."Everyone in Florida will be impacted in some way by this storm," Eric Silagy said at a news conference, urging FPL customers to be prepared for a multiweek restoration process.FPL is the biggest power company in Florida serving almost half of the state's 20.6 million residents.Outages across the state will likely top 4.1 million customers since other utilities, including units of Duke Energy Corp, Southern Co and Emera Inc, will also suffer outages but have not yet estimated how many.Irma poses a significantly bigger menace to power supplies in Florida than Hurricane Harvey did in Texas because Irma is packing 150 mile-per-hour winds (240 km/h) that could down electric lines and close nuclear and other power plants."This storm is unprecedented as far as strength and size. We are preparing for the worst and will likely have to rebuild parts of our service territory," Silagy said, noting the kinds of winds expected could snap concrete poles.Irma's winds have rivaled the strongest for any hurricane in history in the Atlantic, whereas Harvey's damage came from record rainfall. Even as Houston flooded, the power stayed on for most, allowing citizens to use TV and radio to stay apprised of danger, or social media to call for help."When Harvey made landfall in Texas it made it fully inland and weakened pretty quickly. Irma, however, could retain much of its strength," said Jason Setree, a meteorologist at Commodity Weather Group.Irma has killed several people and devastated islands in the Caribbean.Current forecasts put almost the entirety of the Florida peninsula in the path of the storm, which made landfall in the Caribbean with wind speeds of 185 mph.The threat of the Category 4 storm, the second highest rung on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, is grave enough that FPL plans to shut its two nuclear power plants in the state, and officials warned that it may have to rebuild parts of its power system, which could take weeks.One of those nuclear plants, Turkey Point, is located south of Miami near the southern tip of Florida, putting it near where Irma is expected to make landfall early Sunday morning. The other nuclear plant, St. Lucie, is on a barrier island on the east coast about 120 miles (193 km) north of Miami.Most Florida residents have not experienced a major storm since 2005, when total outages peaked around 3.6 million during Hurricane Wilma. Some of those outages lasted for weeks.Setree compared the projected path of Irma to Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which knocked out power to about 1.2 million FPL customers in October.FPL, a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc, restored service to most customers affected by Matthew in just two days.In a statement this week, FPL estimated about half of its near five million customers - particularly in the trio of populous southeast counties Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward - had not experienced a major hurricane since 2005.FPL said it had invested nearly $3 billion since 2006 to strengthen its grid, including placing 60 main power lines underground and installing nearly five million smart meters and other devices.Other utilities in the Sunshine State said in statements that they had also invested in intelligent, self-healing devices.Smart meters allow utilities to see outages as they occur, rather than waiting on customer calls, and utilities also use automated devices that can reenergize lines without damage that were taken offline because of contact with trees or other objects, said Jay Apt, director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center in Pittsburgh.Olivia Ross, a spokeswoman for CenterPoint Energy, which serves the greater Houston area, said these devices helped the utility keep the lights on for more people in the aftermath of Harvey as some issues were resolved remotely.But such devices can only do so much. Harvey's outages were limited to 312,000 customers, of which CenterPoint was responsible for about 109,000, as it quickly lost force after landfall and turned into a tropical storm. By contrast, Ross noted, Hurricane Ike in 2008 caused 2.1 million of CenterPoint's customers to lose power when it hit the Texas coast near Houston.(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Richard Chang)
Hurricane Jose on track to pass close to northern Leeward Islands-[Reuters]-YAHOONEWS-September 9, 2017
(Reuters) - Hurricane Jose, a Category 4 storm, was a track to pass close to the northern Leeward Islands on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.The storm was about 190 miles (305 km) east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands with sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km), the center said.The core of Hurricane Jose will pass close to or just east of the islands on Saturday. After it passes it is expected to gradually weaken, the center said.(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien; editing by Jason Neely)
Katia weakens to depression in Mexico; rains still a threat-[Reuters]-YAHOONEWS-September 9, 2017
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Storm Katia weakened to a tropical depression on Saturday as it moved into the interior of Mexico, but it could still dump heavy rains on areas that have absorbed large amounts of precipitation and been shaken by a massive earthquake in recent days.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said that as a depression, Katia was blowing maximum sustained winds of nearly 35 miles (56 km) per hour and should dissipate over the mountains of central eastern Mexico later on Saturday.Mexico is dealing with the aftermath of a huge quake that struck on Thursday night, and President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Friday that Katia could be especially dangerous in hillsides rocked by the magnitude 8.1 tremor.The earthquake, the strongest to strike Mexico in more than 80 years, killed at least 61 people.Katia, which brought rain to the state of Veracruz when hitting the coast late on Friday, was about 115 miles (185 km) west northwest of the Gulf Coast port of Veracruz early on Saturday morning, the NHC said.Officials in Veracruz say Katia could cause landslides and flooding. They urged people living below hills and slopes to be ready to evacuate.Mexico's national emergency services said this week that Katia was worrying because it is very slow-moving and could dump a lot of rain on areas that have been saturated in recent weeks.State energy company Pemex [PEMX.UL] has installations in and around the coast of Veracruz but has not reported any disruption to its operations there.As Katia reached the Mexican Gulf Coast, Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, walloped Cuba's northern coast.Millions of Florida residents were ordered to evacuate after the storm killed 21 people in the eastern Caribbean and left catastrophic destruction in its wake.Meanwhile, Hurricane Jose continued to move northwestward in the Atlantic and was blowing winds of 145 mph as a Category 4 storm about 160 miles east of the Northern Leeward Islands early on Saturday morning.(Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
Deadly quake, Hurricane Katia a one-two punch for Mexico-[Associated Press]-CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN-YAHOONEWSSeptember 9, 2017
JUCHITAN, Mexico (AP) — One of the most powerful earthquakes ever to hit Mexico was followed by a Gulf coast hurricane, dealing a one-two punch to the country, killing at least 61 people as workers scrambled to respond to the twin national emergencies.The 8.1 quake off the southern Pacific coast just before midnight Thursday toppled hundreds of buildings in several states. Hardest-hit was Juchitan, Oaxaca, where 36 people died and a third of the city's homes collapsed or were uninhabitable, President Enrique Pena Nieto said late Friday in an interview with the Televisa news network.In downtown Juchitan, the remains of brick walls and clay tile roofs cluttered streets as families dragged mattresses onto sidewalks to spend a second anxious night sleeping outdoors. Some were newly homeless, while others feared further aftershocks could topple their cracked adobe dwellings."We are all collapsed, our homes and our people," said Rosa Elba Ortiz Santiago, 43, who sat with her teenage son and more than a dozen neighbors on an assortment of chairs. "We are used to earthquakes, but not of this magnitude."Even as she spoke, across the country, Hurricane Katia was roaring onshore north of Tecolutla in Veracruz state, pelting the region with intense rains and winds.The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported Katia's maximum sustained winds had dropped to 75 mph (120 kph) when it made landfall. And it rapidly weakened even further over land into a tropical depression before dawn. The center said Katia was stalling over Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains, where it could bring 10 to 15 inches (25 to 37 centimeters) of rain to a region with a history of deadly mudslides and flooding.Pena Nieto announced that the earthquake killed 45 people in Oaxaca state, 12 in Chiapas and 4 in Tabasco, and he declared three days of national mourning. The toll included 36 dead in Juchitan, located on the narrow waist of Oaxaca known as the Isthmus, where a hospital and about half the city hall also collapsed into rubble.Next to Ortiz, 47-year-old Jose Alberto Martinez said he and family members have long been accustomed to earthquakes. So when the ground started moving, at first they simply waited a bit for it to stop — until objects began falling and they bolted for the street."We felt like the house was coming down on top of us," Martinez said, accompanied by his wife, son and mother-in-law.Now, he didn't feel safe going back inside until the home is inspected. Right next door, an older building had crumbled into a pile of rough timbers, brick and stucco, while little remained of a white church on the corner.Rescuers searched for survivors Friday with sniffer dogs and used heavy machinery at the main square to pull rubble away from city hall, where a missing police officer was believed to be inside.The city's civil defense coordinator, Jose Antonio Marin Lopez, said similar searches had been going on all over the area.Teams found bodies in the rubble, but the highlight was pulling four people, including two children, alive from the completely collapsed Hotel Del Rio where one woman died."The priority continues to be the people," Marin said.Pena Nieto said authorities were working to re-establish supplies of water and food and provide medical attention to those who need it. He vowed the government would help rebuild."The power of this earthquake was devastating, but we are certain that the power of unity, the power of solidarity and the power of shared responsibility will be greater," Pena Nieto said.Power was cut at least briefly to more than 1.8 million people, and authorities closed schools in at least 11 states to check them for safety.The Interior Department reported that 428 homes were destroyed and 1,700 were damaged just in Chiapas, the state closest to the epicenter."Homes made of clay tiles and wood collapsed," said Nataniel Hernandez, a human rights worker living in Tonala, Chiapas, who worried that inclement weather threatened to bring more structures down."Right now it is raining very hard in Tonala, and with the rains it gets much more complicated because the homes were left very weak, with cracks," Hernandez said by phone.The earthquake also jolted the Mexican capital, more than 650 miles (1,000 kilometers) away, which largely lies atop a former lakebed whose soil amplifies seismic waves. Memories are still fresh for many of a catastrophic quake that killed thousands and devastated large parts of the city in 1985.Mexico City escaped major damage, though part of a bridge on a highway being built to a new international airport collapsed due to the earthquake, local media reported.The quake's power was equal to Mexico's strongest in the past century, and it was slightly stronger than the 1985 quake, the U.S. Geological Survey said. However its impact was blunted somewhat by the fact that it struck some 100 miles offshore.The epicenter was in a seismic hotspot in the Pacific where one tectonic plate dives under another. Such subduction zones are responsible for some of the biggest quakes in history, including the 2011 Fukushima disaster and the 2004 Sumatra quake that spawned a deadly tsunami.In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, tourists abandoned coastal hotels as winds and rains picked up ahead of Hurricane Katia's landfall and workers set up emergency shelters."The arrival of (hashtag)Katia may be particularly dangerous for slopes affected by the earthquake. Avoid these areas," Pena Nieto tweeted.___Associated Press writers Peter Orsi and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
Hurricane Irma poses toughest test for U.S. nuclear industry since Fukushima-[Reuters]-By Scott DiSavino and Timothy Gardner-YAHOONEWS-•September 8, 2017
(Reuters) - Hurricane Irma will pose the toughest test yet for U.S. nuclear power plants since reactors strengthened their defenses against natural disasters following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan in 2011.Irma was on course to hit South Florida early on Sunday as a Category 4 storm, packing winds of up to 145 miles (233 kilometers) per hour and bringing a storm surge of as much as 12 feet to a state that is home to four coastal nuclear reactors.The National Hurricane Center's forecast track shows Irma making landfall on the southwest side of the Florida Peninsula, west of the two nuclear reactors at the Turkey Point plant.The operator, Florida Power & Light (FPL), has said it will shut Turkey Point well before hurricane-strength winds reach the plant. The reactors are about 30 miles (42 kilometers) south of Miami.FPL said it will also shut the other nuclear plant in Florida at St Lucie, which also has two reactors on a barrier island on the state's east coast, about 120 miles (193 km) north of Miami."We will shut the reactors down 24 hours before Category 1 force winds are forecast to hit," FPL Chief Executive Eric Silagy told a news conference.FPL said both Turkey Point and St Lucie were designed to withstand storms stronger than any ever recorded in the region and both plants are elevated 20 feet (6 meters) above sea level to protect against flooding and extreme storm surges.But South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard said he was concerned about the potential for floods to damage power generators at Turkey Point, which in turn might threaten the ability of the plant to keep spent nuclear fuel rods cool. At Fukushima in Japan, an earthquake and tsunami disrupted power supplies and caused the fuel in some units to meltdown."The whole site is pretty well able to handle dangerous wind, the real problem from my perspective is water," Stoddard said. He said he was more worried about the nuclear waste than the reactors."The real question is can they keep the spent fuel cool."Peter Robbins, an FPL spokesman, said “Mayor Stoddard is wrong. Turkey Point is safe and is ready for Hurricane Irma.”U.S. nuclear operators have taken steps to improve preparations for disasters since Fukushima. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) required plants to install portable pumps and generators to keep water moving over fuel rods and the spent fuel pool even if offsite power supply was lost.Nuclear plants also hired more staff and stored equipment needed to deal with reactor problems."Things are better today than in March 2011. Time will tell whether better proves good enough," said Dave Lochbaum, director of a watchdog group, the nuclear safety project, at the Union of Concerned Scientists.The NRC said it was posting more inspectors at the two Florida plants and was considering sending more inspectors to plants in Georgia and South Carolina should the storm head that way.The NRC said the plants should not be compromised by Irma's storm surge."The storm surge forecasts that we have seen so far do not challenge the sites' designs," said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell.Both Florida reactors have previously weathered major storms. Turkey Point took a hit from Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm, in 1992. Andrew damaged a smokestack at the plant. Repairs cost about $90 million.St Lucie withstood the back-to-back impact of Hurricanes Frances (Category 2) and Jeanne (Category 3) in 2004.FPL shut St Lucie last October as Hurricane Matthew skirted the Florida coast.Lochbaum said the NRC and the industry could do more to reduce vulnerability to flooding.In January 2014, about 50,000 gallons of rainwater leaked into the St Lucie plant after a heavy downpour. An NRC study blamed degraded and missing flood seals that were not discovered during checks after Fukushima.There is also spent nuclear fuel at the site of a third power plant in Florida which stopped operating in 2009. That is the Crystal River plant, owned by Duke Energy Corp.Duke is in the process of transferring used fuel from the spent fuel pool at the plant to dry cask storage as part of work to decommission the plant. Once in storage, the fuel no longer needs cooling.The NRC's Burnell said Duke has suspended work to transfer the rods ahead of Irma. He said the fuel was safe and the plant also has backup power, even though it has been shut for years.Irma is expected to disrupt much of Florida's power supply. FPL, the state's largest electric company, has warned Irma could cut service to about 4.1 million of its nearly 5 million customers. FPL is one of four large publicly traded utilities in Florida.Other natural disasters since Fukushima have shut some plants. An earthquake in Virginia in 2011 shut Dominion Energy Inc's North Anna plant for about 2-1/2 months, the time it took to complete a full damage inspection. That plant sustained no major damage.Hurricane Sandy in 2012 caused three reactors in the U.S. Northeast to shut but inflicted no serious damage.(Editing by Simon Webb and David Gregorio)
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