Senin, 31 Mei 2010

NSW on alert as wild weather heads north

NSW on alert as wild weather heads north

Updated 5 hours 36 minutes ago

Residents are battening down as strong winds continue to lash the New South Wales south coast and a cluster of low pressure systems heads north toward Wollongong and Sydney.

Forecasters are predicting gale-force winds of up to 100 kilometres per hour to hit the Illawarra region, south of Sydney, overnight.

The weather bureau says another bout of severe weather is expected to hit further up the coast at Jervis Bay and Nowra.

Rob Webb from the Bureau of Meteorology says the system will gradually move north but the winds will weaken.

"The winds will extend up towards places like Wollongong, but we're expecting them to lose a lot of their bite by the time that does occur," he said.

New South Wales Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan is warning people south of Sydney to be prepared as the storm moves further up the coast.

"We just reiterate the warning to people not to go into flooded waterways or creeks, make sure they're staying a bit back from the coast, obviously the waves on the coast are pretty severe," he said.

On Sunday a surfer was taken to hospital with suspected spinal injuries at Cronulla in Sydney's south.

State Emergency Service (SES) spokesman Colin Johnson says extra crews are travelling from Sydney and the Southern Highlands.

Mr Johnson says teams from other areas around the state are providing assistance, and more are on stand-by as the low heads toward Wollongong.

"As the low moves north our focus of attention of course will start moving into the more populous areas of our region," he said.

A flood watch is in place for the Bega, Moruya, Tuross, Snowy and Shoalhaven rivers and the weather bureau is warning of possible flash flooding at Wollongong and other areas below the Illawarra escarpment.

Trail of destruction

Mr Whan says the SES is helping clean up the damage on the far south coast caused by a similar low pressure system on Sunday.

Winds of up to 120 kilometres per hour hit parts of the coast on Sunday, damaging property and causing large-scale blackouts.

The State Emergency Service says they have had around 230 calls for help, with Narooma and Bermagui the worst hit towns.

The SES number is 132 500.

Peter Higgins from the SES says some houses have been damaged.

"There has been some unroofing but not complete houses lost," he said.

The ABC's Thomas Oriti, reporting from Bega on the far south coast, described some of the damage on Sunday.

"There's a lot of debris on the road, the arms of trees all over the place, very, very wet and gusty," he said.

"Power is flicking on and off quite often. We have heard that all the way down the coast from towns such as Quaama to Eden, the power is out completely."

Electricity wires collapsed onto local roads, leaving more than 9,000 people without power in the Eden, Bega, Bodalla and Narooma areas.

Country Energy says it has restored power to Narooma, but Bermagui, Potato Point and Tilba are still in the dark.

Country Energy says repairs should be complete by Monday morning.

New South Wales Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan says it is too early to tell how much damage the storms are causing.

"It wouldn't be the worst that we've ever seen but it's certainly causing some damage at the moment," he said.

"[It is] hard to know until it finishes exactly what that total damage will be, about 160 calls is not massive at the moment but we are expecting that to increase over the day as the storm progresses north up the coast."

The owner of a bed and breakfast at Eden, Fay Speer, says she has had power outages, heavy rain and strong winds.

"I'm not sure how much rain we had but it absolutely teemed all night and then the winds came up early this morning," she said.

"Now we've had a couple of blackouts early this morning and the seas are very, very rough."

Road closures

The wild weather caused road closures in the worst-affected areas of the south coast between Bega and Ulladulla on Sunday.

Police Inspector Jason Edmunds from the South Coast Local Area Command says the Princes Highway is closed at Cobargo and there is very limited access at Bodalla.

He says fallen trees are blocking the Snowy Mountains Highway at Brown Mountain and crews from the local council are working with the RTA to clear the roads.

"We're all doing the best we can at the moment, with the conditions remaining the same and trees still coming down at different places," he said.

"We're advising motorists to avoid unnecessary travel and certainly to be very careful of their speeds given the fact that they wont know what's around the next corner."

The Snowy Highway and Princes Highway will remain closed overnight.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/30/2913304.htm

Crews on standby as wild weather heads north

Crews on standby as wild weather heads north

Updated 6 hours 53 minutes ago

Emergency crews are on standby as severe weather continues to lash the New South Wales south coast and a cluster of low pressure systems heads north toward Wollongong and Sydney.

Winds of up to 120 kilometres per hour have hit parts of the coast, damaging property and causing large-scale blackouts.

The low pressure system has moved further up the coast and is now sitting over Ulladulla and Bateman's Bay, where there has been reported of wind gusts of 95 kilometres per hour.

A forecaster at the Bureau says the winds are expected to worsen in the area.

Rob Webb from the Bureau of Meteorology says the system will gradually move north but the winds will weaken.

"The winds will extend up towards places like Wollongong, but we're expecting them to lose a lot of their bite by the time that does occur," he said.

New South Wales Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan is warning people south of Sydney to be prepared as the storm moves further up the coast.

"We just reiterate the warning to people not to go into flooded waterways or creeks, make sure they're staying a bit back from the coast, obviously the waves on the coast are pretty severe," he said.

Earlier today a surfer was taken to hospital with suspected spinal injuries at Cronulla in Sydney's south.

The State Emergency Service says they've had around 230 calls for help, with Narooma and Bermagui the worst hit towns. The SES number is 132 500.

SES spokesman Colin Johnson says extra crews are travelling from Sydney and the Southern Highlands.

"The low is very slow at the moment and it's still dumping rain right across the southern south-east section of New South Wales," he said.

"Calls for assistance have been focused from Moruya or Batemans Bay south to even as far as Eden."

Mr Johnson says teams from other areas around the state are providing assistance, and more are on stand-by as the low heads toward Wollongong.

"As the low moves north our focus of attention of course will start moving into the more populous areas of our region," he said.

He says the low will reach the Wollongong area in the next 12 to 18 hours.

Peter Higgins from the SES says some houses have been damaged.

"There has been some unroofing but not complete houses lost," he said.

Mr Higgins says communities will experience a calm patch before wind and rain re-intensifies.

"This low has a number of cells that will come across land at different points along the south coast," he said.

"The communities will have an impact of heaving rain or wind or both, then there may be a lull, then there may be a follow on after that."

The weather bureau says Narooma, Moruya and Bateman's Bay were copping the brunt of the wild weather this afternoon.

The Bureau of Meteorology's Gina Laurie says there is still a chance of flash flooding later today.

"There is still a possibility that the rain will pick up through the afternoon and potentially cause some flash flooding in some areas," she said.

She says the low pressure system is due to cross the coast late this afternoon.

"It's expected it will be somewhere in the north part of the south coast or possibly parts of the Illawarra, that would be late this afternoon," she said.

"That's when we're expecting the more serious weather to impact parts of the Illawarra."

The ABC's Thomas Oriti, reporting from Bega on the far south coast, described some of the damage.

"There's a lot of debris on the road, the arms of trees all over the place, very, very wet and gusty," he said.

"Power is flicking on and off quite often. We have heard that all the way down the coast from towns such as Quaama to Eden, the power is out completely."

Electricity wires have collapsed onto local roads and more than 9,000 people have been left without power in the Eden, Bega, Bodalla and Narooma areas.

Country Energy says it has returned power to 2,000 Bombala homes, but 2,000 more in Tuross Heads remain blacked-out.

The energy supplier says the chances of everyone getting power back on before nightfall are very remote.

The Princes Highway is blocked at various locations.

Road closures

Earlier today the wild weather caused road closures in the worst-affected areas of the south coast between Bega and Ulladulla.

Police Inspector Jason Edmunds from the South Coast Local Area Command says the Princes Highway is closed at Cobargo and there is very limited access at Bodalla.

He says fallen trees are blocking the Snowy Mountains Highway at Brown Mountain and crews from the local council are working with the RTA to clear the roads.

"We're all doing the best we can at the moment, with the conditions remaining the same and trees still coming down at different places," he said.

"We're advising motorists to avoid unnecessary travel and certainly to be very careful of their speeds given the fact that they wont know what's around the next corner."

New South Wales Emergency Services Minister Steve Whan says it is too early to tell how much damage the storms are causing.

"It wouldn't be the worst that we've ever seen but it's certainly causing some damage at the moment," he said.

"[It's] hard to know until it finishes exactly what that total damage will be, about 160 calls is not massive at the moment but we are expecting that to increase over the day as the storm progresses north up the coast."

A flood watch is in place for the Bega, Moruya, Tuross and Shoalhaven rivers and the weather bureau is warning of possible flash flooding at Wollongong and other areas below the Illawarra escarpment.

The owner of a bed and breakfast at Eden, Fay Speer, says she has had power outages, heavy rain and strong winds.

"I'm not sure how much rain we had but it absolutely teemed all night and then the winds came up early this morning," she said.

"Now we've had a couple of blackouts early this morning and the seas are very, very rough."

Farmer James Thomson lives on a property between Narooma and Moruya and says he is preparing for more heavy rain.

"It had been a little bit slacked off there, but it's just coming in really heavy now," he said.

"It was windy, the wind has backed off now, but around 7 and before that it was just a howling gale.

"I think there's a fair bit of rain yet to come by the look of it, out to the west there."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/30/2913081.htm

Tropical Storm Agatha kills 16 in Central America

Tropical Storm Agatha kills 16 in Central America


A man carries a child under heavy rains of tropical storm Agatha in Patulul, Guatemala, Saturday, May 29, 2010. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)AP – A man carries a child under heavy rains of tropical storm Agatha in Patulul, Guatemala, Saturday, May …

GUATEMALA CITY – Torrential rains brought by the first tropical storm of the 2010 season pounded Central America and southern Mexico, triggering deadly landslides. The death toll stood at 16 Sunday, but authorities said the number could rise.

Tropical Storm Agatha was dissipating over the mountains of western Guatemala, a day after it made landfall near the nation's border with Mexico with winds up to 45 mph (75 kph).

Although no longer even a tropical depression, Agatha still posed trouble for the region: Remnants of the storm were expected to deliver 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 centimeters) of rain over southeastern Mexico, Guatemala and parts of El Salvador, creating the possibility of "life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said in an advisory.

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said Saturday night that the rivers in the country's south were flooding or close to it.

Colom said 4.3 inches (10.8 centimeters) of rain had fallen in Guatemala City's valley in 12 hours, the most since 1949.

As of Sunday morning, 69,000 people in Guatemala had been evacuated, many to shelters. Some lost their homes the previous day in a landslide on a hillside settlement in Guatemala City that killed four people and left 11 missing, disaster relief spokesman David de Leon said.

Four children were killed by another slide in the town of Santa Catarina Pinula, about six miles (10 kilometers)outside the capital. And in the department of Quetzaltenango, 125 miles (200 kilometers) west of Guatemala City, a boulder loosened by rains crushed a house, killing two children and two adults, de Leon said.

Other evacuees were moved from their homes to avoid potential slides officials feared might still come.

Callers to local radio stations described more landslides and possible deaths, but those reports could not be immediately confirmed.

A three-story building in northern Guatemala City fell into a sinkhole but there were no reports of victims.

Cesar George of Guatemala's meteorological institute said the community of Champerico had received 11.8 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in 30 hours.

"It rained in one day what it usually gets in a month," George said.

Colom said authorities have not been able to reach Champerico by "air, land or sea."

In El Salvador, President Mauricio Funes declared a "red alert," the highest level of emergency, after rains delivered by Agatha triggered at least 140 landslides throughout the country and killed two adults and a 10-year-old child. The exact cause of their deaths was unclear.

Civil defense officials said the Acelhuate River that passes through the capital, San Salvador, had risen to dangerous levels and was threatening to overflow into city streets.

In Honduras, national emergency agency Copeco reported one man was crushed to death by a wall that collapsed in the town of Santa Ana, near the capital of Tegucigalpa.

Flooding and slides destroyed 45 homes in the country and prompted authorities to evacuate 1,800 people, according to figures released by the agency.

Agatha formed as a tropical storm early Saturday in the East Pacific.

Before the rains, Guatemala already was contending with heavy eruptions from its Pacaya volcano that blanketed the capital in ash and destroyed 800 homes.

The volcano, which is just south of the capital, started spewing lava and rocks Thursday afternoon, forcing the closure of Guatemala City's international airport. A TV reporter was killed by a shower of burning rocks.

___

Associated Press writers Marcos Aleman in San Salvador, El Salvador, and Freddy Cuevas in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/tropical_weather