Before the United States had time to recover, Hurricane Irma, which is called the most powerful hurricane in the Atlantic in the last decade, began to hit the southeast coast.
The hurricane has already reached the fifth, maximum category - it is stronger than Hurricane Harvey, which previously hit the Texas coast and led to catastrophic flooding.
Meanwhile, Storm Katya has formed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Mexico, moving at a speed of 65 kilometers per hour and likely to accelerate.
What to expect from Irma
A hurricane of this magnitude tears off roofs and uproots trees, turning them into projectiles capable of killing people. Moreover, as it moves towards the mainland, the hurricane will only gain strength.
As of September 6, Irma has already reached the coast of Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean Sea and is now moving northwest at a speed of about 300 kilometers per hour.
The hurricane is expected to pass through Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Haiti. Irma will reach Florida's shores before the weekend.
US President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency in the state of Florida and the US overseas territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Many airports in the Caribbean islands are closed, with airlines either canceling flights or making decisions based on the actual weather at their destination.
Florida authorities announced the mobilization of all National Guard troops and also began evacuating tourists from the islands off the southern coast of the state.
"We don't know exactly where the hurricane will pass, but the weather can change quickly. While we hope for the best, we must be prepared for the worst," Gov. Rick Scott said.
Hurricane warnings prompted huge lines at stores across Florida as people went to buy water, groceries, fuel and other supplies. As a result, some store shelves quickly became empty.
One supermarket in Miami Beach visited by an AFP correspondent was almost out of basic necessities.
"This is because people are going crazy and buying everything. There is no water, no milk, there is some canned food, but no cat food," says a local resident.
Irma could also bring serious consequences for the US energy sector, paralyzing oil production in the Mexican Basin.
Apocalypse from Harvey
Over the past week, a powerful storm, Harvey, has raged in Texas, flooding the largest city in the state, Houston.
According to the latest data, the storm claimed the lives of 60 people. Most people died in Harris County, Texas, with the death toll reaching 30.
Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey / Getty
Harvey became the most powerful hurricane to hit the United States in 12 years. The wind speed at the center of the hurricane reached 200-208 kilometers per hour, and about 100 thousand houses were damaged.
As a result of the disaster, vast areas were flooded, transport was paralyzed and power lines were cut, leaving about 155 thousand people without electricity.
Harvey caused serious damage to America's energy sector, paralyzing a fifth of the country's oil refining capacity.
Texas authorities have reported damage from Harvey at more than $180 billion. The damage is a third greater than that of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city of New Orleans in 2005.
A cat unhappy with the flooding due to Harvey has become a meme.
Trump has already asked the US Congress to allocate $7.85 billion for emergency expenses to deal with the consequences of Hurricane Harvey.
In addition, the American president announced that he would donate a million dollars from his personal funds to a fund to combat the consequences of the hurricane.
However, the public's attention was drawn to the high-heeled shoes that US First Lady Melania Trump wore when she arrived in damaged Texas after the hurricane.
The Daily Mirror's headline called the shoes "the most unsuitable shoes imaginable" for such a trip.
Daliy Beast also ridiculed the first lady's "inappropriate" outfit, noting that she would have benefited from "waterproof" shoes on the trip.
Trump's office commented on the media reports as follows: "It is sad that while the country is suffering from a natural disaster, people are worried about its shoes."
During her second trip to Texas, Melania also wore heels, despite criticism.
It's because of climate change, but Trump doesn't believe it.
It is known that climate change is a significant reason for the formation of such powerful storms and hurricanes.
The current devastation in Texas represents a window into the future associated with climate change, the Week notes.
This is exactly what will happen if humanity fails to significantly reduce the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or is not prepared for the damage that will undoubtedly be caused in the future, the magazine notes.
And today, climate science predicts with great confidence that the likelihood of extreme weather events caused by rising temperatures will increase.
This will cause the hurricanes that form to be more powerful. There may also be an increase in the number of hurricanes, although this is more difficult to predict with any certainty.
As highlighted in the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, existing models suggest that rising temperatures are causing more severe precipitation extremes in both droughts and floods, although areas are more likely to with heavy rainfall there will be more.
"Hurricane Harvey was likely more powerful than it would have been in the absence of human-caused warming," said climate scientist Michael Mann.
At the beginning of this summer, limiting carbon dioxide emissions.
According to him, fulfilling the terms of the treaty assumed by America would mean the loss of 2.7 million jobs in the next decade.
“This agreement is not so much about climate as it is about giving other countries a financial advantage over the United States. Other countries applauded when we signed the Paris Agreement. They were crazy with happiness. Because its implementation would put the United States, which we love so much, at an economic disadvantage "Trump said.
Trump has also repeatedly stated that the Chinese are the beneficiaries of the fight against global warming.
“Let's continue to destroy the competitiveness of our plants and factories in order to fight the mythical global warming. This will make China very happy!.. The Chinese came up with the concept of global warming for themselves in order to make American production competitive,” said the billionaire.
He also noted that the concept of global warming was replaced by climate change "after the first term simply did not work - it was too cold."
Of course, the young cow doesn't look like a dog, and she can't bark, but she definitely counts as part of the family. Meet Harvey the Cow, rescued from Hurricane Harvey and formerly living in the laundry room of a home in Fulshear, Texas.
“She was so tiny and the size of a dog, so we put her in a house,” said Tammy Canton, the cow's "foster mom." “Now she weighs 180 kg, she has learned perfectly how to open doors and break out.”
Tammy and her husband found Harvey when she was a newborn calf abandoned by her mother during Hurricane Harvey. “My husband found her right in our flooded pasture,” Tammy recalls. They took the calf and placed it in their home laundry, where they built a cozy place for the baby.
“Leaving her outside during a flood is tantamount to death. The cow was a newborn baby and did not have a developed immune system, says Tammy. “She was cold and shivering, and it took us a long time to warm her up.”
What was originally a temporary home in a laundry room has become Harvey the Cow's permanent home. And then she also met the pit bull Seeley, the family’s pet, and they immediately became friends.
Harvey and Seeley constantly spend time together, as can be seen in photos posted on their Facebook page. Tammy specifically created a profile called “
Hurricane Harvey raged across southern Texas throughout the weekend, causing apocalyptic flooding. To make matters worse, the heavy rains are forecast to continue for several more days, while Harvey will first gradually retreat back out to sea before making landfall again in a day or two. Several deaths have already been confirmed, and meteorologists say up to 130 millimeters more rain will fall in the worst-hit areas.
The current devastation provides a window into the future of climate change. This is exactly what will happen if humanity fails to significantly reduce the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or is not prepared for the damage that will undoubtedly be caused in the future.
And before the pedantic brigade inevitably gets involved, it should be said that this does not mean that Harvey was definitely caused by climate change. Global temperatures increase markedly in just a few decades, while extreme weather events are rare and by definition unpredictable. It will take many more years to collect enough data before we can talk about the causes.
However, we can already say that climate science predicts with great confidence that the likelihood of extreme weather events caused by rising temperatures will increase.
This will cause the hurricanes that form to be more powerful. There may also be an increase in the number of hurricanes, although this is more difficult to predict with any certainty. But that doesn't really matter either. A storm does not need to be defined as a hurricane for it to pose the same threat. Simple severe storms can produce increased winds, tornadoes, and flooding, which are a major hazard for the Gulf Coast.
And when it comes to attributing the trend of increased flooding directly to climate change, we're on steadier ground (so to speak).
As highlighted in the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, existing models suggest that rising temperatures are causing more severe precipitation extremes in both droughts and floods, although areas are more likely to with heavy rainfall there will be more. “Hurricane Harvey was likely more powerful than it would have been in the absence of human-caused warming,” says climate scientist Michael Mann.
Context
US hurricane tested Obama's strength
Maariv 08/30/2011The hurricane mortally frightened Muscovites
Svenska Dagbladet 05/31/2017Hurricane Sandy spawns anti-politics
Politico 10/31/2012The situation is made worse by America's woefully underpreparedness—particularly in the South, where drainage and other flood infrastructure is often poorly designed and maintained. South Texas is notorious in this regard - it's not as bad as New Orleans, which still hasn't fully recovered from Hurricane Katrina, but it's still bad. Flood vulnerability is increasing in Houston as construction continues to increase, ProPublica/Texas Tribune reports. Prairies absorb water to a certain extent, while concrete and pavement allow water to move quickly. That is, building roads increases the speed and volume of water, and the result is flooding (The head of the local flood control authority and a member of the Republican Party, of course, denies that such things happen, and he has no plans to study whether how climate change may affect this region).
Moreover, the Houston area contains some critical infrastructure that would be highly vulnerable in the event of a direct hit from a major hurricane. Among them are the Lyndon Johnson Space Center and the Houston Ship Channel with its largest oil refining complex in the country. At the time of writing, the Space Center remained closed but operating, while the million-barrel-a-day oil refineries were closed, and more reports of this nature are still to come.
Houston suffered some of its worst flooding in 100 years—a torrential storm with a reported 1 percent annual risk—in 2015 and 2016. And today, in 2017, we are likely to experience the worst flooding in this city's history (All of this, plus the suggestive science about accelerating climate change, suggests that the odds ratios need to be updated).
This brings me to talk about President Trump. It is not yet clear what the response to the disaster will be, although I certainly do not expect high performance in this regard. Just days before Hurricane Harvey, Trump announced that he would rescind President Obama's order requiring buildings that receive federal funding to take climate change into account and be built in locations above extreme flood levels.
Since there is a large federal program for issuing flood insurance to a significant number of these buildings (which, by the way, is on the verge of bankruptcy due to the huge number of damage claims received recently), this essentially means providing government subsidies for construction of houses in flood-protected areas.
This is the whole Trump - colossal, almost unimaginable idiocy in every situation. But what needs to be understood here is that failure to act on climate change poses a threat of physical devastation to the United States. If the Islamic State ( organization banned in Russia - approx. ed.) planned to blow up the country's largest oil refinery, this would provide immediate justification for unlimited funding and unlimited war. But since this is an abstract and slow scientific process - and we should add that one of our two political parties is currently experiencing intellectual problems - we sit here with our hands folded until disaster strikes.
But it has already happened—and the longer we wait, the more expensive and relentless our efforts to prevent and protect will be. It's time to take action.
InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.
Hurricane Harvey has already intensified to a dangerous third category on a five-point scale. This was stated by the US Hurricane Center (NHC). Over the next 3 days, the hurricane is forecast to cause significant damage to the area due to heavy rain (up to 20 inches of rain is expected on average). Many areas are prone to flooding. Forecasters say the main threat is isolation, with heavy rain effectively capable of turning individual cities into “islands.”
The hurricane is developing so rapidly that the “window” for evacuating residents of the territory who are at risk is very small, he said Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Center reports that the hurricane is accompanied by sustained winds, speed up to 110 mph(177 kilometers per hour). Maximum recorded wind gust speed – 120 mph(193 kilometers per hour). The hurricane is forecast to make landfall on the Texas coast Friday night or Saturday morning. The scale of the hurricane is so large that echoes can also be recorded on the coast of Alabama and western Florida.
Once the hurricane makes landfall, it should gradually weaken, but because much of the hurricane remains over the warm Gulf of Mexico, which feeds it, weakening may be much slower than usual, according to the Center's forecasts. Moreover, after some weakening, forecasters predict the hurricane will return to the Gulf of Mexico, and then strike again next week in the Houston area.
Hurricane Harvey will be the first hurricane to make landfall in Texas since Hurricane Ike in 2008. After Ike, communications networks were restored and upgraded to withstand the stress of a Category 5 hurricane, a factor that contributed greatly to the decision of many Texans to refuse to evacuate.
Governor of Texas Greg Abbott expressed his concern that despite regular warnings about the need to immediately evacuate residents of coastal areas, very few are leaving compared to the number of evacuees from past hurricanes.
A fish with two mouths was caught in a lake in the United States. Well, you have to!
On Friday, August 16, Debbie Geddes went fishing with her husband - and caught one very strange inhabitant of the depths of the water from Lake Champlain. The trout caught by a New York resident...
President Trump said he is personally monitoring developments regarding Hurricane Harvey and called on all Texans to listen to the recommendations and demands of officials.
The hurricane, which has already claimed five lives, seems to have hit Texas with renewed force with powerful downpours. Airports and roads are flooded. Most houses, shops and social services can only be reached by boats. The authorities are now afraid to even name the extent of the damage. And the peak of the elements is ahead. According to forecasters, it will be reached by Wednesday, August 30.
Streets, squares, parks, houses are flooded. Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States, is going under water. This is a historic flood, authorities say. And the worst thing is, this is not the end yet. The critical level is expected to be reached on August 29-30.
“We're in a hurry. We residents here have 10-12 boats on which we transport our neighbors. Non-stop, around the clock. I personally saved about 40 people,” says Ismaeo Fernandez.
Hurricane Harvey, the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in half a century, brought unprecedented rain. Water in the Gulf of Mexico has been warmer than average this summer, causing strong evaporation. The almost complete absence of wind on the eve of the hurricane allowed gigantic masses of steam to accumulate in the atmosphere. All this resulted in record rainfall. The annual norm of precipitation fell in one day. And the rain continues to fall.
The water in two city reservoirs rose 18 meters, threatening to break through the floodgates and destroy several neighborhoods with a powerful flow. At night, authorities were forced to carry out a controlled descent. This added water to the streets. We'll probably have to open the floodgates again.
Hundreds of thousands of people left on their own before the hurricane. 30 thousand had to be rescued; now they are in temporary shelters. People were taken from roofs and caught from the stream.
“I was bedridden, and the water flowed into the house and rose higher and higher. I got to the mattress. All the furniture in the house was destroyed,” Colin Houston worries.
This man did not have time to leave - the water blocked his way. The footage was taken by an external surveillance camera. The man held on to his car for several hours until rescuers came to his aid.
Helicopters are sent to places where watercraft are unable to reach. But the technology is not enough. Authorities are pleading with citizens to call 911 only if their lives are truly in danger. But the 911 phone is ringing off the hook.
“Even though the strength of the hurricane winds has subsided, this is not the end, far from the end. Harvey is still a dangerous, historic storm. Houston alone received two feet of rain. Life-threatening flooding is expected across much of south and southeast Texas in the coming days,” said Elaine Duke, head of the Federal Border Patrol.
The death of five people has been officially confirmed. The fate of dozens is unknown. The Russian consulate in Houston reports that the Russians have not yet asked for help. The building of the diplomatic mission itself was flooded.
A nursing home in Dixon had to wait several hours for help. A shocking shot: old people confined to wheelchairs are unable to even move, and the water is already chest-deep. It is reported that not everyone has yet been able to be transported to a safe place.
During a live broadcast, a journalist noticed a man stuck in a sinking van. Fortunately, he was saved. Here are some shots from one of the editorial offices. The report could be filmed right at the workplace. True, in Houston itself, perhaps no one would have seen it - the city is almost without power.
But people share information on social networks. This photo became a hit: a dog named Otis escapes with a bag of dog food. People do not lose their presence of mind. Here, despite the fact that there was knee-deep water in the house, they were laughingly chasing after a big fish - it was swept away by the stream. In the end, they caught him.
Oil and gas companies in the Gulf of Mexico are forced to suspend operations. Oil production decreased by 22%, gas production by 26%. The damage from the disaster will be enormous. Meanwhile, rainfall is shifting toward neighboring Louisiana. State authorities have already declared a state of emergency there.