Hurricanes – TheNewsHub https://thenewshub.in Sat, 09 Nov 2024 22:53:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7 Rafael weakens to tropical storm over Gulf of Mexico after barreling through Cuba as a hurricane https://thenewshub.in/2024/11/09/rafael-weakens-to-tropical-storm-over-gulf-of-mexico-after-barreling-through-cuba-as-a-hurricane/ https://thenewshub.in/2024/11/09/rafael-weakens-to-tropical-storm-over-gulf-of-mexico-after-barreling-through-cuba-as-a-hurricane/?noamp=mobile#respond Sat, 09 Nov 2024 22:53:48 +0000 https://thenewshub.in/2024/11/09/rafael-weakens-to-tropical-storm-over-gulf-of-mexico-after-barreling-through-cuba-as-a-hurricane/

Satellite image showing Hurricane Rafael in the Gulf of Mexico on Nov. 8th, 2024.

Source: NOAA

Rafael weakened Saturday to a tropical storm and was expected to dissolve over the Gulf of Mexico in the coming days after barreling across Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane.

Rafael was located 290 miles (470 km) north-northwest of Progreso, Mexico on Saturday. It had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph) and was moving west-northwest at 6 mph (9 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

It was forecast to continue moving south toward southern Mexico in the coming days as it weakens. Forecasters warned that swells from the storm were likely to cause “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” in that region.

The hurricane tore through Jamaica and the Cayman Islands earlier in the week, knocking out power and fueling mudslides. On Wednesday evening, it barreled into Cuba, causing yet another headache for the island.

Rafael’s fierce winds knocked out Cuba’s electric grid, forced the evacuation of 283,000 people and collapsed 461 homes. It also left trees, power lines and rubble strewn across flooded streets. Many were still without power over the weekend, though Cuba’s government said it was working to restore power to homes.

On Friday, state media in Cuba reported that Russia said it would donate 80,000 tons of diesel to Cuba, and offered a shipment of equipment for $62 million as the communist-led government struggled to pick up the pieces after the hurricane.

Rafael followed a rocky few weeks in the Caribbean nation, after island-wide blackouts stretching on for days and another powerful hurricane that killed at least six people.

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Hurricane Helene and Milton relief benefit airing on CBS, CMT https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/30/hurricane-helene-and-milton-relief-benefit-airing-on-cbs-cmt/ https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/30/hurricane-helene-and-milton-relief-benefit-airing-on-cbs-cmt/?noamp=mobile#respond Wed, 30 Oct 2024 18:50:00 +0000 https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/30/hurricane-helene-and-milton-relief-benefit-airing-on-cbs-cmt/

A benefit raising money for relief efforts in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton will be broadcast Saturday night on CBS and CMT, two divisions of Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News. The hourlong “United Way Benefit for Hurricane Relief” will air at 8 p.m. ET/PT, and it will also be streamed on Paramount+ with Showtime, Paramount Global and United Way announced Wednesday.

The benefit will feature performances from Clay Aiken, Tyler Hubbard, Chris Janson, Jonathan McReynolds and Brittney Spencer.

The Backstreet Boys, Billy Bob Thornton, Billy Burke, Blake Shelton, Carly PearceCedric The Entertainer, Cody Alan, Jackson Dean, JB SMOOVE, Kelsea Ballerini, Max Thieriot, “CBS Mornings” co-host Nate Burleson, “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, Taye Diggs and the Zac Brown Band will also make appearances during the show.

Brittney Spencer performs at Brooklyn Paramount on Oct. 13, 2024, in New York City.
Brittney Spencer performs at Brooklyn Paramount on Oct. 13, 2024, in New York City.

Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images


The benefit aims to raise money for relief and recovery efforts following the back-to-back storms that wreaked havoc in the Southeast in September and October and killed scores of people.

While Milton raked across the Florida peninsula in early October, Helene moved deep inland after it made landfall in late September, causing catastrophic flooding in North Carolina.

“Paramount Global and its brands are proud to collaborate with United Way Worldwide on the ‘United Way Benefit for Hurricane Relief’ in reaching audiences across the U.S. to help those impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton,” Melissa C. Potter, executive director of Content for Change at Paramount Global and a United Way Worldwide board of trustees member, said in a statement.

“I have seen firsthand how United Way rallies local leaders, cross-sector partners and the community to aid people during times of crisis, and the resources raised by this benefit event will help those in need to recover and rebuild,” Potter said.

The benefit was taped Monday and Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Helene, Milton losses expected to surpass "truly historic" $50 billion each https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/17/helene-milton-losses-expected-to-surpass-truly-historic-50-billion-each/ https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/17/helene-milton-losses-expected-to-surpass-truly-historic-50-billion-each/?noamp=mobile#respond Thu, 17 Oct 2024 11:58:09 +0000 https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/17/helene-milton-losses-expected-to-surpass-truly-historic-50-billion-each/

Monstrous hurricanes Helene and Milton caused so much complex havoc that damages are still being added up, but government and private experts say they will likely join the infamous ranks of Katrina, Sandy and Harvey as super costly $50-billion-plus killers.

Making that even more painful is that most of the damage – 95% or more in Helene’s case – was not insured, putting victims in a deeper financial hole.

Storm deaths have been dropping over time, although Helene was an exception. But even adjusted for inflation, damages from intense storms are skyrocketing because people are building in harm’s way, rebuilding costs are rising faster than inflation and human-caused climate change are making storms stronger and wetter, experts in different fields said.

“Today’s storms, today’s events are simply vastly different from yesterday’s events. One of the things that we’re seeing is the energy content that these systems can retain is significantly greater than it used to be,” said John Dickson, president of Aon Edge Insurance Agency, which specializes in flood coverage. “The weather seems to be, in many cases, moving faster than we as a society are able to keep pace with it.”

In the last 45 years, and adjusted for inflation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has counted 396 weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage. Sixty-three of those were hurricanes or tropical storms.

The $50 billion mark for direct losses is a threshold that differentiates “truly historic events,” said Adam Smith, the economist and meteorologist who runs the list out of NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information in Helene-hit Asheville, North Carolina.

Only eight hurricanes reached that threshold. Smith said he thought Milton and Helene have “a very good shot” of joining that list.

The first $50 billion hurricane was Andrew in 1992. The U.S. went 13 more years before Katrina topped the damages chart, then seven years until the third costly whopper, Sandy. Helene and Milton would make seven in the last seven years.

Calculating damages is far from an exact science. The more complex and nastier storms are – like Milton and Helene – the longer it takes, Smith said. Damage is spread over different places and often a much larger area, with wind damage in some places and flood damage elsewhere. Helene, in particular, caused widespread flooding and in places not used to it. Estimates for those storms from private firms in recent days vary and are incomplete.

There’s three categories of damage: insured damage, uninsured damage and total economic cost. Many risk and insurance firms only estimate insured losses.

Homeowner insurance usually covers wind damage, but not flood. Special insurance has to be bought for that. Flood insurance coverage rates vary by region and storms differ on whether they cause more wind or water damage. Helene was mostly water damage, which is less likely to be covered, while Milton had a good chunk of wind damage.

Of the top 10 costliest hurricanes as compiled by insurance giant Swiss Re – not including Helene or Milton yet – insured damage is about 44% of total costs.

But with Helene, Aon’s Dickson estimated that only 5% of victims had insurance coverage for the type of damage they got. He estimated $10 billion in insured damage so doing the math would put total damage in the $100 billion to $200 billion range, which he called a bit high but in the ballpark. Insured losses for Milton are in the $50 billion to $60 billion range, he said.

With Helene, Swiss Re said less than 2% of Georgia households have federal flood insurance, with North Carolina and South Carolina at 3% and 9%. In North Carolina’s Buncombe County, where more than 57 people died from Helene’s flooding, less than 1% of the homes are covered by federal flood insurance, the agency said.

Risk modeling by Moody’s, the financial services conglomerate, put a combined two-storm total damage estimate of $20 billion to $34 billion.

Karen Clark and Company, a disaster modeling firm that uses computer simulations superimposed on storm and insurance data, wouldn’t give total damage estimates for the storms. But the company figured insured losses alone were $36 billion for Milton and $6.4 billion for Helene.

“The economic losses are going up because we’re putting more infrastructure and housing in harm’s way,” said University of South Carolina’s Susan Cutter, co-director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute, who added that climate change also plays a role. “Human losses and deaths are going down because people are being a little bit more vigilant about paying attention to preparedness and getting out of harm’s way.”

Much of the damage is because of flooding. Studies show that hurricanes are getting wetter because of the buildup of heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Basic physics dictates that clouds hold 4% more moisture for every degree Fahrenheit, and that falls as rain.

“There is scientific agreement that floods and flooding from these hurricanes is becoming more frequent and more severe. So it is likely that we’re going to be seeing a higher frequency of storms like Helene in the future,” said Karen Clark, who founded her namesake firm. “It’s not really an insurance issue because it’s not privately insured. This is really a societal issue and political question. How do we want to deal with this?”

Clark and several of the experts said it’s time for society to think about where it builds, where it lives and if it should just leave dangerous areas and not rebuild, a concept called “managed retreat.”

“At what point do you as an individual continue to build, rebuild, rebuild and rebuild versus saying ‘OK, I’ve had enough’,” Cutter said.

And when it comes to flood insurance, many homeowners in risky areas find it’s too expensive, so they don’t buy it, Clark said. But when a storm hits them, she said “all of us as taxpayers, we’re going to pay it because we know there are going to be federal dollars coming into those areas to help people rebuild. So all taxpayers, we’re actually paying for people to live in risky areas.”

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Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida as Category 3 storm https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/10/hurricane-milton-makes-landfall-in-florida-as-category-3-storm/ https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/10/hurricane-milton-makes-landfall-in-florida-as-category-3-storm/?noamp=mobile#respond Thu, 10 Oct 2024 00:52:21 +0000 https://thenewshub.in/2024/10/10/hurricane-milton-makes-landfall-in-florida-as-category-3-storm/

A satellite image shows Hurricane Milton progressing in the Gulf of Mexico before its expected landfall in Florida, Oct. 9, 2024.

CIRA | NOAA | Via Reuters

The National Hurricane Center said Hurricane Milton has made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida as a Category 3 storm on Wednesday evening.

This is a breaking news story. CNBC’s previous story is below.

Several tornadoes and heavy rain hit south-central Florida on Wednesday afternoon as residents rushed to make last-minute preparations for Hurricane Milton. The storm is currently a Category 4 hurricane but is “growing in size” as it approaches the state’s west coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The NHC said Monday that Milton had intensified into a Category 5 storm, but by Wednesday morning it had dropped down to a Category 4, with sustained winds of up to 155 mph. The NHC said the storm will remain a hurricane as it crosses the Florida peninsula.

A storm surge warning is in effect for the central to southern west coast of Florida, including Tampa. The NHC warning indicates “a danger of life-threatening inundation, from rising water moving inland from the coastline, during the next 36 hours in the indicated locations.”

As of 2 p.m. Wednesday, the storm was about 150 miles southwest of the Tampa metropolitan area and moving northeast at about 16 mph, with sustained winds of 130 mph. The hurricane will likely make landfall late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, according to the NHC.

Vehicles move through a partially flooded street in Dunedin, Florida, ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall tonight, Oct. 9, 2024.

Bryan R. Smith | AFP | Getty Images

Milton rapidly intensified as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico due to the heat of the gulf’s surface waters. When a storm forms into a hurricane it absorbs energy from the heat in surface waters and, with 2024 on track to have the warmest average global air temperature on record, Milton’s ability to grow stronger in such a short amount of time was “a near-certainty,” according to physical oceanographer Gregory Foltz at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Millions of people in 15 counties are under mandatory evacuation orders. The Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote Wednesday: “Your life is at serious risk if you don’t take action immediately — every second counts.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said people near the coast still have time to evacuate inland and recommended they head to one of the 149 general population shelters open throughout the state.

“The current total shelter population is just 31,000 individuals. We have room in those shelters for a total population of almost 200,000 individuals. So there is space available in these shelters,” DeSantis said in a storm briefing Wednesday morning. He said he expects more people to head toward shelters Wednesday afternoon and night.

Rown Williamson secures a gas pump at a Costco store before the arrival of Hurricane Milton on October 08, 2024 in Naples, Florida. 

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

DeSantis also said the Florida Highway Patrol has facilitated 106 long-distance fuel tanker escorts to transport close to one million gallons of gasoline into Tampa and other areas.

Gas stations around the state have already run out of fuel as people attempt to either leave the state or have fuel on stock for at-home generators. Around 23% of the state’s 7,900 gas stations are currently without fuel, up from around 17% on Tuesday, according to data from GasBuddy.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell recommended Wednesday that Floridians in areas under storm surge watch should still try to evacuate, even if only a few miles inland. “Milton is going to be a deadly and catastrophic storm,” Criswell said in a press briefing.

Criswell also said she will travel to Florida on Wednesday to help with recovery efforts once the storm hits. “I want people to hear from me directly, FEMA is ready,” she said.

The NWS issued a tornado warning Wednesday for most of central and southern Florida, including Miami-Dade County. The warning also includes hail up to a half inch in size and isolated gusts of up to 70 mph.

At 11 a.m., the NHC reported tornadic supercells across southern Florida. The NWS reported a tornado along I-75 near Miami as outer bands of the hurricane moved through the area.

Another tornado was recorded near the Everglades, wetlands on the southern tip of the Florida peninsula.

The rushed preparations for Milton come as Floridians are still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which made landfall Sept. 26. More than 225 people died from the storm and recovery efforts lagged as the storm isolated communities. Helene also highlighted the unpredictability of hurricanes, as the storm transitioned into a tropical storm and still ravaged the inland city of Asheville, North Carolina.

The Justice Department warned Floridians and other consumers Wednesday to watch out for any potential fraud or price-gouging schemes during and following the hurricane. Price gouging is the practice of retailers artificially inflating prices when the retailer’s costs have not increased. Consumers are particularly vulnerable to price gouging during natural disasters, such as hurricanes.

As Tampa prepares for the arrival of Hurricane Milton, a flood barrier is erected around a wastewater facility on October 09, 2024, in Tampa, Florida. 

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

The department said people are not required to pay a fee to get disaster relief, and that only scammers will repeatedly push for somebody to pay for services by wire transfer, gift card, payment apps, cryptocurrency or cash.

“Companies are on notice: do not use the hurricane as an excuse to exploit people through illegal behavior,” said Manish Kumar, deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “The Antitrust Division and its law enforcement partners will act quickly to root out anticompetitive behavior and use every tool available to hold wrongdoers accountable.”

President Joe Biden backed up this sentiment in a hurricane briefing Wednesday, saying, “I’m calling on the airlines and other companies to provide as much service as possible to accommodate evacuations and not to engage in price gouging, to just do it on the level.”

The Department of Transportation told CNBC it is already in talks with airlines around affordability of flights in areas affected by the storm.

Biden said Milton could be the worst storm to hit Florida in over a century and that his administration has already deployed thousands of federal personnel across the Southeast to aid in recovery.

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