NATION/WORLD
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
East Oregonian
Harvey’s victims.
That will be the easy part.
GOP leaders are also wrestling with
how to raise the government’s $19.9 trillion
debt limit, something that must happen
by month’s end, at the latest, to avoid a
first-ever default on U.S. payments. The
administration and GOP leaders were
making plans to add the debt limit increase
to the Harvey relief bill in the Senate and
send it back to the House, a plan that quickly
provoked conservative ire and a familiar
intramural GOP dispute.
Hurricane Irma bears down
on Caribbean
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) —
Wielding the most powerful winds ever
recorded for a storm in the Atlantic Ocean,
Hurricane Irma bore down Tuesday on the
Leeward Islands of the northeast Caribbean
on a forecast path that could take it toward
Florida over the weekend.
The storm, a dangerous Category 5, posed
an immediate threat to the small islands of
the northern Leewards, including Antigua
and Barbuda, as well as the British and U.S.
Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
“The Leeward Islands are going to
get destroyed,” warned Colorado State
University meteorology professor Phil
Klotzbach, a noted hurricane expert. “I just
pray that this thing wobbles and misses
them. This is a serious storm.”
Irma had maximum sustained winds of
185 mph in late afternoon as it approached
the Caribbean from the east, according to the
U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Four other storms have had winds that
strong in the overall Atlantic region but they
were in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of
Mexico, which are usually home to warmer
waters that fuel cyclones. Hurricane Allen
hit 190 mph in 1980, while 2005’s Wilma,
1988’s Gilbert and a 1935 great Florida Key
storm all had 185 mph winds
Two Houstons emerge from
Harvey: one wet, one dry
HOUSTON (AP) — In a quest to help
Harvey victims, Kelli Shofstall and her son
set out on a 165-mile drive from Austin to
Houston that led them through neighborhood
after neighborhood where the streets were
dry and no one seemed to need assistance.
It took more than a day of driving around,
following outdated flood maps, before
they found a water-filled road where they
could ferry tenants to and from a marooned
apartment complex using an inflatable
yellow raft.
“My son and I joked that we sucked
at relief efforts,” Shofstall said. Christian
Carr, 17, waded in his jeans into knee-deep
water pulling the raft to see if anyone else
Page 7A
UN chief says
natural disasters have
quadrupled since 1970
NOAA via AP
In this GOES-East satellite image taken Tuesday and released by the National Oce-
anic and Atmospheric Administration, Hurricane Irma, a potentially catastrophic
category 5 hurricane, moves westward toward the Leeward Islands.
wanted to float out of the Heights Park
Row apartments.
More than a week after Harvey swamped
the greater Houston area, the metropolis
is divided into two cities: one still covered
with water and flood debris, the other largely
unblemished by the storm.
Some subdivisions remain submerged,
and many streets are piled high with ruined
belongings. More than 10 percent of the
county’s dwellings were flooded, and several
prominent theater and concert halls were
damaged, though major sports stadiums
escaped unharmed.
In unscathed areas, the only reminder
of high water may be a layer of silt on the
streets, damp curbs or the mildew-like whiff
of disaster.
On a leafy street corner in the city’s
Montrose section, a group of children
set up a Labor Day lemonade stand in a
neighborhood that generally has nothing
worse than standing water for a week after
heavy rain. Even after Harvey, homes were
not damaged and streets drained quickly.
Congress to speed up Harvey
aid, tackle debt limit
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers
returned to Washington Tuesday facing
a daunting to-do list and three months
left in the year to show that Republicans
can actually get things done. President
Donald Trump immediately added a huge
complication by rescinding immigration
protections for younger immigrants and
ordering Congress to come up with a fix.
The immigration issue has defeated
Congress’ best efforts in the past and proven
enormously divisive for the GOP. But for
now there’s not even room for it on the
front burner as lawmakers, just back from
a five-week summer recess, face a series of
more immediate tasks.
First up: Speeding relief aid to Texas
and Louisiana in the wake of the Harvey
storm. A first $7.9 billion installment was
set for House passage on Wednesday,
with leaders hoping for a big bipartisan
vote to demonstrate Congress’ support for
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Natural
disasters have nearly quadrupled in number
since 1970 and the United States has
experienced the most disasters since 1995,
followed by China and India, the United
Nations chief said Tuesday.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told
reporters that in recent days the world has
seen the “dramatic aggravation” of climate
change with “unprecedented events” caused
by storms and flooding from Texas to
Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sierra Leone.
Before the current floods, he said,
preliminary reports registered 2,087 deaths
this year from natural disasters. With the
latest floods, that number will at least double.
In the last two months, more than 1,000
people have been killed in flooding events
across India, southern Nepal and northern
Bangladesh and some 40 million have seen
their homes, businesses or crops destroyed.
Last month, more than 1,000 people died
from a mudslide and flood that hit Sierra
Leone’s capital Freetown. And last week,
Hurricane Harvey dumped almost a year’s
worth of rainfall on Houston.
Guterres said last year 24.2 million people
were displaced by sudden disasters — “three
times as many as by conflict and violence.”
He noted that scientists caution about
linking any single weather event with
climate change. “But they are equally clear
that such extreme weather is precisely what
their models predict will be the new normal
of a warming world,” Guterres said.
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