Hurricane Irene makes 2011 a record-breaking year for bad weather
August 31 (MSNBC) – Hurricane Irene’s rampage up the East Coast has become the tenth billion-dollar weather event this year, breaking a record stretching back to 1980, climate experts said Wednesday. The storm, which damaged infrastructure, left 2.5 million without power and thousands of water-logged homes and businesses from North Carolina through New England, has been blamed for at least 44 deaths in 13 states. Estimates put the total cost at up to $10 billion. The National Climate Data Center said on its website that 2011 had been a particular bad year for storm damage. “While it will take several months to determine an accurate estimate of the damage from Hurricane Irene, there is no question it will rank as the 10th billion-dollar weather event of the year,” it said. “This 10th U.S. billion-dollar disaster officially breaks the annual record dating back to 1980,” the center added.
Other very costly disasters include this summer’s flooding in the Midwest, the Mississippi River flooding in the spring and summer, several tornadoes and the heatwave that hit the Southwest and Southern Plain, according to a list on the NCDC website. Insurance industry insiders estimate that Irene will cost between $7 billion and $10 billion, according to The New York Times. Its unusually high price-tag was due to the storm’s large path, which covered a wide area of the East Coast, the newspaper reported. Insurers, which usually cover around half of losses in similar storms, may cover less than 40 percent of the damages related to Irene, according to Kinetic Analysis Corporation, the Times said. The paper said Irene would would most likely one of the 10 costliest disasters in U.S. history. […]
Irene makes 2011 a record-breaking year for bad weather
PATERSON, New Jersey, 30 August (Reuters) – Swollen rivers submerged stretches of northern New Jersey on Tuesday in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, damaging homes, flooding roads and stranding residents, hundreds of thousands of whom had no power. With at least nine river locations hitting or surpassing record flood levels in northern New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie said he was seeking expedited disaster assistance from the federal government. “Hurricane Irene was a catastrophe of enormous severity and magnitude,” he said in a statement. “Torrential rains have caused significant flooding in areas across the state, impacting residences, major and local roads, and necessitating highway closures and a suspension of rail services.”
Authorities said rivers including the Passaic, Ramapo and Pompton were overflowing from heavy rains and storm surges left behind by Hurricane Irene, which hit the state on Sunday. Wallington, in Bergen County, ordered a mandatory evacuation of about 1,000 families who live closest to the raging Passaic River, which was expected to crest at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday. “Many people were caught off guard,” said James Furtak, acting emergency management coordinator of the borough of 11,000 residents. “Their basements were flooded up to the ceiling and the first floor.”
People were climbing out windows to get out of their flooded homes, he said. The Passaic crested in Fairfield, New Jersey, overnight at 24.12 feet, breaking the record set in 1903 of 23.2 feet, Fairfield Deputy Police Chief Anthony Manna said. Fairfield is surrounded on three sides by the curving river, and National Guard troops were using boats to rescue flood-stranded residents, he said. In Paterson, where the Passaic slices through the city with dramatic waterfalls, hundreds of residents were taken to a shelter as torrential waters threatened to destroy homes, authorities said. Peter Hennen was helping his son, a Paterson homeowner, rig up pumps to remove water from his house. “I’m from this area,” he said, “and this is the worst that I’ve seen here, the farthest up this water has come. […]
