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Heavy rain, wind batter US
04/12/2007 09:23 - (SA)
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| Residents use their boat to paddle up and down a flooded road in West Olympia after a large storm blew into the region. (Steven M Herppich, AP) |
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Portland, Oregon - Hurricane-force winds and heavy rain battered the US Northwest for a second day, blocking roads with trees, power lines, high water and mud. At least two people died.
Oregon transportation officials warned drivers not to attempt passage through the Coast Range as the second of two storms blew through.
"This storm is hitting the coast so hard, it's not leaving any road open," Transportation Department spokesperson Christine Miles said on Monday.
The first wave of severe weather in the Northwest, which hit on Sunday, was expected to reach the Upper Midwest with snow on Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. That region had already been battered over the weekend by ice and snow before the storm blew into the Northeast on Monday.
Helicopter rescues were being launched for stranded hikers and some homeowners trapped by flooding, state emergency management officials said. An estimated 30 to 40 people evacuated a flooded mobile home park near Astoria in northwestern Oregon, said Peter Williamson of the Red Cross.
Mudslides halted north-south Amtrak passenger train service between Eugene, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Wind gusts of more than 160km/h were reported along the Oregon coast, with the highest reading at 207km at Bay City, the Weather Service said.
Mudslide warnings
Telephone and other communications were so tenuous that it was impossible to determine how many people were forced out of their homes, said Abby Kershaw of Oregon Emergency Management.
Amateur radio operators said they were trying to help with communications as Oregon's Columbia, Clatsop and Tillamook counties experienced spotty or absent telephone service.
Mudslides halted north-south Amtrak passenger train service between Eugene, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia. Washington officials warned of possible mudslides after the heavy rains and urged residents to avoid steep landscapes, road cuts and stream channels.
Pacific Power reported 40 000 homes without power in Oregon, and it could be days before electricity is fully restored, the utility said. Transmission poles 30m tall were toppled, and large sections of lines lay on the ground.
The Grays Harbour County Public Utility District in Washington reported 33 000 customers without electricity. Two of the utility's workers were injured, one seriously, when a windblown tree hit their lift truck bucket, sheriff's deputy David A Pimentel said.
The Weather Service issued flood warnings in Oregon for seven coastal rivers and two inland. The storms curtailed state government functions, as driver's licence and employment offices in Columbia County filled with flood waters.
In southwestern Washington, one man died when a tree fell on him as he was trying to clear one that had been toppled, said Grays Harbour County Sheriff's Detective Ed McGowan. Another died of a medical problem after the power went out, he said.
15 deaths, mostly in traffic accidents
In Oregon, the twin systems fell most heavily on the northern part of the coast, where crabbers hoping to get the first of the season's Dungeness crabs stayed in port.
The high winds snapped a 63m Sitka spruce that had shared honours with one in Washington for America's largest. It had attracted 100 000 visitors a year.
"The tree will now die," state forester Paul Ries said. "It's a sad event, but not unexpected. It's part of the natural cycle of the tree."
People in the Midwest began bracing for the Northwest systems to move their way even as they dug out from a storm that hampered travel over the weekend. That system moved into the Northeast on Monday and has been blamed for more than 15 deaths, mostly in traffic accidents.
School was cancelled or classes delayed from New York to Maine as highways turned slippery and wind gusted to 64km/h. Ice storm warnings were issued for Massachusetts and Connecticut, and winter storm warnings were in effect in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and northern and western New York.
A weather-related pileup in New Jersey killed two people, including Jennifer Alexander, a dancer for the American Ballet Theatre, officials said.
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