Tropical Storm Hermine was intensifying on Saturday as it moved slowly up the Atlantic coast with heavy rain, wind and storm surges making a mess.
Hermine had caused two deaths, damaged homes and businesses and left hundreds of thousands without electricity from Florida to Virginia.
“This is not a beach weekend for anyone in the Mid-Atlantic to the northeast,” said Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Photo: AP
At 2pm on Saturday, Hermine was centered 145km east of Duck, North Carolina, with top sustained winds of 110kph, moving east at 17kph.
Tropical storm warnings were in effect as far north as Connecticut, with dangerous storm surges expected along the coast from Virginia to New Jersey. Governors all along the coast announced emergency preparations.
Hermine rose up over the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 1 hurricane, hitting Florida and then crossing over Georgia on Friday.
The winds were so strong on Saturday in North Carolina that all bridges to the Outer Banks were closed following a deadly accident over the intracoastal waterway.
Tyrell County Sheriff Darryl Liverman told the Virginian-Pilot that high winds tipped over an 18-wheeler, killing its driver and shutting down the US 64 bridge.
On Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks, a tornado spawned by Hermine knocked over two trailers and injured four people, officials said.
In Florida, a homeless man died from a falling tree.
Forecasters said the system could strengthen back into a hurricane by today off the Maryland-Delaware coast before weakening again as it moves north.
The timing could not be worse for towns along the coast hoping for revenue from Labor Day events.
In Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where the beach was closed to foot traffic and swimming prohibited on Saturday, traffic was lighter than normal, said Jim Derrick, whose family businesses include a mini-golf course, sea-shell store, indoor bounce house and ice cream shop.
“This weekend would normally be a parking lot,” he said in a telephone interview.
He called the weekend “definitely disappointing,” although his bounce house was packed.
Elsewhere along Hermine’s path, people were having decidedly less fun.
In Savannah, Georgia, Bacon Fest was canceled on Friday and Saturday’s Craft Brew Fest was moved indoors.
Swimmers were ordered out of the surf in New Jersey.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of