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Hurricane Beta Update

By MARKO ALVAREZ, 42 minutes ago

SAN ANDRES ISLAND, Colombia - The storm Beta strengthened as it battered the tiny Caribbean island of Providencia on Saturday, setting a record by becoming the 13th hurricane of this relentless Atlantic season.

Beta lashed the mountainous Manhattan-sized island owned by Colombia with damaging winds, torrential rains and high surf, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

During a brief time in which phones were working on the island, officials there said scores of homes had been damaged, but it appeared residents were safe.

But he said officials could not do a complete check on the 5,000 residents on the island and a handful of tourists until daybreak. A total of 25 inches of rain could fall on the island, the hurricane center said.

The hurricane, which began whipping Providencia on Friday, was expected to move north-northwest and slam into Central America by Sunday as a Category 2 storm. It was not expected to affect the United States.

The hurricane center warned of storm surges of up to 13 feet along the eastern coast of Nicaragua when the slow-moving storm makes landfall.

"These things are terrifying," said shopkeeper Ofelia Rivera, 63. "No hurricane has ever hit here before."

"We can‘t do anything about damage to property," said Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolanos. "The important thing is to save lives."

In the neighboring Colombian-owned island of San Andres, just south of Providencia, only the storm‘s outer bands touched land, bringing light rains and wind. After the storm passed, tourists returned to the beaches.

The hurricane was the 13th this year, more than any Atlantic season on record. This hurricane season has also seen 23 named storms, more than at any point since record-keeping began in 1851. The previous record of 21 was set in 1933. Last week Tropical Storm Alpha formed, the first time a letter from the Greek alphabet has been used because the list of storm names was exhausted.

In Jamaica, forecasters issued flash flood warnings Friday amid projections that rain from Beta would cause already swollen rivers to overflow their banks and set off mudslides and flooding.

In Honduras, where Beta may also hit later this weekend, officials set up shelters and sent food and other supplies to areas that might be affected by the storm. Honduras issued a hurricane watch on Friday for a 100-mile stretch of coast from Punta Patuca eastward to the border with Nicaragua. The hurricane center said 10 to 15 inches of rainfall could fall across northeastern Honduras.

___

Filadelfo Aleman in Managua, Nicaragua and Freddy Cuevas in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Dan Molinski in Bogota contributed to this report.

By Cplus2 on Oct 29, 2005, 07:58 in Friendly Talkzone.

Cplus2 says on Oct 29, 2005, 08:04:

Other facts Although this is a category-1 hurricane at the moment, it is moving unusually slowly (about 3 miles per hour), and so delivers excessive rainfall to those unfortunates in its path.

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Gator says on Oct 29, 2005, 09:31:

No ReallProblem Minor flooding only.

"Credidi pretio parvo emere et magno vendere tibi in animo fuisse!" .

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kernow62 says on Oct 29, 2005, 09:34:

San Andres floods quite easily in the town even during a typical thunderstorm. I think it is handy for washing the buildings and streets.

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BAQ says on Oct 29, 2005, 09:34:

Go north GO NORTH BETA GO NORTH

Semper Fidelis !

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Cplus2 says on Oct 29, 2005, 09:36:

Wait and see Maybe minor.

Experience with past Tormentas on islands like the Caymans last year and in Central America recently shows that it is not a bad idea to wait for at least 48 hours before being confident in damage assessments.

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Gator says on Oct 29, 2005, 18:39:

Providencia took a good wack (no deaths at this time) but San Andress only got touched by the ouer bands-no real damage, rain and some wind. Providencia may be another matter.

"Credidi pretio parvo emere et magno vendere tibi in animo fuisse!" .

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Cplus2 says on Oct 30, 2005, 10:09:

Latest on Providencia Before reaching Central America, the record 13th hurricane of this year's Atlantic storm season lashed the Colombian island of Providencia with heavy winds, torrential rains and high surf. At least 30 people were injured, Colombian Civil Defense Col. Eugenio Alarcon said.

The slow-moving storm battered the mountainous island for more than 12 hours, damaging more than 300 wooden homes and buildings, most with their roofs torn apart, he said.

from Bayardo Mendoza of the AP in Nicaragua with contribution from Dan Molinski in Bogota

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adrian_UK says on Oct 30, 2005, 10:23:

WILMA Hovered over mexico for about 3/4 days and moved incredibly slow. I think they pick up speed when fuelled by the water, pressure/heat of the sea, because wilma accellerated to 75kmph over the gulf and slammed into florida.

I hope this BETA does not end up going towards colombia mainland.

Adrian Standage
standageadrian at hotmail.com

Adrian Standage standageadrian@hotmail.com

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kernow62 says on Oct 30, 2005, 12:17:

It is strange how some hurricanes are fast moving and others linger. When we got hit with Charlie it was very fast moving, the weather report said it is approaching Disney World, it is approaching Sea World, it is approaching Universal Studios; at that point like an idiot I popped outside with the camcorder and sure enough there was a clear line where the hurricane and the calmer air met on one side it was sunny and the hurricane was pitch black. Later we got hit with Frances and it just lingered for almost 24 hours.

Based on the wind speed and the rain amounts and the tidal surge I am surprised I am not seeing more coverage of the destruction in Mexico.

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Cplus2 says on Oct 30, 2005, 13:05:

Cancun today You're right, not much is being reported about Cancun and Yucatan, which took a longer beating from a major hurricane (Category 4) than any area in memory.

Here is some interesting commentary from the Copley News Service today:

In this resort city of 750,000, more than 314,000 jobs are generated by tourism. Every man, woman and child lives off money spent by visitors lured by the lovely beaches, coral reefs and calm, turquoise water.

But when Wilma whipped into town on Oct. 21, the image Cancun had worked three decades to build was almost wiped out in 63 hours.

The sea swept away part of the beach. The drainage system stopped up. Hundreds of hotels were damaged, along with scores of bars and restaurants. Galvanized steel electrical poles snapped like toothpicks and trees were stripped of their leaves, creating a winter landscape in the tropics.

Insurance companies are calling it the most expensive natural disaster in Mexico's history.

The city's residents, mostly poor people who migrated from all over the country to work in the city's 26,000 hotel rooms, fear Wilma has taken away the thing they value most – their jobs.

Already, some employees have been furloughed for 15 days or have had their work week shortened to just two days.

Ivonne Rosado worked at a beauty shop in the Ritz Carlton until Wilma turned its fury on Cancun.

Rosado had to swim out of her small, concrete house as a 6-foot wave of water swept through the neighborhood of Las Culebras, one of the poorest in Cancun. Afterward, she was left without drinking water and electricity.

Still, Rosado is focused on Cancun's future instead of her discomfort. The damage at the Ritz Carlton is so severe that the hotel has closed for the year.

Recognizing the extent of the disaster, President Vicente Fox flew to Cancun as soon as the storm subsided, riding into town on one of the Navy's amphibious vehicles. Conditions were so bad in the hotel zone that he stayed in a $35-a-night room downtown.

On Thursday, Fox returned to tour the devastation and promised hotel owners financial breaks if they kept people employed. By then the resort was already on the mend and Fox spent the night in a fancy hotel and dined on lobster.

"The goal is to restore Cancun to the best tourist center in the world by the 15th of December," Fox said Thursday.

The sounds and sights of rebuilding were everywhere last week.

Chain saws roared as they cut away broken trees. Heavy equipment scooped up tons of debris piled by hotels on the main boulevard. Residents lined up at banks and shopped for fragrant pineapples at fruit stands that are once again stocked and open.

The Maya Riviera, a breathtaking coastline from Playa del Carmen to Tulum, when combined with Cancun, accounts for 38 percent of the country's tourism revenue. Roughly 33 percent of those revenues – about $4 billion a year – come from Cancun.

Even as Americans were fuming about their own government's actions, they were struck by the kindness of Cancun's residents.

John Eisenlau, a 42-year-old architect from Atlanta, said people living near the emergency shelter where he rode out the storm brought the evacuees soup, spaghetti and coffee.

"The thing that was surprising to us is that it was their shelter in their neighborhood and they were feeding us while their shacks were being torn to bits," Eisenlau said.

End of quotation.

My feeling is that these catastrophes show human nature at its extremes , the best and the other, and that Mexico is showing wonderful human qualities in the rebuilding of this area.

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kernow62 says on Oct 30, 2005, 15:01:

Cplus2, thanks for that report. The poor people of that area, the service workers behaved in exactly the way I thought they would. The same would happen in Colombia. Big hearts seem to belong to those who have the least.

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