|
|
此文章由 aussie88 原创或转贴，不代表本站立场和观点，版权归 oursteps.com.au 和作者 aussie88 所有！转贴必须注明作者、出处和本声明，并保持内容完整
RESCUE crews are searching for survivors in wind-blasted landscapes in North Carolina, the state hardest hit by storms that spawned dozens of tornadoes from Oklahoma to Virginia and left at least 45 people dead.
The spring storm, North Carolina's deadliest in two decades, spun off 62 tornadoes in the state on Saturday night.
Though more fatalities occurred in tornado outbreaks in 2008 (57) and 1985 (76), experts believe this weekend could have set a new record for the number of twisters over a three-day period.
It is feared the damage will run into the billions of dollars.
The trail of destruction began on Thursday evening in Oklahoma, where a giant twister almost wiped out the small town of Tushka - population 350 - tearing up most of its homes and businesses and killing two elderly residents.
The storm system strengthened and expanded on Friday, whipping up hundreds more tornadoes that barrelled through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina, before petering out in Virginia on Saturday night.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Related CoverageUS storms continue their fury
Deadly tornadoes rip across US
Herald Sun, 9 hours ago
US tornadoes
The Australian, 12 hours ago
Tornadoes rip across US, killing 45
Herald Sun, 13 hours ago
Tornado fury kills 22
Courier Mail, 19 hours ago
17 dead in US tornado disaster
Courier Mail, 1 day ago
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Eleven people were confirmed dead in rural Bertie County, county manager Zee Lamb said.
Another four were confirmed dead in Bladen County, bringing the state's death toll to at least 21.
In the capital city of Raleigh, three family members died in a mobile home park, said Wake County spokeswoman Sarah Williamson-Baker. At that trailer park, residents lined up outside yesterday and asked police guarding the area when they might get back in.
The storm claimed its first lives on Thursday night in Oklahoma, then roared through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Authorities have said seven died in Arkansas; seven in Alabama; two in Oklahoma; and one in Mississippi.
In Virginia, local emergency officials reported seven storm-related deaths, said Virginia Department of Emergency Management spokesman Bob Spieldenner.
Spieldenner said the state medical examiner's office confirmed one person died in Gloucester, where a tornado hit and one person died in Wythe County when a tree fell on a mobile home. In Waynesboro, an eight-year-old girl and a 47-year-old woman were swept off a bridge by flood waters, but a second child was pulled to safety. <.p>
Officials were still investigating another two deaths reported in Gloucester and one in Page County.
In North Carolina, Governor Beverly Perdue declared a state of emergency and said the 62 tornadoes reported were the most since March 1984, when a storm system spawned 22 twisters in the Carolinas that killed 57 people - 42 in North Carolina - and injured hundreds.
''This is the worst storm, tornado-wise, since 1984,'' said Patty McQuillan, a spokeswoman from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Raleigh.
"I've never seen anything like this in my life,'' Perdue said.
"There is a tremendous amount of property damage and damage to people's lives. The hardest is for the people whose lives have been devastated.''
The declaration of a state of emergency will loosen up federal funds for what promises to be a long and painful recovery.
"The state of emergency allows the governor to deploy the necessary assets to respond to and recover from the storm and it's also a prerequisite for asking for federal disaster assistance,'' explained McQuillan.
Daybreak brought news of a horrific death toll in Bertie County, about 210km east of Raleigh. The tornado moved through about 7pm on Saturday, sweeping homes from their foundations, demolishing others, and flipping cars on tiny rural roads between Askewville and Colerian, Lamb said. At least three of those who died were from the same family, he said.
One of the volunteers who scoured the rubble was an Iraq war veteran who told Lamb he was stunned by what he saw.
"He did two tours of duty in Iraq and the scene was worse than he ever saw in Iraq - that's pretty devastating," Lamb said.
The county was devastated by flooding in October last year with the water submerging the county seat of Windsor, damaging 200 homes and businesses. No one lost their lives in the flooding.
Scenes of destruction across the South looked eerily similar in many areas.
At one point, more than 250,000 people went without power in North Carolina before emergency utility crews began repairing downed lines. But scattered outages were expected to linger at least until Monday.
Among areas hit by power outages was Raleigh, a bustling city of more than 400,000 people where some of the bigger downtown thoroughfares were blocked by fallen trees early yesterday.
At the Cedar Creek Mobile Home Park in Dunn, one woman died while another man was critically hurt when a car was blown atop him outside his home, said police chief BP Jones. More than half the 40 homes in the park were unrecognisable piles of debris yesterday morning.
In Bladen County, the dead included a 92-year-old father and his 50-year-old son. They were killed when they were thrown from their adjacent mobile homes in the town of Ammon.
A 52-year-old woman also died in Ammon, and a 50-year-old man died in Bladenboro, County Medical Examiner Kenneth Clark said.
Bladen County emergency management chief Bradley Kinlaw said 82 homes were damaged and 25 destroyed in Saturday's storms. The path of destruction was narrow - but at least 10km long, he said. |
|
[原创]悉尼，不是我的家 (2005-1-16) ysc 
[米小苏原创系列]浅谈在乡下做生意的利与弊（原创）（二楼已更新） (2010-10-27) 七朵花 
发表于 2011-4-18 20:48
发表于 2011-4-18 22:21
哈哈，我的第一反应和你一样
