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Extreme tides in Hurricane Irma not so uncommon, not affecting Alabama

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It’s all about the wind.

That’s why we’re seeing the footage of extreme low tides associated with Hurricane Irma. The same thing happened in Alabama’s Mobile Bay during Hurricane Katrina. In fact, the same thing happens here and in most other parts of the Gulf coast on a regular basis.

Strong winds, such as those associated with Irma, can override the effect of the tide. It doesn’t take much. In Mobile Bay, a stout north wind of 25 miles per hour or so for two days in a row will cause a similar effect, though not as extreme. We see it every winter. The longer the wind keeps up, the lower the water level gets. In some bitter cold winters, such as those in the early 2000s, when the north wind blew for days and days, water receded close to 1,000 feet from the normal shoreline, four to five feet below normal.

With the hurricane, what we are seeing has to do with which side of the storm various places are seeing. Because a hurricanes winds blow in a circular pattern, the winds in each quadrant of the storm are coming from a different direction. For Tampa and cities on the west coast of Florida, their initial exposure to the storm is coming from the Northeast. That’s perfect to push water out of Tampa Bay.

As the winds change, that water will come rushing back in. I’ve seen a storm surge rise and the fall. It was an awesome sight.

During Hurricane Katrina, the news crew stayed in the Press-Register’s newsroom. We had a ringside seat to watch Katrina’s water rise from our glass-windowed, third floor newsroom on the edge of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. Amusingly, the newspaper’s address was on Water Street. The name proved prescient during the storm, as Mobile Bay rose up and surrounded us. The newspaper, built at 15 feet above sea level, was rendered an island unto itself.

Early in the storm, I remember driving out to look at Mobile Bay and seeing gigantic mud flats where the water had retreated in the early part of the storm, when winds were from the north at 50 miles an hour.

Then, as the storm moved over us, the surge came in. As it crept down six lane Water Street, standing waves developed from the current. The water rose 15 feet in two hours, or about an inch and a half per minute. It was a stunning sight. The road was rendered a rushing river. All was still for a moment, as the eye passed. Then, as we pushed through the back of the eye wall, the water rushed away as quickly as it had come.

The surge is magnified in coastal bays, where the water is forced into a giant funnel as the bay’s narrow. The newsroom and downtown Mobile were at the head of the funnel when you look at a map of Mobile Bay. Tampa is similarly positioned on its bay.

People walk out onto what is normally four feet of water in Old Tampa Bay, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017, in Tampa, Fla. Hurricane Irma and an unusual low tide pushed water out over 100 yards. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)(AP Photo/Chris O’Meara) 

For a moment, imagine the storm surge of Katrina in Biloxi. 28 feet. That is a tsunami-size wall of water. As happened in Mississippi, all that water that rushed out along the Florida coast, is rushing back in right now. The surge is usually the most dangerous part of any storm.

I hope for the best for those folks we saw on all the news networks out on the dry bay bottom. They are definitely in harm’s way tonight. Godspeed.

Hurricane Irma to batter Florida Peninsula through the night

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(This post was updated throughout Sunday and last updated at 11:00 p.m. to reflect the latest National Hurricane Center advisory and current conditions in Florida.)

Extremely dangerous Hurricane Irma first crashed into the Florida Keys on Sunday morning and then made a second landfall on Marco Island on Florida’s west coast Sunday afternoon, unleashing violent wind gusts up to 142 mph and storm-surge flooding. The storm was plowing up Florida’s west coast Sunday night and, once it’s over, forecasters feared that this storm will go down as one of the worst in the state’s history.

At 11 p.m., the storm was centered 50 miles southeast of Tampa. Its eyewall – containing the storm’s most violent winds – had passed northeast of Sarasota. The storm center was plowing north at 14 mph into the area between Tampa and Orlando. Through around 2 a.m. Monday, wind gusts of 75 to 100 mph were possible in both cities, where winds had already gusted that high.

Hurricane-force wind gusts were also quite possible on the east coast of central Florida into early Monday, the Hurricane Center said, thanks to Irma’s large wind field.

Around Tampa, once the storm center passes early Monday morning, a storm surge is possible of several feet above normally dry land, potentially inundating low-lying coastal areas.

Irma’s peak winds of 100 mph, with higher gusts, had dropped 30 mph from the morning, making it a Category 2 hurricane (down from a Category 4). Even with slow weakening likely to continue as the storm passes over land, Irma remains very serious and life-threatening. The National Hurricane Center said it is expected to remain a hurricane through Monday morning.

Coastal waters could rise well above normally dry land along Florida’s central Gulf Coast, inundating homes, businesses and roads.

[Everything you need to know about Irma]

Because of the storm’s magnitude, the entire state of Florida is being severely affected by damaging winds, torrential rains and, in many areas, the risk of tornadoes. Tropical storm and hurricane conditions were also predicted to spread into the Florida Panhandle, eastern Alabama, much of Georgia and southern South Carolina by Monday.

The latest


(National Hurricane Center)

Central Florida

Irma’s eyewall passed on the east side of Sarasota around 10 p.m. and should pass between Tampa and Orlando through around 1 or 2 a.m., from south to north, producing wind gusts between 75 and 100 mph throughout the region. Both cities had already clocked gusts to near 80 mph.

Once Irma’s center passes north of Tampa early Monday morning, the seas will rise likely resulting in areas of coastal inundation.

Even on Central Florida’s east coast, tropical-storm force winds and hurricane-force gusts were fairly widespread Sunday evening. At St. Lucie, a gust reached 99 mph and Cape Canaveral gusted to 79 mph.

Southwest Florida

The worst winds had passed this region just prior to 9:30 p.m. but gusty showers continued on the storm’s backside.

Irma’s eyewall passed through Fort Myers and Cape Coral just before 7 p.m., producing wind gusts of 88 and 101 mph and then passed on the west side of Port Charlotte between 8 and 9 p.m.

As the eyewall moved over Naples late Sunday afternoon, it reported sustained winds of 93 mph and a gust to 142 mph – the strongest recorded from this storm in the U.S.

Josh Morgerman, a hurricane chaser positioned in Naples, described the scene: “Went thru violent, destructive winds. Screaming, whiteout, wreckage blowing by in fog.” Then the calm eye moved overhead.

Before the arrival of the storm center, water was actually retreating from Naples to Tampa due to offshore winds from the east pulling the sea back. But forecasters warned residents that shortly after the storm’s center passed to the north and winds blew back onshore, waters would rush back in rapidly causing severe inundation.

[Hurricane Irma is literally sucking the water away from shorelines]

In Naples, as of 7 p.m., water levels were about four feet above normally dry land but the level was starting to stabilize around 8 p.m. Amazingly, it set its second lowest water level and highest water level all in the course of 8 hours.

In Ft. Myers, waters levels were rising through 10 p.m., but not as dramatically as they had in Naples.

Southeast Florida

In Southeast Florida, spiral bands continued to unleash tropical-storm-force winds. Even into the evening, winds were gusting up to 60 to 75 mph around Miami and West Palm Beach (7 p.m. gust of 75 mph), but they weren’t as strong as earlier.

In the afternoon, sustained winds in Miami and Fort Lauderdale reached 50-60 mph through the early afternoon, gusting as high as 80 to 100 mph. Miami International Airport clocked a gust to 94 mph and an isolated gust hit 100 mph at the University of Miami.

Also during the afternoon the seas had risen several feet above normally dry land. Social media photos and videos showed water pouring through Miami’s streets, in between high-rises, amid sideways sheets of rains.

Late Sunday afternoon, waters were finally starting to slowly recede around Miami.

The Keys

While the core of the storm and worst winds passed the Keys early Sunday morning, the Weather Service warned storm surge flooding was ongoing as winds on the storm’s backside shoved water over the islands. Gusts still reached 50 to 60 mph as of 7:45 p.m.

Early Sunday afternoon, the maximum surge at Cudjoe Key was estimated at 10 feet.

Statewide

About 3 million customers were without power.

Particularly in South and Central Florida, torrential rain was falling, with widespread totals of 6 to 10 inches and pockets up to 10 to 14 inches. Numerous flash flood warnings had been issued.

As the storm’s spiral bands walloped Central and Northern Florida, the potential for tornadoes arose in the swirling air, and the Weather Service issued watches and scores of warnings.

Storm warnings in effect and predicted surge height and winds

Hurricane warnings cover all of Florida except the western Panhandle, where a tropical storm warning was in effect.

A storm-surge warning was also issued for much of the Florida Peninsula (except for a small section from North Miami Beach to Jupiter Inlet), and even extended up the Georgia coast into southern South Carolina. The Hurricane Center said that this would bring the risk of “dangerous” and “life-threatening” inundation.


(National Weather Service)

Because of the shift in the most likely storm track to the west, Miami and Southeast Florida were most likely to miss the storm’s intensely destructive core, known as the eyewall, where winds are strongest. Even so, because of Irma’s enormous size, the entire Florida Peninsula and even the Panhandle were likely to witness damaging winds. The National Hurricane Center warned that the storm would bring “life-threatening wind impacts to much of the state.”


European model simulation of maximum winds gusts every 6 hours Sunday to Monday from Hurricane Irma. (WeatherBell.com)

Effects on Florida

Conditions will continue to deteriorate Sunday night over Florida in the central and north part of the state as Irma chugs up the coast. Conditions will slowly improve to the south.

Through around very early Monday morning, the corridor between Tampa and Orlando would face the storm’s brunt.

Here’s a guide to what is most likely and where …

Key West/Key Largo

Time frame for worst conditions: Through Sunday afternoon.

Hazard threats: Wind, storm surge and rain.

Wind gusts of up to 50 to 70 mph should continue into the evening.

A catastrophic storm surge of 5 to 10 feet or more is expected to inundate much of the island chain. Heavy rain will add to the water issues, as anywhere from 5 to 10 inches of additional rain will fall before the worst of the storm is over. Unfortunately, the damage potential on the Keys could be landscape-altering after taking a direct hit from this storm.

Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach

Time frame for worst conditions: Through Sunday night.

Hazard threats: Strong winds, tornadoes, heavy rain.

Sustained winds of 45 to 70 mph with gusts of 80-plus mph will last well into Sunday evening.

Swirling winds at all levels of the atmosphere have also increased the chances of tornadoes developing at any point on Sunday, especially in locations right along the water. Rainfall totals of four to eight inches or more are expected on Sunday alone, which may exacerbate localized flooding. With Irma’s last-minute track shift to the west, the storm surge won’t be as big of a concern here as it is elsewhere, with a two- to four-foot surge expected along much of Florida’s east coast.

Naples/Fort Myers/Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg

Time frame for worst conditions: Through Monday morning.

Hazard threats: Storm surge and wind.

Irma’s ultimate destination will be along the west coast of Florida. This means the conditions will deteriorate rapidly from Naples to Tampa Bay throughout Sunday afternoon. However, Irma’s path will take it parallel to the west coast of Florida, keeping the entire region engulfed in the dangerous northeast quadrant of the storm, where winds are strongest. Sustained hurricane force winds and gusts over 100 mph should arrive in Naples Sunday afternoon and up to 75-100 mph in St. Petersburg/Tampa Bay between 10 p.m. and midnight or so.


Hurricane force winds will make their way up Florida’s west coast, peaking in Naples this evening and in the St. Petersburg/Tampa area after midnight. Via NWS

The most dangerous hazard for this region will be the extreme storm surge. Nowhere in the entire state will the storm-surge levels be higher than along the gulf-facing coast, with storm surge totals of eight to 12 feet and locally up to 15 feet forecast. Any coastal city from Tampa Bay south to Naples is at risk, with historic flooding (the likes of which haven’t been seen in this area since Hurricane Donna in 1960) threatening thousands of people and structures.

Orlando/Central Florida 

Time frame for worst conditions: Sunday night through Monday morning.

Hazard threats: Wind, rain, and tornadoes.

Inland areas won’t escape the effects of Irma. The storm is extremely large in size, with tropical-storm-force winds extending outward over 200 miles from the center. The wind speeds in central Florida and the Orlando area will start to pick up by late Sunday afternoon, with sustained winds of 40 to 60 mph and gusts of 70-plus mph lasting from late Sunday night through Monday morning.

Heavy rain will also cause problems, with a general six to 12-plus inches of rain expected by the time the storm is over. The threat of tornadoes will increase by Sunday night, as well, as the storm’s center tracks north along the west coast of Florida.

Jacksonville/Daytona Beach 

Time frame for worst conditions: Sunday evening through Monday afternoon.

Hazard threats: Rain, tornadoes, wind.

The northeast portion of Florida will be spared the worst of Irma but won’t escape unscathed. Sustained tropical-force winds of 40 to 55 mph will overspread the area from Daytona Beach to Jacksonville by Sunday evening, with the worst winds (gusts up to 70 mph) occurring overnight. Heavy rain will be a story line here as six to 10-plus inches of rain is expected to fall in a relatively short period.

As with other parts of the state, the tornado threat will peak overnight on Sunday as Irma’s storm center tracks northward.

Storm-surge values will be elevated (two to four feet) but should result in only minor to moderate coastal flooding.

Potential effects on Georgia and the southeastern United States

Georgia/Atlanta/South Carolina

Time frame for worst conditions: Monday morning through Tuesday morning.

Hazard threats: Wind, rain and, at the coast, storm surge

Hurricane warnings extend well into Georgia, covering over half of the state. Parts of southern South Carolina also are under a hurricane warning, with Irma poised to maintain its hurricane-force strength for several hours after landfall.

Sustained tropical force winds of 25 to 45 mph will spread over Georgia from south to north starting late Sunday night. The strongest sustained winds (40 to 50 mph) with gusts of 60-plus mph will move in on early Monday morning, lasting through Monday evening. This includes Atlanta, which is under a tropical-storm warning, where sustained winds of 25 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph will occur from about 10 p.m. Sunday night to about 5 p.m. Monday afternoon. This could lead to downed trees and outages.

Heavy rain is also expected, with storm totals of six to 10 inches forecast, the bulk of which should fall Monday.

Storm surge along the Georgia/South Carolina coast will be a hazard, as well, with the Hurricane Center predicting a surge of four to six feet. Of particular concern is the duration of the storm surge. Persistent onshore winds will extend the surge component here, with elevated water levels potentially lasting up to 36 hours.

Irma’s path so far

At 3:35 p.m. Sunday, Irma had made its second U.S. landfall of the day over Marco Island, where a wind gust of 130 mph was reported.

Earlier, the storm officially made its initial U.S. landfall at Cudjoe Key at 9:10 a.m. as a Category 4 hurricane. Winds over the Keys raged, gusting to at least 94 mph in Key West (before the wind instrument failed) and up to 120 mph in Big Pine Key. Witness video showed the rising storm surge flooding Key West streets.

Before its encounter with the Keys, Irma made landfall on the north coast of Cuba as a Category 5 hurricane just after 9 p.m. Friday, with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph. It became that country’s first Category 5 hurricane since 1924. Fueled by the extremely warm ocean temperatures, Irma reintensified to the maximum hurricane classification level after weakening slightly on Friday afternoon.

As it scraped Cuba’s north coast early Saturday, it produced a sustained wind gust of 118 mph, and a gust to 159 mph was reported at Falla, Cuba, in the eyewall of the hurricane.


Irma’s eye approaches the north coast of Cuba on Friday night. Via NASA

On Friday, before making landfall along Cuba’s north-central coast, Irma passed north of Haiti and then between Cuba’s northeast coast and the Central Bahamas.

Thursday evening, the center of the storm passed very close to the Turks and Caicos, producing potentially catastrophic Category 5 winds. The storm surge was of particular concern, as the water had the potential to rise 16 to 20 feet above normally dry land in coastal sections north of the storm center, causing extreme inundation.

A devastating storm surge and destructive winds had also probably battered the southeastern Bahamas, near Great Inagua Island.

Through early Thursday, the storm had battered islands from Puerto Rico to the northern Lesser Antilles.

While the center of Irma passed just north of Puerto Rico late Wednesday, a wind gust of 63 mph was clocked in San Juan early Wednesday evening, and more than 900,000 people were reported to be without power. In Culebra, Puerto Rico, a small island 17 miles east of the main island, a wind gust registered 111 mph in the afternoon.

On Wednesday afternoon, the storm’s eye had moved over Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, and its southern eyewall raked St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Early Wednesday afternoon, a wind gust to 131 mph was clocked on Buck Island and 87 mph on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the hurricane passed directly over Barbuda and St. Martin in the northern Leeward Islands, the strongest hurricane recorded in that region and tied with the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane as the strongest Atlantic storm to strike land.

As Barbuda took a direct hit, the weather station there clocked a wind gust to 155 mph before it went offline.

The storm also passed directly over Anguilla and St. Martin early Wednesday, causing severe damage.

Irma’s place in history

Irma’s peak intensity (185 mph) ranks among the strongest in recorded history, exceeding the likes of Katrina, Andrew and Camille — whose winds peaked at 175 mph.

Among the most intense storms on record, it trails only Hurricane Allen in 1980, which had winds of 190 mph. It is tied for second-most intense with Hurricane Wilma in 2005, Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane.

The storm maintained maximum wind speeds of at least 180 mph for 37 hours, longer than any storm on Earth on record, passing Super Typhoon Haiyan, the previous record-holder (24 hours).

Late Tuesday, its pressure dropped to 914 millibars (the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm), ranking as the lowest of any storm on record outside the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in the Atlantic basin.

The storm has generated the most “accumulated cyclone energy,” a measure of a storm’s duration and intensity, of any hurricane on record.

Irma’s landfall pressure of 929 millibars in the Florida Keys was the lowest for any U.S. landfalling hurricane since Katrina (920 millibars) and for a Florida landfall since Andrew (922 millibars). It ranks as the seventh-lowest pressure of any U.S. landfalling storm.

When Irma crashed into the Keys early Sunday as a Category 4, following Hurricane Harvey’s assault in Texas, it marked the first time on record that two Category 4 storms had made landfall in the United States in the same year.

Capital Weather Gang hurricane expert Brian McNoldy contributed to this report. Credit to tropical-weather expert and occasional Capital Weather Gang contributor Phil Klotzbach for some of the statistics in this section.

US Students in Florence Accuse Police Officers of Rape

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The Florence police said the club’s cameras showed the women leaving with two officers. The women told prosecutors that they were intoxicated and had smoked marijuana that evening, according to Italian news media reports, and that the officers accompanied them to their apartment in a service vehicle. The women live in Borgo Santi Apostoli, in the historic center of the city.

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Prosecutors in Florence are investigating the accusations and have taken statements from the two women, who, according to Italian news media reports, are from New Jersey and Maine, and are studying at Lorenzo de’ Medici – The Italian International Institute. The Italian authorities have collected potential evidence, including the women’s clothes, and the women underwent medical examinations and DNA tests at a Florence hospital.

Florence is Italy’s center for study-abroad programs and is a popular destination for American students. Many leading American universities operate programs in the city and house students in villas there.

The explosive allegations have dominated news coverage throughout Italy, with articles about them at the top of the country’s newspapers and news websites. On Saturday, the website of Italy’s largest newspaper, Corriere della Sera, featured a video with illustrations depicting the night’s events set to haunting piano music.

“If this is true, and I hope that light is shed on the matter as soon as possible, then it would be an act of unheard-of gravity,” Gen. Tullio Del Sette, the commander of the Carabinieri, told the ANSA news agency.


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‘Trump betrays everyone’: The president has a long record as an unpredictable ally

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President Trump prepared for the pivotal meeting with congressional leaders by huddling with his senior team — his chief of staff, his legislative director and the heads of Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget — to game out various scenarios on how to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling and provide Hurricane Harvey relief.

But one option they never considered was the that one the president ultimately chose: cutting a deal with Democratic lawmakers, to the shock and ire of his own party.

In agreeing to tie Harvey aid to a three-month extension of the debt ceiling and government funding, Trump burned the people who are ostensibly his allies. The president was an unpredictable — and, some would say, untrustworthy — negotiating partner with not only congressional Republicans but also with his Cabinet members and top aides. Trump saw a deal that he thought was good for him — and he seized it.

The move should come as no surprise to students of Trump’s long history of broken alliances and agreements. In business, his personal life, his campaign and now his presidency, Trump has sprung surprises on his allies with gusto. His dealings are frequently defined by freewheeling spontaneity, impulsive decisions and a desire to keep everyone guessing — especially those who assume they can control him.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), flanked by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), left, and Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) speaks Wednesday at the Capitol after President Trump overruled Republicans and his treasury secretary to cut a deal with Democrats. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

He also repeatedly demonstrates that, while he demands absolute loyalty from others, he is ultimately loyal to no one but himself.

“It makes all of their normalizing and ‘Trumpsplaining’ look silly and hollow,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist sharply critical of Trump, referring to his party’s congressional leaders. “Trump betrays everyone: wives, business associates, contractors, bankers and now, the leaders of the House and Senate in his own party. They can’t explain this away as [a] 15-dimensional Trump chess game. It’s a dishonest person behaving according to his long-established pattern.”

But what many Republicans saw as betrayal was, in the view of some Trump advisers, an exciting return to his campaign promise of being a populist dealmaker able to cut through the mores of Washington to get things done. 

In that Wednesday morning Oval Office meeting, Trump was impressed with the energy and vigor of Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) relative to the more subdued Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). Far from fretting over the prospect of alienating McConnell and Ryan or members of his administration, he relished the opportunity for a bipartisan agreement and the praise he anticipated it would bring, according to people close to the president. 

On Thursday morning, he called Pelosi and Schumer to crow about coverage of the deal — “The press has been incredible,” he told Pelosi, according to someone familiar with the call — and point out that it had been especially positive for the Democratic leaders. 

At the White House later that day, Trump asked Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) how he thought the deal was playing. “I told him I thought it was great, and a gateway project to show there could be bipartisan progress,” King said. “He doesn’t want to be in an ideological straitjacket.”

In some ways, White House officials said, Trump is as comfortable working with Democrats to achieve policy goals — complete with the sheen of bipartisan luster — as he is with Republicans. Though he did not partner with Democrats to spite McConnell and Ryan, aides said, he has long felt frustrated with them for what he perceives as their inability to help shepherd his agenda through Congress, most notably their stalled efforts to undo former president Barack Obama’s signature health-care law. 

On Thursday, Trump took to Twitter to express dissatisfaction with his adopted political party, complaining about Obamacare: “Republicans, sorry, but I’ve been hearing about Repeal Replace for 7 years, didn’t happen!” He also bemoaned the legislative filibuster, which requires Republicans to work with Democrats to meet a 60-senator threshold for most votes, writing, “It is a Repub Death wish.”

Ari Fleischer, press secretary under President George W. Bush, said that Trump deserves credit for staving off, at least in the short term, a possible default and government shutdown. 

“It’s going to internally hurt him that he didn’t work with Republicans on this one, but by avoiding a mess, he likely saved Republicans from themselves,” Fleischer said. “I consider it a small victory that congressional Republicans didn’t once again trip themselves up over this issue. At least for now.”

King, a moderate who represents a Long Island district that Trump carried, said: “I think this could be a new day for the Republican Party.”

Trump’s agreement with the Democrats is hardly the first time the president has flouted his allies, including those around the world, sending them skittering nervously in response to a threat or a sudden turnabout. 

In April, Trump thrust Canada and Mexico — as well as many of his advisers and Cabinet officials — into a state of panic during a frenetic, if brief, period when he threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. In May, speaking in front of NATO’s sparkling new headquarters, Trump alarmed European allies when he chastised them for “not paying what they should be paying” and refused to embrace the treaty’s cornerstone — that an attack on one represents an attack on all. And in September, as the crisis with North Korea escalated, Trump abruptly threatened to withdraw from a free-trade agreement with South Korea.

Foreign diplomats euphemistically describe the president as “unpredictable,” and even those with good relationships with the United States say they are “cautiously optimistic” that Trump’s behavior will continue to benefit their nations.

On the issue of the debt-ceiling extension and short-term government funding, a GOP aide familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said many Republicans viewed Trump’s decision as “a spur-of-the-moment thing” that happened because the president “just wanted a deal.”

“He saw a deal and wanted the deal, and it just happened to be completely against what we were pushing for,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment. “Our conclusion is there isn’t much to read into other than he made that decision on the spot, and that’s what he does because he’s Trump, and he made an impulsive decision because he saw a deal he wanted.” 

From the outset, the meeting did not go as Republican leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had hoped. They began by pushing for an 18-month extension of the debt ceiling, with Mnuchin lecturing the group of longtime legislators about the importance of raising the debt ceiling, according to three people familiar with the gathering who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“It was just odd and weird,” one said. “He was very much a duck out of water.”

The treasury secretary presented himself as a Wall Street insider, arguing that the stability of the markets required an 18-month extension. 

At one point, Schumer intervened with a skeptical question: “So the markets dictate one month past the 2018 election?” he asked, rhetorically, according to someone with knowledge of his comment. “I doubt that.”

At another, Pelosi explained that understanding Wall Street is not the same as operating in Congress. “Here the currency of the realm is the vote,” she told reporters in a news conference Thursday, echoing the comments she had made privately the day before. “You have the votes, no discussion necessary. You don’t have the votes, three months.”

The Republican leaders and Mnuchin slowly began moderating their demands, moving from their initial pitch down to 12 months and then six months. At one point, when Mnuchin was in the middle of yet another explanation, the president cut him off, making it clear that he disagreed.

The deal would be for three months tied to Harvey funding, Trump said — just as the Democrats had wanted.

On Friday morning, at a closed-door meeting of House Republicans, numerous lawmakers vented their frustrations to Mnuchin and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. One of them, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), stood up to say he thought Trump’s snub of Ryan — who had publicly rejected Democrats’ offer hours before Trump accepted it — was also a snub of Republicans at large.

“I support the president, I want him to be successful, I want our country to be successful,” Zeldin said in an interview afterward. “But I personally believe the president had more leverage than he may have realized. He had more Democratic votes than he realized, and could have and would have certainly gotten a better deal.”

Democrats remain skeptical about just how long their newfound working relationship with Trump will last. But for Republicans, the turnabout was yet another reminder of what many of them have long known but refused to openly admit: Trump is a fickle ally and partner, liable to turn on them much in the same way he has turned on his business associates and foreign allies. 

“Looking to the long term, trust and reliability have been essential ingredients in productive relationships between the president and Congress,” said Phil Schiliro, who served as director of legislative affairs under Obama. “Without them, trying to move a legislative agenda is like juggling on quicksand. It usually doesn’t end well.”

Mike DeBonis contributed to this report. 

The Mexican city with the highest number of quake deaths mourns — and gets to work

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JUCHITAN, Mexico — The Catholic priest waited out the earthquake in his spartan quarters, praying that the walls would stand. When he stepped out alone into the colonial courtyard late Thursday, his place of worship had transformed into a ghoulish scene of destruction.

He took in the shattered bell tower, collapsed church walls, two cars pancaked under the rubble. Across the plaza, school classrooms had been flattened. A few blocks away, city hall lay in ruins.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said ­Lucio Santiago Santiago, 58, the priest at the San Vicente Ferrer church, its foundation dating to the 16th century, in the city that endured some of the most extreme damage from Mexico’s massive earthquake. Within minutes, he said, residents were screaming and shouting about the dead. “It was chaos.”

“This is a historic temple dear to the people’s heart,” Santiago said. “And look at it now.”

In this city that has recorded more than half of the earthquake’s fatalities, residents on Saturday had turned to the work of mourning the dead and cleaning up the wreckage. Teams of rescue workers with search dogs worked their way through the rubble looking for possible survivors while construction workers with backhoes and dump trucks cleared debris. Soldiers and police had sealed off several blocks around the city square while funeral processions passed amid downed power lines and broken glass. At least 36 people are known to have died here.

On Friday night, President Enrique Peña Nieto said that in Juchitan, a city of about 100,000 people in the state of Oaxaca, a third of homes either collapsed or were left uninhabitable by the earthquake. In block after block, there are houses with crumbled concrete walls or collapsed ceramic-tile roofs. Peña Nieto declared a three-day period of national mourning and vowed to help rebuild. By Saturday, the country’s total death toll had risen to 65 people.

[At least 58 killed in massive earthquake off Mexico coast]

The 8.2-magnitude earthquake that began a few minutes before midnight Thursday was centered in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s southwestern coast. The rumbling was felt for hundreds of miles and caused buildings to sway in Mexico City. But the damage to lives and property was clustered in southern states such Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco.

Residents in Juchitan are now sleeping outside: in their patios, in the street, or in makeshift hammock camps in parks and plazas. The injured are being treated in the hospital or in clinics converted into triage centers.

Martin Toral Nolasco, a 45-year-old chiropractor who runs a small clinic, said he had helped treat residents with broken arms and legs.

Toral, who is sleeping with his family in the patio of his house, said that because of aftershocks, many residents are afraid to sleep in damaged houses. Prices are skyrocketing in the stores that remain open, he said, as is the cost of a taxi. He said he worries about robberies and possible looting.

“We are starting to see shortages of food,” Toral said.

“It’s about to explode.”

[Mexico’s cataclysmic history of earthquakes]

Outside the city, on the road along the coast from the tourist town of Huatulco, residents worked to repair damage, fixing broken windows, repairing roofs and clearing away small landslides or scattered boulders that had spilled onto the road.

But the earthquake seemed to have concentrated its furies in Juchitan and surrounding towns in the isthmus region in Oaxaca, where Mexico’s waist narrows.

Even as recovery began, Mexico was forced to juggle another emergency, as Hurricane Katia made landfall Friday night along the Gulf Coast, in the state of Veracruz. At least two people died in a mudslide from the storm, which blasted the coastline with 75 mph winds, according to the state governor. Several thousands had evacuated the area.

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Hurricane Irma: Broward shelters now closed to new arrivals, but Palm Beach County shelters still open

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With weather conditions deteriorating from Hurricane Irma, and a countywide curfew now in effect, Broward County shelters have closed to new arrivals, the county mayor said.

Like the rest of South Florida, the county is under a hurricane warning, a storm surge warning and a local state of emergency. A tornado watch is in effect until midnight and there is a flood watch, Broward Mayor Barbara Sharief said.

More than 17,000 people are at Palm Beach County’s 15 shelters — about a third of the county’s capacity.

Though some shelters were not at full capacity, some people were being relocated to alternate shelters to better accommodate everyone.

Ousted Fox News host Eric Bolling’s 19-year-old son found dead

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Former Fox News host Eric Bolling’s 19-year-old son died Friday night hours after the network axed his father amid sexual harassment allegations.

Eric Chase Bolling was found dead in Boulder, Col., where he was studying economics at the University of Colorado Boulder, according to reports published Saturday.

Boulder police said the cause of death was still under investigation.

Responding to multiple reports citing suicide, Eric’s father tweeted that authorities told the family “there is no sign of self harm at his point.”

Eric Bolling leaves Fox News following sexting scandal

“Autopsy will be next week. Please respect our grieving period,” Bolling added in the tweet.

Earlier in the day, Bolling confirmed the death of his only son with wife Adrienne.

“Adrienne and I are devastated by the loss of our beloved son Eric Chase last night,” Bolling tweeted. “Details still unclear. Thoughts, prayers appreciated.”

https://www.facebook.com/eric.bolling2?lst=717030649%3A1043978969%3A1504977252

Eric Chase Bolling, 19, was found dead Friday. He was the son of former Fox News host Eric Bolling.

(Facebook)

The death came amid an already brutal period for Bolling who was accused of sending unsolicited photos of his genitalia to three female colleagues.

Writer’s lawyers slam Eric Bolling’s $50M defamation lawsuit

Fox News suspended the 54-year-old host in early August after the publication of a Huff Post story detailing the allegations.

The network announced Friday that it cut ties with Bolling, a 10-year network veteran and co-host of “The Specialists,” after conducting a probe into the claims.

“Fox News Channel is canceling ‘The Specialists’, and Eric Bolling and Fox have agreed to part ways amicably,” the network said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. “We thank Eric for his ten years of service to our loyal viewers and wish him the best of luck.”

The younger Bolling’s death, first reported by HuffPost reporter Yashar Ali, prompted Fox News to release a new statement less than 24 hours after its original.

Fox News host Eric Bolling responds to sexting allegations

“We are very saddened to hear of the passing of Eric Bolling’s son,” it said.

JULY 22, 2015 FILE PHOTO.

Eric Chase Bolling’s untimely death came hours after his father was ousted from Fox News amid allegations that he sent photos of his genitalia to female colleagues.

(Richard Drew/AP)

“Eric Chase was a wonderful young man and our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Bolling family.”

Bolling has denied the sexual harassment allegations and filed a $50 million lawsuit against Ali, the HuffPost reporter who broke the story.

Condolences poured in on social media Saturday.

“@ericbolling To my dear friend, please know we all love you, will be here for you and your family,” Fox News host Sean Hannity wrote on Twitter.

“This is incredibly sad. Just heartbreaking for this family. Deepest condolences,” Joy Reid said.

Gov. Mike Huckabee also sent his support. “Just heard that Fox colleague and friend @ericbolling 19 yr. old son died; Prayers for Eric and family.” 

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Hurricane Irma Live Updates: West Coast of Florida in Cross Hairs

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“We thought we were safe,” said a spokeswoman for Collier County who declined to give her name because she was not authorized to discuss the situation. “We thought we were safe like 36 hours ago.”

The spokeswoman said that a forecast at 5 p.m. on Thursday caused county officials to react, readying shelters and helping residents seeking to evacuate.

Starting on Saturday morning, lines that were several blocks long formed outside of shelters such as the Germain Arena, as residents jammed inside.

In Fort Myers, which is in Lee County, buses that were transporting people to shelters stopped running at 3 p.m. to allow the drivers to seek safety, potentially leaving people who had not left their homes in time.

By late Saturday afternoon, all of the shelters in Collier County were at capacity, according to local news reports. Because of the imminent storm surge, officials told people living in one-story homes to try to enter shelters anyway, and people in two-story homes to seek shelter upstairs.

In Miami-Dade County, some people who had flocked to shelters were reassessing their situation on Saturday afternoon after learning that the brunt of the hurricane would most likely be felt farther west.

“We’re going home,” Virginia Lopez, an administrative assistant at Barry University, said as she loaded her 5-year-old poodle mix, Princess, into her Mazda outside a shelter at Highland Oaks Middle School after spending the night there with her daughter and son-in-law. “We decided half an hour ago. The storm has moved to Tampa, so we’re going to get a lot of rain but it won’t be as bad. I don’t feel so scared.”

Waves crashing against the Malecón seawall in Havana as Hurricane Irma turned toward the Florida Keys on Saturday.


Reuters

Inside, dozens of people lay on cots and blankets in the building’s hallways amid a stench of perspiration and vomit. Some were packing to leave but most seemed resigned to remaining until the storm blows through.

Florida gets an early feel for what’s to come

As Hurricane Irma steered its way toward the Florida Keys on Saturday night, Florida began to feel its approach. The ocean began rising in Key West, spilling into hotel parking lots and roads. In the Keys to the north, water levels toppled over the banks of canals.

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In Miami-Dade, tree branches tumbled and fast-moving bands of powerful rain and wind occasionally made it hard to walk. Orange County issued a mandatory evacuation for all mobile homes.

In Lake Worth in Palm Beach County, a tornado tore through one neighborhood, bringing the telltale freight train rumble and clatter of intense wind. On South Beach, palm trees tilted in the wind, their palm fronds fluttering fiercely.

But these ominous signs of Irma’s churn toward Florida were often short-lived. The storm was still far offshore and not expected to be within striking distance of the Florida Keys until the predawn hours.

Florida Keys face being cut off

In the Florida Keys, emergency officials girded for a direct hit and residents who did not evacuate began to take cover as the winds kicked up sharply Saturday afternoon.

The Keys, a thin chain of low-lying islands, are especially vulnerable to Hurricane Irma’s anticipated powerful tidal surges.

The ocean is expected to rise and hurtle into buildings and houses near the coast. Pine Island, north of Key West, was already seeing rising seas at noon.

Martin County firefighters preparing to move to another station on Saturday before Hurricane Irma’s arrival in Jensen Beach, Fla.


Jason Henry for The New York Times

Some canals were spilling their bounds and emergency responders were evacuating to the Upper Keys.

But the worst could come after the hurricane moves on. Keys residents could find themselves isolated from the mainland if any one of their 42 bridges gets damaged.

Residents and emergency officials would be cut off from food, gas and other supplies because there would be no easy way of reaching them by road.

“Just think about the Keys for a second,” Mr. Scott warned residents at a recent news conference. “If we lose one bridge, everything south of the bridge, everybody’s going to be stranded. It’s going to take us a while to get back in there to try to provide services.”

A hospital hunkers down

Hurricane Irma has already disrupted Florida’s health systems. As of Saturday night, 29 hospitals, 239 assisted-living centers and 56 other health care facilities in the state were evacuated, according to Jason Mahon, a public information officer at the Florida State Emergency Operations Center. More than 60 shelters had been opened for people with special needs.

Not all health organizations made the difficult choice to transfer their patients out of Irma’s path. Tampa General Hospital, the highest level trauma center in the region, remained open and full of patients and staff, despite being surrounded by water on the tip of Davis Islands.

The hospital is in Zone A, the area most vulnerable to storm surge.

A spokesman for the hospital, John Dunn, said by phone Saturday night that staff members had arrived on Friday to stay throughout the storm and work in shifts to care for the hospital’s approximately 700 patients.

Mr. Dunn said the hospital had submarine doors to protect against flooding, and generators had been elevated from the ground floor to a higher level. They are capable of powering air-conditioning for parts of the buildings, he said.

He added that the hospital’s leaders had spoken in the past with local emergency officials and with the Federal Emergency Management Agency about how the hospital might evacuate. “There are not many resources available to be able to evacuate large numbers of patients,” he said.

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Eric Bolling is out at Fox News amid allegations of sexual harassment — and the network is canceling his new show

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eric bolling
Eric Bolling.
AP
Images

Fox News on Friday parted ways with host Eric Bolling and
canceled the show he co-anchored amid allegations that he
sent lewd, unsolicited messages to network employees.

In a brief statement provided to Business Insider, Fox News
confirmed the cancelation of “The Fox News Specialists,” which
was first reported by the Huffington Post on Friday.

“We thank Eric for his ten years of service to our loyal viewers
and wish him the best of luck,” a network spokesperson said.

Bolling
was suspended from Fox News last month amid
allegations that he sent unsolicited photos of male genitalia to
several employees at Fox News and Fox Business Network, where
he was featured before joining Fox News.

The former anchor has denied the allegations,
and sued reporter Yashar Ali for defamation over the
story. 

Friday’s decision may preclude a larger lineup shakeup that some
at the network have speculated about since Bolling’s suspension
last month. 

CNN’s Brian Stelter
reported in August that conservative pundit Laura Ingraham
was in serious discussions t0 join Fox News’ primetime lineup.

Two sources familiar with the situation told Business
Insider last month that the lineup was still in question but
many suspected “The Five” would move back to its old 5 p.m. slot,
making way for Ingraham to occupy the 9 p.m. slot, where “The
Five” moved earlier this year. Ingraham’s show could also air at
10 p.m., moving host Sean Hannity into the 9 p.m. slot.

Mexico Earthquake, Strongest in a Century, Kills Dozens

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Giant Earthquake Shakes Mexico

The country was struck by an 8.2-magnitude quake, the strongest in decades, killing at least 58 people and leveling areas in some southern states.


By CAMILLA SCHICK on September 8, 2017.


Photo by Luis Alberto Cruz/Associated Press.

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JUCHITÁN DE ZARAGOZA, Mexico — Thousands of homes in this city were severely damaged. Half of the 19th-century city hall, with its 30 arches, collapsed. The main hospital here was so devastated that staff members evacuated patients to an empty lot and worked by the light of their cellphones.

By the time the earthquake’s tremors finally faded, at least 36 people in Juchitán de Zaragoza were dead.

“It’s a truly critical situation,” Óscar Cruz López, the city’s municipal secretary, said Friday. “The city,” he said, and then paused. “It’s as if it had been bombed.”

Over all, the earthquake — the most powerful to hit the country in a century — killed at least 58 people in Mexico, all of them in the southern part of the country that was closer to the quake’s epicenter off the Pacific Coast.

The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 8.2 and struck shortly before midnight on Thursday, was felt by tens of millions of people in Mexico and in Guatemala, where at least one person died as well.

In Mexico City, the capital, which still bears the physical and psychological scars of a devastating earthquake in 1985 that killed as many as 10,000 people, alarms sounding over loudspeakers spurred residents to flee into the streets in their pajamas.

The city seemed to convulse in terrifying waves, making street lamps and the Angel of Independence monument, the capital’s signature landmark, sway like a metronome’s pendulum.

But this time, the megalopolis emerged largely unscathed, with minor structural damage and only two of its nearly nine million people reporting injuries, neither serious, officials said.

In the southern part of the country, however, at least 10 people died in Chiapas State and three died in neighboring Tabasco, including two children: one when a wall collapsed and the other after a respirator lost power in a hospital, officials said.

Residents of Mexico City gathered outdoors after an earthquake struck off the Pacific Coast, about 450 miles away, late Thursday.


Pedro Pardo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Chiapas officials said that more than 400 houses had been destroyed and about 1,700 others were damaged.

In Oaxaca State, at least 45 people were killed, including the 36 in here in Juchitán, a provincial city of 100,000.

“A total disaster,” the mayor, Gloria Sánchez López, declared in a telephone interview in which she appealed for help. “Don’t leave us alone.”

President Enrique Peña Nieto flew to the region on Friday afternoon to assess the damage. And several leaders in Latin America and elsewhere offered assistance to Mexico, including the presidents of Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and Spain.

Mexico is also facing the additional threat of Hurricane Katia, which is gathering strength in the Gulf of Mexico and expected to make landfall in Veracruz State early Saturday.

“You can count on us,” President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia said on Twitter.

Residents in Juchitán spent the morning using backhoes and their bare hands to dig through the wreckage of collapsed buildings and pull the injured, and the dead, from the rubble.

By early afternoon, the efforts had mostly turned from rescues to a cleanup operation, though the municipal secretary, Mr. Cruz, said that workers were still trying to claw through the mounds of debris left by the collapse of the city hall to reach one last victim, a police officer. Nobody knew if he was still alive.

“It is a nightmare we weren’t prepared for,” said a member of the City Council, Pamela Teran, in an interview with a local radio station. She estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the houses in the city were destroyed.

“A lot of people have lost everything, and it just breaks your heart,” she added, bursting into tears.

SEPT. 8, 2017

By The New York Times

With the hospital — the region’s main medical center — destroyed, officials converted a grade school into a makeshift clinic and moved the hospital’s patients and the hundreds of injured survivors there.

Local officials appealed to state and federal governments for aid to help with the recovery.

“It’s impossible to resolve this catastrophe, to respond to something of this magnitude, by ourselves,” Mr. Cruz said.

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Aftershocks continued through the day Friday, unnerving the city’s residents, many of whom spent much of the day out in the street rather than return to their homes, said Juan Antonio García, the director of the Juchitán news website Cortamortaja.

Reports of damage elsewhere in the region continued to emerge throughout the afternoon. In Union Hidalgo, just to the east of Juchitán, the mayor reported that about 500 houses had been destroyed.

Schools in at least 10 Mexican states and in Mexico City were closed on Friday as the president ordered an assessment of the damage nationwide.

“We are assessing the damage, which will probably take hours, if not days,” President Peña Nieto said in televised comments to the nation two hours after the quake.

Throughout the day Mexicans lined up at emergency collection centers around the country to donate food, water and other supplies for delivery to the earthquake victims.

Mexico is situated near the colliding boundaries of several sections of the earth’s crust.

The quake on Thursday was more powerful than the one in 1985 that flattened or seriously damaged thousands of buildings in Mexico City.

While the quake on Thursday struck nearly 450 miles from the capital, off the coast of Chiapas State, the one in 1985 was much closer to the capital, so the shaking proved much more deadly.

Patients in a clinic in Puebla, Mexico, were taken outside after the quake.


Imelda Medina/Reuters

After the 1985 disaster, construction codes were reviewed and stiffened. Today, Mexico’s construction laws are considered as strict as those in the United States or Japan.

Though many Mexicans have grown accustomed to earthquakes, taking them as an immutable fact of life, Thursday’s quake left a lasting impression on residents of the capital for both its force and duration.

“The scariest part of it all is that if you are an adult, and you’ve lived in this city your adult life, you remember 1985 very vividly,” said Alberto Briseño, a 58-year-old bar manager. “This felt as strong and as bad.”

“Now we will do what us Mexicans do so well: Take the bitter taste of this night and move on,” he added.

The quake occurred near the Middle America Trench, a zone in the eastern Pacific where one slab of the earth’s crust, called the Cocos Plate, is sliding under another, the North American, in a process called subduction.

The movement is very slow — about three inches a year — and over time stress builds because of friction between the slabs. At some point, the strain becomes so great that the rock breaks and slips along a fault. This releases vast amounts of energy and, if the slip occurs under the ocean, can move a lot of water suddenly, causing a tsunami.

Subduction zones ring the Pacific Ocean and are also found in other regions. They are responsible for the world’s largest earthquakes and most devastating tsunamis.

The magnitude-9 earthquake off Japan in 2011, which led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and the magnitude-9.1 quake in Indonesia in 2004, which spawned tsunamis that killed a quarter of a million people around the Indian Ocean, are recent examples.

Those quakes each released about 30 times as much energy as the one in Mexico.

Mexico’s government issued a tsunami warning off the coast of Oaxaca and Chiapas after Thursday’s quake, but neither state appeared to have been adversely affected by waves.

In Guatemala, the military was out Friday morning assessing the damage, found mainly in the western part of the country.

In Huehuetenango, bricks and glass were strewn on the ground as walls in the city collapsed. Quetzaltenango, Guatemala’s second-largest city, which was beginning to recover from a tremor in June, suffered more damage to its historic center.


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