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Powerful Hurricane Irma could be next weather disaster
(CNN)While much of the United States’ focus is still on Texas and the destruction left behind by Hurricane Harvey and its historic rainfall, powerful Hurricane Irma is rapidly intensifying in the open Atlantic and poses a major threat to the Caribbean and potentially the United States next week.
Trump, lawmakers considering request for $6 billion in emergency Harvey-related aid
Widespread flooding due to Tropical Storm Harvey in La Grange, Tex., on Monday. (Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
White House officials and congressional leaders are discussing a plan that would authorize roughly $6 billion in emergency assistance to deal with the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey, and President Trump could send a specific request for the funding as soon as Friday, people briefed on the discussions said.
White House officials and congressional leaders have discussed authorizing $5.5 billion toward the depleted Disaster Relief Fund, which is run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Another $450 million could be authorized for the Small Business Administration’s Disaster Loan Program. FEMA is in charge of coordinating the U.S. government’s response to things like hurricanes and floods, and the SBA can extend loans to help companies rebuild and recover.
No final decisions about the funding amount have been made, and conversations remained fluid Thursday evening.
Trump has said he would move swiftly to help Harvey victims recover and rebuild from the flooding in Houston and other parts in Southeast Texas, and some Democrats have already said the area could need more than $150 billion in federal aid. The $5.95 billion request is expected to be just an initial down payment on a larger package of federal aid that would come together later, people briefed on the planning said. White House officials and congressional leaders are hopeful that a request of that size could be approved swiftly.
Once Trump sends the official request for the emergency funds to Congress — either Friday or sometime next week — a number of scenarios could play out, people involved in the discussions said.
The House of Representatives could authorize the money on its own or combine it with a broader package to fund the federal government for the next fiscal year, which begins in October. Then the Senate could decide to pass the same bill, or attach an increase in the debt ceiling to the legislation because it would likely have bipartisan support.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the White House was preparing to send a request to Congress. Bloomberg News reported the specific amounts under consideration Thursday.
In Texas chemical-plant fire, failure of backup measures raises new fears
When the hurricane blew in, workers at the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Tex., faced the problem of keeping the plant’s volatile chemicals cold. The plant had 19.5 tons of organic peroxides of various strengths, all of them requiring refrigeration to prevent ignition.
But the power went out, and then the floodwaters came and knocked out the plant’s generators. A liquid nitrogen system faltered. In a last-ditch move, the workers transferred the chemicals to nine huge refrigerated trucks, each with its own generator, and moved the vehicles to a remote section of the plant.
That was doomed to fail, too. Six feet of water swamped the trucks, and the final 11 workers gave up. At 2 a.m. Tuesday, they called for a water evacuation and left the plant to its fate.
Early Thursday, two loud pops signaled an explosive combustion in one of the trucks, and a black plume of smoke spread from the plant, sending 15 police officers and paramedics to the hospital. All eight remaining vehicles are now likely to burn, said Robert W. Royall Jr., assistant chief of emergency operations for the Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office.
We are “watching physics at work,” Arkema spokesman Jeff Carr said Thursday. “Probably a couple more tonight.”
Explosion evacuee Martha Higdon and her son Truman, left, speaks outside of the First Baptist Church, which has been set up as a shelter for residents evacuated from their homes following an explosion at the Arkema Chemical Plant in Crosby, Texas. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
While the crisis has not yet equaled the severity of explosions suffered by other Texas chemical plants, the crisis at Crosby has exposed the vulnerability of hundreds of chemical plants in low-lying areas across the U.S. Gulf Coast.
“The Crosby plant’s dangerous situation is a symptom of a bigger problem involving the oil and chemical industry in the gulf region,” said Bill Hoyle, a former senior investigator for the Chemical Safety Board and now an independent safety consultant. “The Crosby plant is a wake-up call for an industry and their safety regulators who have not adequately taken action on lessons from Hurricane Katrina as well as the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.”
Texas has more than 1,300 chemical plants, a large number of them in low-lying areas near the coast that are vulnerable to flooding. Arkema’s Crosby plant was built decades ago, but access to gulf ports and the surge in shale gas operations in Texas and Louisiana have lured scores of new chemical plants to the Gulf Coast region.
Although the fire and blasts have so far not been as dire as many feared, the loss of control of dangerous materials and the igniting of volatile chemicals spread anxiety and triggered an investigation by the Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency.
The plant produced organic peroxides, which are used in a variety of products including pipes, plastics, acrylic paints, countertops and pharmaceuticals. A company spokesman estimated that 19.5 tons of chemicals were at the site. Small amounts can irritate the skin or damage corneas, and in larger amounts could cause liver damage, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). But the company spokesman said “the issue is a combustion event, not a chemical release.”
The Arkema emergency raises anew a host of concerns for chemical manufacturers. After the 1984 tragedy in Bhopal, India, in which a chemical leak from a Union Carbide plant killed more than 2,000 people and injured many thousands more, then-Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) pressed for legislation requiring chemical companies to describe their own worst-case scenarios.
Arkema, whose slogan is “Innovative Chemistry,” filed one of those reports in June 2014 for its plant in Crosby, warning that in the most catastrophic scenario, 1.1 million people within a 23-mile radius would be affected. In Texas alone, 32 other plants also warned that more than a million people could be affected by a chemical catastrophe, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
Richard Rennard, president of acrylic monomers, America for Arkema Inc. speaks during a news conference Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017, in Crosby, Texas. (Gregory Bull/AP)
But Arkema stressed that “multiple layers of preventive and mitigation measures in use at the Crosby facility make it very unlikely” that a worst-case scenario would occur. And “in the unlikely event that such a release occurs, Arkema, Inc. has mitigation measures in place to reduce any potential impacts.”
This week, however, some layers of preventive measures failed.
“Certainly, we didn’t anticipate having six feet of water in our plant,” Richard Rennard, president of Arkema’s acrylic monomers division, told reporters Thursday.
Hundreds of plants have been shut down since Hurricane Harvey approached Texas last week, posing environmental dangers as they restart their waterlogged facilities.
About 5 percent of Texas facilities registered in the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory Program were plotted in or adjacent to flooded areas observed from satellite imagery through Wednesday, according to a Washington Post analysis. They included factories that produce petroleum, plastics and rubber, and deal with hazardous waste. Of those, 23 deal specifically with chemicals.
Arkema, a spinoff of the French oil giant Total, has more than 30 sites in the United States, and like other operators in the industry, has lobbied federal regulators to delay new regulations designed to improve safety and disclosure at chemical plants.
The company has also run afoul of OSHA regulations.
In February, Arkema’s Crosby plant was initially fined $107,918 for 10 OSHA violations, federal records show. The violations were marked as “serious,” meaning they could cause serious physical injury or worker deaths if not remedied. One included a violation of inspection procedures that were supposed to “follow recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices.”
The government later reduced the fines to about $91,000.
Arkema also agreed to a settlement with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) in January stemming from a leak of a toxic and flammable compound in June 2016, state records show. The plant released 4,800 pounds of isoamylene after workers left a valve partially open for 62 hours, allowing the chemical to drain from a storage tank, according to enforcement records.
A state inspection of the facility months earlier also found seven violations. The TCEQ lists the company’s overall compliance history as “satisfactory,” however. For the June leak, commission imposed a modest fine after concluding that residents and the environment had been exposed to “insignificant amounts” of pollutants.
Even in the current crisis at Crosby, Royall, the Harris County emergency operations official, said that the danger from the Arkema plant was “really relative.”
“If you’re standing right next to something and you had a chemical release, it would probably be pretty dangerous, I think you’d agree,” Royall said. “But we have a mile-and-a-half safety radius, and there’s nobody in that plant.”
The events at the plant cause more worries for residents already dealing with inundated homes. But for some residents, the threat is not extraordinary.
There have been so many plant explosions in the Houston area that resident Robin Boethin cannot keep them straight. She recalled the Texas City refinery explosion in March 2005 — not to be confused with the Texas City disaster of 1947, one of the deadliest industrial accidents in U.S. history. Then there was the Pasadena incident in October 1989, in which gases ignited a series of explosions, killing 23 workers and injuring 300.
“It was a ka-boom type of thing,” she said from the counter of the Rusty Bucket, her antiques shop in Crosby, a few miles from the chemical plant. “It shook the house so bad I called 911. I thought someone was breaking in.”
Boethin and others in Crosby discussed chemical plant explosions and environmental disasters as a way of life in the Houston area, describing the risk of sprawling chemical sites as Californians might discuss the inevitability of the next earthquake.
“There’s danger and everyone knows it,” she said.
In the emergency response plan filed with the EPA in 2014, Arkema sketched out the possible disaster that would follow from the failure of one of its tanks of 2-methylpropene. It wouldn’t exactly be a fire or an explosion, but a fiery combination known in the chemical industry as a “bleve,” short for “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.”
In that grave scenario, the sudden release of flammable, toxic vapor could ignite in a fireball with a lethal “thermal radiation dose” that could extend over 1,000 feet — “approaching the yard of the residence nearest to the site.”
At a news conference Thursday, Arkema’s Rennard repeatedly and evenly walked reporters through the steps taken at the plant and the outlook for the coming days.
“We anticipate that all this product is going to degrade,” he said. “Whether it’s today, tomorrow, we just don’t know. It’s impossible to predict that.”
One reporter shouted, “Do you understand people are worried?”
“Of course we understand that,” Rennard said, “and that’s why we want to make sure people respect this one-and-a-half-mile radius. We don’t want people returning back to their homes thinking it’s over. It’s not over.”
Jack Gillum, Aaron C. Davis, Julie Tate, Andrew Ba Tran and Alex Horton contributed to this report. Horton reported from Crosby, Tex.
Port Arthur Faces Harvey Flooding Disaster: ‘Our Whole City Is Underwater’
In Port Arthur, Harvey Continues Path of Destruction
Homes and shelters were flooded and the largest oil refinery in the U.S. was shut down after heavy rains flooded Port Arthur, east of Houston, overnight Tuesday.
By MALACHY BROWNE, BARBARA MARCOLINI and CHRIS CIRILLO on Publish Date August 30, 2017.
Photo by Beulah Johnson, via Associated Press.
Watch in Times Video »
Even as the sun began to show in Houston on Wednesday, signaling a small measure of hope after days of devastating rainfall from Tropical Storm Harvey, a region east of the city faced disaster anew after it was pummeled by rain overnight.
Residents of cities in Jefferson County, Tex., about 100 miles east of Houston, were desperate for help Wednesday morning after rain there caused floodwaters to rise precipitously and lightning made things particularly difficult for those responding to the storm.
Many, finding emergency services unresponsive, sought assistance on social media, where their calls were amplified by digital onlookers seeking to help from afar.
Port Arthur’s mayor, Derrick Freeman, said on Facebook early Wednesday morning that rescue teams were contending with fires while trying to get residents to safety.
“Our whole city is underwater right now,” he wrote, in a message of encouragement that nonetheless communicated the distress the city was facing.
The water is crazy out here at #Motiva and it’s still raining. #PortArthur #Harvey @12NewsNow pic.twitter.com/BuSd7NbsVB
—
Leah Elyse Durain (@LeahDurain)
Aug. 30, 2017
This is my Aunt and Uncle’s hood in Port Arthur. The coast guard was called and told them they weren’t coming bc it’s not life threatening pic.twitter.com/DHdliBtBYS
—
Shakti Khan (@pr0totype_)
Aug. 30, 2017
The mayor of Beaumont, Becky Ames, told NBC that the flooding was like nothing she had ever seen before.
“Every single body of water around us is at capacity and overflowing and the rain is still coming down,” she said.
About 254,000 people live in Jefferson County, which Brock Long, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Wednesday had been “slammed with 20 inches of rainfall” overnight.
As news reports teemed with images from Port Arthur showing flooded homes and shelters, the city’s name began to trend on Twitter early Wednesday morning as dozens of residents posted their addresses and conditions, saying that they were trapped in their houses with children and older people in dire need of assistance. Even the city itself used Twitter to call for help.
A judge in Jefferson County, Jeff Branick, told a local news reporter that hundreds if not thousands of people were stranded on their roofs, on top of cars and in attics.
Sites that may have been able to withstand less forceful weather gave way to the pouring rain. The Robert A. Bowers Civic Center, where at least 100 people had taken shelter, was flooded overnight, according to a county sheriff’s deputy, and reports said that people were being removed.
The Bob Bower Civic Center that was serving as a shelter in #PortArthur is being evacuated after flooding overnight pic.twitter.com/Bv3iYmF70x
—
Dianne Gallagher (@DianneG)
Aug. 30, 2017
The Port Arthur-based Motiva oil refinery, the nation’s largest such facility, confirmed reports that it had started a controlled shutdown in response to the flooding.
In a video broadcast from his own flooded home, where the water was about knee high on Wednesday, Mayor Freeman said that the military and Coast Guard were helping with rescue efforts. He said that 911 lines were flooded, but that the city was continuing its rescue attempts.
“Harvey was not playing,” he said, as he sloshed through water that had invaded rooms, closets and his backyard, his optimism mingling with shock at the state of his house. “I know one thing though, it’s not going to defeat us.”
Tevin Baker, 18, who was trapped in his Port Arthur home with his mother, Kathy Baker, 56, tweeted for help throughout the night. The two were rescued shortly after 7:30 local time.
We need help 6038 15th street off of main ave please come
—
Tevin B. (@Tevin_98)
Aug. 30, 2017
“My house just started to flood,” he said in a phone interview. “We weren’t ready at all. It was very horrific for me and my mom.”
He said that the water had come in at a rate of about five or six inches an hour throughout the night, and he took videos of the flooding.
“At 1 it was in the garage, but by 4 it was at our ankles in the house,” he said. “By 7 we were just begging for help. We stood outside, we finally found someone who helped us.”
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Speaking from a shelter in the city, he said that he and his mother had been rescued by men in boats, and that he did not know where they would stay in the immediate future.
“Seeing that coming through the door and the back door and the garage door like that, you’re helpless, you feel helpless,” he added. “It was the worst feeling I’ve had in a long time.”
Amber Robinson, 27, whose friend Keith Pinault tweeted on her behalf, was rescued with her parents, ages 67 and 61, after water flooded their home on Memorial Boulevard in Port Arthur. Mr. Pinault deleted the call for help once the family was rescued.
Ms. Robinson said Wednesday that they had known that the storm was coming but did not expect the rain to be as fierce or unforgiving as it was. Her family had expected water to flood in from the garage, but instead it started coming up through the floor and was soon waist deep.
The family put a flatbed truck in the garage and opened the garage door so that they could be seen by rescue workers. They were on the truck from 3 a.m. until around 10 a.m., when they were taken to a temporary shelter in a bowling alley.
“We don’t know where we’re going to go for sure,” she said. “But we are definitely better now.”
Michelle Preble, 45, in Oregon City, Ore., was one of many people on Twitter trying to compile a list of the addresses being tweeted into something that could be useful to emergency medical workers and others responding to victims.
In a phone interview Wednesday, Ms. Preble, who grew up in Houston and has many friends and family there, said that she had taken a list of names, addresses and conditions and passed them along to the Cajun Navy volunteer force. She was able to contact the Navy’s dispatcher through the walkie-talkie style communication app Zello.
She said that while it initially had been difficult to track whether individual requests for help were being answered by the group, she began to get confirmations Wednesday afternoon that the people whose addresses she had sent had been picked up by the Navy, including a 99-year-old man whose granddaughter had tweeted on his behalf.
EMERGENCY:
MY 99 YEAR OLD GRANDFATHER NEEDS IMMEDIATE RESCUE HE IN WATER UP TO HIS NECK
1148 MAPLE PORT ARTHUR TEXAS.—
Shandy A Stewart (@sugarynsunshine)
Aug. 30, 2017
Eric Vargas, 19, had been waiting for help on a balcony in Port Arthur since early Wednesday morning, after the water inside his home rose to his stomach. He was initially with nine other adults and 10 children, including two as young as 2 years old, he said.
He said he had reached the Coast Guard, and the person he spoke to had told him to make sure that there was a white blanket in plain sight. But Mr. Vargas said that he had not been given any update as to when, or whether, the much-needed help would arrive.
“I’m just trying to be patient, but I guess I’m going to have to call again,” he said.
Reached again nearly four hours later, Mr. Vargas, who had decided to leave the balcony along with some relatives, still had not been rescued.
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Federal Judge Blocks Texas’ Ban on ‘Sanctuary Cities’
Judge Garcia appeared to block three provisions of the law, including one that stated that local government entities and officials may not “adopt, enforce or endorse” any policy limiting the enforcement of immigration laws.
Lawyers for those suing the state said prohibiting local officials from endorsing a particular viewpoint violates the First Amendment. Judge Garcia wrote that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed with that argument when the case goes to trial.
“The government may disagree with certain viewpoints, but they cannot ban them just because they are inconsistent with the view that the government seeks to promote,” Judge Garcia wrote. He added, “SB 4 clearly targets and seeks to punish speakers based on their viewpoint on local immigration enforcement policy.”
Some of the law’s most contentious provisions allow police officers to question the immigration status of a person whom they have arrested or detained, including during routine traffic stops, and create a system of harsh penalties for those who try to “materially limit” immigration enforcement, including removal from office for elected or appointed officials and criminal misdemeanor charges for sheriffs and other law enforcement officials.
In his ruling, Judge Garcia said that the law’s provision banning policies that limit enforcement of immigration laws was unconstitutionally vague and failed to define the specific prohibited conduct. The provision, the judge wrote, “ascribes criminal and quasi-criminal penalties based upon violations of an inscrutable standard, in a manner that invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement against disfavored localities.”
Texas vowed to appeal Judge Garcia’s decision, setting the stage for the case to be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, one of the country’s most conservative appeals panels. Judge Garcia, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, was a Democratic state lawmaker in the 1980s.
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Critics of Senate Bill 4, including the police chiefs in Houston, San Antonio and other large cities, said it would open the door to racial profiling of Hispanics and prevent legal and undocumented immigrants from reporting crimes to the police. Latino and civil rights groups call it a “show me your papers” law that echoes the one enacted by Arizona in 2010 that led to lawsuits and boycotts.
Supporters of Senate Bill 4 say that opponents have distorted its intent and potential impact. They said the law has a provision specifically prohibiting racial profiling and argued that a Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that upheld part of the Arizona law put the state on solid legal ground. The Trump administration’s Justice Department has also defended the Texas law, filing statements of interest in the case.
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“U.S. Supreme Court precedent for laws similar to Texas’ law are firmly on our side,” Mr. Abbott said in a statement. “This decision will be appealed immediately and I am confident Texas’ law will be found constitutional and ultimately be upheld.”
Civil rights lawyers and Latino groups praised Judge Garcia’s ruling, calling the law racist and unconstitutional.
“The court properly struck down virtually all of what was perhaps the harshest anti-immigrant provision in modern times,” said Lee Gelernt, who is the deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and who represents the border town of El Cenizo and other plaintiffs in the suit.
Judge Garcia upheld the law’s provision that police officers can ask about the immigration status of those they detain or arrest. But he blocked the provision mandating that local jurisdictions comply with immigration detainer requests from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Judge Garcia said that by prohibiting local officials from declining a detainer request, the law also prohibited officials from questioning whether there was probable cause to support the detainer requested.
In his statement, the governor suggested that the judge’s blocking of that provision would make Texas less safe. “Because of this ruling, gang members and dangerous criminals, like those who have been released by the Travis County sheriff, will be set free to prey upon our communities,” Mr. Abbott said.
Critics of the law, however, including local officials in San Antonio, disagreed. “The city and the San Antonio Police Department have cooperated and will continue to cooperate with federal law enforcement’s reasonable requests,” San Antonio’s city attorney, Andy Segovia, said in a statement. “However, SB4 attempted to remove any discretion from local law enforcement in how to best serve the residents of San Antonio.”
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Houston flood: ‘No way to prevent’ chemical plant blast or fire
A chemical plant near the flooded US city of Houston is expected to explode and catch fire in the coming days.
During heavy rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, the Arkema plant at Crosby lost the ability to refrigerate chemical compounds that need to be kept cool.
There was no way to prevent an explosion, the company said.
At least 33 people have been killed in the aftermath of the storm, which the US National Weather Service has now downgraded to a tropical depression.
It has forecast continuing heavy rainfall over eastern Texas and western Louisiana.
US energy supplies have been hit, as oil companies shut down refineries in the Houston area.
Firefighters will begin a door-to-door search of badly flooded areas of Houston on Thursday, to rescue survivors who are still stranded and recover the bodies of those who have died.
“We’ll be doing block-by-block, door-by-door search of streets… to make sure there are no people we’ve left behind,” Richard Mann, the city’s assistant fire chief, was quoted as saying by the Houston Chronicle newspaper.
“This will be a one- to two-week-long process to make sure we address all those areas that have been… most impacted.”
What happened at the chemical plant?
The Arkema chemical plant shut down its production on Friday, before the storm made landfall.
But 40in (102cm) of rainfall in the area flooded the site and cut off its power, the company said in a statement. Back-up generators were also flooded.
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Google
The facility manufactures organic peroxides, compounds that are used in everything from making pharmaceuticals to construction materials, which can become dangerous at higher temperatures.
“Any fire will probably resemble a large gasoline fire,” CEO Richard Rowe told Reuters news agency. “The fire will be explosive and intense.”
He said the black smoke produced would irritate skin, eyes and lungs.
“The high water that exists on site, and the lack of power, leave us with no way to prevent it.”
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The fire is expected to be mostly contained to the site itself but residents have been evacuated in a 1.5 mile (2.4 km) radius around the plant as a precaution.
The last remaining workers at the site were evacuated on Tuesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a temporary ban on flights near the plant.
How are rescue efforts progressing?
Parts of Texas have been hit by more than 50in of rainfall since Hurricane Harvey landed on 25 August, setting new records before it was downgraded to a tropical storm and, late on Wednesday, to a tropical depression.
Rescue efforts continued overnight. Thousands of people have been rescued from the floodwaters, and more than 32,000 people are being housed in emergency shelters.
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Getty Images
Port Arthur is among the areas severely flooded
Large parts of Houston, the fourth most populous city in the US, remain under water.
The city is also a key energy hub. The storm and its subsequent flooding has knocked out about a quarter of the country’s refining capacity, sending petrol prices to a two-year high.
After
Before
Port Arthur, about 80 miles east of Houston, was also severely flooded. Mayor Derrick Freeman, posting on Facebook, said the entire city was under water, and appealed for anyone who owned a boat to help.
Details of some of those who died in Texas have emerged:
- In Beaumont, north-west of Port Arthur, rescue teams saved an 18-month old girl found clinging to her dead mother in the floodwaters
- In Harris County, the bodies of six people – a couple and their four great-grandchildren – were recovered from a submerged van
- A married couple drowned when their truck was swept away while they were on the phone to emergency services asking for help, the Associated Press reports
“To those Americans who have lost loved ones, all of America is grieving with you, and our hearts are joined with yours forever,” President Donald Trump said in a speech a day after seeing the effects of the flooding during a trip to Texas.
On Tuesday, Houston implemented a curfew to prevent looting of abandoned homes. Port Arthur followed suit on Wednesday.
- Child found clinging to dead mum in storm
- In maps: Houston and Texas flooding
- What is it like to be in Houston?
Image copyright
Reuters
Helicopters were used to rescue people in Beaumont
What happens next?
An additional 10,000 members of the National Guard were said to be on their way to Texas to join the rescue efforts, adding to the 14,000 troops already deployed.
Harvey was the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years when it first made landfall at Corpus Christi, 220 miles south-west of Houston last week.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the state could need more than $125bn (£97bn) from the federal government to help it recover.
And he warned “the worst is not yet over”, as flooding was expected to continue for several days.
- Stars rally round for Houston relief
- This is the civilian ‘navy’ helping Houston
- The massive economic cost of the flood
- Hurricane Harvey: The climate link
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Meanwhile, the tropical depression is now moving north-north-east, the US National Weather Service said.
Heavy rainfall is expected from Louisiana to Kentucky over the next three days, and flood warnings remain in effect for south-east Texas and parts of south-west Louisiana.
Are you affected by Tropical Storm Harvey? Let us know about your experiences. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your stories.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
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Cancelados 10 vuelos entre Newark, Baltimore y Washington y Costa Rica este sábado por tormenta en EE. UU.
Cinco llegadas y cinco salidas de las aerolíneas United Airlines y SouthWest de los aeropuertos de Newark (Nueva Jersey), Baltimore y Washington y Juan Santamaría en Costa Rica fueron cancelados este sábado debido a la fuerte tormenta de nieve que azota la costa noreste de Estados Unidos.
Según la información de la compañía Aeris, que administra el Aeropuerto Juan Santamaría, en Alajuela, algunos de los vuelos (llegadas y salidas) de American Airlines, JetBlue y Spirit Air de Miami, Orlando y Fort Lauderdale con Costa Rica se encuentran demorados, aunque también hay otros entre esos destinos que están confirmados o “a tiempo”.
Los vuelos desde y con destino los aeropuertos de Los Ángeles, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, Chicago, Toronto (Canadá) están “a tiempo” o confirmados.
Las autoridades recomiendan a los viajeros y familiares revisar la información de llegadas y salidas en la página web del Aeropuerto para confirmar el estado de cada vuelo.
Entre las llegadas a Costa Rica canceladas se encuentran los vuelos de United que debían arribar a las 11:40 a.m., 1:05 p.m., 1:30 p.m. y 10:29 p.m. desde Newark y Washington. Asimismo un vuelo de SouthWest que debía partir de Baltimore hacia el Juan Santamaría y cuya llegada habría sido a las 12:45 p.m.
Entre las salidas suspendidas están las de United a las 2 p.m., 2:25 p.m., 3:15 p.m. y 11:25 p.m. con destino a Washington y Newark. También fue cancelado el vuelo de SouthWest hacia Baltimore que debía partir a la 1:40 p.m. y aparece cancelado un viaje de Lacsa a Cancún programado para las 10:50 p.m.
La cancelación de los vuelos a EE. UU. se debe a una gran tormenta de nieve y fuertes vientos que paraliza desde este jueves la costa este de Estados Unidos, desde Georgia hasta Connecticut, con 10 estados y Washington D.C. en situación de emergencia y 33 millones de personas en máxima alerta.
La tormenta se intensificó en la noche del viernes.
La fuerte tormenta, bautizada como Jonas por The Weather Channel, afecta a un total de 85 millones de personas e impacta tanto el transporte terrestre como el aéreo.
Se reportan 3.686 cancelaciones de vuelos este viernes, 4.738 este sábado y 1.192 para mañana, según el recuento de la web FlightAware.
El aeropuerto Ronald Reagan, el más cercano a Washington aunque situado en Virginia, amaneció hoy con 35 centímetros de nieve y en la base aérea de Langley (Virginia) se han alcanzado vientos de 120 kilómetros por hora.
El pronóstico de la tormenta es que dure al menos hasta la noche de este sábado y deje hasta 76 centímetros de nieve con vientos de hasta 96 kilómetros por hora.
Issue #1: America’s Money – Everyday on CNN
<![CDATA[]]>
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Shares in the parent company of United Airlines fell 11% Monday after being halted on speculation about a bankruptcy filing based on what the company said was a dated news story.
UAL spokeswoman Jean Medina told CNNMoney.com said the bankruptcy rumors were “completely untrue.”
The Nasdaq shut trading of the airline stock at 11:06 a.m. ET. The plummet seemed especially dramatic, given that the Nasdaq as a whole gained about 1% in morning trading.
At its lowest point, the stock was down 76% to $3 a share, but bargain buying brought the price up to $8.97 right before the Nasdaq shut trading.
UAL (UAUA, Fortune 500) resumed trading at 12:30 p.m. ET. The stock closed at $10.92, down $1.38, or 11.2%.
United issued a statement that the rumors stemmed from the Florida Sun Sentinel’s “irresponsible posting” of a Chicago Tribune story from 2002 – the year that United actually did file for bankruptcy. But in the Sun Sentinel posting, the date was changed, United said.
United, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2006, said it “demanded a retraction from the Sun Sentinel and is launching an investigation.”
“United continues to execute its previously announced business plan to successfully navigate through an environment marked by volatile fuel prices and continues to have strong liquidity,” United said in a press release.
A statement on the Web site of Tribune Co., parent of the Tribune and Sun-Sentinel: “We have been informed that a 2002 Chicago Tribune news report about United Airlines’ financial condition was picked up and circulated on the Internet Monday morning. The story is not current. We are looking into the situation.” 
United Airlines may outsource ramp, ticket agent work at 28 airports
CLEVELAND, Ohio — United Airlines told ramp workers and counter agents at 28 airports Monday that it may turn to vendors to perform their jobs.
United said it may outsource up to 2,000 positions at the airports to companies that would do the work more inexpensively. The jobs include “under-the-wing” positions such as ramp workers and baggage handlers, and “above-the-wing” jobs, including customer service and ticket agents, all represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union.
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is not among those where United said it’s considering outside vendors.
The affected airports are in Anchorage, Atlanta, Billings, Boise, Fort Myers, Greensboro, Hartford, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, McAllen (Texas), Miami, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Ontario (Los Angeles), Norfolk, Providence, Raleigh-Durham, Richmond, Reno, San Antonio, San Jose, Sacramento, Spokane, St. Louis, Tulsa and West Palm Beach.
Last fall, United outsourced about 635 jobs at 12 U.S. airports. In 2013, it turned to vendors at six U.S. airports and three in Canada, involving about 500 jobs.
But 236 employees at three airports in Hawaii in July voted to accept concessions to keep their jobs.
United will meet with IAM representatives “to explore possibilities for keeping this work in-house,” spokesman Luke Tunzenberger said of the latest belt-tightening.
“This boils down to making sure our costs are competitive.”
IAM leaders could not be reached Monday afternoon.