Baltic Dry Index. 2462 -37 Brent Crude 61.54
Spot Gold 1506
Never ending Brexit now October 31,
maybe. 54 days away.
Trump’s Nuclear China Tariffs
Now In Effect.
USA v EU trade war postponed to
November, maybe.
Not the usual update this weekend. This weekend
the big story isn’t Brexit, trade wars, recessions, or political incompetence.
This weekend’s big story is likely to be the developing tragedy in parts of the
Bahamas and how to get them desperately needed help.
This weekend, the aftermath of Hurricane
Dorian. Bahamas relief news. While next
door USA takes the lead, far away China gets involved. The US government is
suspicious, but in Great Abaco and Grand Bahama Island the need is urgent and
great.
Thousands try to flee hurricane-devastated Bahamas islands
September 6, 2019 / 3:55 PM
NASSAU, Bahamas (Reuters) - Hundreds of
people fled the Bahamas island of Great Abaco by boat and plane on Friday and
thousands more lined up to get on a cruise ship leaving neighbouring Grand
Bahama to escape the catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane Dorian.
The most
powerful hurricane on record to hit the Bahamas swept through the islands
earlier this week, levelling some neighborhoods, swallowing others with storm
surge, and causing what one official described as a “staggering” number of
deaths.
Hundreds, if
not thousands, are still missing in the country of about 400,000 people, but
the official death toll stands at only 43, according to news media reports late
on Friday, including the Washington Post and NBC.
Eight people
were confirmed dead from the storm in Grand Bahama and 35 people in the Abocos
Islands, the Post reported, citing officials in the Bahamas.
That toll is
likely to soar as more bodies are discovered in the ruins and floodwaters left
behind by the storm.
In Freeport,
witnesses said thousands crowded the port to try to get on a Bahamas Paradise
Cruise Line ship offering free passage to Florida to those with necessary U.S.
immigration documentation.
Dazed
evacuees, some with nothing but the clothes on their backs and plastic shopping
bags, sat in the Kendal G. L. Isaacs National Gymnasium in Nassau which has
been turned into a shelter.
“Nobody can
help anybody in Abaco, there’s no place safe, everything is destroyed,” said
Firstina Swain, 75, who said she lost her home. “The people of Abaco need to
get out, there are too many dead bodies, and I don’t think they finished
finding them.”
A boat with
250 evacuees left battered Abaco and arrived in Nassau, the capital of the
Bahamas, which is located on New Providence island to the west and was less
affected. Another boat with hundreds aboard was on its way, National Voice of
the Bahamas radio reported.
---- The medical chief of staff at Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau said two refrigerated, 40-foot trucks would be needed to hold the “staggering” number of bodies that were expected to be found.
“We’ve ordered lots of body bags,” said Dr. Caroline Burnett-Garraway.
Those
injured by the storm, which at one point was a Category 5 hurricane on the
five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, were treated for fractures, head
injuries, lacerations, skin rashes and dehydration.
Near an area
called The Mudd in Marsh Harbour, the commercial hub, a Reuters witness
described a devastating scene, with most houses levelled, a man lying dead near
a main street and dead dogs in water. Some residents were leaving the area with
meagre possessions, while others were determined to remain.
---- Relief groups are focussing on getting doctors, nurses and medical supplies into the hardest-hit areas and helping survivors get food and safe drinking water.
The relief
effort faces formidable logistical challenges because of the widespread
destruction caused by Dorian, which hovered over the Bahamas for nearly two
days with torrential rains and fierce winds that whipped up 12- to 18-foot
(3.7- to 5.5-meter) storm surges.
The risk of
outbreaks of diarrhoea and waterborne diseases is high because drinking water
may be contaminated with sewage, according to the Pan American Health
Organization, which described the situation for some people on Abaco as
“desperate.”
---- The United Nations estimated 70,000 people were in “immediate need of life-saving assistance” such as food, water and shelter. The U.N. World Food Programme is airlifting storage units, generators, prefab offices, and satellite equipment as well as 8 metric tonnes of ready-to-eat meals.
A Reuters witness saw widespread looting on Abaco, with people breaking into supermarkets and liquor stores.
Wendy Hawkes, whose home on Abaco was largely destroyed, described seeing neighbors standing outside their front doors with shotguns to ward off looters.
More
U.S., Britain, China send military, financial aid to stricken Bahamas
Sept. 6, 2019 / 4:02 PM
Sept. 6 (UPI) -- The United States, Britain and China announced the commitment of
funds and goods to help hurricane-devastated Bahamas.U.S. military and civilian emergency teams from the United States have been sent to the Bahamas, where tens of thousands of people need food and supplies after Hurricane Dorian struck the nation of the tens of thousands of residents on the small islands.
The White House has encouraged donations through the Center for International Disaster Information website.
The U.S. Coast Guard said on Friday morning that it has rescued 205 people in the Bahamas since the start of the hurricane, conducting air operations from Andros Island, Bahamas, with seven MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters and five MH-65 Dolphin helicopters.
Search and rescue missions, area assessments and logistical support are included in the Coast Guard's mission in support of the Bahamian National Emergency Management Agency and the Royal Bahamian Defense Force.
U.S. Marine Corps and Navy personnel in the Southeast United States have remained on alert to offer assistance, and the three ships and thousands of troops of the Marines' Bataan Amphibious Ready Group are prepared for deployment to the Bahamas.
"It just happens that the Bataan is postured just off the North Carolina coast right now, because it was doing some maneuvers and preparation for readiness," Air Force Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, head of U.S. Northern Command, said on Thursday. "It is actually loaded out in a manner that is actually fairly conducive to operations in support of a natural disaster."
Britain, of which the Bahamas was a colony from 1718 until its 1973 independence, committed an initial $1.23 million to deliver critical aid supplies aboard Royal Navy ship RFA Mounts Bay.
On Wednesday, a Royal Navy Wildcat helicopter deployed with the ship rescued a British citizen trapped beneath rubble for several days on the Bahamas' Great Abaco Island.
China committed $20,000 in goods as well, with Huang Qinguo, Chinese Ambassador to the Bahamas, assuring additional assistance in a ceremony on Wednesday. The action is of interest to White House officials concerned about the national security implications if China gets involved in the Bahamas' needs.
A Chinese foothold there would be about 50 miles from the Florida coast, and a long-term relationship could be a part of China's growing influence around the world. Economics, surveillance and potentially a naval base are among potential areas of concern.
More
‘We’re getting desperate’: Bahamians want out, as relief to storm-ravaged islands escalates
September 06, 2019 11:47 AM
Marsh
Harbour, Bahamas
Relief
efforts escalated Friday for the hurricane-ravaged islands of Grand Bahama and
the Abacos, with the U.S. military planning airlifts, government officials
touring the disaster zones and a private cruise ship delivering tons of
supplies.
But many
suffering Bahamians, baking under a blistering sun, simply wanted out on Friday
— and the pace of evacuations was maddeningly slow.
“It’s all so
unsure and chaotic,” said Angelique Hall, who was nursing an infected leg and
joined her blind father and young child at the Marsh Harbour Port Authority
hoping to catch a ride to Nassau. “We’re getting desperate here.”
Hall and her
family were among 300 to 400 people who crowded the port. A private ferry was
hired to evacuate port employees. The boat only had room for about 100
evacuees, and police and military officers were trying to prioritize women,
children and the sick.
A similar
scene played out at the port in Grand Bahama Island, where the Palm Beach-based
Grand Celebration cruise ship, which delivered tons of water and food Friday
morning, boarded Bahamians with permission to return to the United States. But
hundreds of desperate people gathered in the sweltering heat, and a line of
cars snaked for miles, as people tried to board three boats scheduled to leave
Freeport on Friday evening.
“After
midday, things got out of control,” said Urnik Forbes, 13. “I was panicking
holding my little sister.”
more
In
other Dorian news, it’s mostly a story of relief.
Hurricane Dorian floods island as it swipes North Carolina then heads north
September 6, 2019 / 7:55 AM
KITTY HAWK, N.C. (Reuters) - Hurricane
Dorian briefly made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina on Friday,
hitting the beach-fringed barrier islands with powerful winds and battering
waves days after reducing parts of the Bahamas to rubble.
The storm
made landfall at Cape Hatteras at about 9 a.m. (1300 GMT) with maximum
sustained winds of 90 miles per hour (150 km per hour), according to the
National Hurricane Centre. That was far weaker than its slow, deadly tour
through the Bahamas earlier in the week that caused at least 43 deaths,
according to news media accounts late Friday, and likely many more.
By late
afternoon, Dorian was moving away from the mid-Atlantic states and headed
towards Canada where it was expected to bring hurricane-force winds to parts of
Nova Scotia by Saturday evening, the National Hurricane Centre said.
The storm
surge inundated the Outer Banks’ Ocracoke Island, cutting off power and
submerging many homes and buildings, North Carolina Governor Ray Cooper told
reporters.
Floodwaters
came halfway up to kitchen countertops and battered fences and boardwalks,
according to images on social media. One island resident uploaded a video on
social media showing people driving a speedboat down a flooded street.
“We estimate
about 800 people remained on the island during the storm and have heard reports
from residents who say the flooding there was catastrophic,” Cooper said.
“We’re thankful not to have reports of serious injury or death since the storm
arrived.”
More
Next
who’d want to be a US grain farmer?
Massive, rotting soybean pile still burns after catching fire in July
Sept. 6, 2019 / 3:00 AM
EVANSVILLE,
Ind., Sept. 6 (UPI) -- A mountain of rotting soybeans in Missouri caught fire
in July -- and continues to burn.
The huge
pile started to rot after being soaked during historic spring flooding that hit
northern Missouri, western Iowa and Nebraska, said Patrick Burke, a spokesman
for Gavilon, a Nebraska-based company that owns a grain elevator on the
property near Rock Port.
"With
all that pressure on the decaying beans, it started to heat up," Burke
said. "Then, we had a week straight of 100- to 110-degree days. So,
essentially, it just combusted and started on fire."
It is common
for grain elevators to store soybeans -- and other grains -- in large outdoor
piles, Burke said.
This pile caught fire in mid-July, and crews have been unable to extinguish the blaze for a number of reasons, Burke said.
When the fire started, much of the surrounding area still was underwater, and the roads were impassable, making it impossible for fire crews to reach the site, Burke said.
"Our only access to the facility for a while was by air boat," he said.
Also working against firefighters was the pile itself.
"It's a ground pile, and what happens with ground piles is a crust forms over the top," Burke said. "That crust is basically waterproof. We had one day where it rained a ton -- we basically had 6 inches of rain in 24 hours. It didn't even slow the fire down."
Moreover, because the pile essentially is burning from the inside out, any attempt to extinguish the fire risks exposing more oxygen to the inferno. That could create a much bigger blaze, firefighters said.
The fire is in a remote area, and it's not in danger of spreading to homes or other buildings. So, the company and nearby fire departments decided the safest course of action was to let the beans burn, Burke said.
That presents its own challenges.
On Aug. 8, the fire spread from the outdoor pile into the grain bins. Fire crews from the West Atchison Fire Department, Rock Port Fire Department and five other area departments responded, according to the Atchison County Mail. While the fire crews sprayed water over the bin, salvage crews cut holes in it to remove the unburnt grain, which brought the fire in the bin under control.
Meanwhile,
the outdoor pile continues to burn. The company doesn't know how long it will
take for the fire to burn out. "It's a large pile," Burke said.
"There's a lot of fuel for the fire to burn through."
Gavilon will
not say how many bushels of grain the pile contains, but neighbors report the
affected area is about the size of a football field.
"It is
this football-size pile of soybeans, 35 feet high, that's glowing bright
orange," said Blake Hurst, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, who
lives a few miles from the Gavilon facility. "It is really something to
see -- and sad to see."
This
spring's flooding ruined a massive amount of stored soybeans across the Midwest
and prevented farmers from planting millions of acres. Yet, the United States
still has nearly twice as many soybeans stored across the region as the
previous record year, said Patrick Westhoff, the director of the Food and
Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri.
More than 1
billion bushels of beans will be in storage this fall, according to U.S.
Department of Agriculture estimates.
"That
is the largest amount by far we've ever had," Westhoff said. "The
previous record was in 2006, and that was 574 million bushels. That is a huge,
huge carryover."
More
Film 'SILO' depicts deadly risks to farmers who store grain
Sept. 6, 2019 / 4:17 PM
EVANSVILLE, Ind., Sept. 6 (UPI) -- A new independent film, SILO, premiering in communities
across the Midwest focuses on a deadly -- and common -- type of farming
accident called grain entrapment.The movie, called SILO, depicts the day that a teenager becomes entrapped in a 50-foot-tall grain bin full of corn and his community works frantically to save him.
"At first, we thought this topic would be a really good piece of art," said Sam Goldberg, the film's producer. "But, as we did more research, and talked to agricultural professors, industry workers and firefighters, we realized these accidents are very frequent and preventable. And farmers wanted this issue depicted in a real manner."
Farm grain bin accidents kill dozens of people each year, and injure dozens more, according to Purdue University's Agricultural Safety and Health Program.
They can
happen in a number of ways.
Usually,
accidents occur when grain clumps together in the bin, preventing it from
flowing out of the container, said Jeff Adkisson, a board member on the Grain
Handling Safety Council. The farmer has to enter the container to break up the
grain. But, when he does that, the grain can easily become quicksand, sucking
the farmer down in a matter of seconds.
"When
you have an engulfment, that means you are under the grain, fully
submerged," Adkisson said. "An entrapment is when someone is trapped
up to about their abdomen, and they can't get out. Nearly every full engulfment
results in a recovery, not a rescue. We recover the body."
More
Finally,
Boston MA. On September 7, 1630, the City of Boston was officially founded.
A SHORT HISTORY OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, USA
By Tim Lambert
Boston
was founded in 1630 by English Puritans fleeing religious persecution. On 29
March 1630 a fleet of 11 ships carrying 700 people sailed from England to
Massachusetts. They were led by John Winthrop (1588-1649).
At
first the people settled at Charlestown, which had been founded the year
before. However fresh water was short so most of the new settlers moved across
the river to a peninsula called Trimountaine. In 1630 the new settlement was
named Boston after Boston in England from which many of the settlers came.
The
Puritans hoped to create a 'city on a hill' i.e. a shining example of a Godly
society for the entire world to see. Instead they created a society just as
intolerant as the one they had left. The Puritans went to America fleeing
religious persecution but they in turn persecuted the Quakers who they called a
'cursed sect'. A Baptist named Obadiah Holmes was publicly whipped in Boston in
July 1651. In October 1659 two Quakers named William Robinson and Marmaduke
Stevenson were hanged in Boston. Another Quaker named Mary Dyer was hanged on
Boston Common on 1 June 1660.
Nevertheless
the new settlement flourished. In 1631 the first sailing ship built in America
was launched from Boston and soon the shipbuilding industry thrived. There was
also a flourishing whaling industry and a fishing industry.
More
This weekend’s musical diversion. The prolific German composer, Hamburg’s Georg
Philipp Telemann.
G.PH. TELEMANN: Concerto for Trumpet, Violin, Strings and B.C. in D major TWV 53:D5, Ensemble Cordia
Georg Philipp Telemann
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August
DJIA: 26,403
+52 Down. NASDAQ: 7,963 +59 Down. SP500: 2,926 +53 unchanged.
An inconclusive month, but all three shows signs of weakening.
No comments:
Post a Comment