Page 33 - 082517

Groton Daily Independent
Friday, Aug. 25, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 056 ~ 33 of 65
back to the restaurant and shot a chef to get revenge.
The restaurant was packed with a lunchtime crowd and the rst of cers to arrive were able to get the
man who was shot and a number of diners out safely, interim Charleston Police Chief Jerome Taylor said. The site is a few blocks away from Emanuel AME church, where nine black members of a church were
killed by a white man during a June 2015 Bible study. Dylann Roof was sentenced to death in the case. It is also just several blocks from where more than 100 cruise ships dock in Charleston each year.
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Associated Press writers Seanna Adcox, Jeffrey Collins and Meg Kinnard in Columbia contributed to this
report.
More evacuations as Hurricane Harvey bears down on Texas By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press
HOUSTON (AP) — Harvey intensi ed into a hurricane Thursday and steered for the Texas coast with the potential for up to 3 feet of rain, 125 mph winds and 12-foot storm surges in what could be the ercest hurricane to hit the United States in almost a dozen years.
Forecasters labeled Harvey a “life-threatening storm” that posed a “grave risk.” Millions of people braced for a prolonged battering that could swamp dozens of counties more than 100 miles inland.
Landfall was predicted for late Friday or early Saturday between Port O’Connor and Matagorda Bay, a 30-mile (48-kilometer) stretch of coastline about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of Corpus Christi
Harvey grew quickly Thursday from a tropical depression into a Category 1 hurricane. Fueled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters, it was projected to become a major Category 3 hurricane. The last storm of that category to hit the U.S. was Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 in Florida.
Superstorm Sandy, which pummeled New York and New Jersey in 2012, never had the high winds and had lost tropical status by the time it struck. But it was devastating without formally being called a major hurricane.
“We’re forecasting continuing intensi cation right up until landfall,” National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.
All seven Texas counties on the coast from Corpus Christi to the western end of Galveston Island have ordered mandatory evacuations of tens of thousands of residents from all low-lying areas. In four of those counties, of cials ordered their entire county evacuated and warned those who stayed behind that no one could be guaranteed rescue. Voluntary evacuations have been urged for Corpus Christi itself and for the Bolivar Peninsula, a sand spit near Galveston where many homes were washed away by the storm surge of Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Texas of cials expressed concern that not as many people are evacuating compared with previous storms.
“A lot of people are taking this storm for granted thinking it may not pose much of a danger to them,” Gov. Greg Abbott told Houston television station KPRC. “Please heed warnings and evacuate as soon as possible.”
Abbott has activated about 700 members of the state National Guard ahead of Hurricane Harvey mak- ing landfall.
As of late Thursday afternoon, Harvey was about 305 miles (490 kilometers) southeast of Corpus Christi, moving to the north-northwest at about 10 mph (17 kph). Sustained winds were clocked at 85 mph.
Harvey’s effect would be broad. The hurricane center said storm surges as much as 3 feet could be expected as far north as Morgan City, Louisiana, some 400 miles away from the anticipated landfall.
And once it comes ashore, the storm is expected to stall, dumping copious amounts of rain for days in areas like ood-prone Houston, the nation’s fourth most-populous city, and San Antonio.
State transportation of cials were considering when to turn all evacuation routes from coastal areas into one-way traf c arteries headed inland. John Barton, a former deputy executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, predicted state of cials will do this before the storm hits, but said timing and determining where to use it are the key factors. Storms change paths and if contra ow starts too early, supplies such as extra gasoline needed to support impacted areas can’t get in, he noted.