Page 4 - ARUBA TODAY

A4 U.S. NEWS
Tuesday 31 OcTOber 2017
Utilities: power could be out for days in Northeast Full recovery from

California wildfires
Continued from Front may take years: AP

By KATHLEEN RONAYNE
The person who took the Associated Press
video, Thomas Babbit, told SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) —
The Boston Globe the ho-
meowners were not on the It will take at least months
and likely years to fully
property at the time.
Maine also was hit hard, recover from devastat-
ing wildfires that ripped
with 492,000 homes and
businesses losing electricity, through Northern Califor-
nia earlier this month, de-
surpassing the peak num-
ber from an infamous 1998 stroying at least 8,900 struc-
tures and killing 42 people,
ice storm.
The Portland International Sonoma County officials
said .
Jetport recorded a wind
gust of 69 mph, and the “We don’t control these
things, and it makes you re-
Amtrak Downeaster service
canceled a morning run alize how small you are in
the world when something
due to down trees on the
tracks. like this happens,” Sonoma
County Sheriff Rob Giorda-
Republican Maine Gov.
Paul LePage issued a state no said.
Giordano spoke before
of emergency proclama-
tion, allowing drivers of hundreds of people gath-
ered at a college in Santa
electrical line repair ve- A motorist drives under downed pine trees that are resting on power lines in Freeport, Maine,
hicles to work more hours Monday, Oct. 30, 2017. A strong wind storm has caused widespread power outages. Rosa, one of the hardest-
hit cities, for a memorial
than federal law allows to (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
speed up power restora- and wind lashed the yurt. the nation’s most populous the Northeast late Monday service to honor the lives
lost in the deadliest series
tion. “It was really terrifying. You areas and was blamed for afternoon, according to a
In Freeport, Maine, Rachel could feel everything and at least 182 deaths in the tally of outages from utility of wildfires in California his-
tory.
Graham, her husband and hear everything,” Graham U.S. and the Caribbean companies in more than a
their 2-year-old daughter, said. “It was a lot of crashes and more than $71 billion half-dozen states. The fires sparked Oct. 8,
eventually forcing 100,000
Priya, endured the storm in and bangs.” in damage in this country In the Boston suburb of
a yurt, where they are stay- The storm began making its alone. Brookline, Helene Dunlap people to evacuate.
Before a bell rung 42 times
ing while building a house way up the East Coast on Electricity was slowly being said her power went out
on their property. They lis- Sunday, the fifth anniver- restored. More than 1.2 mil- after she heard a loud “ka- to commemorate the
dead, Giordano and oth-
tened as 20 pine trees on sary of Superstorm Sandy. lion homes and businesses boom” around 1:30 a.m.
their property snapped That 2012 storm devastated still were without power in Monday. q er officials praised the or-
dinary and extraordinary
acts of heroism by first re-
sponders and community
members as the firefight
raged on for more than a
week.
Some firefighters worked
days on the front line, re-
fusing to take breaks, while
sheriff’s dispatchers con-
tinued taking calls even as
the fire came close to tak-
ing out their building.
U.S. House Minority Lead-
er Nancy Pelosi and five
members of Congress
spent Saturday attending
the memorial, touring the
fire ravaged areas and
gathering advice from
federal, state and local
officials on what Congress
can do to aid the recovery
efforts.
In a briefing in Santa Rosa,
officials asked them to
ease red tape that will
make it easier to erect
temporary housing and to
ensure the Environmental
Protection Agency has the
resources it needs to clean
up any hazardous material
before it infiltrates the wa-
ter supply.q