Welcome to Sunday

Revelation 11:17
"We give you thanks, Lord God, the Almighty, the one who is and who was; because you have taken your great power, and reigned.

11:18 The nations were angry, and your wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and to give your bondservants the prophets, their reward, as well as to the saints, and those who fear your name, to the small and the great; and to destroy those who destroy the earth."


A driver maneuvers his truck around a dangling power pole transformer, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2006 in Port Orchard, Wash. The worst windstorm in more than a decade tore through the northwestern U.S., leaving more than 1.5 million homes and businesses without power and killing at least six people. (AP Photo/Jim Bryant)

Thousands in dark after Northwest storm

SEATTLE - Residents of the Pacific Northwest struggled to stay warm Saturday after the worst windstorm in more than a decade knocked out power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses and killed at least six people.

More than 600,000 customers in Washington and Oregon still had no power Saturday, and utilities said some might have to wait into next week for their lights to go back on.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire declared a state of emergency, and with temperatures expected to drop over the weekend, officials warned people not to use outdoor grills, propane heaters or other carbon monoxide-producing equipment indoors.

Firefighters in Kent found 33 people from four families suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning Friday night, fire Capt. Kyle Ohashi said. They had taken their barbecues inside to cook or heat their apartments as temperatures dipped into the 30s.

All were expected to survive, Ohashi said.

In Oregon, a family of six was sickened by carbon monoxide from a generator set up in a garage in Gresham, police said. Three children were hospitalized in critical condition late Friday, while one child and both parents were listed in good condition.

Wind gusted to a record 69 mph early Friday at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, breaking the old mark of 65 mph set in 1993. Wind was clocked at 113 mph near Mount Rainier.

Power was knocked out at one of the airport's concourses, canceling dozens of flights. Flights were also canceled at Portland International Airport in Oregon, and Amtrak canceled service between Seattle and Portland because downed trees and mudslides blocked the tracks.

Gas shortages all over the Seattle area forced some people to wait in lines that took as long as two hours to get to the pump.

Two people were killed in Washington in traffic accidents involving windblown trees, while one died after getting trapped in her flooded basement. A fourth person was killed in his sleep by a tree that fell on his home. On the Oregon coast, an elderly couple died in a fire caused by candles they were using for light.

Puget Sound Energy, the state's largest private utility, had restored power to about 300,000 customers by Saturday evening, leaving 400,000 still without.

It would be "several days — definitely through the weekend," before everyone was restored, PSE spokeswoman Martha Monfried said. The utility had lost more than half of its transmission system, and crews struggled in the mountains to reach downed lines that carry the electricity from Columbia River dams.

More than 36,000 customers of Seattle City Light remained without power midday Saturday, down from a peak of 175,000, and 10,000 were still blacked out in the Snohomish County Public Utility District north of Seattle.

In Oregon, Portland General Electric said it had about 70,000 customers without power Saturday morning, and Pacific Power said about 16,000 of its customers still had no service.

The storm was the most intense to hit the region since the Inauguration Day storm of Jan. 20, 1993, which killed five people and caused about $130 million in damage, said Clifford F. Mass, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor.

Meanwhile, in Nevada, a storm dropped as much as 6 inches of snow and prompted chain controls Saturday on two major highways over the Sierra.

Controls were in effect Saturday night on Interstate 80 over Donner Summit and U.S. 50 over Echo Summit. Both highways connect Sacramento, Calif., to points east.

2006 set to be USA's third-warmest year on record

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — 2006 is poised to be the third-warmest in the contiguous USA since records began 111 years ago, government weather forecasters reported on Thursday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the average temperature should be about 2°F above the average temperature recorded from 1901 to the end of 2000.

The annual temperatures in 1998 and 1934 were slightly warmer.

"The near-record warm summer was highlighted by a July heat wave that peaked during the last half of July," NOAA's National Climatic Data Center said in a statement.

"All-time records were set in a number of locations across the central and western U.S., breaking records that had stood for decades in many places."

The warmer-than-average conditions reduced residential energy demand in the USA, with NOAA estimating consumption about 9% less during the winter and 13% higher during the summer than would have occurred under otherwise normal conditions.

The 2006 Atlantic hurricane season was classified as near-normal with nine named storms forming, marking the second lowest total since 1995. The reduced activity is largely due to El Niño, which reduces storm activity in the Atlantic.

None of the storms hit the USA, bringing relief to residents in Florida and the Gulf Coast impacted during the devastating 2004 and 2005 season.

A year after posting the Earth's warmest temperature on record, 2006 is on track to be the sixth-warmest for the planet.

Including this year, NOAA said six of the seven warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 and the 10 warmest years have occurred since 1995.

The average surface temperature has risen between 0.6°C and 0.7°C since the start of the 20th Century.

NOAA began keeping records in 1895.

Crews prepare for tough week ahead as bushfires rage

Bushfires raging in Victoria's east have continued spreading today but no private property is under threat.

The fires now cover an area of more than 680,000 hectares.

The Federal Government has extended Army assistance for firefighters in Victoria for an extra two weeks.

Army engineers, fuel tankers, bulldozers and infra-red equipment were scheduled to be withdrawn from the fire zone tomorrow, but will now stay in place into the New Year.

In a statement, Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says it is clear the Army teams still have work to do and they will remain on duty until January 4.

Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) spokesman Stuart Ord says crews have used cooler conditions to concentrate on back-burning across the state.

"The calmer weather we've got today and over the next couple of days, we're really utilising to get strength into the containment lines," he said.

"We do know that some stronger weather coming through Wednesday, Thursday - hot northerly winds again, which will test our control lines."

The Mt Terrible fire is burning rapidly within containment lines and towns residents south of the fire are being told to watch for falling embers.

Country Fire Authority (CFA) spokesman Chris Cowley says crews have made good progress in battling the fire near Mount Beauty in the state's north-east.

"We're continuing to build today on the great work done overnight," he said.

"There's been considerable work done on continued building of the existing containment lines and certainly a lot of work done on containing new ones."

Injuries

Meanwhile, a man helping to build a fire break in Victoria's east was trapped for three hours when the bulldozer he was driving flipped over.

The man was assisting firefighters at the edge of a blaze north-east of Dargo near Gippsland.

He suffered head, back and stomach injuries and has been flown to Melbourne in a stable condition.

John Mullen from Rural Ambulance Victoria says paramedics had difficultly reaching the remote area.

"Because being on the edge of the fire, the ambulance had trouble getting through," he said.

"The helicopter had problems because of the visibility and because of some of the high trees, the foliage in that area, so once the ambulance was able to get through they were able to free him from the upturned bulldozer."

An extensive investigation also began today after nine New Zealand firefighters were burnt in the Howqua Valley in the state's north-east yesterday.

They had been among a group of 40 working on a spot fire, when the main blaze intensified in the Howqua Valley, near Mansfield yesterday afternoon.

The nine men were burnt despite seeking refuge in a ditch.

Four suffered serious burns and five have been treated for minor burns.

Three of the injured NZ firefighters remain in hospital in Melbourne.

DSE chief fire officer Ewan Waller says the visiting firefighters are professionals, who were dealing with volatile fire conditions when the incident happened.

"These people were experienced, they were trained to the same standards, the same accreditation as what we use," he said.

"They aren't initially fully familiar with the Victorian conditions, but we always blend in experienced people with them and they were always supervised by Victorian managers."

Most Tsunami Survivors Still Living in Unsanitary Shelters: Indian NGO

NEW DELHI, Dec 16 (OneWorld) - Nearly 60 percent of southern India's tsunami-affected citizens are living in temporary shelters two years after the disaster, a local group said this week, blaming the housing shortcomings on government apathy and poor construction efforts by both the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

In a press conference to mark the release of the report "Do People's Voices Matter? The Human Right to Participation in Post- Tsunami Housing Construction," the New Delhi-based Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) alleged this week that more than half of the nearly 150,000 people displaced from 33 fishing hamlets on the south Indian coast are living in deplorable conditions.

The tsunami, one of the world's worst natural disasters, devastated coastal countries in South and Southeast Asia on December 26, 2004. It also evoked an unprecedented outpouring of grief and sympathy and led to magnanimous donations for rescue and relief efforts.

"We found violations of human rights related to housing, work, health, food, water, and security in the states of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry," said UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing Miloon Kothari. "The government of Tamil Nadu seems to have relinquished its responsibility of rehabilitating tsunami-affected people because permanent houses are only being funded and coordinated by NGOs."

Highlighting government callousness towards the displaced people, HLRN associate director Shivani Chaudhry said, "the government is not allowing fishing communities to set up permanent houses within 500 meters of the coastline...even as commercial development is taking place within that space. The Tamil Nadu government is even evicting fishing communities from the Marina Beach in Chennai even though this takes away jobs and employment from fishing folk."

Quoting state government statistics, HLRN alleged that of the proposed 54,000 houses the government wanted to provide, only 12,000 have been constructed.

"The houses have not been built because the government has not even acquired land," Chaudhry said.

Particularly discouraging for Chaudhry were the current living conditions of those who remain homeless.

"Most people are living in temporary shelters that are made of tin sheets and thatched roofs. These do not have privacy and are flooded during rains; there are no sanitation facilities and diseases like chikungunya have spread in these shelters.

"There is no electricity for shelters in Kanyakumari and many shelters in Pondicherry are almost on the road, making them extremely unsafe for children. Even well-made houses do not have bathrooms or kitchens or have been constructed so far from the coastline that fishing communities have no use for them," lamented Chaudhry.

Kothari of the UN stressed that if the tsunami-displaced people had been involved in designing and constructing homes, enormous amounts of money spent on permanent houses would not have gone to waste.

"Many houses are lying vacant because the people have rejected them," he said. "Some of them have a side entrance which is considered inauspicious while others are double storied; therefore fisher folk do not find these practical."

In places where NGOs allowed people flexibility to build their houses or took their views into consideration, Kothari stressed, people are generally happy with their dwellings.

"In one such example, an NGO gave money to women in Nagapattinam to construct houses and these have a high level of acceptability within the fishing communities," the UN official said.

Kothari also criticized the national government for not evolving a concrete compensation policy for tsunami victims and said that large-scale displacements are taking place across India.

"Whether it is disaster-related displacement, market-related displacement, or displacements due to urban projects," he said, "people are being rendered homeless all over the country."