Message-ID: <6579442.1075860216610.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 08:48:00 -0800 (PST) From: bhutt@ankarcapital.com To: mark.taylor@enron.com Subject: Re: Viva VI or are they? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ANSI_X3.4-1968 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-From: "Bruce Hutt" X-To: Mark Taylor X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \Mark_Taylor_Jun2001\Notes Folders\Archive\11_99 X-Origin: Taylor-M X-FileName: mtaylor.nsf You obviously know far more than me....but I was just reading the following= : THE LATE-SEASON storm has killed at least four people from Colombia to Dutch St. Maarten in the northeast Caribbean. On Tuesday, two fishermen drowned off Colombia=0F's Caribbean penins= ula, and rains destroyed half of a coastal village, leaving 540 people homeless. One man died in the Puerto Rican capital, San Juan, after he fell of= f a ladder as he tried to board up windows. A man in St. Maarten died Wednesday when the garden wall of his hillside home collapsed on him. The hurricane was unlikely to strike the mainland United States, sai= d meteorologist Stacy Stewart at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. He cautioned, however, that Lenny still could bring heavy surf capable of eroding beaches in Florida. =0F"The influence of this storm is going to be felt considerable distances away,=0F" he said. In St. Croix, an unidentified tourist who ventured out of a hotel to see the rising surf was carried away by waves and had to cling to a rock fo= r more than an hour before local divers rescued him, said Gov. Charles Turnbull of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Even before the hurricane arrived, storm surges that whipped up 12-foot waves stripped sand from Anguilla=0F's famous beaches. The beaches, which attract tourists who provide the British island=0F's biggest source o= f revenue, already had been damaged by Hurricane Jose last month. Nearly 100 tourists had to be evacuated from a flooded hotel to another hotel on higher ground in Anguilla. A SEEMINGLY BACKWARD STORM Hurricane Lenny is a late-season storm with a seemingly backward trajectory from west to east that surprised even seasoned forecasters. Feeding off the warm Caribbean waters, Lenny=0F's winds strengthened= to 150 mph Wednesday, just 5 mph short of being a Category 5 hurricane, the strongest hurricane rating. Category 5 hurricanes can cause catastrophic damage. By Thursday morning, the storm had weakened to 135 mph. Advertisement In San Juan, a few motorists speeded down highways usually choke= d with traffic and tooted their horns with delight that the storm, which zigzagged on a course that confounded meteorologists, had missed them. But nearly 100,000 people remained without water or electricity Wednesday night= . The eye of the storm was expected to pass close to the Dutch territories of St. Maarten, St. Eustatius, Saba and the British island of Anguilla. Anguilla was drenched by 4 to 6 inches of rain in four hours Wednesday afternoon, and its beaches were eroded by sea swells of up to 12 feet throughout the day. The storm=0F's first winds cut power and telephone service to many h= omes in St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The hurricane ripped up trees and unleashed a steady rain that flooded large areas. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency sent medical teams to the Virgin Islands ahead of the storm. The agency=0F's director, James Lee Witt, told reporters that damage assessors would fly in today. He said that while the hurricane damaged roofs, including that of th= e national armory, he did not expect widespread damage because FEMA had helpe= d the government institute new hurricane building codes after Hurricane Marilyn devastated the islands in 1995. The territory has a $1 billion debt and still owes $8 million for federal disaster loans from Hurricane Marilyn and Hurricane Hugo in 1989. RUINOUS WAVES Waves smashed over the 8-foot sea wall at Frederiksted, the second-largest town on the island, tearing away the wooden pier that was th= e fish market and a small part of the concrete pier where cruise ships dock. In Christiansted, St. Croix=0F's main town, the boardwalk was submer= ged, and winds tore part of the roof off the newly renovated King Christian Hotel. The storm beached and sunk boats from Aruba, off Venezuela=0F's coas= t in South America, to Grenada and St. Kitts. On St. Kitts=0F' concrete pier, a half dozen people suffered fractur= es and other injuries when they were hit by waves. Storm surges in Grenada swept away four houses, washed away asphalt roads, damaged runway lights at the airport and flooded roads and the business district. Turnbull said Wednesday he was waiting for President Clinton to declare St. Croix a disaster area, making it eligible for federal emergency funds. -----Original Message----- From: Mark Taylor To: Bruce Hutt Date: Thursday, November 18, 1999 11:13 AM Subject: Re: Viva VI or are they? > > >You have to be careful reading those reports - the 145mph number is the current >maximum wind speed - right at the eye wall - which is well to the south-east of >St. Thomas. The Weather channel this morning showed local radar indicatin= g a >lot of rain in the US 7 BVI but the storm center was pretty far away. The real >question is what direction will it go from here. If it heads out to the north >east as predicted, no problems. If it takes a turn to the north, direct hit. I >hadn't hard about the state of emergency but that could be due to rain related >damage. > >Many storm sites available: >http://www.atwc.org/ >http://www.gopbi.com/weather/storm/ >http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1126/current.html >http://weather.yahoo.com/graphics/tropical/tropical_html/atlantic/forecast= _ advisory.html >http://www.usatoday.com/weather/huricane/1999/atlantic/wstorm1.htm >http://www.weather.com/weather_center/ > >In case you need it to decipher some of the coordinates, the BVI is at roughly >18 25' N 64 40' W >St. Thomas is closer to 18 20' N 65 W > > > > >"Bruce Hutt" on 11/18/99 09:28:40 AM > >To: Mark Taylor/HOU/ECT@ECT >cc: gpier@doubleclick.net >Subject: Re: Viva VI or are they? > > > >Check the weather reports. > >USVI badly hit by hurricane Lenny....145mph winds......Clinton thinking of >declaring a state of emergency. > >B > > > > > >