Tropic storm Isaias whips up eastern US, killing at least 4
People walk on the flooded Sea Mountain Highway in North Myrtle Beach, S.C., as Isaias neared the Carolinas on Monday night.
WINDSOR, N.C. — At least four people were killed as Tropical Storm Isaias spawned tornadoes and dumped rain Tuesday along the U.S. East Coast after making landfall as a hurricane in North Carolina, where it caused floods and fires that displaced dozens of people.
Two people died when Isaias spun off a tornado that struck a North Carolina mobile home park. Authorities said two others were killed by falling trees toppled by the storm in Maryland and New York City.
More than 18 hours after coming ashore, Isaias still had sustained top winds of 65 mph at 5 p.m. EDT Tuesday. The storm’s center was about 20 miles west of Albany, New York.
As Isaias sped northward at 40 mph, the National Hurricane Center warned of flash flood threats in the New York’s Hudson River Valley and potential for minor to moderate river flooding elsewhere in the mid-atlantic region.
Two people died after a tornado demolished several mobile homes in Windsor, North Carolina. Emergency responders finished searching the wreckage Tuesday afternoon. They found no other casualties, and several people initially feared missing had all been accounted for, said Ron Wesson, chairman of the Bertie County Board of Commissioners. He said about 12 people were hospitalized.
Sharee and Jeffrey Stilwell took shelter in their living room about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday as the tornado tore through Windsor. Sharee Stillwell said their home shook “like a freight train.”
“I felt like the house was going to cave in,” said Jeffrey Stillwell, 65, though once the storm passed, the couple found only a few damaged shingles and fallen tree branches in the yard.
The mobile home park less than 2 miles away wasn’t so fortunate. Aerial video by WRAL-TV showed fields of debris where rescue workers in brightly colored shirts
Boats are piled on each other at the Southport Marina following the effects of Hurricane Isaias in Southport, N.C., on Tuesday. picked through splintered police said. A woman boards and other wreckage. in Mechanicsville, Maryland, Nearby, a vehicle was died when a tree crashed flipped onto its roof. onto her car during stormy
“It doesn’t look real; it conditions, said Cpl. Julie looks like something on TV. Yingling of the St. Mary’s Nothing is there,” Bertie County sheriff’s office. County Sheriff John Holley Isaias toggled between told reporters, saying hurricane and tropical storm 10 mobile homes had been strength as it churned toward destroyed. “All my officers the East Coast. Fueled by are down there at this time. warm ocean waters, the storm Pretty much the entire trailer got a late burst of strength park is gone.” as a rejuvenated hurricane
In New York City, a massive with top sustained winds of tree fell and crushed a 85 mph before coming ashore van in the Briarwood section late Monday near Ocean Isle of Queens, killing a man inside, Beach, North Carolina.
President Donald Trump signed legislation Tuesday that will devote nearly $3 billion a year to conservation projects, outdoor recreation and maintenance of national parks and other public lands following its overwhelming approval by both parties in Congress.
“There hasn’t been anything like this since Teddy Roosevelt, I suspect,” Trump said, seemingly comparing himself to the 26th president, an avowed environmentalist who created many national parks, forests and monuments that millions of Americans flock to each year.
Supporters say the Great American Outdoors Act is the most significant conservation legislation enacted in nearly half a century. Opponents countered that the money isn’t enough to cover the estimated $20 billion maintenance backlog on federally owned lands.
At a White House billsigning ceremony, Trump failed to give Democrats any credit for their role in helping to pass the measure, mispronounced the name of one of America’s most famous national parks, blamed a maintenance backlog that has been decades in the making on the Obama administration and claimed to have deterred a march to Washington that had been planned to tear down monuments in the nation’s capital. No such march was ever planned.
The Great American Outdoors Act requires full, permanent funding of the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund and addresses the maintenance backlog facing national parks and public
WASHINGTON —
lands. The law would spend about $900 million a year — double current spending — on the conservation fund and another $1.9 billion per year on improvements at national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and range lands.
Trump in the budget proposals he has sent to Congress had previously recommended cutting money allocated to the fund, but reversed course and requested full funding in March.
Interior Secretary David Bernardt said the law will help create more than 100,000 jobs.
The maintenance backlog has been a problem for decades, through Republican and Democratic administrations. Trump falsely claimed it was caused by the “last administration.”
The House and the Senate cleared the bill by overwhelming bipartisan margins this summer, including significant support from congressional Democrats. No Democratic lawmakers attended the ceremony and Trump, in his remarks, credited only Republicans.
Asked why Democrats weren’t recognized, White House press secretary Kayleigh Mcenany said it was because Democrats and Republicans — including the administration — have yet to agree on extending nowexpired coronavirus relief payments and protections.
Her answer focused on Senate Democrats’ rejection of a proposal by Sen. Martha Mcsally, R-ariz., for a one-week extension of a special federal unemployment benefit.
She ignored that Senate Republicans themselves are divided over how to proceed on a larger relief package.