Storm Spawns Deadly Weekend Tornadoes Tearing Through North Carolina

At least 22 people were killed and another 130 seriously injured over the weekend when tornadoes tore through at least 20 counties across the state.

The fatalities occurred in Wake, Johnston, Cumberland, Harnett, Lee, Bertie and Bladen counties, said Julia Jarema, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

The worst-hit area appears to be Bertie County, where authorities say 11 people are dead. About 75 people were going from door-to-door looking for victims and survivors Sunday.

Several of the dead were all from one family, Bertie County Manager Zee Lamb said.

"It's very devastating. These kinds of fatalities are not something we're used to," he said.

Some people survived even as their homes were torn apart around them, he said.

"There were several cases of houses being totally demolished except for one room, and that's where the people were," Lamb said. "They survived."

The US Army's Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, NC and USMC's Camp Lejeune outside of Jacksonville, NC lost power and had structures damaged in the storms. Although there were no reports of injuries or fatalities, Fort Bragg was closed off to non-essential personnel for the remainder of the weekend as utility crews worked to restore power and clear fallen trees and debris. Some 70 miles to the east a tornado struck a USMC family housing area in Camp Lejeune. There were no reports of fatalities, but Marines pulled a 23 month old boy from the rubble of one home. He was life-flighted to Pitt Memorial Hospital in Greenville, NC with fractured ribs, a cracked pelvis, broken femur and collapsed lung.

Sgt. Jarred Boone, Lance Cpl. Thomas Dickerson, and Sgt. Greg Shafer said they had run to the aid of a screaming woman while the tornado winds continued to blow. Clearly injured herself, with cuts on her face and a tooth puncturing her lip, the woman told them she couldn’t find her baby. The Marines began to root through a home that had been reduced to boards, finally lifting a wall to find the toddler underneath.

“The baby was blue,” Shafer said. “I lifted that wall up, and we brought him in the back door of (Dickerson’s house) and laid him on the floor.”

The men said one of the other heroes of the day had been a Navy medical officer who appeared seemingly from nowhere, administered CPR and kept the baby alive until officials from the appear Provost Marshal’s Office could arrive.

The man, Lt. J.G. Jonathan Hamrick, a Navy critical care nurse, told The Daily News via email he lived in a home nearby and had operated on adrenaline, rushing to the aid of the distraught mother.

Although Hurricanes are a common hazard in the Carolinas and smaller tornadoes aren't completely unheard of, it's unusual for a storm to spawn this many funnels outside of tornado alley in the midwest.

Japan Update: Trouble Persists at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant; More Dramatic Video Surfaces; Death Toll Mounts as Rescuers Still Finding Survivors

Workers attempting to bring the damaged reactors at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant under control were evacuated temporarily on Monday after a plume of grey smoke rose from the plant's reactor #3.

The news came after TEPCO confirmed power cables had been connected to all six nuclear reactors at the stricken power plant

The last two reactors to be hooked up to power from the main grid today were reactors No. 3 and No. 4, the two most badly damaged units, company officials told a briefing.

The company, meanwhile, is checking for damage to the plant's reactor cooling systems and other plant machinery before attempting to power them up.

It is operating equipment using grid power at reactor No. 5 only, one of the least damaged reactors, the officials said.

The cooling systems - designed to protect the plant's six reactors from a potentially disastrous meltdown - were knocked out by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and engineers have been battling rising temperatures ever since.

Workers had been struggling all week to shut down the quake damaged reactors after the strongest quake in Japan's recorded history and subsequent tsunami damaged some of the backup power and cooling systems. While the surrounding 12 miles of the plant were evacuated, some 200 Volunteers have been working in shifts of 50 each to operate the equipment, monitor gauges and clear obstructions from the various pipes in the facility.

The JSDF had also been called in last week to use Chinook helicopters to dump seawater and a compound consisting of boron onto the overheating reactors. This step was considered a 'last resort' by many observers as the salt water would be highly corrosive, meaning that the reactors could never be used again. The JSDF had also brought in at least six fire trucks capable of continuously pumping seawater onto spent fuel rods and overheating reactor #3.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, the Japanese government had reported that higher than normal levels of radiation were found in spinach and milk at farms in the vicinity of Fukushima- some farms as far as 100km away. While positioned off of Japan's east coast, the USS Ronald Reagan had detected increased levels of radiation last week and 17 crew members had to undergo decontamination after returning to the carrier from search and rescue duties.

ELSEWHERE IN JAPAN: As the situation unfolds in Fukushima Daiichi, more eyewitness video is surfacing demonstrating the staggering impact of the quake (which the USGS has officially changed to 9.0) and subsequent tsunami. This video embedded below shows black, churning water cascading over a seawall at Miyako in the Iwate prefecture while boats and cars caught up in the wave getting tossed around like bathtub toys



Another videotape has surfaced that was filmed from inside a car driving right next to the coast when the tsunami hit.

Searchers and rescue workers have discovered survivors in the rubble or washed out to sea in the week following the quake, including a 4 month old baby girl in the town of Ishinomaki, an 80 year old woman and her 16 year old grandson were pulled from the rubble of their home in the same town nearly a week later and a 60 year old man was rescued after being stranded on the roof of his demolished home that was washed 10 miles out to sea.

Queensland Assesses Damage, Rebuilds After Cyclone Yasi Cuts Swath Through North

Still reeling from last month's floods, the Australian state of Queensland was dealt the other half of a one-two punch from nature when the most powerful cyclone to hit Australia in nearly a century made landfall south of Cairns on Feb. 3rd.

Getty Images- Daily Mail

Cyclone Yasi made landfall at Mission Beach, Queensland on the morning of Feb 3rd as a Category 5 storm (stronger than Hurricane Katrina when she made landfall in 2005) bringing with it winds of more than 180 miles an hour and storm surges more than 20 ft high.

Yasi ripped across the coast near Cairns on Wednesday night, tearing apart dozens of homes and damaging hundreds more, cutting power to tens of thousands of people and flattening millions of dollars worth of crops.

Police and army personnel moved through the storm-savaged coastal town of Tully Heads on Saturday, going door-to-door accounting for residents.

Officials spray painted "No Go" as a warning on the worst-hit homes. A few houses were reduced to rubble. A layer of brown sludge covered the ground, leaving a sickening smell wafting throughout the community.

The massive surge of water ripped through homes, taking out walls and pushing resident's belongings into other people's houses and yards.

Residents spent Saturday sifting through the wreckage and dragging people's possessions back to their owners.

Rob McCarrol- The Australian

Amazingly, there were no reports of fatalities in the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi. But with the flooding throughout Queensland in January causing an estimated $5 Billion in damages to the region's economy before Yasi was even fully formed as a storm, the cyclone dealt another blow to Queensland, flooding highways and railroad tracks and cutting off entire towns from the rest of the country.

Suart Mceveoy- The Australian

Mining activity was shut down throughout much of Queensland in anticipation of Yasi's arrival, but most of the state's main zinc, copper and coal mines escaped relatively undamaged from the cyclone. However, nearly half of the state's sugarcane crop was thought to have been destroyed and as much as 75% of Queensland's banana crop was wiped out in the storm. With widespread damage to roads and structures, tourism in Queensland will decline as well.

Australia's military has been pressed into service to help clear debris, reopen highways and bring in emergency supplies to those left without food, shelter or fresh water. Some 500 troops were already stationed in nearby Townsville when the cyclone hit and another 3500 are ready to mobilize.