Since we checked in yesterday, Hurricane Hilary has grown in strength to become a Category 4 storm as it approaches southwestern Mexico. The U.S. National Hurricane Center revealed the storm has become more powerful, with top winds of 135 miles (215 kilometers) per hour. That’s an increase from 105 mph yesterday.

At the time of writing, Hilary is approximately 70 miles south-southeast of Acapulco, and it’s moving at 9mph in the wrong direction, as far as Acapulco is concerned – north-northwest.
Late on Thursday evening, the National Hurricane Center stated:

“Some additional strengthening is possible on Friday. The core of Hilary will continue to move parallel to the southwest coast of Mexico, but any deviation to the north of the track could bring stronger winds to the coast.”

According to the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, Hilary’s top wind speed of 135mph has pushed it to Category 4 (image via Wikipedia):

The Mexican government has issued a tropical storm warning that covers the area from Lagunas de Chacahua to Punta San Telmo. A tropical storm has been posted from Punta San Telmo to the coastal resort of Manzanillo, and as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain may fall in some areas.

Hilary might be strong, but the good news is it’s a relatively small storm – its hurricane strength winds (74mph or higher) currently extend to only 25 miles from its core.

In other gusty news, Tropical Storm Ophelia (with winds between 50 mph and 65 mph) was about 820 miles east-southeast of the Leeward Islands by Thursday evening. That’s moving west at 12mph, and is expected to miss Puerto Rico and head into the mid-Atlantic.

Hurricane Hilary Latest: Storm Strengthens to Category 4 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Tropical Storm Hilary became Hurricane Hilary early this morning. The category 1 storm is currently churning off the coast of Mexico and could become a major hurricane by Friday night.

According to Weather Online, the center of Hurricane Hilary is currently located about 140 miles south of Acapulco, Mexico. The storm is moving west-northwest at about 10 mph.

NHC senior hurricane specialist John Cangialosi said:

“On the forecast track the core of Hilary will continue to move parallel to the southwest coast of Mexico, but any deviation to the north of the track could bring stronger winds to the coast.”

Hurricane Hillary is the 8th named storm of the 2011 hurricane season. A tropical storm warning is currently in effect from Lagunas de Chacahua to Punta San Telmo along Mexico’s coast.

Cangialosi continued:

“Hilary is expected to produce rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches across southern Mexico, with isolated amounts of 10 inches possible. Swells generated by Hilary are affecting portions of the coast of southwestern Mexico. These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.”

The National Hurricane Center expects Hilary to continue it’s path along the coast before it heads out into the Pacific Ocean.

The News Tribune reports that Tropical Storm Ophelia is currently churning in the Atlantic with 65 mph winds. Ophelia is expected to gradually weaken over the next 48 hours.

Hurricane Hilary Forms in the Pacific is a post from: The Inquisitr

Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach watched this past weekend as Hurricane Irene passed through New Jersey leaving his home underwater.

The singer and actor returned home after the hurricane/tropical storm and took photos of his homes damage which included a flooded garage where he housed many of his collectibles.

Not only did a bunch of water invade Bach’s home, it has been deemed to dangerous to pump because of potential electrocution and other hazards caused by storm surge.

Sebastian Bach wrote the following message on his Facebook Page:

“I am numb, in shock, & devastated to report that my home of 21 years, my house featured on MTV Cribs, has been destroyed, condemned, & deemed uninhabitable due to the extreme flooding courtesy of Hurricane Irene.

“In the 2 decades I have lived in this home, there has never been a single drop of water in the basement or anywhere else in the structure. Now Irene has overflowed the reservoir adjacent to my house. The surging waters have snapped the bridge in half next to my house & sent the bridge straight into my garage, knocking the house off of its foundation. The basement that has been dry for over 2 decades is now overflowing with water & I am not even allowed to start pumping the water out due to fears of electrocution. Original Skid Row & KISS fans, I have bad news for you. Gone are irreplacable items, such as my KISS Gargoyles from the 1979 tour. KISS pinball machine. Skid Row master tapes, video & audio, concerts, master tapes from Oh Say Can You Scream etc. Boxes & boxes of one of a kind Skid Row memorabilia, from the first tour to our last, all stuff I collected on the road that no one else had. I had a library in the basement with every single magazine that had Skid Row on the cover.  This library took up a big part of the basement. All of this is lost now. We will salvage what we can of course.  But how I wish there was a reason to do a box set or something before Hurricane Irene hit. Nobody cared. Now it’s too late. Don’t know what you got till it’s gone, indeed.

Good luck to Sebastian Bach as he permanently moves to Los Angeles.

Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach Watches As Home Floods Thanks To Hurricane Irene is a post from: The Inquisitr

It’s been a while since Rush Limbaugh has said something stupid enough to get some real coverage, he remedied that fact on Monday when he told his listeners that President Obama was “hoping” for a widespread “disaster” so he could justify the economic woes.

According to Limbaugh:

“I’ll guarantee you Obama was hoping this was going to be a disaster as another excuse for his failing economy,” while adding, “If he’s out there blaming tsunamis, blaming earthquakes, this one [was] made to order, but it just didn’t measure up.”

Like most of Limbaugh’s idiotic comments it comes with absolutely no proof, in fact the last major disasters in the United States weighed negatively on our nation’s Presidents, including the BP oil spill for Obama, Hurricane Katrine for G.W. and Hurricane Andrew for George Bush I.

While it’s true the recent Japanese earthquake caused major economic drain on the entire economy of Japan in a short period of time, the country wasn’t facing a U.S. sized downturn in the economy at the time of their disaster, a downturn anyone with at least two brain cells (this excludes Limbaugh) would realize couldn’t be suddenly blamed on a singular hurricane sized event.

In closing Limbaugh says the entire event was blown out of proportion as part of a “leftist event.”

What do you think about Limbaugh’s mad man rant?

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Rush Limbaugh: Obama Wanted Hurricane Irene Disaster is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hurricane Irene brought heavy rain and strong winds to Rhode Island on Sunday morning and with that weather came a power outage for 155,000 National Grid customers, the state’s electricity supplier. Outages occurred after strong winds knocked trees and other objects into power lines.

The company is “working hard” to get power turned back on for customers according to National Grid spokeswoman Debbie Drew, noting that it could take hours and in some cases days to restore power among their customer base of nearly 500,000 homes.

While customers have lost power there is some good news, the storm has been downgraded to a tropic storm (previously a category 1 hurricane) in the area and no injuries or fatalities have been reported.

With 4-inches of rain expected the cities Fox Point Hurricane Barrier was closed today. Built in 1966 the 25-foot tall, 3,000 foot-long structure is meant to keep water out of the area.

Unlike many surrounding areas, officials have not called for an evacuation, however residents have been asked to take shelter at one of the cities mandatory or voluntary evacuation centers until further notice.

City officials in Providence have also banned parking on streets and all state campgrounds have been closed with campers forced to evacuate the area.

Preparing for the storm ahead of time university students at Rhode Island College and Providence College who were preparing to start classes were told to move in on Monday instead of Sunday.

Here’s a news report about the barrier closing:

If you’re in the Providence area let us know what issues you’ve run into due to the storm.

Hurricane Irene Leaves 155,000 Customers Without Power In Rhode Island is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you’ve got anywhere to go in Gotham, you’d better plan on getting there before noon on Saturday.

Ahead of the potentially “historic” Hurricane Irene landfall in the Big Apple, low-lying zones including the Financial District are being evacuated, and the city has taken the unusual step of planning suspension of subway service starting at noon tomorrow. The MTA notified news agencies via an emailed statement that subways, buses, Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and Access-A-Ride will all begin to power down Saturday due to expectations of winds high enough to create potentially deadly situations.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has declared a state of emergency in New York to hasten preparation for the rapidly approaching hurricane, and coastal areas including Fire Island have been placed under mandatory evacuation orders in preparation for Irene’s fury. In a statement, Governor Cuomo said:

“In this emergency I am activating all levels of state government to prepare for any situation that may be caused by Hurricane Irene. We are communicating with our federal and local partners to track the storm and to plan a coordinated response, and we will deploy resources as needed to the areas expected to be hit the hardest. I urge New Yorkers to personally prepare for hurricane conditions and to cooperate with emergency officials if needed. By working together, we will all be able to face this storm in a calm and organized manner.”

At winds of 39 miles per hour, MTA Transit operations enter the danger zone, but if winds go up to 60 miles per hour, the city may see bridge shutdowns as well for the Tappan Zee and the George Washington. As of now, several local branch websites for the Offices of Emergency Management are down, crippled by locals seeking information about orders and procedures in their region.

MTA Shuts NYC Transit Ahead of Irene, Effective Noon Saturday is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hurricane Irene is gearing up to be the biggest storm North Carolina has seen in decades and that fact has caused highways heading out of the state to become jammed as thousands of residents attempt to flee their homes for safer grounds.

According to ground reports gas stations have started running out of gas, ATM’s have been emptied of all their cash and the roads are bumper-to-bumper.

The category 3 storm which is 700 miles wide is expected to hit the Southeast sometime on Friday and officials have issued a mandatory evacuation in three North Carolina counties. Currently the storm is only moving 12 mph but is expected to hit shores with 90 mph winds.

Speaking to ABC News, a spokeswoman for Dare County said:

“This is a very, very serious situation,” while adding, ”We have not seen anything like this in the lifetimes of most our residents. Once the storm hits it will be very difficult to respond to distress calls.”

In other parts of the country evacuations are also underway including various New Jersey communities and low-lying areas of New York.

The hurricane has also disrupted various businesses including Amtrak which announced that all train service south of Washington D.C. has been cancelled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Thousands Flee North Carolina As Hurricane Irene Approaches is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you can believe it, five years have passed since the city of New Orleans was left to drown in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Traveling through areas of New Orleans, one might think five days had passed since the flood waters abated. Coverage of the event was polarizing and emotional, and as the flood that covered 80% of one of America’s most culturally rich destinations finally subsided, between 1,500 and 1,600 residents lay dead- in flooded homes, in gutters and on sidewalks.

Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu lashed out at the continual lack of interest in rebuilding the city during an interview Sunday:

But many in the city argue that the flooding that caused most of the devastation came after the storm, when the pre-Katrina-standard levees failed, and that rebuilding them to the same specifications is pointless.

“It wasn’t a natural disaster, it was a man-made disaster,” Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu said Sunday on NBC, slamming both the infrastructure and the government’s limp response.

She called for more government-backed reconstruction, noting that of the 200,000 homes destroyed, non-profits had rebuilt only 5,000.

President Obama arrived in New Orleans today to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. And Google marked it, not with a Google Doodle, but with a small and unobtrusive black ribbon memorial.

Five years on, Google marks Katrina anniversary with black ribbon is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hurricane Katrina is now five years into our past and yet the cost in terms of being a social disaster and human tragedy continues on through until today and shows no sign of changing. While the hurricane itself was a brief show of strength by Mother Nature the cost in terms of lost human dignity is still climbing. In the months immediately following the hurricane the relief efforts were fraught with scandal and some of the worst examples of greed one could imagine.

Granted some of that greed and abuse happened on both sides, those needing help and those providing that help, but that won’t change how history looks upon how we treated the survivors of one of the deadliest hurricanes in US history. Now though is it only a faded memory of powerful images that flashed across our screen. Yet there are still people, mostly the very poor, who are being victimized day after day even now.

Stories of contractors who either did shoddy below standards work or just left once they had the money, to FEMA official who say one thing to the press and something totally different to the affected people are told to whoever will listen. Most of the time though it seems that no-one wants to hear because nothing changes, except maybe for the worse

Once more this horrendous treatment of Katrina survivors gets front page press not because of changes being made but because they are once more being victimized by the very agency tasked with helping them. As of the end of May FEMA will be taking back the trailers provided to survivors following Katrina, following many delays mind you. For the 3,000 people currently living in these trailers they are the only home that they have, or will have. In turn FEMA will be either selling off the trailers for a fraction of what they are worth or – scrapping them.

Of those in trailers, more than 2,000 are homeowners who fear that the progress they are making in rebuilding will come to a halt if their trailers are taken.

“They had helped me out up until this point, and I couldn’t believe that they suddenly decided, no, we’re not going to let you finish the house, we’re just going to take the trailer, and you can sit here on an empty lot,” said Philipp Seelig, 70, a retired handyman. He said he was about two months from being able to move back into his duplex in the Broadmoor neighborhood. A grant to elevate his house to the required height did not come until December.

Source: Shaila Dewan – New York Times

As we head into another hurricane season I can only hope that we don’t see a repeat of that deadliest season but given the continuing tragedy that is the Katrina aftermath I don’t hold out much hope.

Katrina and the continuing tragedy is a post from: The Inquisitr

There’s brave, then there’s riding out a Hurricane in a boat and recording the experience on video, and that’s exactly what the above video documents.

The decision making process though from an economic perspective though is simple: you’ve got a better chance of your boat surviving a hurricane at sea than your boat has moored in a marina, however that’s excluding the cost of your life in the equation

The 113 feet (34.5m) former research vessel Odyssey chose a spot in Galveston Bay, executed a 3-point anchor maneuver, laid out plenty of chain, then rode out the storm.

More footage in the video below. Warning, both videos may cause feelings of sea sickness.

Riding out Hurricane Ike…in a boat is a post from: The Inquisitr

Louisiana’s attorney general office is monitoring more than a hundred domain names registered in the past day related to the storm, most containing words such as “charity” and “relief.” While some may be legit, many are feared to be fake fronts for crooks to steal kind-hearted people’s credit card and bank account information, then use it for their own selfish purposes. Some are even looking ahead with names related to Hanna, the next storm about to hit the U.S. coast. Several of the domains are results of squatters looking to churn out some cash from the storms and are already up for sale on eBay or Sedo.

Phishers have also started sending out e-mails to families along the Gulf Coast that ask for their bank information to “confirm” it in the storm’s wake. These same sorts of attacks all popped up in the days surrounding Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

If you’re interested in contacting a legit charity working to help families displaced by Hurricane Gustav, check out the list below. You can also find everything from live cameras and storm tracking tools to Web services devoted to helping find loved ones at our Online Storm Resource Center.

Legitimate Gustav Charities:

• American Red Cross
• Americares
• Baton Rouge Area Foundation
• Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans
• Direct Relief International
• Food for the Poor
• Mercy Corps
• North Shore Animal League
• Operation USA
• Salvation Army of Alabama-Louisiana-Mississippi
• Save the Children

UPDATE*** For the latest storm stream, see Hurricane Ike Live.

Tracking Gustav: Storm Scammers Hit the Net is a post from: The Inquisitr

• Cameras: Many of the live resources and cameras are starting to disappear. The Weather Channel has a decent array of functioning cameras still running. You can also find some streaming images courtesy of the folks at Gannett Louisiana/Gannett News. Their six feeds are slow-moving at the moment and are hit and miss, but I’m seeing a camera up on at least one this minute. Louisiana’s Department of Transportation is currently posting regular snapshots from its traffic cams as well.
  
• Maps: The meteorologists themselves get their information from this site, NOAA’s National Hurricane Center. The Center posts updates every three hours, at 8:00, 11:00, 2:00, and 5:00 ET (repeating in an a.m.-p.m. cycle). The most significant of those updates are typically the 11:00 and 5:00 ones. You can see their latest forecasts, three- and five-day tracks, and live satellite images of Gustav and the other storms at sea — including Hanna, currently looking to make landfall somewhere near the Georgia-South Carolina border over the weekend. This is the same information the people on TV use to make their maps and deliver their forecasts.
  

• Up-to-the-minute storm info: Louisiana has set up an emergency Web site with the latest headlines and information.
• Finding people: If you know anyone in the area, the Red Cross’s Safe and Well program may be able to give you an update on their location or status. It lets families register their information by home address and phone number once they’re okay so friends and relatives can find them. There is also a similar phone-based service set up by the Red Cross. You can dial 443-992-4890 to search for messages from loved ones.
• Finding people: FEMA also has a National Emergency Family Registry and Locator System, accessible here. The same information is also available via voice at 1-866-288-2484.
• Finding people: If you need to track down someone in a shelter, the Red Cross’s shelter hotline is 1-800-733-2767. Alabama has a specific shelter information line at 1-800-206-0816 and Mississippi’s is 1-866-472-8265.
• Reaching people: Major mobile providers suggest using text messages to try to contact people in the area rather than calling their cell phones, as that places less burden on the sure to be already overloaded networks. Try using a free Web-based service, such as the internationally accessible GizmoSMS.
• Reaching people: AT&T is offering some of its pre-paid GoPhone devices to evacuees. They are available in Houston and San Antonio stores now and more are being shipped in tonight for families seeking shelter in that area.
• Evacuation 2.0: Want to read how the blogosphere and specifically Twitter have changed the face of this storm evacuation? Check out this article from the Chicago Tribune.

UPDATE*** For the latest storm stream, see Hurricane Ike Live.

Tracking Gustav: Online Storm Resource Center is a post from: The Inquisitr