Natural Disaster, Hurricane | featured news

A small earthquake hit northern New Jersey early Monday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The magnitude 2.0 temblor struck at 1:19 a.m. and was centered in Ringwood, N.J., a community that’s still reeling from downed trees and power outages caused by Superstorm Sandy.

The effort to reopen schools shut by Hurricane Sandy presented officials with a tangled puzzle and New York City’s 1.1 million students with a drastically altered landscape... Cots lined the hallways, and toilets were limited or clogged, so some evacuees went to the bathroom on the floor. Volunteers, gagging at air made more fetid by unwashed bodies, took to wearing masks. “We gave them wipes,” a volunteer said, “but there’s only so much you can do with wipes.”

Commuters into New York City endured long waits and crowded trains, giving the recovering commuter system a stress test a week after Superstorm Sandy ravaged the New Jersey and New York coast lines....

Tens of thousands of people in New York state whose homes were damaged by storm Sandy could soon need housing as cold weather arrives, politicians warn.

With only sporadic access to text messaging and the Web, many in Hurricane Sandy's no-power zone quickly cobbled together systems for passing along information and arranging when and where to meet.

A mother learns that her newborn is part of a hospital evacuation. Facebook posts from a member of the HMS Bounty turn ominous. A man worries about the wind and rain, but another force of nature hits home.

U.S. forecasters say Miriam has strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane well off Mexico's Baja California peninsula. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Miriam is packing top sustained winds of 120 mph, making it what's classified as a major hurricane.

For most of the U.S., Hurricane Isaac has come and gone, and now Southerners and Midwesterners are grappling with the good and bad it left behind. Evacuation orders eased for parts of Louisiana, and many Missouri residents saw the possible end of a long and painful drought when Isaac passed over the state Friday and Saturday, dumping much of its strength before going on to Illinois and Indiana.

Hurricane Isaac crashed ashore in southeast Louisiana on Tuesday, bringing high winds and soaking rains that pose the first test for multibillion-dollar flood defenses put in place in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast seven years ago.

Tropical Storm Isaac is likely to be a hurricane when it hits the Florida Keys Sunday, strengthening to a Category 2 as it heads northwards towards the Gulf Coast later.