Lost skier found atop Hurricane Hill
The News Review:
- Lost skier found atop Hurricane Hill
- Some residents still recovering from tornado
- Villagers clear up following ‘tornado’
- Ratings Recap: General (India) SCA Successor Hurricane Wing Lung…
- British teams top entries at 2008 Tornado Worlds
- 2007: record year for disasters
- Top Insurance Stories in 2007 in East
Lost skier found atop Hurricane Hill
Port Angeles Peninsula Daily News – Dec 31, 2007
peninsuladailynews. comTo print this article open the file menu and choose Print. Article published Dec 31 2007Lost skier found atop Hurricane HillBy Paige Dickerson Peninsula Daily NewsPORT ANGELES – A Port Townsend man who lost his way near Hurricane Hill on Saturday was found safe in the freezing snowy Hurricane Ridge area at about 1 p. Randy Kraxberger 53 skied out of the wilderness alongside the Olympic National Park search team after having slept in a snow cave overnight with temperatures in the teens. “I went from the most low recesses to the greatest euphoria when I saw them struggling through the snow toward me” he said Sunday from the park’s emergency operations center on Park Avenue in Port Angeles… “I thought is this real?” he said. Kraxberger – who is on a winter break from his job as a commercial halibut and black cod fisherman in Alaska living in Port Townsend his home for 26 years – set out to simply enjoy a day’s cross-country skiing up to Hurricane Hill which is past the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center. He had skied alone to the summit of Hurricane Hill before weather conditions worsened. In white-out conditions and high wind Kraxberger lost sight of the trail and wasn’t sure where he was. “It had started snowing and the tracks got covered up fairly fast and I got a little disoriented thinking I was a little further east than I actually was” he said. He called his wife of 30 years Lisa Enarson on his cell phone at about 3:15 p.
Some residents still recovering from tornado
Portales News-Tribune – Dec 31, 2007
Nine months later the couple still does not have their house back and he gladly would have traded the house and everything in it to have his mother who would make a pineapple upside-down cake for every birthday and hunting season. Even through their frustrations they keep crosses throughout the trailer say “God bless you” when somebody sneezes and always say God will provide for them in the end. “We don’t ever consider ourselves victims when we compare ourselves to (victims of Hurricane) Katrina” said Iris Blevins who is recovering from health matters not related to the tornado. Iris and Jim look fondly back on all of the help they received from their children who arrived the day after the tornado to help however they could. They reflect on the generosity of strangers like a man who baked cookies they remember as “Cole from Canyon Texas” and hundreds of others who helped clear out what was left of the tree tunnel and numerous car parts that had blown over from what used to be the Clovis Body Shop two buildings south. It was a volunteer effort that helped the city recover so quickly Clovis City Manager Joe Thomas said. “It happened on Friday evening” Thomas said “and by Sunday afternoon most of the community was out in some way or another participating in the cleanup… “I don’t think the city can take credit for putting it all together. It was just a neighbor helping neighbor response. ”Thomas thought the city did a respectable job in the tornado’s aftermath but admitted the city could have done a better job in some areas. “We blocked off neighborhood(s) and wouldn’t let residents back in a timely fashion” Thomas said. “We need to let people in even if it’s just to retrieve medication. ”Even that the Blevinses didn’t mind. “They were protecting our property” said Jim referring to early looting.
Villagers clear up following ‘tornado’
Cambridge Evening News – Dec 31, 2007
“It really was a tremendous squall. Mr Fitch said it was not as bad as the great storm of 1987. Another resident Tim Rahman of Tunbridge Lane said he thought the street had been hit by “a hurricane or tornado”. He spent over an hour clearing up after the storm at 4am. He said: “Trees in the street some of which have been there since I moved here 16 years ago have been ripped in half and spread across roads along with various other debris. “The rest of the village is relatively untouched. It’s really bizarre.
Ratings Recap: General (India) SCA Successor Hurricane Wing Lung…
Insurance Journal – Dec 31, 2007
is a subsidiary of SCA. Fitch said its review of the currently ‘AAA’ rated insurer would continue Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has assigned its ‘B’ senior secured debt rating to the $30 million series 6 class C principal at-risk variable-rate notes and its ‘B’ senior secured debt rating to the $30 million series 6 class D principal at-risk variable-rate notes both issued by Successor Hurricane Industry Ltd. “These are the latest issuances under Successor Hurricane Industry’s established $1. 5 billion principal at-risk variable-rate note program” said S&P. “The proceeds from the issuance of the notes will provide Swiss Reinsurance Co.
British teams top entries at 2008 Tornado Worlds
Sail World – Dec 31, 2007
australiansailingteam. Additional entries will be taken but will be subject to a late entry fee. Three crews have entered from New Zealand with a further five expected. The World Championship being held in off Takapuna New Zealand will decide the final four places in the Multihull event at the 2008 Olympics and for many this is where most of the interest in the regatta will be focussed. Only half of the qualified countries from the 2007 World Championships have entered so far at Takapuna and it would seem that six countries will be competing for the four places available.
2007: record year for disasters
Disaster News Network – Dec 31, 2007
got off relatively easily during the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season with only one storm Hurricane Humberto making landfall in Texas in September. The Category 1 hurricane formed from a tropical depression within 18 hours. Other countries including Mexico Honduras Jamaica and Nicaragua didn’t fare as well during hurricane season. Mexico and Jamaica were battered by Hurricane Dean; Nicaragua and Honduras were pounded by Hurricane Felix. Both Felix and Dean were top-level Category 5 hurricanes; it was the first time that two Category 5 storms made landfall in the same season. Despite the lack of hurricane activity in the U… Numerous organizations including those under the umbrella of Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster in San Diego were aiding in the recovery. The Southern California wildfires fueled by fierce Santa Ana winds came about four months after the Angora wildfire destroyed more than 250 homes in the Lake Tahoe area. – Tornadoes: A powerful EF-5 tornado leveled the small town of Greensburg Kan. The twister left a path of destruction 22 miles long destroying about 90 percent of the rural community. The storm killed 10 people in Greensburg and two others outside the town. Rebuilding is under way and is being spearheaded by the South Central Kansas Tornado Recovery Organization.
Top Insurance Stories in 2007 in East
Insurance Journal – Dec 31, 2007
For the most part while policymakers debated private markets went about their business. Insurers writing in the Atlantic and New England states boosted premiums for coastal homes and began requiring owners to modify their homes to prevent storm damage or dropped insureds altogether. Carriers also expanded their definitions of hurricane risk to encompass homes miles from the coast. In Connecticut agents fielded complaints from coastal home owners who were told they had to install storm shutters. Most felt these steps were reasonable but Attorney General Richard Blumenthal drafted legislation to block insurers from requiring shutters as a condition of insurance. Maryland lawmakers dabbled with the idea of requiring insurers writing anywhere in the state to write in all areas — including the coast — but eventually rejected the idea. For the second year in a row the Massachusetts FAIR Plan requested a 25 percent rate increase for Cape Cod home insurance premiums… Massachusetts insured coastal properties are valued cumulatively at around $700 billion. Only three other states Florida New York and Texas are at greater financial risk in this regard. Rhode Island prepped for the worst hurricane to ever crash into New England on paper at least. About 250 federal emergency management officials staged a response to the fictional “Hurricane Yvette” from a “storm center” in Providence. The leaders of a special Rhode Island House commission introduced legislation aimed at protecting coastal homeowners from “unreasonable” rate hikes or from having their policies canceled because of their location near a coast. New York lawmakers heard from constituents and agents especially on Long Island that the already tight coastal market was getting tighter. Insurance companies claimed the market was fine and urged public officials to refrain from intervening but agents called for action including making permanent the state’s residual property insurer the New York Property Insurance Underwriting Association.