NYT

• “…Bay Medical Center, a 300-bed hospital…..The governor had announced that all of the patients in the hospital were to be evacuated, which was expected to take 48 hours.
• And other residents of the ravaged city were still showing up asking for medical care only to be turned away……
• Some hospitals in the region closed entirely, and others evacuated their patients, but kept staff in place to run overwhelmed emergency rooms.
• In Florida, four hospitals and 11 nursing facilities were closed….
• 35 hospitals or nursing homes in that state were without electricity and operating with generators……
• Federal health officials said they were moving approximately 400 medical and public health responders into affected areas, including six disaster teams that can set up medical operations outdoors. Some were heading to an overwhelmed emergency department in Tallahassee.
• Other federal medical personnel were being assigned to search-and-rescue teams to triage people who were rescued…
• There was a rush to move around 40 people — post-heart surgery patients, critically ill septic patients, respiratory failure patients on ventilators — to safer quarters on lower floors in the central part of the building.
• Staff members and nurses had to carry some patients down stairways, fearing that the elevators had become unsafe……
• Gulf Coast Regional Medical Center said on Thursday that it was evacuating all of its approximately 130 inpatients, starting with the most critically ill. The hospital, which was running on backup generator power, had sustained roof and window damage from the storm.……“

Rescue

“…..a World Health Organization (WHO) official says the epidemic will likely carry well into 2019.….”

Weather Channel

“…..In the town of Chattahoochee, the Florida State Hospital, which is the state’s largest and oldest psychiatric hospital, was inaccessible in the wake of Michael, according to the Miami Herald. The facility’s 975 residents and 325 staffers had ample supplies, especially after food and water drops via helicopter, but the hospital lost all communication with the outside world, the report added…..”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPJ6fhQ8-Tw

STRATEGY FOR PROTECTING AND PREPARING THE HOMELAND AGAINST THREATS OF ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE AND GEOMAGNETIC DISTURBANCES : Document

“Extreme electromagnetic incidents caused by an intentional electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack or a naturally occurring geomagnetic disturbance (GMD, also referred to as “space weather”) could damage significant portions of the Nation’s critical infrastructure, including the electrical grid, communications equipment, water and wastewater systems, and transportation modes.

The impacts are likely to cascade, initially compromising one or more critical infrastructure sectors, spilling over into additional sectors, and expanding beyond the initial geographic regions.

EMPs are associated with intentional attacks using high-altitude nuclear detonations, specialized conventional munitions, or non-nuclear directed energy devices. Effects vary in scale from highly local to regional to continental, depending upon the specific characteristics of the weapon and the attack profile. High-altitude electromagnetic pulse attacks (HEMP) using nuclear weapons are of most concern because they may permanently damage or disable large sections of the national electric grid and other critical infrastructure control systems.

Similarly, extreme geomagnetic disturbances associated with solar coronal mass ejections (when plasma from the sun, with its embedded magnetic field, arrives at Earth) may cause widespread and long-lasting damage to electric power systems, satellites, electronic navigation systems, and undersea cables. Essentially, any electronics system that is not protected against extreme EMP or GMD events may be subject to either the direct “shock” of the blast itself or to the damage that is inflicted on the systems and controls upon which they are dependent. For these reasons, the potential severity of both the direct and indirect impacts of an EMP or GMD incident compels our national attention. …..”

Terror Gone Viral 2018 :  Document

“…. Cumulatively, over the 2014 to 2018 period covered by the Terror Gone Viral reports, ISIS has been linked to 243 incidences, averaging five terrorist incidents per month…..”

BBC

Who are the Uighurs?

“The Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims mostly based in Xinjiang. They make up about 45% of the population there.

They see themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations, and their language is similar to Turkish.

In recent decades, large numbers of Han Chinese (China’s ethnic majority) have migrated to Xinjiang, and the Uighurs feel their culture and livelihoods are under threat.

Xinjiang is officially designated as an autonomous region within China, like Tibet to its south.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOBXJCqmuw0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQYxVHIOH-A

History Channel

Weather Channel

• “Hurricane Michael has intensified to a Category 4 major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Michael is expected to make landfall along Florida’s northeastern Gulf Coast Wednesday.
• A Category 4 or stronger hurricane has never made landfall in the Florida Panhandle.
• Michael has maximum sustained winds of 130 mph.
• Dangerous storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain are likely impacts from the storm.
• Hurricane warnings and storm surge warnings have been issued along the Gulf Coast of Florida.
• Tropical storm warnings and watches are posted along the Southeast coast as far north as the Outer Banks.
• Heavy rain and strong winds will spread inland across parts of the Southeast after landfall.”

In September, North Carolina took a direct hit from a hurricane. Now it is Florida’s turn.

What began as a tropical disturbance in the Caribbean Sea on October 2, 2018, went on to graze the Yucatan Peninsula and then strengthen into Hurricane Michael. The storm continued on its way through the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

National Hurricane Center forecasters expect the storm to make landfall in the Florida Panhandle or Big Bend region around midday on October 10. This area has faced relatively few hurricanes in the past, at least for the U.S. state that sees more landfalling hurricanes than any other.

“Only eight major hurricanes on record have passed within or near the projected landfall of Michael, and only three of those (Eloise 1975, Opal 1995, and Dennis 2005) were in the past 100 years,” noted Marangelly Fuentes, a NASA atmospheric scientist who has been tracking the storm with models maintained by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). “Michael’s projected intensity at landfall is currently category 3, which is worrisome because many people living in the Panhandle have little or no experience with storms this intense.”

As Michael approaches land, two key factors will help govern the intensity of the storm: ocean temperatures and wind shear, the difference in wind speeds at upper and lower parts of a storm. Warm ocean water and low wind shear are required to sustain or intensify a hurricane’s strength.

Michael managed to strengthen despite facing significant westerly shear in the Caribbean Sea on October 9, something the National Hurricane Center called “most unusual.” It then passed into an area of low shear and warm ocean water on October 10, where it continued to intensify.

The map above shows sea surface temperatures on October 8-9, 2018. Meteorologists generally agree that sea surface temperatures (SSTs) should be above 27.8°C (82°F) to sustain and intensify hurricanes (although there are some exceptions). The data for the map were compiled by Coral Reef Watch, which blends observations from the Suomi NPP, MTSAT, Meteosat, and GOES satellites and computer models. Information about the storm track and winds come from the National Hurricane Center.

Unlike Hurricane Florence, which made landfall September 14 in North Carolina as a slow-moving category 1 storm, there are no indications that Michael will stall near the coastline. “The storm is fast moving, so only 6-10+ inches (15-25+ centimeters) of precipitation are forecasted to fall over the Panhandle,” said Fuentes.

However, forecasters do expect the storm to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge. On October 7, the governor of Florida declared a state of emergency and urged people in the path of the storm to evacuate.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this natural-color image of Hurricane Michael on the afternoon of October 8, 2018.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens and Lauren Dauphin, and sea surface temperature data from Coral Reef Watch, storm track information from Weather Underground and MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Adam Voiland.