Hurricane Emma 2008

The headline says: "Hurricane Emma cuts swath across Europe," which is a report from Vienna in the Australia newspaper Australian.

No! There is no mistake here. It is a report from Vienna in the Australian (That's right, Australian, not Austrian) reporting about Hurricane Emma on March 3, 2008. Yes, that's the news tomorrow:

VIENNA: A winter storm with winds of more than 150km/h cut a swath of destruction across Europe from Britain to the Czech Republic, killing at least nine people.

For us who live in the heartland U.S.A. and only think that hurricane season as between June and November, it is a little strange to hear about a hurricane in early March. Clearly Europeans are not immune from hurricanes. May not be the same kind of hurricane as we know it. According to Wikipedia, there is such European windstorm as a severe cyclonic storm that tracks across the North Atlantic towards northwestern Europe in the winter months. So Emma is a real menace for the Europeans in winter. According to this Euronews:

One of Germany's high speed trains was taken out of action and several rail lines were closed as winds reached 190 kilometres an hour. Three people died in Germany.

In some areas, heavy rainfall caused flooding as well.

In Austria the death toll reached four, including two German tourists, with at least two of the people killed by trees blown down by high winds.

Some 10,000 households in the north of the country have been left without electricity.

Skiers in the Alps were warned to take extra care after a metre of snow fell and a Bundesliga football match was cancelled.

Across the countries hit by Emma, the damage is estimated to be worth tens of millions of euros. Weather experts say winds are likely to pick up again on Sunday morning.

Further from this AFP news:

High winds also struck the Netherlands, where the government said it was monitoring the country's vital sea barriers amid high waves on the North Sea, while buildings were reported damaged in neighbouring Belgium.

In Austria, where winds reached up to 166 kilometres per hour (103 miles per hour), two German tourists were killed in separate incidents in the western province of Tyrol.

In the central Salzburg province, a taxi passenger was killed by rockfall apparently released by the storm and a woman was crushed to death in Lower Austria by a fallen tree in her car.

Some 10,000 homes in Upper Austria were without power, roads and sections of motorway had to be shut down and rail services around the country were severely disrupted.

In Germany, one driver in western Rhineland-Palatinate was crushed when a tree fell onto his car, while a 72-year-old man in Bavaria was killed when a strong gust of wind pushed him into the path of an oncoming lorry.

Six people were wounded, including one seriously, after their bus fell into a ditch near Erding in Bavaria, while in North Rhine-Westphalia, a 41-year-old woman was severely injured by a falling tree.

In Bruehl, near Bonn, a high-speed ICE train collided with a fallen tree on the tracks, causing several light injuries.

Heavy rain prompted flooding in several regions and waves measuring several metres were observed in the North Sea but authorities reported no shipping incidents.

American people are real lucky, they don't have any of these worries and they have heard nothing about all these.

* * * Private view on:
For the American drive-by, Gore-little, media, who knows only Hurricane Katrina and dreams only for the Katrina repeats, the happenings of the rest of the world should be of no interest to American people -- unless they can connect those nature disasters in Central Europe to the sins of Exxon Mobile and SUV drivers. So we only heard the cult followings of a candidate, who has done nothing and accomplished even less, to talk about change. Change, change, change. Change, change, change. Change of what? How dare you ask. It's fake, but true! We need change. Isn't that enough? No? Read the New National Enquirer, uh, the New X Times, you'll learn all about it!
* * * Private view off.