Prophecy, Drought, Earthquakes, Famine, Pestilence, War, and Strange Weather.

[2nd Timothy]

A reason the U.S. is not mentioned in the end times??

I have wondered the same thing PR.

Grace and Peace!

[Shammu]

looding hits eastern Malaysia
By Jonathan Kent
BBC, Kuala Lumpur

Eleven people are reported to have died and more than 10,000 have been evacuated after flooding hit the east coast of peninsula Malaysia.

Heavy rain left towns and villages in the states of Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang under up to 2m of water.

Meteorologists are predicting the situation - already described as the worst flooding in more than a decade - is likely to get worse.

The city of Kota Baru has been one of the worst hit.

Five people died after the Kelantan river burst its banks, while some 5,000 are sheltering in government reception centres.

Seven other rivers in the region are reported to be nearing danger levels.

Terrible choice

In the state of Terengganu, almost 4,000 people have been moved from their homes as roads have been washed away.

One man described how he was faced with the choice of rescuing his two young sons or his wife after their car became trapped in rising flood waters.

He took his children to safety but when he returned, his car and his wife had disappeared.

In Pahang, the most southerly of the three states, the government has opened 10 centres to receive evacuees.

Weather forecasters are warning that the situation is likely to get worse as more heavy rain is expected.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4091169.stm

[Shammu]

 Massive quake hits off Tasmania

24dec04

THE world's biggest earthquake in almost four years has struck 800km off the coast of Tasmania, Australian seismological officials said.

Geoscience Australia said the quake, measuring 8.1 on the Richter Scale, hit the Macquarie Rise in the Pacific Ocean at 1.59am (AEDT).

The earthquake, which occurred half-way between Australia and Antarctica, was felt throughout Tasmania, seismologist Cvetan Sinadinovski said.

It caused buildings in parts of the state to shake for up to 15 seconds, he said.

No one was injured in the quake and structures were in no danger of collapsing because it struck so far off the coast.

“If it happened underneath a population centre in Australia, this would probably have destroyed a whole city,” Dr Sinadinovski said.

“In terms of size, this could have been more than 30 times stronger than the Newcastle event of 1989.”

It was the biggest quake since one occurred off the coast of Peru in early 2001, Dr Sinadinovski said.

He said large earthquakes were common in the Macquarie Rise region, occurring every one or two years.

“This was an inter-plate earthquake between Indo-Australian and Pacific plates,” he said.

”The last earthquake of similar magnitude in the Macquarie Rise region was in 1924.

The quake originally registered as 7.8 on the Richter scale but had been upgraded to 8.1 this morning, he said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,11775215,00.html

[Soldier4Christ]

Update on the earthquake. Now they are saying it was a bigger quake than originally thought, 8.9 magnitude. A tsunami has been caused by this earthquake that has caused at least 9,000 deaths with the death toll still rising.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a48dxp8vQKKg&refer=top_world_news

[Shammu]

UN Warns of Possible Epidemics in Quake-Hit Asia

1 hour, 11 minutes ago
By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations (news - web sites) warned on Monday of epidemics within days unless health systems in southern Asia can cope after more than 14,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless by a giant tsunami.

Aid agencies round the world rushed staff, equipment and money to southern Asia after huge waves, triggered by a massive underwater earthquake, pummeled and swamped coastal communities in at least six countries on Sunday.

"This may be the worst national disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated coastal areas ... so many vulnerable communities," the U.N.'s Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland told CNN.

"The longer term effects may be as devastating as the tidal wave or the tsunami itself ... Many more people are now affected by polluted drinking water. We could have epidemics within a few days unless we get health systems up and running.

"Many people will have (had) their livelihoods, their whole future destroyed in a few seconds."

Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia suffered the highest death tolls but Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and Bangladesh were also hit by the surging walls of water. Government officials estimate in Sri Lanka alone, 800,000 people were forced from their homes.

Experts said the top five issues to be addressed were water, sanitation, food, shelter and health.

"ROTTING BODIES"

"We've had reports already from the south of India of bodies rotting where they have fallen and that will immediately affect the water supply especially for the most impoverished people," said Christian Aid emergency officer Dominic Nutt.

Some affected areas have had communications cut. Others are so remote it is impossible to know the extent of the damage.

"This is a massive humanitarian disaster and the communications are so bad we still don't know the full scale of it. Unless we get aid quickly to the people many more could die," said Phil Esmond, head of Oxfam in Sri Lanka.

The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was seeking an immediate $6.5 million for emergency aid funding.

"This is a preliminary appeal. It will be revised after exact needs are evaluated," said Simon Missiri, head of the federation's Asia Pacific department.

Earlier, the federation released $870,000 from its disaster relief emergency fund to get assistance moving to the region.

"The biggest health challenges we face is the spread of waterborne diseases, particularly malaria and diarrhea, as well as respiratory tract infections," said the Red Cross Federation's senior health officer Hakan Sandbladh.

The federation said it would send an assessment and coordination team to Sri Lanka, and had on standby several emergency response units specialized in water and sanitation as well as field hospitals.

The United States said it would offer "all appropriate assistance" to Asian countries, with some aid already on its way to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

"We're prepared to be very responsive," said State Department spokesman Noel Clay.

The European Union (news - web sites) pledged an initial three million euros ($4 million) and local news agency Belga said Belgium had allocated its own 500,000 euros in emergency aid to be distributed by Red Cross bodies and the EU.

Britain said it had offered what it called practical help.

"What we don't know is the number of people who've been displaced, and what infrastructure has been affected. That's the critical point," said Titon Mitra, emergency response director for the CARE aid agency in Geneva. (Editing by Ralph Gowling, additional reporting by Ruth Gidley in London, Marie-Louise Moller in Brussels; Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem; Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations; Jim Wolf in Washington)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20041227/wl_nm/quake_aid_dc

See next post for more, on this.

[Shammu]

Asian Tsunami Kills 14,425, Rush to Identify Dead

1 hour, 15 minutes ago
World - Reuters
By Chamintha Thilakarathna

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Soldiers searched for bodies in treetops, families wept over the dead lined up on beaches and rescuers scoured coral isles for missing tourists as Asia counted the cost on Monday of a tsunami that killed up to 14,425.

Idyllic palm-fringed beaches across southern Asia were transformed into scenes of death and devastation by the waves unleashed by the world's biggest earthquake in 40 years that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra early on Sunday.

"Death came from the sea," Satya Kumari, a construction worker living on the outskirts of the former French enclave of Pondicherry, India, told Reuters. "The waves just kept chasing us. It swept away all our huts. What did we do to deserve this?"

The wall of water up to 10 meters (30 feet) tall flattened houses, hurled fishing boats onto coastal roads, sent cars spinning through swirling waters into hotel lobbies and sucked sunbathers and fishermen off beaches and out to sea.

Worst affected were Sri Lanka where 4,890 were killed, the southeast coast of India where officials reported as many as 4,600 could be dead, northern Indonesia with up to 4,500 drowned and the southern tourist isles of Thailand where as many as 400 were feared dead.

"We are not well equipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude because we have never known a disaster like this," Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who declared a national disaster and appealed for donor aid, said from holiday in Britain.

It was the worst natural disaster to hit Sri Lanka in recorded history. Officials the death toll could rise substantially as troops recovered bodies dragged out to sea or smashed on golden beaches.

Indonesian soldiers searched for bodies in tree tops and in the wreckage of homes smashed by the tsunami, triggered by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of northern Sumatra island killing at least 4,448 people there.

"It smells so bad, fishy. The human bodies are mixed in with dead animals like dogs, fish, cats and goats," said marine colonel Buyung Lelana, head of an evacuation team in Lhokseumawe in Sumatra's Aceh province.

"There are still a lot of bodies under the wreckage of collapsed houses and in rivers and swamps that we have not yet evacuated. Most of them are children and their mothers," he said.

International aid agencies rushed staff, equipment and money to the region, warning that bodies rotting in the water were already beginning to threaten the water supply for survivors.

The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was seeking 7.5 million Swiss francs ($6.5 million) for emergency aid funding.

BATTERED BY ROCKS

"Many of the dead bodies were found in houses. Their heads were cracked, probably battered by rocks," said Mustofa, mayor of Bireuen regency on the north coast of Sumatra.

The head of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Los Angeles said U.S. officials who detected the undersea quake tried frantically to get a warning out about the tsunami.

But there was no official alert system in the region, said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's center in Honolulu.

"It took an hour and a half for the wave to get from the earthquake to Sri Lanka and an hour for it to get ... to the west coast of Thailand and Malaysia," he said.

"We tried to do what we could. We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world," he said.

The earthquake was the world's biggest since 1964 and the fourth-largest since 1900.

Hundreds of thousands left homeless in Sri Lanka and fearing another devastating wave sheltered in temples and schools. The southern coastal town of Galle, a major industrial hub famed for its historic fort, had been submerged by a 9-meter (30-ft) wave.

Wailing relatives scrambled over hundreds of bodies piled in a hospital in nearby Karapitiya, searching for loved ones.

Residents milled in streets outside the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital, shirts or handkerchiefs clutched over their noses against the overpowering stench of decaying bodies.

"We have got hundreds of dead that we have dealt with," said a hospital official. "I don't know what to do."

Corpses of hundreds of those drowned lay bloated and disfigured in the lobby and corridors. A stream of cars, ambulances and trucks arrived, bringing more dead.

The body of a pregnant woman lay in the lobby. Nearby, a woman collapsed as she identified a relative. Many of the dead were children. A nurse wept as she picked up the body of a baby.

Officials said 800,000 people had been forced from their homes.

On India's southeast coast, thousands of villagers huddled inside emergency shelters, too scared to sleep in case of another tsunami.

"I could see dead bodies all around and the devastation is of colossal proportions," Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa said after touring the worst hit areas of her state.

"I have been waiting for my husband and brother since yesterday," wept 38-year-old Narasamma as she stood on a beach near Mypadu, a fishing hamlet 600 km (375 miles) south of Hyderabad, capital of southern Andhra Pradesh state.

"I am not sure they will come back," she said. On the horizon, the wreckage of wooden fishing boats dotted the sea.

TOURIST ISLE DEVASTATED

The tourist islands and beaches of southern Thailand lay in the path of the wave that had killed up to 400. On the Patong tourist beach in Phuket, hotels and restaurants were wrecked and speed boats were rammed into buildings. "I was sitting on the first floor of a bar, not far from the beach, watching cricket," said Australian tourist, Stephen Dicks, 42. "And suddenly all these people came screaming from the beach.

"I looked around and saw a massive wall of water rushing down the street. It completely wiped out the ground floor of my bar ... It happened very fast, in a matter of minutes."

The tsunami was so powerful it smashed boats and flooded areas along the east African coast, 6,000 km (3,728 miles) away. In the Maldives, where thousands of foreign visitors were vacationing in the beach paradise, damage appeared to be limited.

With communications cut to remote areas, it was impossible to assess the full scale of the disaster, aid agencies said.

The Indian air force was trying to reach the remote Nicobar and Andaman archipelagos near the heart of the quake where officials said as many as 2,000 were feared dead.

A tsunami, a Japanese word that translates as "harbor wave," is usually caused by a sudden rise or fall of part of the earth's crust under or near the ocean.

It is not a single wave, but a series of waves that can travel across the ocean at speeds of more than 800 km (500 miles) an hour. As the tsunami enters the shallows of coastlines in its path, its velocity slows but its height increases and it can strike with devastating force.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20041227/wl_nm/quake_dc

[Shammu]

Tsunami Waves Kill Over 19,930 in Asia

7 minutes ago
World - AP Asia
By DILIP GANGULY, Associated Press Writer

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - A military spokesman raised the estimated number of deaths in Sri Lanka caused by devastating tidal waves by more than 5,000 people on Monday, raising the death toll from the regional catastrophe to just under 20,000 people.

Thousands of soldiers scoured Asia's coastlines for survivors of the walls of water that obliterated seaside towns in nine countries, killing more than 19,930 people. Aid poured into the region, and parents in India mourned as hundreds of children were buried in mass graves.

The death toll began climbing sharply after Sunday morning's 9.0-magnitude quake that struck deep beneath the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia, the most powerful temblor in four decades.

The waves sped away from the epicenter at over 500 mph before crashing into the region's shorelines without warning, sweeping people and fishing villages out to sea. Millions were displaced from their homes and thousands were missing.

Officials said the death toll would continue to rise and warned that disease outbreaks were possible.

Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India each reported thousands dead, and Thailand — a Western tourist hotspot — said hundreds were dead and thousands missing. Deaths were also reported in Malaysia, Maldives, Mayanmar, Bangladesh and even in Somalia, 3,000 miles away in Africa.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ ap/20041227/ p_on_re_as/indonesia_earthquake

Listening to the news, it's just been reported that over 20,000 have been killed.

[Shammu]

Mon Dec 27,11:13 PM ET

LOS ANGELES, (AFP) - An earthquake that unleashed deadly tidal waves on Asia was so powerful it made the Earth wobble on its axis and permanently altered the regional map, US geophysicists said.

The 9.0-magnitude temblor that struck 250 kilometers (155 miles) southeast of Sumatra island Sunday may have moved small islands as much as 20 meters (66 feet), according to one expert.

"That earthquake has changed the map," US Geological Survey expert Ken Hudnut told AFP.

"Based on seismic modeling, some of the smaller islands off the southwest coast of Sumatra may have moved to the southwest by about 20 meters. That is a lot of slip."

The northwestern tip of the Indonesian territory of Sumatra may also have shifted to the southwest by around 36 meters (120 feet), Hudnut said.

In addition, the energy released as the two sides of the undersea fault slipped against each other made the Earth wobble on its axis, Hudnut said.

"We can detect very slight motions of the Earth and I would expect that the Earth wobbled in its orbit when the earthquake occurred due the massive amount of energy exerted and the sudden shift in mass," Hudnut said.

Another USGS research geophysicist agreed that the Earth would have got a "little jog," and that the islands off Sumatra would have been moved by the quake.

However, Stuart Sipkin, of the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in Golden Colorado, said it was more likely that the islands off Sumatra had risen higher out of the sea than they had moved laterally.

"In in this case, the Indian plate dived below the Burma plate, causing uplift, so most of the motion to the islands would have been vertical, not horizontal."

The tsunamis unleashed by the fourth-biggest earthquake in a century have left at least 23,675 people dead in eight countries across Asia and as far as Somalia in East Africa.

The tsunamis wiped out entire coastal villages and pulled beach-goers out to sea.

The International Red Cross estimated that up to one million people have been displaced by the natural calamity.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...ft_041228041350

By the Grace of God, you are saved.
Bob

[Shammu]

Asia Tsunami Death Toll Soars Past 77,000

1 hour, 18 minutes ago
World - AP Asia
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - As the world scrambled to the rescue, survivors fought over packs of noodles in quake-stricken Indonesian streets Wednesday while relief supplies piled up at the airport for lack of cars, gas or passable roads to move them. The official death toll across 11 countries soared past 77,000 and the Red Cross predicted it could exceed 100,000.

Bodies were piled into mass graves in the belief that burial would ward off disease. Paramedics in southern India began vaccinating thousands of survivors against cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A and dysentery, and authorities sprayed bleaching powder on beaches where bodies have been recovered. In Sri Lanka, reports of waterborne disease such as diarrhea caused fears of an epidemic.

President Bush announced the United States, India, Australia and Japan have formed an international coalition to coordinate relief and reconstruction of the 3,000 miles of Indian Ocean rim walloped by Sunday's earthquake and the tsunami it unleashed.

"We're facing a disaster of unprecedented proportion in nature," said Simon Missiri, a top Red Cross official. "We're talking about a staggering death toll."

On hundreds of Web sites, the messages were brief but poignant: "Missing: Christina Blomee in Khao Lak," or simply, "Where are you?" All conveyed the aching desperation of people the world over whose friends and family went off in search of holiday-season sun and sand and haven't been heard from for four days.

But even as hope for the missing dwindled, survivors continued to turn up Wednesday. In Sri Lanka, where more than 22,000 died, a lone fisherman named Sini Mohammed Sarfudeen was rescued by an air force helicopter crew after clinging to his wave-tossed boat for three days.

Indian air force planes evacuated thousands of survivors from the remote island of Car Nicobar. Some of them had walked for days from their destroyed villages to reach a devastated but functioning airfield, where they were shuttled out 80 to 90 at a time.

Journalists were not allowed to leave the base to verify reports that some 8,000 people were dead there, but at the base alone, 67 officers and their families were missing and feared dead.

India's death toll rose to nearly 7,000, while Indonesia's stood at 45,268, but authorities said this did not include a full count from Sumatra's west coast, where more than 10,000 deaths were suspected in one town alone.

UNICEF said Thursday that the death toll in Indonesia could rise to as high as 80,000 with nearly a million children in need of assistance. The international children's agency estimated that 60 percent of Banda Aceh, the main town of Sumatra's Aceh province, was destroyed.

"It's going to be 75,000 to 80,000 no question," said John Budd, a UNICEF spokesman in Jakarta who got the information from government sources in Aceh.

In Sumatra, the Florida-sized Indonesian island close to the epicenter of the quake, the view from the air was of whole villages ripped apart, covered in mud and seawater. In one of the few signs of life, a handful of desperate people scavenged a beach for food. On the streets of Banda Aceh, the main town of Sumatra's Aceh province, the military managed to drop supplies from vehicles and fights broke out over packs of instant noodles.

Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya, military commander of Aceh province, said after flying over the stricken region that 75 percent of the west coast of Sumatra was destroyed.

Footage shot by an Associated Press Television News cameraman on the military helicopter showed town after town covered in mud and sea water. Homes had their roofs ripped off or were flattened.

A solitary mosque and green treetops were all that broke the line of water in one town.

Thailand said it had 1,975 dead and a total of more than 300 were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Thursday that he feared his nation's death toll will soar to nearly 7,000 dead.

With tens of thousands of people still missing across the entire region, Peter Ress, Red Cross operations support chief, said the death toll could top 100,000. More than 500,000 were reported injured.

"We have little hope, except for individual miracles," Jean-Marc Espalioux, chairman of the Accor hotel group, said of the search for thousands of tourists and locals missing from beach resorts of southern Thailand — including 2,000 Scandinavians.

The State Department said 12 Americans died in the disaster — seven in Sri Lanka and five in Thailand. About 2,000 to 3,000 Americans were unaccounted for.

Bush, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, talked by phone Wednesday with leaders of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India.

"We're still in the stage of immediate help. But slowly but surely, the size of the problem will become known, particularly when it comes to rebuilding infrastructure and community to help these affected parts of the world get back up on their feet," Bush said afterward.

The Pentagon says it will divert several U.S. warships and helicopters to the region, some of which can produce up to 90,000 gallons of drinking water a day.

Without clean water, respiratory and waterborne diseases could break out within days, putting millions at "grave risk," the U.N. children's agency said. "Standing water can be just as deadly as moving water," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy. "The floods have contaminated the water systems, leaving people with little choice but to use unclean surface water."

Near Banda Aceh, trucks dumped more than 1,000 bloated, unidentified bodies into pits. Military Col. Achmad Yani Basuki said there was no choice, given the danger of disease and the difficulty of identifying any of the dead.

But Dana Van Alphan of the Pan American Health Organization issued a statement declaring there was no danger of corpses contaminating water or soil because bacteria and viruses cannot survive in dead bodies. The organization said it issued the statement, hoping to avert mass burials of tens of thousands of unidentified victims.

Van Alphan said it was important for survivors to be allowed to identify loved ones and urged authorities in tsunami-stricken countries to avoid burying unidentified corpses in mass graves.

"I think that psychologically, people have to be given the chance to identify their family members," she said. "Whatever disease the person has while still alive poses no threat to public health in a corpse."

The World Health Organization has also said dead bodies are not an immedieate threat to health.

"The health hazard associated with dead bodies is negligible. The collection, disposal, burying and/or cremation of corpses requires important human and material resources which should instead be allocated to those who survived and remain in critical condition," the organization said in a news release after the 1999 earthquake in Turkey.

In Sri Lanka, four planes arrived in the capital bringing a mobile hospital from Finland, a water purification plant from Germany, doctors and medicine from Japan and aid workers from Britain, the Red Cross said.

Supplies that included 175 tons of rice and 100 doctors reached Banda Aceh but officials said they were having difficulty moving it out.

Widespread looting was reported in Thailand's devastated resort islands of Phuket and Phi Phi, where European and Australian tourists left valuables behind in wrecked hotels when they fled — or were swept away.

An international airlift was under way to ferry critical aid and medicine to Phuket and to take home travelers, some with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. France, Australia, Greece, Italy, Germany and Sweden were sending flights.

The world's biggest reinsurer, Germany's Munich Re, estimated the damage to buildings and foundations in the affected regions would be at least $13.6 billion.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=1&u=/ap/20041230/ap_on_re_as/tsunami

[Shammu]

this is in my neck of the woods, about 100 miles away as the crow flies. I know we got over 1 inch here.
Bob

Storm Spawns Tornado, Flooding in West

1 hour, 6 minutes ago
U.S. National - AP
By ANABELLE GARAY, Associated Press Writer

SEDONA, Ariz. - A powerful storm battered the West for a third straight day Wednesday, forcing dozens of people from their homes, sending recreational vehicles floating down a flooded creek in Arizona and turning Southern California freeways into a virtual demolition derby.

The storm spawned a tornado in Southern California and left 140,000 customers without power in the area while making for treacherous driving conditions. The California Highway Patrol logged 220 crashes between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning — more than three times the normal amount.

Authorities also reported hundreds of crashes around Las Vegas, and firefighters rescued several stranded motorists — including a police officer whose patrol car was swamped by rising water. The storm dropped 1.58 inches of rain; Las Vegas normally receives 4.43 inches a year. No property damage or serious injuries were reported.

Several neighborhoods were evacuated because of flooding in low-lying areas of Sedona, where Oak Creek rose about 12 feet to about a foot above flood stage. The storm dumped up to 2 1/2 inches of rain there within a few hours early Wednesday.

Later, as showers decreased, the creek receded to 9 1/2 feet and Sedona authorities said the threat of further evacuations had diminished.

"I've been here since 1977. ... This is the worst," said Marc Spector, owner of the Hideaway Restaurant, which is perched on a cliff overlooking Oak Creek.

Some homes had minor flooding and people were stranded in water-logged vehicles in Sedona, a town of some 10,000 people surrounded by towering red rock formations that draw hundreds of thousands of tourists.

Large RVs were seen floating down Oak Creek southwest of Sedona. The rain also caused rock slides, authorities said.

Sedona fire officials initially said 300 residents were being evacuated, but later Wednesday said they were unsure on the number.

Sixty miles away in Prescott, authorities searched for two missing college students after their canoe capsized in a flooded creek, said Susan Hampton, a spokeswoman for the city. A third student got out of the water to look for help, and part of the missing canoe was recovered. The search was expected to resume at dawn Thursday.

The California tornado struck two Los Angeles suburbs after midnight, ripping the roof off a house, snapping trees and damaging cars, but causing no injuries.

"I heard sort of a low rumbling noise, sort of like a freight train and shortly after that, I heard a ripping noise — obviously, that was my roof," resident Derek Williams told KCAL-TV. "Thank God everyone was OK in the house."

Storm-related deaths since Monday mounted to five in California, and several highways were closed because of flooding and mudslides, officials said. High wind in San Diego County snapped off the top 200 feet of the KSON radio tower in National City.

By early Wednesday, downtown Los Angeles had logged 6.37 inches of rain since late Sunday. Tuesday's total alone was 5.55 inches, the city's rainiest December day since record-keeping started in 1877. On Monday, San Francisco was hit by more than 3 inches of rain and suburban Marin County got more than 7 inches.

In Utah, 19 inches of snow fell at the Brian Head Resort, but skiers couldn't take advantage of it because 70 mph wind prevented the resort from starting its chair lifts.

In Colorado, several people were injured and parts of three highways were closed Wednesday as the storm moved in. Interstate 70 was closed in two places due to accidents, but was reopened by early Wednesday evening.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/20041230/ap_on_re_us/western_storm

[BlackmanX]

I'm  honestly  beginning  to  think  that  the  end  is  near.

[Dyskolos]

I'm  honestly  beginning  to  think  that  the  end  is  near.

There have been people in every generation since the one contemporary with Jesus that have said the same thing!

They have all been wrong, for the last two thousand years.

The doomsayers of this generation who say we are in the "End Times" are wrong too!

[Soldier4Christ]

I'm  honestly  beginning  to  think  that  the  end  is  near.

There have been people in every generation since the one contemporary with Jesus that have said the same thing!

They have all been wrong, for the last two thousand years.

The doomsayers of this generation who say we are in the "End Times" are wrong too!

Mar 13:32  But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Mar 13:33  Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.

 

[Soldier4Christ]

I can't find a link to it right now but I just heard that the United Arab Emirates received their first snowfall ever for the desert country in the mountains of Ras al-Khaimah. It was supposedly a very significant snowfall that blanketed the whole area on 30 Dec 04 and 01 Jan 05.

Anyone else hear anything about this?

[Soldier4Christ]

I just found a link for it on the Aljazeera.net


http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/669DA83D-AA88-4426-BB8B-76D0928B0A51.htm



Snow has fallen over the United Arab Emirates for the first time ever, leaving a white blanket over the mountains of Ras al-Khayma.

With the desert country experiencing a cold spell and above-average rainfall, Dubai airport's meteorology department said on Thursday that snow fell over the al-Jiys mountain range in the most northerly member of the UAE federation.

 

The Gulf News daily reported that the mountain cluster, 1737 metres above sea level, "had heavy night-time snowfall for the past two days as a result of temperatures dropping to as low as -5C".

 

On Monday, 12.6 millimetres of rain fell on the desert emirate of Dubai, where it hardly ever rains.

 

Unused to the conditions, over 500 accidents were reported to police within 24 hours.

 

A cold spell has hit the country this week, with the mercury plunging to 12C in Dubai on Wednesday night.

 

The meteorology department said the chilly weather in Dubai, where summer temperatures can reach 50C, will probably end by next week