Rescue operations in Western Japan prefectures underway after torrential rain

Western Japan is now the target of full-scale search and rescue operations that started Monday morning, as the region was hit with a record amount of rain on Sunday.

There are a lot of people, estimated to be in the hundreds, in Yamaguchi and Shimane Prefectures stranded by the flooding due to the tremendous amount of rain. The Japan Meteorological Agency warned the region specifically that it will experience “unprecedentedly heavy rains”, and residents were advised to be vigilant regarding incoming floods and mudslides.

In Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture, 79-year-old Yoshino Tashima was found under a collapsed house and was confirmed dead. At least 10 people in the area were injured in one way or another. The downpour also caused locations to be isolated due to mudslides, and around 480 people were being rescued by helicopter from different areas in the prefecture. Some 200 primary school students who were attending a summer camp in the prefecture were trapped due at a prefectural youth nature center near Tokusagamine mountain. Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force members rescued them by helicopter early Monday.

In Tsuwano, Shimane Prefecture, around 200 residents from three districts were still stranded as of noon, according to reports from the area. Some residents in the town’s Nayoshi district were also transported by helicopter because of the flooding. The record-breaking rains also affected the train region’s train service. JR Yamaguchi Line was rendered partially out of service as a bridge and other facilities had been affected by floodwaters. A farmer in the Nayoshi district of Tsuwano said, “The river swelled immediately, and an asphalt surface of a prefectural road collapsed.”

The torrential rains have brought one month’s worth of rain to these areas in just one day, according to reports. The Japan Meteorological Agency has urged the public to remain vigilant, because even if the rain has stopped for now, heavy rain is again expected in the area on Monday night due to a weather system brought by westerly winds. The Japanese central government is already assessing the damage in the area. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference Monday that an investigation team headed by Yasutoshi Nishimura, senior vice minister in the Cabinet Office, would be sent to Yamaguchi and Shimane prefectures to assess the rain damage. More

 

Rivers' in air could boost flooding

Winter floods could intensify in Britain, [and countries globally] according to new research into powerful weather systems called "atmospheric rivers".

Only identified about 20 years ago, atmospheric rivers are intense bands of moisture that flow through the air.

Known to be responsible for heavy rainfall, they have been blamed for severe flooding in California and the UK.

The new study suggests that warmer conditions could create more rivers - and make them more severe.

The paper is published by the Institute of Physics in Environmental Research Letters.

Atmospheric rivers are up to 300km wide and can stretch in length for over 1,000-2,000km. They flow invisibly between 1-2.5km above the surface of the ocean.

One atmospheric river is believed to have been behind the violent flooding that hit Cockermouth in Cumbria on 19 November 2009.

The flooding claimed the life of a policeman, PC Bill Barker, who died after a bridge collapsed.

The researchers, led by Dr David Lavers of the University of Iowa, have estimated the staggering volume of moisture carried by this particular atmospheric river.

They calculate that at its peak it was transporting almost 300,000 tonnes of moisture every second.

By comparison, the River Thames carries about 65 tonnes of water through London over the same period.

Remain on course

If the rivers make landfall and encounter a steep rise in terrain, the air is forced upwards where it cools and releases the moisture in the form of rain.

On top of that, if the river remains on the same course for 24 hours - as it did over Cumbria in 2009 - it will deliver a continuous flow of heavy rain over the same area.

The most closely-studied atmospheric river, which flows towards the California coast, has been dubbed the "Pineapple Express" because it usually originates from the region of Hawaii.

It has been linked to a number of extremely damaging storms along the US West Coast.

Over the last 30 years, there has been an average of 9-11 of the strongest atmospheric river events hitting Britain every year.

In this latest study, the researchers examined five different modelling scenarios to simulate possible conditions this century and found that a warming climate - which allows the atmosphere to hold more moisture - made the rivers more likely.

Dr Lavers said: "All five models suggest that there could be a doubling of atmospheric river events in the period 2074-99 and most of those could be expected to make landfall in the UK.

"One of the big things is that these are the most relevant feature of winter flooding in Britain and the work is certainly suggesting an increase in strength and frequency."

Computer modelling

Among the uncertainties about the research are the reliability of the models used to generate the future scenarios and possible shifts in the patterns of the winds - a change of course away from the UK would reduce the risk.

It was research in the 1970s that first identified "conveyor belts" of moisture travelling through the atmosphere, with later studies in the early 1990s detecting much narrower bands of intense vapour that became known as atmospheric rivers.

Dr Richard Allan of Reading University, also an author of the paper, said: "What this shows is that the dominating factor is the increase in water vapour which means that if you've got more moisture - and the winds don't change -then you've got a much bigger potential for flooding.

"These are really massive flows of invisible water which can feed clouds and cause rainfall if forced up over mountains."

The researchers say the study could help guide forecasters trying to give warning of future flood risks. More

 

Mudslides in China kill 21, four missing

The landslides triggered by heavy rains struck just south of the city of Dingxi where Monday's earthquake left 95 dead, five missing and more than 800 people in hospital.

Nine villages under the city of Tianshui remained out of contact as of Saturday morning after the storms knocked out power, cut off communications and blocked roads, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The heavy storms and mudslides left one village, Rongguang, filled with debris, damaging more than half of the village homes and burying villagers, Xinhua said.

The area along the Yellow River has rolling hills of loose soil blown south from the Gobi desert. Thunderstorms have loosened the terraced hillsides that were made unstable by the quake.

About 123 000 people were affected by the quake, with 31 600 moved to temporary shelters, the provincial earthquake administration said on its website. Almost 2 000 homes were destroyed and about 22 500 damaged, it said.

Urban areas where buildings are more solid were spared major damage, unlike the traditional mud and brick homes in the countryside. More

 

Global warming and the future of storms

New research by Kerry Emanuel suggests that hurricanes will become more frequent and more intense

Dr. Kerry Emanuel

We know that changes we are making to the Earth's climate will (and currently are) affecting weather. Some of the impacts are clear to see and easy to quantify. For instance, in some regions, droughts are becoming more severe and longer lasting, while in other locations, the opposite is occurring – more precipitation is falling in heavier downbursts. Two competing issues have to be considered. First, increased temperatures are increasing evaporation rates i.e., drying is occurring. Second, increased temperatures lead to more water vapor in the atmosphere, which results in heavier rain/snow events. In regions that are currently dry, the first issue dominates, whereas in wet regions, the second is more important.

Despite these competing effects, scientists can detect changes in the drying/wetting patterns around the globe, and these are linked to human emissions.

Typhoon Sanba

For other weather patterns, the evidence is not as clear. For instance for tornadoes, our observations just aren't good enough to make categorical conclusions. Reliable records in the U.S. started in the early 1950s, but since then, there have been improvements in our sensing instruments, which makes it difficult to assess long-term trends.

A similar situation exists for hurricanes and cyclones. We are more able to observe and quantify these storms now, so we have to ask whether increases in these storms is caused by global warming, by improved measurements, or by both. Similarly, we have had very destructive storms in the U.S. recently, but is the damage due to more powerful storms or increased infrastructure in storm areas?

One useful tool that can help answer these questions are climate models. Climate models are like virtual reality computer programs. You can input today's conditions (wind speed, temperatures, pressures, etc.) and predict what will happen in the future. Today's weather forecasts use similar prediction tools. In some respects, "climate" computer programs and "weather" computer programs are different, but there are some clear similarities. "Weather" prediction programs try to give short-term prognostications of local weather a few days into the future. "Climate" predictions attempt to describe long-term trends in large-scale climate patterns years and decades into the future.

So, how can computer programs help us answer the hurricane/cyclone question? With the help of the program, a scientist can play "what if" scenarios and see how future storms will change. What if greenhouse gases increase? What if ocean temperatures increase? What if wind speeds change? How will these things affect the number and strength of hurricanes?

Very recently, a publication appeared by perhaps the world's best-known hurricane scientist, Dr. Kerry Emanuel of MIT. Dr. Emanuel combined global computer simulations with more regional simulations to look into the future at the evolution of storms. What he found was surprising. Because the storms will become stronger and more numerous, within the next century, the power dissipated by future storms will increase by about 50 percent. What was particularly interesting was that his findings show increases in both strong and weaker cyclones.

I asked Dr. Emanuel to summarize the present understanding of hurricanes, and he responded with the following insights:

• The incidence of high-intensity tropical cyclones (Safir-Simpson categories 3-5) should increase, and the amount of rainfall in these storms should increase, upping the potential for freshwater flooding. These changes will not necessarily occur where tropical cyclones develop and thrive today. "Indeed," wrote Emanuel, "it is likely that there will be decreasing activity in some places, and increasing activity in others; models do not agree on such regional changes."

• Though experts disagree on this point, Emanuel's work suggests that weak events (tropical storms and Cat 1-2 storms) will become more frequent.

• "Very little work has been done on the problem of storm size," wrote Emanuel, "what little research has been done suggests that storm diameters may increase with global temperature. This can have a profound influence on storm surges, which are the biggest killers in tropical cyclone disasters. " More

 

Bizarre highly unusual phenomenon: Snow in Philippines

A bizarre highly unusual phenomenon shocked the southern Philippine residents as of this 8:00 am (UTC+08:00) there were confirmed reports that a 3 straight hours of heavy snowfall was reported to certain areas in the Southern region.

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As Extreme Weather Increases, Bangladesh Braces for the Worst

Scientists are predicting that warming conditions will bring more frequent and more intense extreme weather events. Their warnings hit home in densely populated Bangladesh, which historically has been hit by devastating sea surges and cyclones.

A Mother and child on outskirts of Dhaka, after monsoon

Melting ice sheets, calving glaciers and rising sea levels: scenarios of impending inundation fill the news, while climate change skeptics assure us that these are long-term problems, part of the natural cycle of things. One thing is certain: These are multi-decade changes in a warming world, which we’re tempted to leave to future generations.

But as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy forcibly reminded us here in the United States, warming brings more extreme weather events — and the catastrophic inundations that accompany them. In the short term, destructive and very expensive sea surges are the most immediate consequence of rising sea levels. And nothing provides a more sobering reminder of our vulnerability than the awesome cyclones that often accompany these surges in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh lies at the head of the Bay of Bengal, the world’s largest river delta formed by the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers. Water covers some 10,000 square kilometers of the country, most of which lies close to sea level. An arabesque of waterways large and small cuts through

Between 1947 and 1988, 13 severe cyclones ravaged the lowlands of Bangladesh, killing thousands.

the coastal plain. In the past, a unique mosaic of beach and tidal forests, as well as dense mangrove swamps, acted as a cushion against sea surges and cyclones. Two hundred years ago, more than 11,000 square kilometers of mangrove swamps and forests protected the coast. But today, this natural coastal barrier is under threat from promiscuous forest clearance for agricultural land, from shrimp farming, and from the construction of barrages for irrigation works. Most natural coastal protection is gone.

Cyclones and their fearsome sea surges descend on Bangladesh with a furious intensity that has killed millions of people over the centuries. Between 1947 and 1988 alone, 13 severe cyclones ravaged the lowlands, causing thousands of deaths and sweeping away villages and defensive embankments. 1970’s Cyclone Bhola brought winds as high as 185 kilometers an hour. At least half a million people died, as well as a million head of cattle. More than 400,000 houses vanished. Forty-six thousand fishermen perished.

Bhola affected over three-and-a-half million people with various degrees of severity. This catastrophe moved the Bangladesh government and international agencies to organize networks of volunteers, build cyclone shelters, and develop evacuation plans — strategies that have saved countless lives in recent years. More

 

 

Canada’s ‘new normal’ weather adds heat to climate politics

While Calgary just pulled off a “hell or high water” Stampede against incredible odds, Toronto is drying out after a storm that saw more rain fall in two hours than the city usually sees in the entire month of July.

Siksika First Nation east of Calgary

This summer’s deluge of extreme weather seems to have pushed Canadians over an important threshold: climate change is becoming widely accepted as part of the explanation for what we’re seeing outside.

A few years ago, journalists seldom asked whether there was a connection to climate change when catastrophic weather hit. But in the days after Alberta’s flood, the scientists who had given clear warnings of the risks posed by climate change found their phones ringing off the hook. Over and over, we’ve heard experts call this summer’s pattern of extreme events “the new normal.”

In other words, this is what climate change looks like. It means cities at a standstill, the hassle of dealing with insurance claims, pulling waterlogged mementos out of flooded basements – and in worst-case scenarios like we saw in High River, Alta., even the tragic loss of life.

Scientists usually hesitate to attribute any particular event to climate change, because it’s just one factor among many shaping the weather we experience.

That’s true and it’s absolutely fair – but the fingerprints of climate change are becoming easier to see all the time. The best analogy I’ve heard is that greenhouse gases put the weather on steroids.

You can’t say that steroids caused baseball legend Barry Bonds to hit a particular home run, but they definitely increased his odds. The same is true of the extreme downpours in Alberta and Toronto: a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, so more rain can fall in any given storm.

In a new report on the world’s weather, the World Meteorological Organization found that floods were the most “frequently experienced” extreme weather event of the past decade. The organization also found that 2001 to 2010 “was the warmest decade on record since modern meteorological records began around the year 1850.” In sobering news for Canadians, our country’s temperature increased by nearly three times the global average.

A lot of the debate in the aftermath of the Alberta floods has been about adapting to the new reality – how much should municipalities be spending on disaster preparedness? Are the areas where it’s simply not safe to be building anymore? Does our approach to flood insurance need to change?

Good questions all, but along with figuring out how best to withstand floods, we need to talk about how to prevent even more of them happening in the future.

Most of the greenhouse gas pollution we emit endures for decades, with its full effects revealed only after a significant time lag. So the impacts we’re seeing today are akin to the first few smokers’ coughs from a 45-year-old who still has a two-pack-a-day habit.

Scientists say that we need to adapt to climate change, urgently. But they’ll also tell you that the potential consequences of global warming are so grim that we can’t count on safely adapting to all of them. We also need to cut our greenhouse gas pollution, mainly by burning fewer fossil fuels.

For an illustration of what it looks like when you put the puzzle pieces together, it’s worth reviewing the landmark climate speech U.S. President Barack Obama delivered last month.

He started by invoking catastrophes like hurricane Sandy, linked them to climate change, talked about its massive costs and then pledged to take action to cut U.S. emissions.

If you accept that line of reasoning, then it follows that you’ll want to ask tough questions about any proposal to expand fossil fuel infrastructure. That means Mr. Obama’s new test for the Keystone XL pipeline proposal – that “net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward” – is entirely consistent with the rest of his argument.

So far, Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t see it that way.

He once called approving the Keystone XL proposal a “no brainer.” And if climate change didn’t exist – if the only considerations were construction jobs and Canada’s status as a good neighbour – maybe it would be.

But Mr. Obama has made it clear that climate change matters to him. In the process, he essentially rendered Canada’s lobbying campaign for Keystone – which has had little to say about greenhouse gases – obsolete. He also highlighted the sharp contrast between his view of climate change and that of the Canadian government.

Take the centrepiece of the Obama speech, a pledge to curb emissions from U.S. power plants. Coal accounts for about one-quarter of U.S. emissions, and as Obama noted, “right now, there are no federal limits to the amount of carbon pollution that those plants can pump into our air. None. Zero. …That’s not right, that’s not safe, and it needs to stop.” More

 

Rainstorms Flood Sichuan Province in China

BEIJING — Rainstorms that are said to be the worst in five decades have flooded large areas of southwest China, washing out bridges, setting off a landslide that buried dozens of people and destroying a memorial to victims of the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province that flattened large parts of the same area.

Beichuan in China's Sichuan Province

The state news media reported Wednesday that heavy rains, which began last weekend, have killed more than 50 people across China and disrupted two million lives.

The worst flooding, in mountainous areas of Sichuan that include some of China’s most spectacular scenery, highlights the challenges of encouraging construction in places that are prone to heavy downpours and seismic activity. Some experts, citing frequent earthquakes and soil erosion caused by deforestation, have argued against the continued development of towns and cities along the Min, Fu and Jian Rivers, which snake through the steep canyons of the region.

The worst damage appeared to be in the city of Dujiangyan, where a rain-soaked mountainside gave way on Wednesday, burying 11 homes and as many as 40 people. Xinhua, the state news agency, said rescue workers and sniffer dogs from Chengdu, the provincial capital, were rushing to the area, which only recently recovered from the 2008 earthquake. The earthquake left 87,000 dead or missing.

On Tuesday, a bridge across the Tongkou River collapsed, sending six vehicles into the water, the state news media reported. At least 12 people were still missing and presumed dead.

Flooding submerged Qushan, the former county seat of Beichuan, once a city of 20,000 that was destroyed by the earthquake. The state news media said 23 feet of water had inundated a recently opened museum commemorating earthquake victims. Survivors have long since been moved to a new town center, and officials set aside about 10 square miles as a memorial.

The Oriental Morning Post, a newspaper based in Shanghai, urged the government to better protect the memorial area, which contains the remains of hundreds of people whose bodies were never recovered from the rubble.

“If we don’t take effective measures,” the editorial said, “in another 10 or 20 years the ruins might not be there at all.” More

 

 

Climate change report: Weather, rising seas imperil power plants

WASHINGTON – Power plants across the country are at increased risk of temporary shutdown and reduced power generation as temperatures and sea levels continue to rise and water becomes less available, the Energy Department said Thursday.

By 2030, there will be nearly $1 trillion in energy assets in the Gulf Coast region alone at risk from increasingly costly extreme hurricanes and sea level rises, according to an Energy Department report on the effects of climate change on energy infrastructure.

“As President Obama said in his speech last month, climate change is happening,” spokeswoman April Saylor said in a statement. “As climate change makes the weather more extreme, we have a moral obligation to prepare the country for its effects.”

The report calls on federal, state and local governments to more urgently prepare crucial infrastructure - particularly coal, natural gas and nuclear plants - for the compounded risks posed by floods, storms, wildfires and droughts.

"All of our science goes in one direction: The damages are going to get worse,” Assistant Energy Secretary Jonathan Pershing said. “It will take dozens of actors from government and private sectors planning what to do and how to make it cost-effective.”

The report notes that annual temperatures have increased about 1.5 degrees over the last century. More than 130 extreme weather events costing $1 billion or more in damages have occurred since 1980.

It says that 2012 was the second most expensive year for weather and climate disasters, with $115 billion in damages from Superstorm Sandy and the extended drought. Only 2005’s Hurricane Katrina was more costly.

Higher peak electricity, costing consumers $45 billion, will require an additional 34 gigawatts of new power generation capacity in the western United States by 2050. And as infrastructure ages, storm-related power outages are likely to become increasingly frequent, at an annual cost of $20 billion to $50 billion, the report said.

"More and more communities are analyzing vulnerabilities and their risks, and developing plans in response to those risks,” said Brian Holland of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. He said more state and federal support was needed for communities, who also pursue private funding

Greenpeace USA spokesman Robert Gardner said the administration's primary focus should be transitioning to wind and solar technology, not relying on fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

“The question is why the Department of Energy is really focusing on continuing the problem which has caused this tidal wave of global warming,” Gardner said.

Benjamin Cole of the American Energy Alliance, which lobbies for oil and natural gas, said climate predictions should not be used to justify the “sweeping changes” of Obama's energy proposals. Alternative energy has yet to live up to its promise, he said.

 

 

Distant quakes 'can trigger wastewater-site temblors'

Earthquakes can be triggered at the sites of waste water injection by quakes on the other side of the world, research suggests.

Waste water from fracking

The injection of wastewater from underground operations such as oil drilling is known to increase local seismic activity.

Now a study in Science suggests that waves from the most distant temblors can cause quakes at waste water sites.

Researchers suggest this can act as a kind of "stress meter" for the sites.

The notion of natural earthquake triggering is not new; in hydrothermal and volcanic areas, tremors can be triggered by large, distant earthquakes. But the new study suggests what is in effect a new category: natural triggering of seismic events primed by human activity.

Seismic push

Injection of waste water from operations such as drilling, geothermal, or hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") is banned in the UK and many European countries, but it has become increasingly prevalent in the US.

In the state of Texas alone, more than 7,000 such wells are in operation and the link between injection wells and even large seismic events is strengthening.

In March, researchers linked a 5.7-magnitude event in Oklahoma to waste water injection that had been going on for nearly two decades.

"In some cases of induced earthquakes you drill a well, you start pumping, and a week or two later you start having earthquakes on a very nearby fault - we saw this in Arkansas in 2011, and a site in Ohio," explained lead author of the study Nicholas van der Elst of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, New York.

The team scoured the seismic records for three waste water injection sites in the US states of Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas, looking for signs of the smallest earthquakes that could be detected.

"In the sites we looked at, the connection hadn't been quite as straightforward, so we were looking for additional evidence that fluids were bringing these regions to the tipping point," Dr van der Elst told BBC News.

When compared with global records of larger earthquakes, a pattern became clear: there was a pronounced increase in earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater following large events elsewhere in the world, such as the February 2010 event in Chile or the March 2011 Tohoku event off Japan.

"When you have a really big earthquake somewhere else on the planet, this sets up big seismic waves that spread out like ripples over the surface of the Earth. When these seismic waves pass faults that are already very near to failure, these seismic waves can give that additional push that sets off an earthquake."

'Stress meter'

Dr van der Elst said that these correlations of mid-size earthquakes with distant events could be used as a useful test of a site's integrity.

"If you've had a quiet injection site in the past, you'd like to be able to know if that site has transitioned, reached some critical threshold where larger earthquakes are possible," he said.

"If you can use this method as a kind of stress meter to show where the stresses are building, that might be really useful for making policy decisions about whether to keep pumping there or whether to try a different site."

Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute at the University of Durham, called the paper "an exciting, interesting result".

"Seismologists have known for some time that there are transient stresses from earthquakes that can potentially cause other faults to slip, causing an earthquake," Prof Davies told BBC News.

"But this paper is a very interesting contribution as it proposes that mankind can artificially 'prime the faults' by injecting waste water over long periods under the ground. More

 

Severe thunderstorms leave Toronto underwater, 300K without power

Severe thunderstorms hammered Toronto Monday, leaving cars stranded throughout the city and over 300,000 residents without power.

The Canadian city was hit with a month’s worth of rain in just one day, with approximately 3.5 inches of rainfall beginning at 4:00 pm EST. Commuters were soon stranded in traffic, with public transit enduring long delays.

Environment Canada, the national weather service, put Toronto under a severe thunderstorm warning through Monday night because of a “cluster” of storms approaching from the southern Ontario cities of Brampton and Mississauga. Total rainfall is expected to near or exceed 4 inches.

Flash flooding has left hundreds of passengers stranded aboard the Richmond Hill public train, according to the Globe and Mail, with as many as 1,000 people thought to be stuck in cars. The water was ankle deep and forced commuters to the upper level of the cars and to open the windows for extra air. Rescue crews were still en route at 9:52 pm EST.

#flood24 pic.twitter.com/TtnbfWiE21

— DS Canvas Creations (@DSCanCreations)

A train carrying as many as 1,400 other people was in a similar situation, with emergency crews only able to provide one small raft, according to Kim MacDonald of the National Weather Network.

A passenger trapped on the GO Ttain told @weathernetwork that a police truck on the scene just floated away in the flood water. #onstorm

— Kim MacDonald (@KMacTWN) July 9, 2013

Mayor Rob Ford told CBC Radio “it’s all hands on deck” and the city has “brought in everybody to deal with the storm.”

City officials warned residents to be safe but patient in waiting for overwhelmed utility workers, namely Toronto Hydro, to start turning the lights back on.

CARS STILL TRAPPED in water on DVP @ Dundas St. #Toronto #onstormpic.twitter.com/MZZuKam13o

— Jeremy Cohn (@JeremyGlobalTV) July 9, 2013

“There’s not a lot that will change once it starts getting dark,” Hydro spokeswoman Tanya Bruckmueller told the Canadian Press. “It’ll be harder for the crews … they need to be able to identify where the damage is so it’ll take longer in the night.”

427 pic.twitter.com/sqO2edEhi8

— Leslie Roberts (@lrobertsglobal) July 8, 2013

Flooding plagued highway routes to the south of the city and traffic lights were reportedly out through the region. Porter Airlines, headquartered in the heart of the city, had canceled all flights while Air Canada announced many of its flights would be delayed or canceled, as well.

Toronto police issued a release Monday “advising the public to remain in their homes, avoid underpasses and low-lying areas. If in a stalled vehicle, please remain in your vehicle if possible until help arrives.” More