Word: gilberte
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...main strike at Mexico, Gilbert lumbered ashore in Tamaulipas state. Ocean tides spilled across two miles of flatlands into the town of La Pesca. Thousands of inhabitants were evacuated in areas of northeastern Mexico, and in mountainous terrain farther inland, Gilbert caused added disruptions through flooding. On a low-lying road in the city of Monterrey, four buses were trapped and overturned by the rising Santa Catarina River. Only 13 of the estimated 200 passengers escaped; six policemen were drowned in the rescue effort...
...entire Gulf Coast of Texas had been put on alert as Gilbert headed toward landfall. From Brownsville to Biloxi, Miss., people sought shelter from the storm, in many places clogging highways and emptying supermarket shelves. Houston, 50 miles inland, shuddered at the prospect of its glimmering skyscrapers swaying in the gale-force winds. About a quarter of the 60,000 residents of Galveston Island headed for higher ground, leaving boarded-up windows and fortified houses. In Brownsville, a dirt-poor border town of 110,000, those who could afford to fled inland. But since half the residents are below...
...dramatic warnings proved unnecessary. Gilbert hit the coast with heavy rains, high waves and winds, but not with a vengeance. Galveston experienced high tides, yet hardly a window was broken. In Brownsville, cars were overturned and mobile homes upended, but there was no loss of life. Those Brownsville residents who refused to leave acted as though they had called Gilbert's bluff. A Coast Guard helicopter rescued the crews of three fishing boats foundering in the Gulf of Mexico. "We're just full of happy endings today," said Petty Officer Bob Morehead, "which is great with a storm like this...
...Gilbert, in the jargon of meteorologists, was "well behaved" -- it stuck to a relatively predictable course and steady speed. Advances in computer models, satellite pictures and aerial measurements made Gilbert as closely monitored as a shuttle launch. But in a century marked by man's destructive capacity and technological hubris, Gilbert was a humbling reminder that man remains very much at the mercy of the elements. A giant hurricane was long overdue in the Gulf and the Caribbean. Others are destined to occur, and concern is growing that unrestricted development and population growth on fragile barrier islands and coastlands could...
After Hurricane Gilbert finished howling and hammering Jamaica last Monday, the lovely green-and-gold island had been transformed into a strew of twisted, tilted, ripped and battered debris. Kingston and outlying areas alike were an immense litter of downed trees, broken utility poles, tangles of electrical wires, a vista of demolished houses and blown tin roofs. The more the stunned Jamaicans meandered among the ruins, the worse things looked. Of the 2 1/2 million inhabitants, 500,000 were suddenly homeless; four-fifths of the nation's homes had been damaged or destroyed. Obstructions blocked and sealed off streets...