THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 16, 1996 TAG: 9609160034
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 38 lines
Hortense is no more and the tropics are - for the first time in weeks - quiet.
``Tropical storm formation is not expected through Tuesday,'' the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported Sunday evening.
It's something of an unusual calm given that the statistical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is Sept. 10 and that the heart of the season usually runs through mid-October.
For now, residents of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, North Carolina, central Virginia and Pennsylvania, New York and the Canadian Maritimes can set about trying to set right all that a succession of killer storms has torn asunder.
Twenty people died in Puerto Rico and five perished in the Dominican Republic when Hortense's unrelenting rains triggered flash flooding and devastating mudslides Tuesday. Damage surpassed $155 million in Puerto Rico alone.
By Sunday morning, however, Hortense was more a nuisance than a danger after its diminished winds lashed the eastern coast of Nova Scotia late Saturday. Rains ahead of the storm caused scattered power outages in Halifax.
At 11 a.m., the Hurricane Center issued its last advisory on Hortense as it lost its tropical characteristics.
The center of the storm was about 250 miles west-southwest of St. Johns, Newfoundland, moving east-northeast near 21 mph. That motion was expected to continue overnight, taking the center near or over southern Newfoundland.
Maximum sustained winds were down to 60 mph and continued gradual weakening was likely.
The remnants of a Pacific hurricane, Fausto, are expected to move into the mid-Atlantic region from the west today. But it is now little more than a broad low-pressure system that may bring showers.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE by CNB