MUBARAK PULLS A FALSE FLAG EVENT

Obama’s Blocking Of New Power Plants Triggers Nationwide Blackouts - Fury as hospitals hit with outages while post-industrial collapse of America accelerates
Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com Thursday, February 3, 2011
http://www.prisonplanet.com/obamas-blocking-of-new-power-plants-triggers-nationwide-blackouts.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTPM9H_tI6g&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aTf5gjvNvo&feature=player_embedded

The rolling blackouts now being implemented in Texas and across the country as record cold weather grips the United States are a direct consequence of the Obama administration’s agenda to lay siege to the coal industry, launch a takeover of infrastructure under the contrived global warming scam, and help usher in the post-industrial collapse of America.Planned power outages conducted by utility companies have caused outrage amongst officials at four major hospitals in Texas, at Parkland, Baylor, Methodist and Presbyterian Dallas.Because of the sensitive life-saving equipment, hospitals are considered critical care facilities, and supposed to be exempt from rolling blackouts, reports CBS 11. That’s exactly what Presbyterian Dallas was led to believe. We were of the understanding that hospitals and other critical-care providers were not supposed to be affected by planned outages,said hospital spokesman Stephen O’Brien.As well as hospitals, nursing homes, fire stations, police stations, other emergency response facilities have also been hit with outages as demand soars due to freezing temperatures. Many places in Texas now rely on Mexico to supply their power.Mexico’s state electricity company on Wednesday started supplying electricity to the US state of Texas, where demand shot up amid unusually cold temperatures and caused power outages,reports AFP.

Hospitals are supposed to be exempt from the blackouts which hit yesterday, with power company Oncor attributing the outages to a mistake, but there were no such mistakes when it came to supplying power to Cowboys Stadium. The government has ensured that the blackouts will not affect Super Bowl venues, a decision that has left residents furious.Street lights and traffic lights have also been hit by the outages, causing traffic build-ups and other hazards more typically associated with a decrepit underdeveloped country, and not with the supposed leading light of the prosperous first world.The inability of power companies to meet demand is almost exclusively a consequence of the Obama administration’s publicly stated goal to bankrupt the coal industry and in turn ram through the de-industrialization of America under the guise of the phony global warming mantra.Even as China and Mexico are allowed to build dozens of new power plants every year, the United States is barely permitted to construct a handful, as the Environmental Protection Agency takes control of refineries and power plants under the completely fraudulent pretext of preventing global warming even as the country experiences some of the coldest weather seen for decades.Texas has been the epicenter in a battle over the Obama administration’s drive to have the EPA regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Texas is the only state that has refused to implement a permit process.Austin said it would not establish such a scheme for greenhouse gas emissions because the US Environmental Protection Agency had no authority to regulate them as of January 2, reported the Financial Times.Twelve other states are mounting a legal challenge to the federal government’s authority but they, unlike Texas, are implementing the new measures while the dispute makes its way through the courts.

Local environmental officials in Texas were again involved in a fight with the EPA after the, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality last week approved an air permit for the $3.2 billion Las Brisas Energy Center despite a formal EPA request that the commission delay issuing the permit until EPA’s concerns about the plant’s emissions impacts are fully addressed.The Obama administration is conducting industrial warfare against the United States. Obama’s 2008 promise to bankrupt the coal industry by placing suffocating restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions even as China and other countries are given free reign to pollute at will is now coming to fruition. This is all part of the post-industrial revolution that the global elite have promised to enforce as a means of turning the United States into a decaying banana republic.It’s also about the federal government’s drive to seize infrastructure and sell it to the highest foreign bidder by gradually squeezing the ability of local independent utility companies to meet demand in American communities.The shortage of power plants to meet the demands of Texans and other Americans in areas across the country is down to the EPA holding local utility companies hostage and blocking them from building desperately needed new power plants.Obama’s January greenhouse gas rules restricted the amount of emissions allowable for new power plants, while giving an exemption to General Electric, an intimate administration insider.Although local coal companies are the ones suffering, the transnational power giants are in on the scam. Knowing that they can move production offshore and produce energy with far fewer costs and restrictions in places like Mexico and China, huge oil companies are constantly contriving artificial scarcity as a means of driving up prices and eliminating competition from smaller utility companies.

As internal memos from the mid-1990′s that were leaked in 2005 show, oil giants like Mobil, Chevron and Texaco are deliberately reducing refining capacity to drive, independent refiners out of business in an effort to increase prices.Large oil companies have for a decade artificially shorted the gasoline market to drive up prices,said FTCR president Jamie Court. Oil companies know they can make more money by making less gasoline.

ISAIAH 19:1-15
1 The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.
2 And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.(ETHNIC TRIBE AGAINST ETHNIC TRIBE)
3 And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.(THEY WILL SEEK MEDIUMS-OCCULTISTS)
4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts.
5 And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.
6 And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.
7 The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.
8 The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.
9 Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.
10 And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.
11 Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings? (THESE LAST VERSES SEEM TO SAY THAT EGYPT IS DECIEVED BY THE ISLAMIC RELIGION TO ME)(VERSES 11-14)
12 Where are they? where are thy wise men? and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.
14 The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.
15 Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do.(NO WORK-THATS WHY THESE RIOTS IN EGYPT NOW)

WELL NOW WE FIND OUT MUBARAK SET FREE THE CAPTIVES FROM JAILS THE LAST FEW DAYS AND YESTERDAY THEY CAME RIDING ON CAMELS AND HORSES TO THE SQUARE AND STARTED BEATING AND WHIPPING PEACEFUL PROTESTORS.THIS WAS A TYPICAL FALSE FLAG EVENT SO EGYPTS CITIZENS WOULD CALL ON MUBARAK TO SAVE THEM FROM THE MUBARAK SUPPORTED CRIMINALS. UNFORTUNATELY FOR MUBARAK THIS FALSE FLAG NEVER WORKED AND EGYPTS CITIZENS STILL WANT HIM OUT IMMEDIATELY.

AND WHILE WERE ON THE ODDITY OF HORSES AND CAMELS BEING USED AS WAR CHARIOTS OF WAR AGAIN.HERES A FEW SCRIPTURES ABOUT TRIBULATION HAPPENINGS.AND GUESS WHAT THE HORSES SCRIPTURES TALK ABOUT.MUSLIM COUNTRIES...SURPRISE...SURPRISE.AND ALL THE ARAB-MUSLIM COUNTRIES MENTIONED IN THESE SCRIPTURES ARE CURRENTLY OR ON THE VERGE OF BEING OVERTHROWN.PROPHECY IS LITERALLY COMING TO PASS QUICKLY.

MUBARAKS FALSE FLAG SETUP
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1353128/Egypt-crisis-Secret-police-blamed-peace-protesters-gunned-Cairo.html

REVELATION 9:7-10
7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
9 And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

EZEKIEL 38:4-7
4 And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY)of the north quarters, and all his bands:(SUDAN,AFRICA) and many people with thee.
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.

PSALMS 83:3-7
3 They (ARABS,MUSLIMS) have taken crafty counsel against thy people,(ISRAEL) and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they (MUSLIMS) have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:(TREATIES)
6 The tabernacles of Edom,(JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites;(ARABS) of Moab, PALESTINIANS,JORDAN) and the Hagarenes;(EGYPT)
7 Gebal,(HEZZBALLOH,LEBANON) and Ammon,(JORDAN) and Amalek;(SYRIA,ARABS,SINAI) the Philistines (PALESTINIANS) with the inhabitants of Tyre;(LEBANON)

DANIEL 11:40-43
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.

RELATED TO THIS STORY
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2011/02/radical-muslim-brotherhood-charter-in.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2011/01/radical-muslims-infiltrate-eypt.html
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=258397

Heavy gunfire rings out in Cairo protest square By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press - FEB 03,11

CAIRO – Bursts of heavy gunfire rained into Cairo's Tahrir Square before dawn Thursday, killing at least three anti-government demonstrators among crowds still trying to hold the site after an assault by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak, according to a protest organizer.Sustained bursts of automatic weapons fire and powerful single shots rattled into the square starting at around 4 a.m., and was continuing more than an hour later.Protest organizer Mustafa el-Naggar said he saw the bodies of three dead protesters being carried toward an ambulance. He said the gunfire came from at least three locations off in the distance and that the Egyptian military, which has ringed the square with tank squads for days to try to keep some order, did not intervene.Footage from AP Television News showed two bodies being dragged from the scene. The health minister did not answer a phone call seeking confirmation of the deaths.Throughout Wednesday, Mubarak supporters charged into the square on horses and camels brandishing whips while others rained firebombs from rooftops in what appeared to be an orchestrated assault against protesters trying to topple Egypt's leader of 30 years. Three people died in that earlier violence and 600were injured.The protesters accused Mubarak's regime of unleashing a force of paid thugs and plainclothes police to crush their unprecedented nine-day-old movement, a day after the 82-year-old president refused to step down. They showed off police ID badges they said were wrested from their attackers. Some government workers said their employers ordered them into the streets.

Mustafa el-Fiqqi, a top official from the ruling National Democratic Party, told The Associated Press that businessmen connected to the ruling party were responsible for what happened.The notion that the state may have coordinated violence against protesters, who had kept a peaceful vigil in Tahrir Square for five days, prompted a sharp rebuke from the Obama administration.If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should stop immediately, said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.The clashes marked a dangerous new phase in Egypt's upheaval: the first significant violence between government supporters and opponents. The crisis took a sharp turn for the worse almost immediately after Mubarak rejected the calls for him to give up power or leave the country, stubbornly proclaiming he would die on Egyptian soil.His words were a blow to the protesters. They also suggest that authorities want to turn back the clock to the tight state control enforced before the protests began.Mubarak's supporters turned up on the streets Wednesday in significant numbers for the first time. Some were hostile to journalists and foreigners. Two Associated Press correspondents and several other journalists were roughed up in Cairo. State TV had reported that foreigners were caught distributing anti-Mubarak leaflets, apparently trying to depict the movement as foreign-fueled.

After midnight, 10 hours after the clashes began, the two sides were locked in a standoff at a street corner, with the anti-Mubarak protesters hunkered behind a line of metal sheets hurling firebombs back and forth with government backers on the rooftop above. The rain of bottles of flaming gasoline set nearby cars and wreckage on the sidewalk ablaze.The scenes of mayhem were certain to add to the fear that is already running high in this capital of 18 million people after a weekend of looting and lawlessness and the escape of thousands of prisoners from jails in the chaos.
Soldiers surrounding Tahrir Square fired occasional shots in the air throughout the day but did not appear to otherwise intervene in the fierce clashes and no uniformed police were seen. Most of the troops took shelter behind or inside the armored vehicles and tanks stationed at the entrances to the square.Why don't you protect us? some protesters shouted at the soldiers, who replied they did not have orders to do so and told people to go home.The army is neglectful. They let them in, said Emad Nafa, a 52-year-old among the protesters, who for days had showered the military with affection for its neutral stance.Some of the worst street battles raged near the Egyptian Museum at the edge of the square. Pro-government rioters blanketed the rooftops of nearby buildings and hurled bricks and firebombs onto the crowd below — in the process setting a tree ablaze inside the museum grounds. Plainclothes police at the building entrances prevented anti-Mubarak protesters from storming up to stop them.

The two sides pummeled each other with chunks of concrete and bottles at each of the six entrances to the sprawling plaza, where 10,000 anti-Mubarak protesters tried to fend off more than 3,000 attackers who besieged them. Some on the pro-government side waved machetes, while the square's defenders filled the air with a ringing battlefield din by banging metal fences with sticks. In one almost medieval scene, a small contingent of pro-Mubarak forces on horseback and camels rushed into the anti-government crowds, trampling several people and swinging whips and sticks. Protesters dragged some riders from their mounts, throwing them to the ground and beating their faces bloody. The horses and camels appeared to be ones used to give tourists rides around Cairo.Dozens of men and women pried up pieces of the pavement with bars and ferried the piles of ammunition in canvas sheets to their allies at the front. Others directed fighters to streets needing reinforcements.The protesters used a subway station as a makeshift prison for the attackers they managed to catch. They tied the hands and legs of their prisoners and locked them inside. People grabbed one man who was bleeding from the head, hit him with their sandals and threw him behind a closed gate.Some protesters wept and prayed in the square where only a day before they had held a joyous, peaceful rally of a quarter-million, the largest demonstration so far.Egyptian Health Minister Ahmed Sameh Farid said three people died and at least 611 were injured in Tahir Square. One of those killed fell from a bridge near the square; Farid said the man was in civilian clothes but may have been a member of the security forces.Farid did not say how the other two victims, both young men, were killed. It was not clear whether they were government supporters or anti-Mubarak demonstrators.

After years of tight state control, protesters emboldened by the uprising in Tunisia took to the streets on Jan. 25 and mounted a once-unimaginable series of demonstrations across this nation of 80 million. For the past few days, protesters who camped out in Tahrir Square reveled in a new freedom — publicly expressing their hatred for the Mubarak regime.After our revolution, they want to send people here to ruin it for us, said Ahmed Abdullah, a 47-year-old lawyer in the square. Another man shrieked through a loudspeaker: Hosni has opened the door for these thugs to attack us.The pressure for demonstrators to clear the square mounted throughout the day, beginning early when a military spokesman appeared on state TV and asked them to disperse so life in Egypt could get back to normal.It was a change in attitude by the army, which for the past few days had allowed protests to swell with no interference and even made a statement saying they had a legitimate right to demonstrate peacefully.Then the regime began to rally its supporters in significant numbers for the first time, demanding an end to the protest movement. Some 20,000 Mubarak supporters held an angry but mostly peaceful rally across the Nile River from Tahrir, responding to calls on state TV.They said Mubarak's concessions were enough. He has promised not to run for re-election in September, named a new government and appointed a vice president for the first time, widely considered his designated successor.They waved Egyptian flags, their faces painted with the black-white-and-red national colors, and carried a large printed banner with Mubarak's face as police officers surrounded the area and directed traffic. They cheered as a military helicopter swooped overhead.

They were bitter at the jeers hurled at Mubarak.I feel humiliated, said Mohammed Hussein, a 31-year-old factory worker. He is the symbol of our country. When he is insulted, I am insulted.Sayyed Ramadan, a clothing vendor said: Eight days with no security, safety, food or drink. I earn my living day by day. The president didn't do anything. It is shame that we call him a dog.Emad Fathi, 35, works as a delivery boy but since the demonstrations, he has not gone to work.I came here to tell these people to leave, he said. The mosques were calling on people to go and support Mubarak, he said.The anti-Mubarak movement has vowed to intensify protests to force him out by Friday.State TV said Vice President Omar Suleiman called on the youth to heed the armed forces' call and return home to restore order. From the other side, senior anti-Mubarak figure Mohamed ElBaradei demanded the military intervene immediately and decisively to stop this massacre.Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke with Suleiman to condemn the violence and urge Egypt's government to hold those responsible for it accountable, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.Protesters had maintained a round-the-clock, peaceful vigil in Tahrir Square since Friday night, when the military was first deployed and police largely vanished from the streets.

After celebrating their biggest success yet in Tuesday's demonstration, the crowd thinned out overnight. By morning a few thousand protesters remained. Mubarak supporters began to gather at the edges of the square a little after noon, and protesters formed a human chain to keep them out.In the early afternoon, around 3,000 pro-government demonstrators broke through and surged among the protesters, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.They tore down banners denouncing the president, fistfights broke out, and protesters grabbed Mubarak posters from the hands of the supporters and ripped them to pieces.From there, it escalated into outright street battles as hundreds poured in to join each side. The battle lines at each of the entrances surged back and forth for hours. Each side's fighters stretched across the width of the four-lane divided boulevard, hiding behind abandoned trucks and holding sheets of corrugated metal as shields from the hail of stones.At the heart of the square, young men with microphones sought to keep up morale. Stand fast, reinforcements are on the way, said one. Youth of Egypt, be brave. Groups of bearded men lined up to recite Muslim prayers before taking their turn in the line of fire.Bloodied young men staggered or were carried into makeshift clinics set up in mosques and alleyways by the anti-government side.Women and men stood ready with water, medical cotton and bandages as each wave returned. Scores of wounded were carried to a makeshift clinic at a mosque near the square and on other side streets, staffed by doctors in white coats. One man with blood coming out of his eye stumbled into a side-street clinic.As night fell, some protesters went to get food, a sign they plan to dig in for a long siege. Hundreds more people from the impoverished district of Shubra showed up later as reinforcements.

Wednesday's events suggest the regime aims to put an end of the unrest to let Mubarak shape the transition as he chooses over the next months. Mubarak has offered negotiations with protest leaders over democratic reforms, but they have refused any talks until he steps down.As if to show the public the crisis was ending, the government began to reinstate Internet service after days of an unprecedented cutoff. State TV announced the easing of a nighttime curfew, which now runs from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. instead of 3 p.m. to 8 a.m.AP correspondents Sarah El Deeb, Hamza Hendawi, Diaa Hadid, Lee Keath, Michael Weissenstein and Maggie Michael contributed to this report.

DOCTOR DOCTORIAN FROM ANGEL OF GOD
then the angel said, Financial crisis will come to Asia. I will shake the world.

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all,(WORLD SOCIALISM) both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

WORLD MARKET RESULTS
http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/
CNBC VIDEOS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839263/?tabid=15839796&tabheader=false

HALF HOUR DOW RESULTS THU FEB 03,2011

09:30 AM -2.43
10:00 AM -13.01
10:30 AM -41.13
11:00 AM -22.15
11:30 AM -18.75
12:00 PM -3.89
12:30 PM -9.65
01:00 PM -6.31
01:30 PM -3.51
02:00 PM -8.77
02:30 PM -1.21
03:00 PM +17.90
03:30 PM +28.30
04:00 PM +20.29 12,062.26

S&P 500 1307.10 +3.07

NASDAQ 2753.88 +4.32

GOLD 1,354.30 +22.50

OIL 90.59 -0.27

TSE 300 13,841.30 +161.10

CDNX 2383.91 +39.74

S&P/TSX/60 794.33 +9.16

MORNING,NEWS,STATS

YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE
Dow -17 points at 4 minutes of trading today.
Dow -59 points at low today.
Dow +1 points at high today so far.
GOLD opens at $1,335.30.OIL opens at $91.24 today.

AFTERNOON,NEWS,STATS
Dow -59 points at low today so far.
Dow +30 points at high today so far.

WRAPUP,NEWS,STATS
Dow -59 points at low today.
Dow +30 points at high today.

GOLD ALLTIME HIGH $1,427.40 (NOT AT CLOSE)

NATURAL GAS -189 BCF

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

Australian coastal towns wind- and wave-battered By KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press - FEB 02,2011

TULLY, Australia – The most powerful storm in a century ripped across Australia's northeast coast early Thursday, blasting apart houses, laying waste to banana crops and leaving boats lying in the streets of wind- and wave-swept towns.Authorities said they were surprised to learn at daybreak that no one had been reported killed by Cyclone Yasi, but cautioned that bad news could eventually emerge from communities still cut off after the overnight storm, which left several thousand people homeless.It was really terrifying, but we were safe, said Barbara Kendall, who spent a sleepless night in a basement parking garage with her husband and four cats after being evacuated from their coastal home at Kurrimine Beach. It's a terrifying sound. It's really hard to describe. All I could hear was the screeching of the wind.Emergency services fanned out as to assess damage across a disaster zone stretching more than 190 miles (300 kilometers) in Queensland state, using chain saws to cut through debris blocking roads.The main coastal highway was a slalom course of downed trees and power lines, surrounded by scenes of devastation: Roofs peeled back from houses, fields of sugar cane and banana shredded and flattened, once-green expanses stripped to brown soil.Cyclone Yasi was moving inland and losing power Thursday. But drenching rains were still falling, adding woes to a state where Australia's worst flooding in decades has killed 35 people since late November.

Hundreds of thousands of people had spent the night huddled in evacuation centers or bunkered in their homes as the cyclone hit, packing howling winds gusting to 186 mph (300 kph) and causing tidal surges that swamped coastal areas.Nothing's been spared. The devastation is phenomenal, like nothing I've ever experienced, David Brook, the manager of a resort at Mission Beach, where the core of the storm hit the coast around midnight, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.Vegetation has been reduced to sticks, said Sgt. Dan Gallagher, a Mission Beach police officer.At Tully, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) inland along the storm's path, the main street was littered with twisted pieces of metal that were once house roofs and jagged shards of glass from shattered shopfront windows. Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said one in three houses in the town of 3,500 people either were demolished by the storm or had the roof ripped off.Tully and Mission Beach were among a handful of towns in a relatively narrow band that bore the brunt of Yasi's fury as it stormed ashore.

Further south, emergency workers had cut their way into the coastal community of Cardwell on Thursday morning and found older houses wrecked and boats pushed up into the town, she said. The entire community was believed to have evacuated before the storm.Along the coastal highway, tidal floodwaters periodically cut the highway, temporarily stranding convoys of people trying to return home to see what was left.

Kendall, from Kurrimine Beach, sat stranded in her car next to her meowing cats Loly, Blossom, Spingle and Junior on her way back from the evacuation center in Innisfail. The trunk of her car was filled with her most essential items: photographs, heirlooms and precious jewelry.Electricity supplies were cut to more than 180,000 houses in the region — a major fruit and sugarcane-growing area and also considered a tourist gateway to the Great Barrier Reef — and police warned people to stay inside until the danger from fallen power lines and other problems was past.As the day wore on, authorities allowed more than 10,000 people to leave the 20 evacuation centers where they stayed overnight.I'm very relieved this morning, but I do stress these are very early reports, Bligh said of the information that no one had been killed overnight.It's a long way to go before I say we've dodged any bullets.Ahead of the storm, Bligh and other officials said the storm was more powerful than any that had struck the coast since 1918, and warned the country to expect widespread and destruction and likely deaths.Amid the chaos, a bit of happy news: a baby girl was born at a Cairns evacuation center just before dawn with the help of a British midwife on holiday, councilor Linda Cooper said.The largest towns in the path of the cyclone, including Cairns and Townsville, were spared the worst of the fierce winds. Trees were knocked down, but few buildings were damaged, authorities said. But Townsville was suffering widespread flooding.

Officials said it was too early to cite a total cost of the damage, but it was sure to add substantially to the $5.6 billion the government says already was caused by the earlier flooding.Queensland officials had warned people for days to stock up on bottled water and food, and to board or tape up their windows. People in low-lying or exposed areas were told to evacuate. Bligh credited the preparations with saving lives.Australia's huge, sparsely populated tropical north is battered annually by about six cyclones — called typhoons throughout much of Asia and hurricanes in the Western hemisphere. Building codes have been strengthened since Cyclone Tracy devastated the city of Darwin in 1974, killing 71 in one of Australia's worst natural disasters.Online: Bureau of Meteorology: http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/index.shtml

Blizzard spreads snowy shroud over nearly half US By DON BABWIN and MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press - 11PM FEB 02,11

CHICAGO – A fearsome storm spread a smothering shroud of white over nearly half the nation Wednesday, snarling transportation from Oklahoma to New England, burying parts of the Midwest under 2 feet of snow and laying down dangerously heavy ice in the Northeast that was too much for some buildings to bear.Tens of millions of people stayed home. The hardy few who ventured out faced howling winds that turned snowflakes into face-stinging needles. Chicago's 20.2 inches of snow was the city's third-largest amount on record. In New York's Central Park, the pathways resembled skating rinks.The storm that resulted from two clashing air masses was, if not unprecedented, extraordinarily rare for its size and ferocious strength.A storm that produces a swath of 20-inch snow is really something we'd see once every 50 years — maybe, National Weather Service meteorologist Thomas Spriggs said.Across the storm's path, lonely commuters struggled against drifts 3 and 4 feet deep in eerily silent streets, some of which had not seen a plow's blade since the snow started a day earlier. Parkas and ski goggles normally reserved for the slopes became essential for getting to work.This is probably the most snow I've seen in the last 34 years, joked 34-year-old Chicagoan Michael George. I saw some people cross-country skiing on my way to the train. It was pretty wild.Although skies were beginning to clear by mid-afternoon over much of the nation's midsection, the storm promised to leave a blast of bitter cold in its wake. Overnight temperatures in the upper Midwest were expected to fall to minus 5 to minus 20, with wind chills as low as minus 30.The system was blamed for the deaths of at least a dozen people, including a homeless man who burned to death on New York's Long Island as he tried to light cans of cooking fuel and a woman in Oklahoma City who was killed while being pulled behind a truck on a sled that hit a guard rail.

Airport operations slowed to a crawl nationwide, and flight cancellations reached 13,000 for the week, making this system the most disruptive so far this winter. A massive post-Christmas blizzard led to about 10,000 cancellations.In the winter-weary Northeast, thick ice collapsed several structures, including a gas station canopy on Long Island and an airplane hangar and garages near Boston. In at least two places, workers heard the structures beginning to crack and narrowly escaped.In Middletown, Conn., the entire third floor of a building failed, littering the street with bricks and snapping two trees. Acting Fire Marshal Al Santostefano said two workers fled when they heard a cracking sound.It's like a bomb scene, Santostefano said. Thank God they left the building when they did.More than a half-dozen states began digging out from up to a foot of snow that made roads treacherous and left hundreds of thousands of homes without power.Chicago public schools canceled classes for a second straight day. And the city's iconic Lake Shore Drive remained shut down, nearly a day after drivers abandoned hundreds of snowbound vehicles.

The famous freeway appeared as if rush hour had been stopped in time, with three lanes of cars cluttering the pavement amid snow drifts that stood as high as the windshields. Bulldozers worked to clear the snow from around the cars, which were then plucked out by tow trucks one by one.As the storm built to full strength Tuesday evening, 26-year-old Lindsey Wilson sat for hours on a stranded city bus. She eventually joined other passengers who tried to walk home. She made it about 100 feet before she couldn't see anything around her, including the bus she'd just left.

Fearing she would be swallowed by mounting snow drifts, Wilson turned back and spent the night on the bus.I thought if I fall over, what would happen if I got buried under a pile of snow? she said.Some motorists came away angry, frustrated that city didn't close the crucial thoroughfare earlier. Others were mad at themselves for going out during the storm or not using another route.In 31 years with the city, I haven't experienced anything like we did at Lake Shore Drive, said Raymond Orozco, chief of staff for Mayor Richard M. Daley. Hundreds of people were very inconvenienced, and we apologize for that.Orozco took responsibility for the decision not to close the drive as soon as snow began to fall Tuesday, but insisted he stood by the choice. He also hinted that his boss wasn't satisfied.I think the mayor knows we can always do better, Orozco said.At dusk Wednesday, more than 200 cars remained on the drive, and city workers planned to work through the night to remove them. But it wasn't clear whether the job would be done in time for the morning rush.Elsewhere, utility crews raced to restore power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in Ohio, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where freezing rain and ice brought down electrical lines.Rolling blackouts were implemented across Texas, including in Super Bowl host city Dallas, due to high demand during a rare ice storm. The outages would not affect Cowboys Stadium in suburban Arlington, said Jeamy Molina, a spokeswoman for utility provider Oncor. But other Super Bowl facilities, such as team hotels, were not exempt, she said.

The storm derived its power from the collision of cold air sweeping down from Canada and warm, moist air coming up from the south.The atmosphere doesn't like that contrast in temperature. Things get mixed together and you have a storm like this, said Gino Izzo, another weather service meteorologist.The jet stream up in the atmosphere was like the engine and the warm air was the fuel.The contrasts were most dramatic in Texas earlier in the week, when one part of the state reported temperatures in the single digits and another part had temperatures in the 70s, with near-tropical humidity.That was the breeding ground for this storm, Izzo said. Louis Uccellini, director of the government's National Centers for Environmental Prediction, said the storm also drew strength from the La Nina (la NEEN'-ya) condition currently affecting the tropical Pacific Ocean.La Nina is a periodic cooling of the surface temperatures of the tropical Pacific Ocean, the opposite of the better-known El Nino (el NEEN'-yoh) warming. Both can have significant impacts on weather around the world by changing the movement of winds and high and low pressure systems.Still, some people in the storm's wake shrugged off the weather — and nearly the whole season.It's winter. It should have snow and ice. It's the way it is, said Vincent Zuza of Chatham, N.J., who was waiting for a flight to Salt Lake City for a ski trip after his first flight was canceled Wednesday. You can't get too upset about it, and you can't control it. You just have to make the best of it.

For some of those battered by the storm, there was one whimsical ray of hope: The world's most famous weather forecaster — with four legs — predicted an early spring.
Punxsutawney Phil's handlers told Groundhog Day revelers at Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill in Punxsutawney, Pa., that the groundhog had not seen his shadow, meaning winter will end within six weeks, according to tradition.Associated Press writers Deanna Bellandi, Karen Hawkins, and Barbara Rodriguez and photographer Kii Sato in Chicago; Jim Salter in St. Louis; Patrick Walters in Philadelphia; Ula Ilnytzky in New York City and Adam Pemble in Newark, N.J., contributed to this report.