CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli noted that Eta's winds are just a few miles per hour shy of reaching Category 5, and the storm is still intensifying. Caritas, the church's charitable agency, was responding to Hurricane Eta, which hit Nicaragua Nov. 3 and threatened to provoke devastating flooding and destruction as it moved through Central America. Palm trees blow in the wind as Nicaragua prepares to receive hurricane Iota on November 16, 2020, in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. Eta triggered flash floods and mudslides in parts of Central America and Mexico and killed more than 130 people. "I lost everything, I couldn't take anything," Contreras said. Hurricane Iota made landfall in Nicaragua on November 16, 2020, and then continued on to other parts of Central America, intensifying the damage wreaked by Hurricane Eta earlier in the month Effect on our brothers and sisters Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. In addition, it was the fifth consecutive above average season from 2016 onward. (©2020 World Vision/photo by Rafael Zaldívar) Hurricane Eta ripped through Central America as a Category 4 storm with powerful winds of up to 150 miles per hour, unleashing heavy rains, flooding, and landslides. One of the hardest-hit areas was La Lima, a San Pedro Sula suburb, that flooded when the Chamelecon River topped its banks. Central America – Hurricane Iota Causes Deadly Floods and Landslides. Maximo (left) inspects what is left of his house on a hillside in Cunen, Guatemala. Maynor Valenzuela/Getty Images. By the first week of June, Tropical Storm Arthur had already brushed North Carolina, Tropical Storm Bertha had drenched South Carolina, and the third named storm of the year— Cristobal—was dropping torrential rain on the Yucatán Peninsula.. Later, Nicaragua Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo said that a brother and sister, ages 11 and 8, had drowned in the community of La Pinuela trying to cross the swollen Solera River. On Tuesday, Colombian officials said they were sending a ship with 15 tons of aid to the island. The system rapidly organized as it progressed west, with the cyclone ultimately becoming a Category 4 hurricane on November 3. NASA Earth Observatory / Joshua Stevens. It's also the ninth storm to rapidly intensify this season, a dangerous phenomenon that is happening more often. On Monday, Wendy Guadalupe Contreras Paz, 34, was living under a tarp with her four children and seven other relatives along a main boulevard in La Lima. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Hurricane Eta struck the northern coast of Nicaragua on November 3. Even before Iota hit Nicaragua, it scraped over the tiny Colombian island of Providencia, more than 155 miles off Nicaragua's coast. In November 2020, Central America was hit by hurricanes Eta and Iota, which left at least 200 dead, as well as millions of dollars in losses to the economy. Such activity has focused attention on climate change, which scientists say is causing wetter, stronger and more destructive storms. Winds 150 mph and pressure 934 mb (a bit deeper than Laura). Eta is the 28th named storm and the 12th hurricane in a dangerously active season that has brought destruction from Central America to the northern Gulf States and beyond. A man uses a plastic bag for protection from the rain as he surveils an area of Barrio San Juan where evacuated families live in shelters ahead of Tropical Storm Iota on November 17, 2020, in La Lima, Honduras. With Eta, 2020 … Hurricane Eta made landfall on the Mosquito Coast of northeastern Nicaragua near the municipality of Puerto Cabezas, where strong winds ripped the roofs off of buildings. Panama reported that one person was killed and another missing in its western indigenous autonomous Ngabe Bugle area near the border with Costa Rica. Hurricane Eta Devastates Central America as U.S. Withdraws From Climate Accord Indigenous communities in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala were among the hardest hit. The Associated Press contributed to this report. In many ways this story has been lost in the maelstrom around the US election (and in the UK the imposition of a new lock down), but the impact has been severe. Winds 150 mph and pressure 934 mb (a bit deeper than Laura). The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active and the fifth-costliest Atlantic hurricane season on record. The extent of the damage was unclear because much of the affected region was without electricity and phone and internet service and strong winds hampered radio transmissions. Powerful Cat 4 Hurricane Iota likely to be disastrous for Central America Iota is the strongest storm of the 2020 Atlantic season and is expected to make landfall in northeastern Nicaragua soon, bringing catastrophic impacts as a Category 4 hurricane. The center said Eta will weaken once in moves inland. The record-tying twenty-eighth named storm, twelfth hurricane and fifth major hurricane of the extremely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, Eta originated from a vigorous tropical wavein the eastern Caribbean Sea on October 31. There were reports of others missing in the same area. "But my mom and my grandmother have some things, and that's why we're living here, to be closer to the house and keep them from stealing the few little things they have left.". It is expected to make landfall after midnight along Nicaragua's coast, where a hurricane warning is in effect. 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The official end of the hurricane season is November 30. In the aftermath of Eta, Honduras has tens of thousands of homeless people. Central America still reeling from devastating 2020 hurricanes. Iota is the 13th hurricane of the historic 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. "We're in danger if it keeps raining," Paisano Wood said. Many houses lost roofs, fences and fruit trees. The Tola River topped its banks, and western Nicaragua, along the Pacific coast, was forecast to receive the most rain. Hurricane Eta was a devastating Category 4 hurricane that caused heavy damage across parts of Central America in early November 2020. If it arrives early enough we may see in real-time if it reaches Cat 5, which is 156 mph +Still in its rapid intensification phase! A landslide caused by Hurricane Iota in November left little behind, but his family got out safely. Colombian President Ivan Duque said one person was killed and 98% of the island's infrastructure was "affected.". The system came ashore about 30 miles south of the Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas, also known as Bilwi. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season produced 30 named storms—the most going back to at least 1851. However, this is the first time the Greek letter Eta is being used as a storm name because after the 2005 season ended, meteorologists went back and determined there had been a storm that should have gotten a name but didn't. Eta made landfall in the region last week as a Category 4 hurricane. PHOTO: COURTESY IENMPG. Hurricane Iota battered Nicaragua with screeching winds and pounding surf Tuesday, chasing tens of thousands of people from their homes along the same stretch of the Caribbean coast that was devastated by an equally powerful hurricane just two weeks ago. 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"There is no food. Recon is on the way. It had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph and was spinning westward at 12 mph. California Privacy/Information We Collect. The rain isn't likely to come to an end before Friday.". In her last communication with the mayor of the community of Villeda Morales late Monday, he told her Iota was hitting them hard and the community had not completely evacuated. Mirna Wood, vice president of the Miskito ethnic group in Honduras' far east Gracias a Dios region, was in Tegucigalpa collecting donations for her community ravaged by Eta when Iota hit. Some 40,000 people in the area had moved to shelters from low-lying land beside rivers and the sea, but other people remained stranded near the border with Nicaragua. The season also had the highest accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) since 2017. So far, there have been 30 named storms, the most ever recorded. Less than two weeks after powerful storm Eta killed more than 200 people across Central America, authorities warned that Hurricane Iota has strengthened to a Category 5 storm. Some stayed behind in an attempt to protect what few possessions remained. Copyright © 2021 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. The island has no direct flights to the continent, but it has become an increasingly popular tourist destination thanks to its quiet beaches and rich marine life. / CBS/AP. Aid agencies struggled to reach their local contacts, and the government said in a statement that at least 35 towns in the east and north had no phone service. "This hurricane is definitely worse" than Eta, Jason Bermúdez, a university student from Bilwi, said as screeching winds preceded Iota's arrival. Across Central America and the Caribbean, the more than 70 million children impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic could soon face another threat – catastrophic hurricane storms, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Monday. As the storm moved westward, flooding became a top concern. … (CNN)Central America's battle with Hurricane Eta could leave some countries scarred for generations. On November 3, Eta hit the coast of Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane … Iota is the 30th named storm in the Atlantic this year, a record. The season featured a total of 31 (sub)tropical cyclones, all but one of which became a named storm. © 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Heavy rain and wind damage was previously reported in Nicaragua and Honduras after Hurricane Eta made landfall on 03 November 2020. Two weeks later, Hurricane Iota made landfall near Haulover, Nicaragua, only 15 miles south of where Eta had come ashore. #Eta is now the strongest hurricane of the 2020 season. Reuters. Updated on: November 17, 2020 / 7:40 PM Five other major hurricanes churned in the Atlantic this season: Laura, Teddy, Delta, Epsilon and Eta. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is off to a busy start. From its vantage point roughly 22,300 miles above the Earth, the GOES-East satellite captured this GeoColor and GLM lightning composite image loop of powerful Hurricane Iota making its way toward Central America on Nov. 16, 2020. Hurricane Iota is the latest, and strongest, storm to ravage Central America this year, and it has wreaked devastation on several countries and caused a number of lives to be lost. There is no water.". Iota developed later in the season than any other Category 5 storm on record, beating a November 8, 1932, Cuba hurricane, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. Queen Elizabeth makes first public appearance since husband's funeral, Climate tipping points may have been reached already, experts say, A full "pink" supermoon will illuminate the night sky tonight. In mountainous Tegucigalpa, residents of low-lying, flood-prone areas were being evacuated in anticipation of Iota's rains, as were residents of hillside neighborhoods vulnerable to landslides. Preliminary reports from the coast included toppled trees and electric poles and roofs stripped from homes and businesses, said Guillermo González, director of Nicaragua's emergency management agency. Providencia is inhabited almost exclusively by the descendants of African slaves and British colonizers, who speak an English version of Creole as their native language. By Tuesday afternoon, Iota had diminished to a tropical storm and was moving inland over northern Nicaragua. 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