Disasters

"SANTA FE, New Mexico -- Calmer winds and cooler temperatures promised relief on Sunday to fire crews battling blazes in New Mexico and Colorado, where wildfires sweeping across miles of forest, brush and grass have forced evacuations and disrupted holiday weekend travel plans."

The Atlantic Hurricane season starts officially June 1. Hurricane Bud, a Pacific storm, weakened to Category 2 as it approached Mexico, and NOAA is watching another potential storm off the East coast of Florida. Tropical storm Alberto, which formed Saturday off South Carolina, dissipated Tuesday over the Atlantic without ever reaching shore. Meanwhile, NOAA issued its official forecast, which echoed earlier private forecasts for a fairly normal 2012 season, despite the early start.

"ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A decades-old jet fuel spill threatening Albuquerque's water supply could be as large as 24 million gallons, or twice the size of the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez, New Mexico environment officials acknowledged Tuesday."

"CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The departing head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission o n W ednesday continued to press for heightened safety regulations, at a meeting of industry officials who have often chafed at his push for new rules."

"One of Canada's top experts on Arctic issues is warning of the 'near-inevitability' of an Exxon Valdez-scale oil spill at a fragile choke point in Alaskan waters if Canada ends up shipping oilsands fuel to China via pipeline terminals on the British Columbia coast."

"The number of extreme rainstorms -- deluges that dump 3 inches or more in a day -- doubled in the U.S. Midwest over the last half-century, causing billions of dollars in flood damage in a trend climate advocates link to a rise in greenhouse gas emissions."

"Without fanfare, the nation's nuclear power regulators have overhauled community emergency planning for the first time in more than three decades, requiring fewer exercises for major accidents and recommending that fewer people be evacuated right away."

"EDMONTON -- On the one year anniversary of the Slave Lake fire, here is a troubling thought. There is a good chance — an ever-increasing chance, as a matter of fact — that it will happen again. Perhaps not to Slave Lake, Alta., but to another community, or communities, nestled in the national tinderbox that is the great boreal forest stretching from British Columbia to Labrador."

"In California, May typically marks the beginning of a warm and dry summer season. This year, however, things are different. Not only has it been warm and dry for the past couple weeks; it's been warm and dry for months. So dry, in fact, that officials are warning the risk of wildfires across much of the state is going to be much worse than usual, for several months to come."

"On her 14th birthday, Kayla Boner got her driver's permit and then went home complaining of stomach-bug symptoms that landed her in the hospital two days later. Antibiotics didn't work. Kayla's condition deteriorated. Her kidneys failed. She had a seizure and went on a ventilator. Soon after, her brain activity ceased. Just 11 days after her symptoms surfaced, Kayla's distraught parents decided not to keep her on life support."