Nicaraguan government officials said that if the hurricane had hit larger coastal cities such as Puerto Cabezas or Bluefields as was first predicted, it would have been a disaster. Hurricane Beta was the first hurricane to be named after a letter in the Greek alphabet, because the first tropical system to be named with a Greek letter, Tropical Storm Alpha, did not reach hurricane strength.
In Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, local officials announced a curfew to help stop looting and worked to cut off electricity throughout the city to stop possible injuries. 60,000 people were moved into shelters. Thousands of residents striggled through heavy rain to reach shelters. Many experts, including national meteorology director Milagros Castro, warned of the threat of mudslides, especially since Beta was a slow-moving storm.
In Honduras, the government also kept a red alert for the storm and an emergency committee was working on moving 150,000 people from areas of the capital, Tegucigalpa, that would be in danger to flooding and mudslides. Evacuations were being readied in five of the country's eighteen departments. Civil defense officials have declared an alert in neighboring El Salvador, fearing the threat of mudslides after Hurricane Stan destroyed much of the area. The preparations eventually turned out to be very serious, since there was no deaths reported in spie of the large damages.
On the island of Providencia, roofs were ripped off from dozens of wooden homes, the island's main communications tower was knocked over and a tourist footbridge was destroyed. But most of the 5,000 islanders stayed safe by climbing Providencia's many hills to ride out the storm in brick shelters. At least thirty people are reported to have been injured during Hurricane Beta's destruction upon the island.
Beta wiped out most of the town of Sandy Bay as it made landfall. Local reports said the town's population of 3,000 had mostly evacuated in advance. Wooden huts made most of the housing in Sandy Bay, and about eighty percent of it was thought to be uninhabitable. Trees were knocked down and roofs were ripped off from houses during Hurricane Beta's attack on the country. At least one pier was damaged. Many herds of cattle were killed by the storm. 700 people were trapped in Tasbapauni, a town separated from the mainland by a lagoon. Eighty percent of homes in Tasbapauni are thought to be damaged very badly. Some 200 homes in Laguna de Perlas' seventeen lake-front villages are reported to have been damaged a lot.
Though the storm's remnants were expected to drop an additional four to eight inches on the already water logged ground, President Enrique Bolaños said his country had escaped a major disaster. He promised to quickly get aid to separated towns cut off by flooding and landslides. Nicaraguan Civil Defence Chief Col. Mario Perez Cassar said eighty per cent of the buildings on the central coast where the hurricane hit were heavily damaged or destroyed.
One person was reported to be injured and four people were reported missing in Nicaragua. The four missing men were later found alive on a boat that had been swept out into the Caribbean. A passing Panamanian-registered tanker ship found the four, all Miskito Indians, adrift about forty eight kilometres off the Nicaraguan coast after their gasoline ran out.
In Honduras, Beta left fifty communities separated and broke bridges in the northeastern provinces of Gracias a Dios, Atlantida and Colon on the coast. Strong winds knocked down signs, fences, trees and electricity and telephone poles, cutting off power and communication in hundreds of communities and at least two highways were blocked.
Authorities evacuated more than 7,800 people from north of the Nicaraguan border after four rivers overflowed from rain caused by Beta. The national soccer league stopped all of its games. The airports at La Ceiba and Roatan on the coast were operating intermittenly because of poor visibility, strong winds and flooding. Flooding damaged rice, corn and bean fields. High waters also sent snakes out of the jungle into urban areas, although there were no reports of snakebites.
Billie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong (born 17 February 1972 in Oakland, California) is an American musician and the lead singer and guitarist for the punk band Green Day. He also has numerous side projects as a vocalist, lyricist and guitarist in Foxboro Hot Tubs, Pinhead Gunpowder and The Network.
He was born in Oakland, California. He is of Cherokee, English, German, Irish, Italian, Mexican, Native American, Scottish, Spanish and Welsh descent.
Armstrong was given his first guitar "Blue", a Fernandes Stratocaster, at the age of 11 by his father, Andy, who died soon after. He and childhood friend Mike Dirnt started Sweet Children, their first band which eventually developed into Green Day in 1987. They added drummer John Kiffenmeyer (Al Sobrante). Sobrante left the band to go to college as they were making waves and gaining popularity. Frank Edwin Wright III (famously known as Tre Cool) replaced him as the permanent drummer making the official line up of Green Day in 1989.
The band gained a following in the punk scene in California, particularly in the Gilman Street Scene. They released three EPs ("1000 hours", "39/Smooth" and "Slappy") before releasing two LPs, one being a compilation of the EPs ("1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hour") in 1991 and "Kerplunk" later in the same year.
With the release of their first major label album "Dookie" the band gained worldwide attention. Their intentions were not to sell out but just to make music. Unfortunately the popularity did not do well with the Gilman scene and they were exiled. However, despite those rough years the band became increasingly popular.
Armstrong is openly bisexual. He is married and lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Adrienne Armstrong and two sons Jakob and Joseph!
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. It was first performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London. In the play, the protagonists make up people who are not real to try to make their lives easier. The play's most important themes are the light humourous way it treats serious things like marriages and the satire of Victorian ways. At the time the play came out, reviews all praised the play's humour. However, some people wanted better social messages, while others thought that it was the best play Wilde had ever written. It is Wilde's most popular play.
The plot is about two men who try to woo their respective lovers by convincing each that their name is Ernest. The play includes many puns and plays on words. Even the title is a pun, because "Ernest" is a man's name and "earnest" is a word that means "serious, honest, and sincere." The play is about morality, style, and hypocrisy, among others, but it is noted for being humorous and lighthearted.
The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde's career but also heralded his downfall. The Marquess of Queensberry, father of Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde's lover, planned to present Wilde a bouquet of spoiling vegetables and disrupt the show. Wilde was tipped off, and Queensberry was refused admission. Soon afterwards the feud came to a climax in court, and Wilde's new notoriety caused the play, despite its success, to be closed after just 86 performances. After imprisonment, he wrote no further comic or dramatic work. "The Importance of Being Earnest" has been revived many times since its premiere and adapted for the cinema on three occasions, in 1952, 1992 and 2002.