01 Oct 2010 00:12:38 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Jamaica sees wide damage from flash flooding
* Nicole's remnants drenching U.S. Atlantic Coast
* Forecaster says it'll feel like a hurricane hit (Updates throughout with North Carolina deaths)
By Jane Sutton
MIAMI, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The death toll from former Tropical Storm Nicole rose to 12 in Jamaica and four in the United States on Thursday and forecasters said the storm's remains would hit like a hurricane on the U.S. Atlantic Coast from the Carolinas to New England.
Nicole was a minimal tropical storm for just six hours on Wednesday, but the broad, ragged system poured heavy rain on Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, south Florida and the Bahamas.
The storm's remnants were moving up the U.S. East Coast and were forecast to bring gusting winds, pounding surf and coastal flooding to the region.
"The effects will be similar to that of a hurricane from eastern North Carolina to New England," private forecaster AccuWeather said in an advisory.
"The soggy ground and high winds will cause fully leafed trees to easily topple and soggy branches to fall, taking power lines with them."
Four people died in North Carolina on Thursday after their vehicle hydroplaned on U.S. Highway 64 and went into a canal in the rain-soaked eastern portion of the state, officials told Reuters.
Three of the occupants died in the accident and a fourth, a child, died later, a spokeswoman for the Washington County Sheriff's department said.
The storm was churning up the seas around the barrier islands of North Carolina's Outer Banks, and transport officials suspended ferry service on some routes on Thursday.
Parts of North Carolina were already saturated from a storm system that passed through earlier in the week.
In mountainous Jamaica, three days of torrential rain from the system caused flash flooding that killed a dozen people. Eight more were missing and feared dead.
In the latest casualties, three construction workers died when a storm-weakened wall collapsed on them early on Thursday. The men were sleeping inside the half-finished house they were building in the affluent Norbrook Heights section of Kingston, police said.
Part of the house collapsed under the weight of rain from the storm, police said. Frantic neighbors led them to the site, where the men were heard screaming. Their bodies were found soon afterward.
"This is devastating. They died in a terrible way. They had little chance of survival," a neighbor said.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, three pedestrians were swept away by rising water and six members of one family died when their house collapsed in a flood.
Villages across the Caribbean island reported serious damage to roads, houses, bridges, crops and livestock.
Schools were closed for a second day on Thursday, and more than 400 people were in government-run shelters. Hundreds of thousands of people were still without electricity and some communities were cut off by floodwaters.
Nicole was the 14th named storm of the six-month Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season, which runs through Nov. 30. (Additional reporting by Horace Helps in Kingston and Gene Cherry in Salvo, North Carolina; Editing by Peter Cooney)