(WASHINGTON) — Lawmakers and prosecutors continue to piece together the events of the violent insurrection that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, and now, a new film offers a firsthand perspective from the firefighters and paramedics who responded.
The documentary-style video, produced by DC Fire and EMS and released on YouTube, offers an hour-by-hour account of their attempts to provide life-saving care amid a flurry of violence, turmoil and death.
“The resources we had in place were quickly overwhelmed,” Deputy Fire Chief Daniel McCoy says in the first few minutes of the film.
McCoy and his team surged resources to the park south of the White House where demonstrators and rioters first gathered. That morning, they also deployed personnel to survey the Capitol and surrounding area, anticipating the crowd would head in that direction.
Paramedic Sgt. Alethea Brooks described the chaos while she was trying to provide aide to the injured. Rioters spat at her and called her racial slurs multiple times, she said.
“You always know there are people that you have to help regardless, it doesn’t matter if you’re a murderer,” Brooks says. “It’s our job to not judge and we’re just here to help. But it definitely makes it harder when you know that the people that you’re helping are actually harming our brothers — our brothers in blue — and have no regard for me.”
Another paramedic, Rocco Gabriele, describes how his gear was taken by rioters and his supplies were dumped out while he was treating a patient.
“We did what we could with what we had and we did it fast,” he said.
Gabriele, Brooks and several of their colleagues described the extreme difficulties involved with providing care amid such a hectic scene.
During the fray, one of the people attempting to breach the inner halls of the Capitol was shot by a police officer. First responders had to carry her out before providing care because the paramedic team was worried for their own safety.
The violent nature of the crowd also made it difficult for first responders to access and treat many of the police officers who were injured. There were about a thousand documented assaults against law enforcement over the course of the day, according to recent legal filings from the Department of Justice.
Among the dead was Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who suffered a stroke that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia said caused his death.
After paramedics had been alerted that Sicknick collapsed on an upper level of the Capitol building, they began working on a plan to get him out. Due to the state of emergency, the elevators were out of service so a team of National Guardsmen and Capitol Police carried him out in a wheelchair, one of the first responders recounted.
A congressional committee continues to investigate the events surrounding Jan. 6 and is attempting to obtain any relevant records it can find, such as call logs, as well as the type of first-hand accounts featured in the film.
(NEW YORK) — The deaths of 13 people, all but two of whom lived in basement apartments, during New York City’s catastrophic flooding this week have renewed attention on the oftentimes illegal dwellings, with city officials looking to bolster evacuation efforts for vulnerable residents in extreme weather.
A record 3.15 inches of rain fell in one hour in the city Wednesday, all but stalling the city’s subway system and prompting dozens of water rescues. At least 13 people have been reported dead in New York City after the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the region.
The rapid rainfall inundated residences away from the city’s coastline not prone to flooding, damaging scores of homes and turning at least six basement apartments into death traps.
“The danger came from above,” as opposed to storm surge, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a press briefing Friday, while calling for more effective early warnings ahead of “wicked” weather that she said will undoubtedly become more frequent due to climate change.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday the city will be working on a “more severe kind of warning and more severe set of actions that will be a jolt to people.”
“What we saw in some of these basement apartments on Wednesday was people need to be evacuated who are far away from the coast, because of the sheer intensity and speed, the amount of rain that came in such a brief period of time,” he said, calling this extreme weather “a whole new ballgame.”
“We can say now that extreme weather has become the norm. We need to respond to it differently,” de Blasio told reporters.
The mayor said the city would need to impose travel bans more frequently, instructing people to leave the streets and get out of the subways, and evacuate more New Yorkers ahead of future storms.
To target those who live in basement apartments, changes could include cellphone alerts or door-to-door evacuations, the mayor said. But first, the city would need to create a database of what is conservatively estimated at more than 50,000 basement apartments, impacting at least 100,000 people, de Blasio said.
“We need to have an absolute accounting of all of them and then we can apply these door-to-door techniques if we need to,” he said. “We’ve got to have a clear database to work from and certainly begin with knowing the areas, which we do know, where they are prevalent.”
With many of the city’s basement apartments illegal conversions, oftentimes providing affordable housing to low-income New Yorkers and undocumented immigrants, the city would work with community organizations and other trusted messengers to reach residents, the mayor said.
“We have an illegal basement problem and then we have a problem that so many people end up in illegal basements are fearful to communicate for fear they might be evicted or, worse in their mind, deported,” de Blasio said. “It’s just an extraordinarily challenging set of circumstances.”
Five of the six apartments where 11 people died during the storm were illegally converted cellar and basement apartments, according to the city’s buildings department. Four of them were in Queens and one in Brooklyn. The lone legal basement apartment was in Queens, where a 48-year-old woman was found unconscious and unresponsive at a home near Corona.
Those who died in the illegal conversions included a 43-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man at a basement apartment in Jamaica, Queens; a 50-year-old man, a 48-year-old woman and a 2-year-old boy at a cellar-level apartment in Flushing, Queens; and a 66-year-old man at a cellar unit in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, based on statements from the city’s building department and New York Police Department.
City officials encouraged basement apartment residents to call 311 or 911 to report issues without fear of being vacated, unless they are facing life-threatening danger.
The risks posed to those living in basement apartments were raised in the city’s “stormwater resiliency plan,” released in May. It included an initiative to develop notifications for basement dwellings “to keep residents out of harm’s way” during extreme rain events, but the completion date wasn’t until 2023.
When asked about that timeline Friday, de Blasio said, “Clearly we have to change that.”
“This is a new deal we’re dealing with now, a new reality,” the mayor said. “We have to take the very muscular approaches that we have, the very forceful approaches like mandatory evacuation, like mandatory travel ban, and use those in ways we never had before, because events are just changing the paradigm constantly.”
On Friday, New York Attorney General Letitia James called on the city to provide emergency housing vouchers to all New Yorkers living in unregulated basement apartments, as extreme weather events have become “the rule, not the exception” due to climate change.
“We know that New York’s housing crisis has gone too far when tenants have to risk their lives just to have a roof over their heads,” James said in a statement. “To prevent these problems in the future, we must also ensure that basement units are safe for human occupancy and regularly inspected. Overcoming the twin threats of climate change and a housing crisis will not be simple, but we must ensure measures are in place to protect our neighbors and prevent a future catastrophe.”
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards also pointed to the city’s affordable housing crisis in the wake of the deadly flooding while pushing for more infrastructure investments in neighborhoods that have been “historically left behind.”
“The reason people are in basement apartments is because of the failure of New York City to really truly build out affordable housing,” he told Pix11 Friday morning. “I was a basement baby myself. … We lived in basements because it provided an affordable opportunity. So this was a failure on many levels, and we need to make sure we’re never back here again.”
ABC News’ Mark Crudele contributed to this report.
(TANGIPAHOA PARISH, La.) — Louisiana officials are investigating a facility where nursing home residents were evacuated to after four residents died there ahead of Hurricane Ida.
The coroner determined three of the deaths to be storm-related, though the residents’ definitive causes of death have not been confirmed.
On Friday, Aug. 27, two days before Ida made landfall, the Louisiana Dept. of Health (LDH) learned of the four deaths at an unnamed facility in the Tangipahoa Parish.
After the hurricane hit, LDH was alerted to “deteriorating conditions” at this facility and officials “promptly visited” the site Tuesday — but were “expelled from the property and prevented from conducting a full assessment.”
Nola.com reports the facility was a warehouse “with overflowing toilets and piled up trash.” Officials and workers at the facility told Nola.com residents were trapped in “inhumane conditions.”
“We have significant concerns about conditions in this facility,” LDH said in a statement.
Unless under a mandatory evacuation order, nursing homes make the decision of when and where to evacuate, LDH said. These facilities are required to provide safe conditions for their residents.
LDH is removing 834 residents from seven nursing homes across four parishes. The most vulnerable residents are being moved first, the department said. As of Friday morning, LDH said it had moved 721 residents.
Twelve of the residents rescued required hospitalization, the department said.
“This is a serious and active investigation. We will be taking action against these nursing facilities, and will be making appropriate referrals to law enforcement,” LDH said in a statement.
Residents from the following nursing homes were evacuated to the facility under investigation: River Palms Nursing and Rehab, Orleans Parish; Maison Orleans Healthcare Center, Orleans Parish; Park Place Healthcare Nursing Home, Jefferson Parish; West Jefferson Health Care Center, Jefferson Parish; Maison DeVille Nursing Home of Harvey, Jefferson Parish; Maison DeVille Nursing Home, Terrebonne Parish; South Lafourche Nursing and Rehab, Lafourche Parish.
(ATLANTA) — The parents of Ahmaud Arbery welcomed the indictment of a former district attorney for allegedly interfering with the arrest of one of the men involved in the shooting death of their son as well as showing favor to another.
Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was fatally shot while jogging on Feb. 23, 2020.
“Yesterday was a very huge win. I’m speechless,” Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said during a press conference on Friday.
She thanked Attorney General Chris Carr for staying in contact with the family and assuring them that justice would be served.
Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery, said that he is “grateful” for the indictment and that “everybody that had a hand on [Ahmaud’s] death needs to be brought to justice.”
According to the two-count indictment obtained by ABC News, former district attorney Jackie Lee Johnson was charged with violating her oath of office for allegedly “showing favor and affection to Greg McMichael during the investigation into the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery.”
McMichael is a retired investigator with the Brunswick District Attorney’s Office who previously served as a Glynn County police officer.
She is also charged with obstructing a law enforcement officer by allegedly “directing that Travis McMichael should not be placed under arrest,” the indictment said.
An attorney representing Johnson told ABC News on Friday they will not be commenting on the matter amid ongoing litigation.
“The path to justice for Ahmaud Aubrey and his family has been a long and arduous one, but the indictment is yet another step in the right direction,” Aubrey family attorney Benjamin Crump said during the press conference. “Former DA Johnson may not have pulled the trigger on the day Ahmaud was murdered, but she played a starring role in the cover up.”
Three white men in Georgia — Greg and Travis McMichael, a father and son, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. — were charged with murder for allegedly tracking down and fatally shooting Arbery.
All three pleaded not guilty and jury selection for the state trial is set to begin on Oct. 18.
According to a police report, McMichael claimed that he assumed Arbery was a person who committed “several break-ins” in their neighborhood when he and his son chased him down in a pickup truck.
Meanwhile, prosecutors allege Bryan struck Arbery with his vehicle while assisting the McMichaels in chasing him. Bryan also recorded cellphone video that captured Travis McMichael allegedly shooting Arbery with a shotgun during a struggle.
“The way he died, it just really devastated my family,” Marcus Arbery said. “I’m still struggling with it every day as a father because it’s my job to protect my children, and God knows I do that … I’m still hurt because all I got is pictures to look at him.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law in May repealing the state citizen’s arrest statute, therefore banning private citizens from arresting people they suspect committed a crime.
Arbery’s case did not gain national attention until a video of the shooting was leaked on social media, where it went viral.
An arrest was not made until more than two months after Arbery’s death. Amid national outcry, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case and arrested the McMichaels and Bryan.
Federal prosecutors filed hate crime and attempted kidnapping charges against the three men in April. They were arraigned in federal court in Brunswick, Georgia, in May and all three pleaded not guilty.
During the hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Benjamin Cheesbro read the federal complaint against the men, which alleges they “did willfully, by force and threat of force, injure, intimidate and interfere with Ahmaud Arbery, an African American man, because of his race and color.”
A trial is set for February 2022.
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson and Abby Cruz contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A Tennessee-based woman is easing back to school stress and boosting confidence by generously offering her hair braiding services for free.
Brittany Starks posted on Facebook: “Anyone know single parents who can’t afford to get their child’s hair done for school? I will braid it for free!”
Since posting, her inital ask has taken off like wildfire.
The single mother of two said she’s been homeless twice and in an unfortunate predicament where all of her children’s clothing was in storage and she faced the issue of trying to figure out how to make ends meet to get them what they needed before heading back to school.
Then, a family friend gave her children bookbags and clothes. “It was perfect,” she told “Good Morning America.” “So after that, I was thinking how can I give back?”
Once Starks realized how she could help other single mothers who may have been in similar situations to her own through offering free hair braiding, she thought only about seven people would reach out.
However, she’s now braided over 35 children’s hair.
Starks opened up about hearing some of the stories of the mothers of the children brought to her and mentioned how some had recently gone through a divorce and others were going through depression.
“I remember when I was depressed I wanted to die, and I know these moms probably don’t feel like doing anything as they are going through it trying to figure out ways to make themselves happy,” Starks said.
She continued: “There were also two little girls who didn’t go to school the first few days because they weren’t able to get their hair done.”
Starks also explained how some of the young girls would come in with a really quiet demeanor along with their heads down, but leave smiling and showing so much more of their personality after getting their hair styled.
Since offering her services at the beginning of August, Starks shared an updated social media post asking for help from other local braiders, due to the large number of children that have been reaching out to her.
She was able to book space at a church and other braiders such as Donna Garcia also offered their services. Together, they created a hair braiding event that Starks now looks forward to hosting monthly.
“The biggest response came after it went viral. I had other parents in other states reaching out to ask if I could braid their children’s hair,” said Starks.
While Starks said most of the hairstyles can be time-consuming, ranging from four to six hours and priced between $120 – $250 and up, seeing each parent and child smile makes every moment worth it.
“I didn’t expect all of this at all. I’ve been surprised and overwhelmed at the same time,” said Starks. “I just feel like it was such a big blessing and I feel like I’ve found my purpose in life.”
Texas State Capitol in Austin, TX (Credit: dszc/iStock)
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court issuing an unsigned order refusing to block a Texas abortion ban while it faces a legal challenge stunned many and marked a significant moment in the United States’ history of reproductive rights.
The playbook for years by anti-abortion legislators was to slowly chip away at the right to an abortion via mechanisms like “targeted restrictions on abortion providers” or “TRAP” laws, while outright pre-viability bans were seen as unrealistic.
“This was really bad and really unexpected,” Robin Marty, operations director at the West Alabama Women’s Center and author of “New Handbook for a Post-Roe America,” told ABC News. “We thought it would be slower and not nearly as, ‘all right, we’re done, rights are gone.'”
The Texas law bans physicians from providing abortions “if the physician detects a fetal heartbeat,” including embryonic cardiac activity, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Before Wednesday, no law was in effect that banned abortions earlier than 20 weeks of pregnancy. Many states had tried to enact early gestational bans, but they had all been blocked by courts.
That’s because of clear precedent. In 1973, the Supreme Court declared abortion a protected right in Roe v. Wade. Twenty years later, in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court reaffirmed “the constitutionally protected liberty of the woman to decide to have an abortion before the fetus attains viability and to obtain it without undo interference from the State.”
“Viability” means a fetus can survive outside of a uterus, and that typically happens around 24 to 28 weeks. So laws that outright ban abortion before that stage have been systematically knocked down by courts.
“Every time the states have passed them, the federal courts universally blocked them,” Marc Hearron, lead attorney on the Texas case and senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told ABC News. “This is the first time that a federal court has allowed a six-week ban to take effect.”
A six-week ban in Georgia, for instance, was struck down last year.
“A ‘heartbeat’ ban isn’t even close to viability. So there’s nothing about that that was even an attempt to be within the confines of the Constitution. That standing alone would make it unconstitutional,” Kimberly Mutcherson, co-dean and law professor at Rutgers Law School, told ABC News about the Texas law.
Before the Georgia law was struck down, it was blocked from going into effect while courts heard the challenge. That is how these cases usually go and was what the Center for Reproductive Rights was asking for from the Supreme Court.
“The thing that the federal court should do when a law is going to pose grave harm is preserve the status quo while if there are difficult issues, you can litigate those difficult issues,” Hearron said.
This was something Chief Justice John Roberts called for in his own dissent, writing: “I would grant preliminary relief to preserve the status quo ante — before the law went into effect — so that the courts may consider whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws in such a manner.”
The Texas law is different from previous bans in that it prohibits the state from enforcing the ban, instead authorizing private citizens to bring civil suits against anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion.
With that, Mutcherson said, “they created this sort of confusion and this hook that the Supreme Court was able to use in order to say, ‘We’re not going to stay the law, we’re going to allow it to go into effect, and then we’ll see what happens.'”
Marty believes one thing that will happen is “people are going to have to decide for themselves whether this is a just law that needs to be followed or not, and what sort of risks they’re willing to take in order to essentially bring it down.”
What’s also different now is the makeup of the Supreme Court since President Donald Trump’s appointments and the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To Mutcherson, this was a sign of “raw politics coming out of the Supreme Court,” and many saw this as the result of years of increasingly bold state laws being proposed by lawmakers emboldened by the new conservative majority and a slate of federal appellate judges appointed by Trump.
It is important to note that the Supreme Court’s order stated it “is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’ law.” Rather, the order not to issue an injunction was on technical grounds, and the legal challenge against the law is ongoing.
“The law remains that these bans are unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court let one take effect anyway,” Hearron said.
This order also in no way overturned Roe.
“Where we stand right now is that Texas has a law on the books that is completely unconstitutional under the precedent of Roe and Casey, but that law has not yet been enjoined or officially declared unconstitutional by any court,” Mutcherson said, adding, “The right to abortion continues to exist and continues to be protected by Roe and by Casey.”
And in the meantime, Mutcherson said, “The women who are going to suffer are women of color, poor women, young women, women who are undocumented — those are the folks that these kinds of laws really strike at.”
(NEW YORK) — The remnants of Hurricane Ida dumped flooding rain, spawned tornadoes across the Northeast and caused dozens of deaths in areas where the storm landed.
So far in the Northeast, at least 48 deaths have been attributed to the storm. Overall, there have been at least 61 deaths across eight U.S. states related to Ida.
President Joe Biden approved New York and New Jersey emergency declarations due to the storms and spoke on Ida’s damage in the Northeast Thursday afternoon, citing that New York recorded more rain Wednesday “than it usually sees the entire month of September.”
“People were trapped in the subways. But the heroic men and women of the New York Fire Department rescued all of them. They were trapped,” Biden said.
He said he’s made it clear to East Coast governors that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is “on the ground” and ready to provide assistance.
New York
A flash flood emergency was declared for the first time in New York City as subway stations were turned into waterfalls and Midtown streets became rivers. The state of New York and New York City each declared states of emergency.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday morning the death toll in the Big Apple was nine. That number rose to 13 by the evening.
“We saw a horrifying storm last night. Unlike anything we’ve seen before,” de Blasio said. “Unfortunately the price paid by some New Yorkers was horrible and tragic.”
New York Police Department Commissioner Dermot Shea said at least eight deaths took place in residential homes in basements.
Most of the city’s fatalities were in Queens.
Officers responding to a flooding condition at a partially collapsed building early Thursday in the borough found two people — a 43-year-old female and a 22-year-old male — unconscious and unresponsive inside, the NYPD said. The man was pronounced dead at the scene and the woman was taken to the local hospital, where she later died. “The investigation is ongoing and the Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death. The identification of the deceased is pending family notification,” the NYPD said.
At a second flooded location in Queens, the NYPD said they found a 50-year-old man, a 48-year-old woman and a 2-year-old boy unconscious and unresponsive within the residence. They were all pronounced dead at the scene.
Also in Queens, police responded to a 911 call of a flooding condition and discovered a 48-year-old female, unconscious and unresponsive, within the residence. “The aided female was removed by EMS to Forest Hills Hospital where she was pronounced deceased,” the NYPD said.
An 86-year-old woman also died in her Queens apartment due to flooding, police said.
On Thursday afternoon, the landlord at an apartment in Flushing called 911 to say there were three bodies submerged in a flooded basement, according to the FDNY.
“FDNY members rescued hundreds of people citywide during the storm, removing occupants from trapped vehicles on flooded roadways and removing New Yorkers from subway stations,” department spokesman Frank Dwyer told ABC News.
After responding to a flooding incident in Brooklyn, the NYPD said officers found “a 66-year-old male, unresponsive and unconscious, within the residence.” He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Meanwhile, in Westchester, County Executive George Latimer said Thursday that one person died after they were caught in a flash flood in their car. Two additional deaths in the county were later confirmed.
More than 100 people were rescued in Rockland and Westchester counties, officials said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a Thursday morning briefing that her focus will be on flood prevention.
“Before we worried about coastal areas, now it’s about what’s happening in the streets, the drainage systems that need to be enhanced,” Hochul said. “Because of climate change, unfortunately, this is something we’re going to have to deal with with great regularity.”
The inundating rainfall Wednesday evening broke records. Central Park reported a record for rainfall in one hour with 3.15 inches from 8:51 p.m. to 9:51 p.m., the National Weather Service reported.
New York issued a citywide travel ban just before 1 a.m. ET Thursday until 5 a.m.
“All non-emergency vehicles must be off NYC streets and highways,” the city said.
Every subway line in the city was suspended, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, due to so many flooded stations. De Blasio told ABC station WABC that people were being evacuated from subway cars stuck underground.
During the flooding, 835 subway passengers were rescued, the NYPD said Thursday.
There were also 69 water rescues, including 18 at the U.S. Open in Queens, police said. The U.S. Open had to pause one tennis match as the court was flooded Wednesday night — despite there being a roof — due to rain coming in the side of the stadium.
Nearly 500 cars were abandoned, police said.
The governor declared a state of emergency Wednesday within 14 counties “in response to major flooding due to Tropical Depression Ida,” she said in a statement, while encouraging New Yorkers to “please pay attention to local weather reports, stay off the roads and avoid all unnecessary travel during this time.”
By Thursday morning, “Metro-North, LIRR and the New York City subway system are not fully functioning,” Hochul said.
Many New York communities are now grappling with water-logged apartments.
Ryan Bauer-Walsh, an artist who lives in Hamilton Heights, said his apartment on the fifth floor of one of New York City’s Housing Development Fund Corporation cooperatives was inundated with rain.
“This is the second time in two months that the roof has caved in and they’ve been doing asbestos removal. Unfortunately, asbestos-contaminated water, we think, has come into our apartments,” he told ABC News.
“My primary concern is with the infrastructure of the city,” he said. “It’s feeling a little hopeless … especially as we get more and more of these massive storms.”
As of Friday morning, there are at least 10,181 residents without power, according to PowerOutage.US.
New Jersey
In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy quickly declared an emergency with 3 to 5 inches of rain falling per hour in some locations across the tri-state area.
“We will use every resource at our disposal to ensure the safety of New Jerseyans,” Murphy tweeted. “Stay off the roads, stay home, and stay safe.”
At least 25 people have died due to the storm in the state.
Four residents of the Oakwood Plaza apartment complex in Elizabeth were found dead in the aftermath of the flooding, Mayor Chris Bollwage said in a press conference Thursday morning.
The victims included a 72-year-old wife, a 71-year-old husband, a 38-year-old son and a 33-year-old woman who was their neighbor, officials said.
Rescuers were checking the rent roll and going door-to-door through the entire complex to make sure no other bodies were found, a spokesperson for the mayor told ABC News. The complex is across from the Elizabeth Fire Department headquarters, which was inundated with 8 feet of water.
At least one person also died due to the flooding in Passaic, Mayor Hector Carlos Lora confirmed on Facebook Thursday morning.
The person was trapped inside their car, which was “overtaken by water,” he said.
The mayor — who declared a state of emergency in the city — said that two other residents were reported to have been swept away by the water. The search continues for them.
“We have too many areas where the flooding has gotten so bad that cars are stuck and we have bodies underwater,” Lora said in a video posted to Facebook Wednesday night. “We are now retrieving bodies.”
Some 60 residents were receiving temporary shelter in City Hall, the mayor said Thursday.
Two people died from flooding in two separate incidents in Hillsborough and one person was found dead in a heavily damaged pick-up truck discovered in daylight in Milford, New York ABC station WABC reported.
Several homes were damaged in Mullica Hill, across from Philadelphia, due to a tornado that touched down. Three tornadoes were confirmed in New Jersey, most in the southern part of the state.
“Gloucester County has experienced devastating storm damage,” the county said in a statement. “It is likely that multiple tornadoes have touched down within our communities. Our Emergency Operations Center is fully activated with multiple local, county, state, and regional partners assessing damages and deploying resources.”
In Gloucester County, 20 to 25 homes were “completely devastated,” and roughly 100 more sustained some damage, when a tornado ripped through Harrison Township, Wednesday, the mayor told ABC News.
Mayor Lou Manzo said the community is “blessed” that no one died and only one person had to go to the hospital, but the damage to property across the township is “extensive.”
Fire and emergency personnel made “a few rescues” of people who became trapped after sheltering in their basement, according to the mayor.
There was also a “confirmed large and extremely dangerous tornado” located near Woodbury Heights, at about 6:30 p.m. and another “confirmed large and destructive tornado” over Beverly, near Trenton, at 7 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.
As the storm swept through the area Wednesday, a baggage area flooded and flights were grounded at Newark Liberty Airport.
“We’re experiencing severe flooding due to tonight’s storm,” the airport’s account tweeted. “All flight activity is currently suspended & travelers are strongly advised to contact their airline for the latest flight & service resumption information. Passengers are being diverted from ground-level flooded areas.”
Cancellations were still commonplace Thursday afternoon out of Newark.
Early Friday, a Manville banquet hall went up in flames. It is one of three fires currently burning and inaccessible to firefighters due to the flooded roads.
The Saffron Banquet Hall on South Main Street exploded in flames at around 2 a.m., with residents from surrounding towns reporting hearing a loud explosion, the fire department said, adding that direfighters are unable to access the fire — which appears gas fed — because it is surrounded by a flooded parking lot.
Two other homes, on Boesel Avenue and North Second Avenue, that caught fire Thursday afternoon continue to smolder Friday morning and are also inaccessible.
As of Friday morning, there are still 12,901 New Jersey residents without power.
Pennsylvania
At least five storm-related fatalities have been confirmed in Pennsylvania.
Montgomery County had at least three deaths, the commissioner, Dr. Val Arkoosh, said during a press briefing Thursday morning.
One of those was an unnamed woman who died when a tree fell onto a home in Upper Dublin Township, according to Philadelphia ABC station WPVI.
A fourth Pennsylvania fatality, 65-year-old Donald Allen Bauer, of Perkiomenville, drowned inside his vehicle after it went into the Unami Creek in Bucks County, state police said in a news release.
The Chester County Coroner’s Office announced a fifth storm-related death in the state — Michael Nastasi, 51, of Downingtown, who is believed to have drowned.
The Schuylkill River in Philadelphia had risen to a major flood stage early Thursday morning. It was forecast to rise a few additional feet before cresting around 9 a.m. The National Weather Service has increased its predicted water level for the river to 17.2 feet — surpassing the highest recorded total of 17 feet. The rain has stopped, but flood risk continues, the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management said on Twitter.
Randy Padfield, Pennsylvania’s state emergency management agency director, estimated Thursday the number of water rescues to be in the “thousands” following catastrophic rain and flooding. In Montgomery County alone, officials responded to at least 500 calls, he said in a press briefing.
There were four confirmed tornadoes in Pennsylvania in Horsham Township, Bristol, Oxford and Buckingham Township, according to the NWS.
As of Friday morning, there are at least 25,211 residents without power.
Connecticut
A state trooper died after his vehicle was swept away in floodwaters in Woodbury, officials said in a press conference Thursday morning.
The trooper, identified as 26-year veteran Sgt. Brian Mohl, called for help around 4 a.m. and after a search was found and hospitalized with critical injuries. He died Thursday morning.
“Every line of duty death is heartbreaking and the loss of Sgt. Mohl is no different,” Col. Stavros Mellekas, commanding officer of the Connecticut State Police, said in a statement. “He was outside, in the middle of the night, in horrendous conditions, patrolling the Troop L area. He was doing a job he loved and he was taken much too soon.”
Maryland
A 19-year-old male was found dead due to flooding at the Rockville Apartments in Montgomery County, police said in a news release. Officials received multiple calls for flooding at the home at 3:50 a.m. and 150 residents were displaced by floodwaters.
There were two confirmed tornadoes in Maryland, in Annapolis and Edgemere, that damaged property and downed wires and trees. No deaths or injuries were reported.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 643,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 61.7% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Friday. All times Eastern:
Sep 03, 8:46 am
EU to return millions of J&J doses it imported from Africa
The European Union will be returning some 20 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine that were imported from a plant in South Africa, and the shots filled and finished there will no longer leave the African continent.
African Union special envoy Strive Masiyiwa, who heads the regional bloc’s COVID-19 Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, told reporters Thursday that the decision was made at a meeting last week between South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Johnson & Johnson’s South African partner, Aspen Pharmacare, has a contract to import the drug substance for the one-dose vaccine from the American pharmaceutical giant and then package them — the so-called fill-and-finish process — at its facility in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
“All the vaccines produced at Aspen will stay in Africa and will be distributed to Africa,” Masiyiwa said at a press conference Thursday.
The decision came amid criticism of the arrangement, with the World Health Organisation’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is Ethiopian, saying last month that he was “stunned” that vaccines will be shipped from Africa to Europe. Just 3% of people in Africa, the world’s second-largest, second-most populous continent, are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. In comparison, 57% of people are fully vaccinated in the European Union and 52% in the United States, according to the WHO.
Sep 03, 3:33 am
Nearly 300 children currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas
Nearly 300 children are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas, state data shows.
According to the Texas Department of State Health Services’ online COVID-19 dashboard, which was last updated on Thursday afternoon, there are 282 pediatric patients in hospitals across the Lone Star State.
The data also shows there are 81 staffed pediatric intensive care unit beds available in all of Texas.
Sep 03, 3:19 am
2-dose vaccine ‘appears to be enough,’ FDA adviser says
Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee, said a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine “appears to be enough” to curb infection, rather than adding a booster shot.
“You look at states in the United States that have high immunization rates with a two-dose vaccine, it appears the two doses appears to be enough to be able to control this infection,” Offit, who is also the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told ABC News on Thursday night. “I think the critical issue here is not going to be boosting the vaccinated. I think if we really want to get on top of this pandemic, it’s going to be about vaccinating the unvaccinated.”
The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee is set to hold a key meeting on COVID-19 vaccine booster shots on Sept. 17, just three days before the Biden administration plans to begin offering the shots to Americans.
“If the companies or the FDA can make a case that there has been an erosion in protection against severe critical disease and that that erosion in protection against severe disease would be mediated or eliminated by a third dose, then we could move forward,” Offit said. “But to date, we really need to see those data to be able to make that decision.”
Sep 02, 7:02 pm
Pediatric hospitalizations nearly 4 times higher in states with low vaccination: CDC
Two studies to be published Friday found fewer pediatric hospitalizations among children and communities with higher vaccination rates, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
In one study, national data from August showed that children were nearly four times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 in the states with the lowest vaccination rates when compared to states with the highest rates — proof that “cocooning” children with vaccinated people keeps them safe, Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing Thursday.
The second study, which looked at hospitalizations rates in 12- to 17-year-olds across 14 states during July, found that adolescents who were unvaccinated were 10 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than their fully vaccinated peers, Walensky said.
“Both studies, one thing is clear: cases, emergency room visits and hospitalizations are much lower among children and communities with higher vaccination rates,” Walensky said. “We must come together to ensure that our children, indeed, our future, remain safe and healthy during this time.”
Sep 02, 4:11 pm
8 Florida school districts refuse to reverse mask mandates
Eight school districts in Florida told the state’s education commissioner that they would not reverse their mask requirements for students, clearing the way for the state to retaliate by withholding the salaries of school board members.
The eight districts — Duval, Hillsborough, Indian River, Leon, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach and Sarasota — each wrote a letter to Commissioner Richard Corcoran Wednesday saying they believed they were following state law and had no plans to stop requiring face coverings for students.
Corcoran had given each district until 5 p.m. Wednesday to reverse their mandates, threatening to recommend to the state education board that it withhold the salaries of board members if they did not change course.
The state education department announced Monday it would take such action against board members in Alachua and Broward counties over their school mask mandates.
On Friday, a Florida judge ruled that school boards can enact student mask mandates and ordered the state education department to stop enforcing a state rule requiring districts to allow parents to opt-out.
(NEW YORK) — Millions of Americans across the country faced devastating flooding from Hurricane Ida this week and are grappling with the risks a new reality poses to their homes.
With more humans building into nature, the fragile interface between weather extremes and the comfort of our homes is becoming more frequent. More than ever, it’s clear that climate change is impacting everywhere we live.
Climate risk nonprofit First Street Foundation has found that 14.6 million American properties are at risk of flood. Six million of those don’t make it on Federal Emergency Management Agency standards maps.
Joe Tirone was one of hundreds in Staten Island who lost their home in Superstorm Sandy in 2012. It’s hard to imagine that where a marsh stands now, there were once several streets full of homes.
He was part of one of the biggest post-storm buyouts in history — meaning he got reimbursed for the full value of his home.
“You’re getting federal money, but it’s run by the state,” he explained. “It’s a little bit complicated, but a miracle. … No other place had done that.”
Since then, he’s led a push for more transparency, saying people need to know if a home they’re going to buy has a chance of flooding. He pointed to the ability to see a pre-owned car’s history before buying.
“Why isn’t there a Carfax for houses? And that got me on a roll where I felt that there really should be more advocacy for homeowners or buyers,” Tirone said. “As a realtor for over 20 years, I believe that we bring a lot of value to any transaction. So to me, it makes perfect sense for us to be the gatekeepers there as far as flood disclosure is concerned.”
Michael Lopes, communications director at the First Street Foundation, said homes at risk of flooding can be at inland or “very high elevations … places in the Pacific Northwest, places that people had never really thought of as being at significant flood risk.”
“The flooding we saw in Tennessee and in Kentucky was shocking to people who just never really experienced this kind of flooding before,” he said.
First Street Foundation takes a step beyond FEMA when assessing whether or not a particular property will flood. They factor in climate change.
“We’re using the 4.5 curve, kind of a middle-of-the-road curve, not the most dramatic, not the least trying to give a sense of how that risk is changing over time,” he said. “Something like heavy rainstorms are just becoming more frequent.”
FEMA says having flood insurance is crucial for flood-prone areas because most homeowners policies don’t cover it. There is a government-run flood insurance program, but it is far from perfect.
“You have middle and lower, middle-income people essentially subsidizing very, very, very wealthy people right now on the coast,” Lopes said.
That’s about to change with a government program called Risk Rating 2.0, which takes effect Oct. 1.
“We’re going to be doing a much better job of clearly identifying flood risk and we’re going to be able to price it fairly,” David Maurstad, FEMA deputy associate administrator for federal insurance and mitigation and senior executive of the flood insurance program, told ABC News. “Currently lower-value homes are paying more than they should and higher-value homes are paying less than they should and Risk Rating 2.0 equity and action changes that inequity.”
FEMA says even 1 inch of water can do $25,000 worth of damage to a home. Just because you aren’t in one of those high-risk areas doesn’t mean you can’t have a serious flood.
“Hurricane Harvey, for example … over 75% of the properties that are damaged were outside the high-risk area,” Maurstad said. “Many of them did not have the flood insurance coverage that they need[ed]. And that’s why equity and action is … going to be so valuable — because it’s going to be able to indicate to people you are at risk, regardless of whether you’re in a particular zone or not.”
Many Americans rent and don’t plan on buying their home. Lower-income neighborhoods tend to have higher burdens when it comes to climate change.
Real estate brokerage Redfin’s own research found that flooding is worse in neighborhoods that have been historically redlined, a term for areas where people are refused a loan due to financial risk. When a Black, brown or poor white town is hit by a storm, the community struggles to recover.
“Disasters contribute to widening equality gap in the United States, you know, especially when you’re looking at it from a financial perspective,” said Rob Moore, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Poorer people tend to become poorer in the aftermath of a disaster and more-affluent people tend to either stay the same, or in a perverse way, they actually can actually gain financially.”
Even if you don’t think you are in an area that can flood, think again.
“Where it can rain, it can flood,” Maurstad said. “Ninety-nine percent of the counties in the United States have experienced a flood loss, so folks across the nation underappreciate the flood risk that they face. They want to think it’s not going to happen to them.”
Whether you bought your home or rent one, you can find your home’s flood risk at floodfactor.com, a tool developed by First Street Foundation. Lopes said you don’t want to see anything above a 3 out of 10.
“You’re starting to get into some pretty severe risk of experiencing [flooding],” he said. “That doesn’t mean your house is going to be leveled, right, but you’re going to be experiencing some pretty heavy flooding over the next 15 or 30 years.”
(PHILADELPHIA) — A 9-month-old Afghan girl flying on a U.S. evacuation flight to Philadelphia died Wednesday night, a Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.
The baby girl arrived with her family from Ramstein Air Base in Germany after they were evacuated from Afghanistan, according to Defense Department spokesperson Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell.
She is the first known case of an evacuee dying after the chaotic evacuation efforts from Kabul that brought 124,000 people to safety.
The baby suffered a medical emergency during the flight, according to Customs and Border Protection, and by the time the plane landed at 9:16 p.m., she was unresponsive, per PPD.
The aircrew flying the C-17 military transport plane requested medical assistance and priority arrival, according to Mitchell, and emergency medical personnel and a translator met the aircraft on arrival and transported her and her father to a local hospital.
The infant was pronounced dead at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia at 10:10 p.m., according to PPD.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the parents and family,” said Mitchell.
Her death is under investigation by Philadelphia police’s special victims unit because of the child’s age, while the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office will investigate the cause of death, the PPD spokesperson said.
ABC News’s Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
