(DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.) — A 14-year-old boy was bitten by a shark Wednesday in Daytona Beach, Florida, local authorities said.
The teen, who was visiting from Missouri, was bitten on his left foot while standing in knee-deep water, according to the Volusia County Beach Ocean Rescue.
He was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The incident marks the fourth shark bite reported in Volusia County just this month.
On Monday, another 14-year-old boy was bitten on the right calf during a junior lifeguard camp at Ponce Inlet. He was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening lacerations, according to Aaron Jenkins, the deputy chief of Volusia County Beach Safety.
Witnesses said the shark was a blacktip, which is common in the area, he said.
A 21-year-old man visiting from Ohio was bitten on the foot on July 4 while playing football in knee-deep water. He also received non-life-threatening injuries, Jenkins said.
“Felt like my foot was being stabbed,” the 21-year-old victim, Connor Baker, said. “Tried as fast as I could to just get to shore.”
The following day, on July 5, a 26-year-old man from Sarasota, Florida, was bitten on the foot while wading in an inner tube in about five feet of water. His injuries were also non-life-threatening, Jenkins said.
(NEW YORK) — More than 150 million people were under heat alerts coast-to-coast Wednesday afternoon as temperatures soared into the triple-digits in the West and hot, humid weather in the East and South made it feel like it was over 100 degrees.
A historic heat wave that has gripped the nation for days continued Wednesday as places like Las Vegas topped the 110-degree mark for the eighth consecutive day. Fresno, California, is expected to surpass 105 degrees Wednesday afternoon for the eighth straight day, according to the National Weather Service.
Las Vegas, which recorded its highest temperatures ever on Sunday when it reached 120 degrees, broke another weather record on Wednesday. The city experienced its fifth straight day of temperatures reaching 115 or above, beating its old mark of four consecutive days of such high heat set in 1940 and tied in 2005.
Sin City could also break its record of 10 consecutive days of 110 degrees or higher by the end of this week. The temperature in Las Vegas is forecast to climb to a blistering 118 degrees on Thursday, 115 on Friday and 112 on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
Elsewhere in the West, an excessive heat warning has also been issued for Phoenix, Arizona, where the high is forecast to be 113 degrees on Wednesday afternoon, and 115 on Thursday and Friday.
Salt Lake City, Utah, is forecast to reach 102 degrees on Wednesday afternoon, 105 degrees on Thursday and 104 on Friday. Boise, Idaho, is expected to hit 107 degrees on Wednesday afternoon before dipping to 106 on Thursday and back to 107 on Friday, according to the weather service.
Once again, the hottest place in the nation Wednesday was Death Valley, California, where the temperature shot up to 123 degrees at 2 p.m. local time from 99 degrees at 5 a.m. The high for Wednesday in Death Valley’s Furnace Creek area is forecast to hit 127.
The all-time record high for Death Valley is 134 degrees set in July 1913, according to the National Weather Service.
On the East Coast, Philadelphia, in particular, has been scorching hot lately. On Tuesday, the City of Brotherly Love experienced its eighth straight day of high temperatures at or above 95 degrees. Normally, Philadelphia averages seven days for the whole summer when the temperature hits 95 or above.
On Wednesday afternoon, it was 93 degrees in Philadelphia.
Factoring in the heat index, which includes high humidity, Philly was expected to feel more like 105 degrees on Wednesday afternoon, while Washington D.C. was expected to feel like 109 degrees and Raleigh, North Carolina, like 108 degrees, according to the weather service.
Wednesday evening could bring a much-needed break from the sweltering conditions as showers and thunderstorms move across the Great Lakes and into the Northeast.
A tornado watch is also in effect until 9 p.m. ET Wednesday for parts of Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont.
(NEW YORK) — A passenger is seeking $1.5 million in damages from JetBlue after she allegedly sustained severe burns from “scalding hot” tea served during a period of turbulence, according to a complaint.
According to the complaint, filed on June 24, the “dangerously hot cup of tea” was allegedly served to Tahjana Lewis while there was “ongoing turbulence” with the “fasten seat belt” sign turned on. The complaint claims this decision was “dangerous and hazardous” given the conditions at the time.
The alleged incident occurred on May 15 aboard Flight 2237 traveling from Orlando, Florida, to Hartford, Connecticut, according to the complaint. Lewis, the plaintiff, claimed she was seated in the row directly behind the passenger who ordered the drink on this flight, the complaint states.
Lewis reportedly suffered from “severe” and “disfiguring” burns on her upper chest, breasts, legs, left buttocks and right arm, with “disfigurement and scarring on all five burn-affected regions,” according to the complaint.
“That’s gross negligence,” Lewis’ attorney, Edward Jazlowiecki, told ABC News regarding JetBlue’s purported decision to serve drinks during what he called “serious” turbulence. “Absolutely gross negligence.”
JetBlue did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
The complaint claims that JetBlue served this beverage “at a temperature that was unreasonably and dangerously hot beyond what is accepted in the food service industry or airline industry.”
Jazlowiecki also said JetBlue “should have done something to assuage [Lewis’] pain.” He claimed the crew did not ask if there were doctors on board, didn’t divert or make an emergency landing, and that they “didn’t offer her much help until she got off the plane.”
According to Jazlowiecki, Lewis experienced second-degree and possibly third-degree burns, and she will likely have to get skin grafting. He said she went to the emergency room immediately after the flight and consulted a skin specialist.
In addition to becoming “sore and partially disabled,” the complaint claims that Lewis became limited in her ability to work and suffered from emotional damages.
Jazlowiecki also said Lewis was traveling alone with her 5-year-old daughter and that this incident was “extremely traumatic” for the child to witness.
(ATLANTA) — A federal bankruptcy court judge said on Wednesday he is leaning toward dismissing Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy case after two former Georgia election workers Giuliani defamed agreed it would be the best way for them to collect at least part of a $148 million judgment against the former New York City mayor.
Dismissal would remove the shield surrounding Giuliani’s assets and allow the election workers — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — and other creditors to pursue his money in the courts.
It would also allow Giuliani to appeal the defamation judgment.
Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in December 2023 after a jury ordered him to pay nearly $150 million to Freeman and Moss for defaming them with false accusations that the mother and daughter committed election fraud while the two were counting ballots in Georgia’s Fulton County on Election Day in 2020.
The bankruptcy judge signaled he would rule Friday during another hearing.
Court records showed that Giuliani has less than $100,000 cash and a dwindling retirement account. Earlier this month he was disbarred in New York over his “false and misleading” statements about the 2020 election.
He also faces criminal charges in Georgia and Arizona over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
(CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y.) — Alexi Saenz, a high-ranking member of the MS-13 gang, pleaded guilty in federal court in Central Islip, New York, on Wednesday to racketeering charges stemming from eight murders.
He faces between 40 and 70 years in prison as part of a plea agreement, prosecutors said.
Among the deaths Saenz pleaded guilty to were those of two Long Island teenagers — 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas and 15-year-old Nisa Mickens — who were killed in Sept. 2016. Prosecutors said several gang members chased them down and attacked them with baseball bats and a machete.
Prosecutors said the teens’ murders arose from a series of disputes and an altercation Cuevas and her friends had with people associated with MS-13 at Brentwood High School. After the altercation, the gang members “vowed to seek revenge against Cuevas,” according to prosecutors.
Saenz, along with several other suspected MS-13 gang members, were arrested for the teens’ deaths in 2017. Charges against his brother, Jairo Saenz, who was also arrested at the time, remain pending.
“To say that Alexi Saenz’s hands are drenched in blood does not begin to describe the multiple killings and extreme mayhem he personally directed and committed in the span of one year in Suffolk County,” Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a press release Wednesday. “While those murders and violent crimes were intended to further the sordid mission of the MS-13, the defendant has failed miserably.”
Prosecutors initially sought the death penalty for the two Saenz brothers, but Attorney General Merrick Garland said in 2023 they would no longer do so.
The murders of the two girls garnered national attention, with then-President Donald Trump inviting their parents to the 2018 State of the Union.
“Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens,” Trump said during his speech. “Their two teenage daughters — Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens — were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisa’s16th birthday, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Nisa’s murders.”
Saenz was charged in connection to the murders of six other people, all of whom the MS-13 members suspected of being affiliated with rival gangs, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors described Saenz as a ringleader in these killings, frequently instructing fellow gang members to carry out the attack or giving the greenlight to do so.
Saenz was also charged in connection with three attempted murders, arson, narcotics trafficking and firearms offenses.
Suffolk County Police Department acting Commissioner Robert E. Waring called Saenz’s crimes “senseless and barbaric.”
“The murders of teenagers Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens shook our communities and reverberated around the nation,” Waring said. “My hope is that this guilty plea will give the victims’ families some closure while also demonstrating our commitment to dismantling these criminal enterprises.”
(CHICAGO) — A missing pastor was found dead in his car in the Des Plaines River, near Chicago, Tuesday night after he had been missing for a week, according to officials.
Warren Beard, 53, was last heard from on July 2 and was last seen in Joliet, Illinois, according to the Chicago Police Department. Beard was the assistant pastor at New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago.
Video footage from July 2 shows Beard’s vehicle going through a gate and under a raised drawbridge before crashing into the river, Rockdale officials said at a press conference Tuesday. The vehicle was located underwater using sonar.
The road where the vehicle was seen was closed, according to officials.
Beard was found in the Des Plaines River approximately 150 yards west of Brandon Road in Rockdale, according to the Will County Coroner’s Office.
An autopsy to determine the final cause and manner is scheduled for Wednesday, but the results have not yet been publicly released.
“He was the greatest person, one of the greatest men I’ve ever met in my life, and this is painful,” New Israelite Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Chenier Alston told Chicago ABC station WLS. “We want answers. Words can’t even begin to describe how we feel.”
Illinois State Police is investigating the incident.
(MARANA, Ariz.) — A 2-year-old girl has died after her father left her in a hot car in Arizona, where residents are enduring triple-digit temperatures, according to authorities.
The father was running errands with his daughter, and when he returned home Tuesday afternoon, he allegedly knowingly left the 2-year-old in the car, Marana Police Capt. Tim Brunenkant told ABC News.
He left the car running and the air conditioning on, Brunenkant said.
The dad went into the house, and when he returned to the car between 30 and 60 minutes later, the car was off, Brunenkant said.
The 2-year-old was unresponsive and the dad called 911, Brunenkant said. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said.
The temperature in Marana reached a scorching 111 degrees on Tuesday. Marana is just outside of Tucson, where an excessive heat warning has been issued.
Brunenkant called the death a “heat-related tragedy.”
No charges have been filed at this time but charges have not been ruled out, Brunenkant said Wednesday.
Interviews are underway and police are looking for surveillance video in the neighborhood, he said.
At least nine children have died in hot cars across the U.S. so far this year, according to national nonprofit KidsAndCars.org.
Since 1990, at least 1,093 children have died in hot cars — and about 88% of those kids are 3 years old or younger, according to KidsAndCars.org.
(SANTA FE, N.M.) — Prosecutors argued Alec Baldwin behaved recklessly and “violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety” during the filming of “Rust,” while the defense said the actor “committed no crime” in the “unspeakable tragedy,” during opening statements Wednesday in the manslaughter trial over the 2021 fatal on-set shooting.
Baldwin was practicing a cross-draw in a church on the Santa Fe set of the Western when the Colt .45 revolver fired a live round, fatally striking 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Baldwin was indicted by a grand jury on involuntary manslaughter in connection with Hutchins’ death earlier this year after prosecutors previously dropped the charge. He pleaded not guilty.
Baldwin committed ‘numerous breaches’ of firearm safety, state says
“The evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that like in many workplaces, there are people who act in a reckless manner and place other individuals in danger, and act without due regard for the safety of others,” prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson told jurors during her opening statement. “That, you will hear, was the defendant — Alexander Baldwin, the lead actor on this film.”
Johnson told jurors that while they will hear the revolver referred to as a “prop gun,” it is a real gun that experts will testify was in proper working order.
She told jurors they will hear about “numerous breaches” of firearm safety regarding Baldwin, from him using it as a pointer to cocking the hammer and putting his finger on the trigger when he was not supposed to do either.
While handling the firearm prior to the shooting, Baldwin “would do his own thing,” including having his finger on or around the trigger during two draws, Johnson said.
“The evidence will show that that third and fatal time, he takes it out once again, fast,” Johnson said. “He cocks the hammer, points it straight at Miss Hutchins and fires that gun, sending that live bullet right into Miss Hutchins’ body.”
Baldwin has maintained that he did not pull the trigger of the firearm, though the FBI’s forensic report determined the gun could not have been fired without pulling the trigger.
“After the shooting, the defendant began to claim he didn’t pull the trigger. The evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that’s not possible,” Johnson told jurors.
Live bullet on set ‘most critical issue,’ defense says
Defense attorney Alex Spiro told jurors the state will attempt to “tarnish” Baldwin but that the “most critical issue” in the case is how the live bullet got on set.
“On this set, there was a real bullet, something that should never be on a movie set, something which has nothing to do with making a movie,” Spiro told the jurors during his opening statement. “You will hear no evidence, not one word that Alec Baldwin had anything to do with that real bullet being brought onto that set.”
He said it was the armorer’s responsibility to ensure the firearm was safe, and that the loading of the live bullet had nothing to do with Baldwin.
“No one had any idea that this venomous, toxic element had been inserted into this magic they were creating,” Spiro said. “But it did. It entered that place. It killed an amazing person, it wounded another, and it changed lives forever.”
Spiro said when the gun was handed to Baldwin, “cold gun” was announced, indicating it was safe. When it fired, everyone on set was “shocked,” he said.
“Alec is startled. He immediately says, ‘I didn’t mean to shoot. I didn’t pull the trigger,'” Spiro said.
Spiro said that Baldwin didn’t pull the trigger but that on a movie set “you’re allowed to pull the trigger.” Even if the state could prove that Baldwin did intentionally pull the trigger, “that doesn’t make him guilty of homicide,” Spiro said.
“He did not know, or have any reason to know, that gun was loaded with a live bullet,” Spiro said. “That’s the key. That live bullet is the key. That is the lethal element.”
1st witness recounts response to shooting
Following opening arguments, the state called its first witness, officer Nicholas Lefleur, who was the first law enforcement officer to arrive in response to a 911 call reporting the on-set shooting.
Lefleur discussed his efforts to secure the scene at the Bonanza Creek Ranch and separate witnesses.
During footage from his lapel camera shown to the jury, Lefleur seeks out Baldwin — who is seen talking on his cellphone while still in costume — and says he understands the actor was in the room during the shooting.
“I was the one holding the gun, yeah,” Baldwin responds.
Prosecutor Kari Morrissey questioned Lefleur about several instances in which Baldwin was seen talking to other witnesses even though the officer asked him not to.
In his cross-examination, Spiro addressed that at no point during those instances did Lefleur tell the witnesses to separate.
Baldwin 2nd person to go on trial in shooting
The jury was selected on Tuesday. The trial is currently scheduled to go through July 19. That does not include deliberations.
Prosecutors were seeking to argue during the trial that, as a producer of the film, Baldwin bore responsibility for unsafe conditions on the set. However, during a pretrial hearing on Monday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer denied using evidence of his role as a producer during the trial.
The judge also ruled that footage from the “Rust” set showing Baldwin’s handling of the firearm can be admitted into evidence in the trial, but that videos of him yelling or cussing at the crew to hurry up were not relevant in the case.
Baldwin, 66, is the second person to go on trial in connection with the fatal shooting.
The film’s armorer — 27-year-old Hannah Gutierrez — was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March. Prosecutors argued that she repeatedly failed to maintain proper firearm safety and brought several live rounds onto the set — including the one that killed Hutchins.
Her attorney told ABC News on Tuesday that they have been informed that she will be called to testify on Friday and plans to invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Marlowe Sommer denied last month the state’s request to use immunity to compel Gutierrez’s testimony during Baldwin’s trial. Prosecutors sought immunity so that Gutierrez’s testimony could not be used against her in her appeal. At a pretrial interview in May, Gutierrez asserted her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, prosecutors said.
Last year, David Halls, the film’s first assistant director who had conducted the safety check on the Colt .45 revolver prior to the shooting, accepted a plea deal in the case after being charged with negligent use of a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to six months unsupervised probation.
He could also be called to testify during the trial, court records show.
(NEW YORK) — The NASA astronauts who were aboard the first crewed flight into space on Boeing’s Starliner said they are “confident” the spacecraft can get them home safely.
Flight commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore, 61, a former U.S. Navy captain, and Sunita Williams, 58, a former Navy service member, have been aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for more than a month after Starliner experienced several mechanical issues, including helium leaks and a thruster issue.
“We’re absolutely confident,” WIlmore said Wednesday. He said the pair tested a “Safe Haven procedure,” sheltering inside Starliner in the event they needed to suddenly undock from the ISS, and the test went well.
“We’ve been through a lot of simulations…and I think where we are right now…I feel confident that if we had to, if there was a problem with the International Space Station, we could get in our spacecraft, we could undock, talk to our team and and figure out the best way to come home,” Williams added.
Wilmore and Williams lifted off on June 5 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and docked with the ISS on June 6.
The pair were initially expected to spend one week aboard the ISS evaluating the spacecraft and its systems and return June 14. However, Starliner’s mechanical issues left the astronauts stuck onboard the ISS with no set return date.
NASA has insisted Wilmore and Williams are safe while they remain onboard the ISS with the Expedition 71 crew. The agency has said the ISS has plenty of supplies in orbit, and the station’s schedule is relatively open through mid-August.
“We’re taking our time on the ground to go through all the data that we have before we decide on the return opportunity,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, said during a Wednesday afternoon press briefing. “We’re taking time to build confidence in the spacecraft to understand the thruster performance … and also totally understand the helium margins before we undock.”
NASA and Boeing say Wilmore and Williams are “integrated” with the Expedition 71 crew aboard the ISS and are helping the crew with station operations as needed, as well as completing “objectives” needed for NASA’s possible certification of Starliner.
“Since their arrival on June 6, Wilmore and Williams have completed half of all hands-on research time conducted aboard the space station, allowing their crewmates to prepare for the departure of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft,” NASA wrote in a recent update.
This week, teams at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico are performing ground tests of Starliner’s thruster, putting it through similar conditions the spacecraft experienced on its way to the ISS, according to an update on Boeing’s website.
The tests will replicate Starliner’s docking, when some of the thrusters failed, and what the thrusters will experience between when Starliner undocks from the ISS and touches down back on Earth.
“This testing is trying to replicate what the worst-case thruster saw inflight,” Mark Nappi, Boeing’s vice president of its Commercial Crew Program, said during the Wednesday afternoon news conference. “So far, we’ve not been able to replicate the temperatures that we saw in flight, so the team is off talking about that – as a matter of fact, right now – so that they can determine whether or not there’s a form of testing, or something in the test that we want to go change, so that we can replicate that situation.”
Stich said the tests, and taking one’s time with them, are not unusual for a new spacecraft, and because Starliner can be powered from the ISS, it allows the team to use the space station as temporary hangar. He added that he expects the tests to be completed by the end of this week or over the weekend.
Starliner had been plagued by issues even before launch. The flight test was originally tentatively scheduled for May 6, but was scrubbed after a problem with an oxygen valve on a rocket from United Launch Alliance, which manufactures and operates the rockets that launch Starliner spacecraft into orbit.
A new launch date was subsequently set for May 25, but then a small helium leak was discovered in the Starliner service module, which contains support systems and instruments for operating the spacecraft.
Those helium leaks and a thruster issue threatened to delay Starliner’s ISS docking, but it docked successfully. Five days after docking with the ISS, NASA and Boeing announced that the spacecraft was experiencing five “small” helium leaks, but added at the time that enough helium remained for the return mission.
(HOUSTON) — More than 1.3 million electrical customers in the Houston area remained without power Wednesday as sweltering temperatures set in following the destruction left by Hurricane Beryl.
As CenterPoint Energy, the main utility company in the area, warned “it will take days” to restore power to everyone, Harris County officials sought to calm residents suffering under hot, humid conditions.
Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday, knocking down power lines, toppling trees onto homes, flooding streets, killing at least six people and leaving Houston, the fourth largest U.S. city with more than 2.3 million residents, under miserable conditions, officials said.
“I know that we’re all tired and frustrated. We’re hot. We are struggling to sleep and cool off and we absolutely have storm fatigue,” Judge Lina Hidalgo, the executive of Harris County, said at the start of a news conference on Tuesday afternoon.
Assessing the post-Beryl situation, Hidalgo reported long lines at the few gas stations that remain open, hospitals and senior living facilities without power, food dwindling at grocery stores, widespread damage caused by Beryl’s 97 mph wind gusts and 13 inches of rain in some areas.
On top of the damage exacted by Beryl, a heat advisory remains in effect in the Houston area, where the temperature is forecast to reach a high of 93 degrees on Wednesday. The National Weather Service said the heat index, which factors in low humidity, will make the Houston area feel more like 106 degrees.
“The main point here [is] I really want to encourage people not to panic. We can get through this,” said Hidalgo, adding that her home was without power.
But Paul Locke, CenterPoint Energy’s director of local government affairs, could only offer cold comfort to customers of the utility giant, saying, “It’s going to be days” before power is restored to everyone.
“I can’t give you a timeline, but it’s not going to be tomorrow,” Locke said.
About 12,000 linemen have been deployed to the field as CenterPoint continued Wednesday to assess damage to its electrical grid, the energy provider said.
When Beryl blew in on Monday, a total of 2.2 million CenterPoint Energy customers lost power, about 80% of those the utility serves, as the storm toppled powerlines and trees and ripped roofs off buildings, including part of the roof on NRG Stadium, home of the NFL’s Houston Texans, officials said.
Drawing comparisons to a severe storm in May that knocked out power to about 1 million CenterPoint Energy customers, Locke said it took 4 1/2 days to restore power to everyone in the wake of that storm.
“Now we’re at 2.2 million,” Locke said.
But CenterPoint Energy’s outage map showed Wednesday that repairs hadn’t started in many areas without power and that assessment of the damage was still ongoing.
Locke assured customers that the utility company was working as fast as possible to restore power, adding many members of the repair crews were without power, too.
“Nobody wants to sleep in a house that’s 85 degrees,” Locke said.
Compounding the problem, the Red Cross has been unable to set up shelters in Houston because of the lack of electricity, Hidalgo said.
Hidalgo also noted an emergency that occurred at the Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston at the onset of the hurricane, saying the facility, which she described as “one of the pillars” of the city’s health care system, lost power and could not get its back-up generator to work for several hours.
“It got so warm in the hospital that people’s lives were at risk,” Hidalgo said. “They had to shut down all operating rooms except for two, which meant even a lot of emergency operations were delayed.”
Hidalgo also said the storm prompted the closure of the Port of Houston, where much of the fuel for gas stations comes in. She said gas stations are relying on trucks to bring in fuel.
“So the ones that don’t have power, they can’t supply the fuel and the ones that do have fuel are seeing limitations because everyone is going there,” Hidalgo said.
She said that while some grocery stores reported running out of perishable items, “We’re not in a situation where we are going to run out of food or where it is just impossible for fuel to get to Harris County in the event of a serious emergency.”
Houston resident Joanne Posey was among numerous people without power on Wednesday picking up emergency supplies and water at a cooling station established at the LeRoy Crump Stadium in Houston.
“It’s hard, but you just keep the faith with sweat going down your face,” Posey told ABC Houston station KTRK, as she waited in her car to pick up supplies.
Susan Balderas of Houston was among those waiting in line at a gas station, telling KTRK that it was the second place she went to fill up her tank.
“I’ve taken my lunchtime today to find gas because in the area I live, a lot of power is still out,” Balderas said. “Gas stations are out. Long lines everywhere.”
President Joe Biden granted a federal emergency disaster declaration on Tuesday for 121 Texas counties affected by Beryl, which will speed up federal assistance to the area.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is serving as governor in the absence of Gov. Greg Abbott, who is on an economic development mission in Asia. Patrick said he spoke to Biden on Tuesday and made the formal request for federal assistance after he toured the damaged areas.
In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Biden alleged that state officials in Texas slowed down the federal efforts by not putting in a formal request with the administration sooner.
“I don’t have any authority to do that without a specific request from the governor,” Biden told the Chronicle.
Patrick, a Republican, later accused Biden of making the storm recovery “a political issue.”
