(JACKSON, Miss.) — The city of Jackson, Mississippi — long plagued with water problems — issued a boil-water advisory on Christmas Day until further notice.
According to Jackson officials, the city’s water system lost pressure because of unidentifiable breaks in its distribution system, resulting in some parts of Jackson experiencing little to no water pressure.
The city’s main water treatment facility, the O.B. Curtis Water Plant, and the J.H. Fewell Water Treatment Plant are working to increase production to reestablish pressure, officials said in a boil water alert.
“Our crews are all busy today working to restore pressure,” Jackson’s communications director Melissa Payne told ABC News on Monday in an emailed statement.
“We continue to struggle to return pressure to the water system,” officials said in a press release Monday. “We are producing significant amounts of water and pushing that into the system, but the pressure is not increasing — despite those efforts at the plants.”
The city’s most recent boil-water advisory impacts all surface water connections and excludes customers using its well systems.
Historic flooding in Mississippi in August damaged a major pump at the O.B. Curtis Water Plant, which left around 150,000 of the city’s mostly Black residents without drinkable water.
The water crisis highlighted residents’ years-long plight with the city’s ongoing water issues and raised questions about how Jackson came to be in this situation and what the long-term plans were to fix the issue.
In November, the U.S. Department of Justice reached an agreement and filed a new complaint with Jackson over the city’s alleged mismanagement of its water system.
Through its agreement with the City of Jackson, the DOJ will establish a third-party monitor to ensure that water in the city is safe to drink.
(NEW YORK) — Airlines have canceled thousands of flights in what has become a Christmas nightmare for so many, as winter storms and staffing issues continue to cause havoc across the U.S.
Most major airlines have canceled or delayed thousands of flights, with Southwest Airlines canceling at least 70% of its flights Monday — more than 2,600 — due to a reported system meltdown. The airline has also canceled 60% of its flights for Tuesday.
On Christmas Day, 42% of Southwest’s flights were canceled and 48% were delayed, according to data from FlightAware. As of Monday night, data showed that nearly 4,000 flights had been canceled within, into or out of the U.S., while more than 7,700 had been delayed.
Jay McVay with Southwest Airlines said Monday night that “the sheer size of the storm” nationwide affected all major airports.
“It’s just the fact that this one started West swept east and impacted almost every single one of our largest airports that put us in a position where we struggled to recover, and we struggled to get our flight crews and airplanes where they needed to be,” McVay said from Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport.
Capt. Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said in a statement earlier Monday that the ordeal has “been catastrophic.”
“It’s been a failure at every level at Southwest. Our pilots, our front-line employees have worked under enormous stress to try to get our passengers from A to B, but we were dealt a really bad hand as far as Southwest is concerned,” Murray said, in part, adding that their “processes,” information technology or infrastructure “just wasn’t there to support the operation.”
“And, unfortunately, our customers are bearing the brunt of it,” Murray added.
Angry Southwest customers took to Twitter on Monday, sharing their frustrations over the delays, cancellations and long hold times to speak to customer service agents.
“With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way that is unacceptable,” Southwest said in a statement posted online. “And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning.”
Southwest said it is working to “address the wide-scale disruption” by repositioning its crew and planes, which were all in the wrong spots.
ABC News spoke with three stranded travelers — one staying overnight at an airport in Boston until her new flight, one stranded in Chicago after his flight got canceled and one driving with a stranger to make it to his Disney Cruise in Tampa after flight issues.
Each traveler blamed delays on staffing rather than the weather.
ABC News reached out to American Airlines, JetBlue, Delta and United to learn about how staffing is impacting their current delays and cancellations.
“I wanted to fly home for Christmas,” Laetitia Duler, who was flying home to San Francisco from Boston for the holiday, told ABC News. “As soon as I entered the line, they were just like, ‘your flights canceled. Like, bye.'”
Eric Jernigan was trying to fly from Jackson, Mississippi, to Tampa, Florida, for a Disney cruise when his Delta flight was canceled because of a lack of crew, he told ABC News.
He and five others decided to drive to Florida after getting stuck at Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport.
The city of Buffalo, New York, initiated a travel ban as blizzard conditions moved into the area.
According to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and local officials, 29 people have died in the state following the aftermath of an enormous lake-effect snowstorm.
Buffalo Niagara International Airport announced Monday that it will be closed until Wednesday as its crews work “around the clock” to get the airport back up and running.
ABC News’ Cherise Rudy contributed to this report.
(PIERCE COUNTY, Was.) — The search continued Monday for vandals who targeted four power substations on Christmas Day in Pierce County, Washington, setting fire to at least one of the facilities and knocking out power to more than 14,000 utility customers, authorities said.
Two of the break-ins were at Tacoma Public Utilities substations and two others were at a Puget Sound Energy station, according to the sheriff’s office in Pierce County, which encompasses Tacoma.
No arrests have been announced.
The vandalism came amid a string of similar sabotage incidents across the country, including several in the Northwest, and follows a bulletin issued last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warning that critical infrastructure could be among the targets of possible attacks by “lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances.”
“It is unknown if there are any motives or if this was a coordinated attack on the power systems,” the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
The substation attacks unfolded Sunday between 2:39 a.m. and 7:21 p.m. local time, authorities said. In all four episodes, the saboteurs broke into the fenced-off power stations and deliberately damaged equipment, according to the sheriff’s office.
Officials initially said three power stations were vandalized, but early Monday morning they said a fourth substation was damaged in a deliberately caused fire near the city of Graham, cutting power to homes in Kapowsin and Graham.
“The suspect(s) gained access to the fenced area and vandalized the equipment which caused the fire,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “All law enforcement agencies in the county have been notified of the incidents and will be monitoring power substations in their area.”
Power was restored to most customers affected by the attacks by Monday morning, the sheriff’s office said.
Tacoma Public Utilities reported about 7,300 customers in the southeast of Tacoma were affected by the vandalism. Puget Sound Energy said nearly 7,700 of its customers lost power.
Power was restored to all customers by Monday afternoon, Puget Sound Energy said. Tacoma Public Utilities said later Monday night that all customers were back online but to be prepared for possible outages amid windy conditions overnight.
“Unfortunately, the impacts to our system from today’s deliberate damage are more severe in some places than initial testing indicated,” the company said Sunday. “Some customers will be restored closer to 8 AM tomorrow. We appreciate your patience as we respond to this intentional vandalism to our system.”
“We know this incident has impacted many people’s holiday celebrations, and our crews are working hard to get power safely restored to all customers as quickly as we can,” it added.
Earlier this month, two electrical substations were shot up in North Carolina, causing tens of thousands of customers to lose power and prompting local officials to declare a state of emergency. No one was arrested in the attacks.
(SAN RAMON, Calif.) — An arrest has been made following an incident of anti-Asian hate that occurred in California’s East Bay over the Christmas holiday weekend.
San Ramon Police Chief Denton Carlson announced the arrest of suspect Jordan Douglas Krah in a tweet Monday evening. Krah, a Denver, Colorado resident, is facing hate crime charges and is currently in custody at Martinez Detention Facility in Martinez, California, the chief said.
“The San Ramon Police Department strives to ensure everyone in our community feels safe and welcome. We will continue to take swift and diligent legal action against acts of hate to help create an inclusive place for all to live, work and visit,” the department said in a press release.
On Christmas Eve, Arine Kim and her friend Elliot Ha were eating at an In-N-Out Burger in San Ramon when they were approached by a man who cornered them with racist insults.
The pair were recording a TikTok video and trying menu items when he approached, calling them “weird homosexuals,” before returning to make other bigoted remarks about their race and ethnicities.
“I personally couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it was real, it was so random,” Ha, who initially responded with nervous, shocked humor, told San Francisco ABC station KGO.
“It’s a fear response, so you’re nervous and you don’t know what to do in that situation but to laugh it off,” Kim said, adding that she was grateful for Ha’s humor at the time.
In the video, Ha said he had never experienced anything like that before. For Kim, however, this was an unfortunate reminder of hate speech she’s encountered in the past.
She told KGO that this was not the first time she’d been attacked with racist slurs and epithets.
In the video, Kim said the man stared at them from outside the restaurant for a while, prompting them to have the fast food restaurant’s staff escort them to the parking lot over fears of being followed.
Only a few miles away in Danville, a woman named Abigail Hailili said she was met with similar comments on Christmas morning.
A spokesperson for the San Ramon Police Department said in a statement to ABC News Monday afternoon that the department had made significant progress in its investigation of both incidents. It remains unclear whether the two incidents are related. The department has asked for the public’s help in identifying both perpetrators.
With a rise in violence against Asian Americans across the country, advocates have launched initiatives to make necessary change.
“It’s the realization this is real and that affects people you know, you love, that are close to you,” Ha told KGO. “That’s why people are finding ways to spread awareness, because it’s an issue that does matter. It’s a real thing and people need to be aware of it.”
Reported anti-Asian hate crime events in the state increased by an alarming 177.5% from 2020 to 2021, according to the California Department of Justice’s Hate Crime in California report, released in June. Many other incidents go unreported.
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — At least 51 people have died nationwide from the wintry weather wreaking havoc across the U.S. over Christmas weekend.
The most deaths are in New York state, where 29 people have died in the wake of a massive lake effect snowstorm, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and local officials.
Hochul called the storm “the blizzard of the century” in western New York during a news conference Monday and said the White House has promised to quickly approve an emergency disaster declaration. President Joe Biden said he spoke to Hochul on Monday afternoon.
Twenty-seven of New York’s deaths are in Erie County, which includes the city of Buffalo, Mark Poloncarz, the executive of Erie County, said Monday. Among the causes of death confirmed by the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office were three people who suffered heart attacks while shoveling or blowing snow, 14 people who were found outside and three who died due to an EMS delay.
“We do expect that there will be more,” Poloncarz said.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said 18 bodies were recovered in the city of Buffalo; most were found by police inside of vehicles.
A driving state of emergency remains in effect in Erie County and Poloncarz said police will start issuing summons to people driving around — “joyriding” — in violation of the driving ban. He said the city of Buffalo remains impassable.
Poloncarz said another 8 to 12 inches of snow is forecast for the region through 1 p.m. Tuesday. Buffalo received 43 inches of snow over the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
Reports of looting
Poloncarz also said that police are investigating scattered reports of looting in Buffalo.
“I’m heartbroken about the deaths, just absolutely devastated to see as many deaths. And then to find out that there’s looting going on in our community at the same time we’re still recovering bodies is just horrible,” Poloncarz said.
Daniel Neaverth Jr., the Erie County commissioner of Emergency Services, said more than a dozen gas stations in the county have been reported inoperable “because the convenience side of them has been looted and the equipment inside has been rendered ineffective and thus the pumps for the fueling are ineffective.”
Neaverth said the looting was hampering emergency vehicles from fueling up.
“So if you don’t think there’s a trickle down from going looting and grabbing individual little things, this is a drastic implication for us that we now have to deal with to find alternate fuel sources,” Neaverth said.
Brown said police responded to several looting in the city of Buffalo and have made some arrests. The mayor said it was “reprehensible” that people are taking advantage of a natural disaster, calling the looters “the lowest of the low.”
Poloncarz said 12,473 utility customers countywide remain without power on Monday and he warned some might not have electricity until Tuesday due to the “serious nature of the substation damage.” He said power was restored to about 13,000 customers overnight.
At one point, 23,000 households lost power, said Jackie Bray, the state commissioner of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. Bray said 12,500 households remain without electricity Monday.
‘Winter wonderland tour’ bus rescue
Polocarz added that hundreds of cars were left abandoned on roadways across the county, including tractor-trailer rigs and buses.
“There are cars everywhere pointing the wrong direction on roads. They’ve basically been plowed in and need to be dug out and towed,” Poloncarz said.
Among the hundreds who had to be rescued was a group of tourists from around the world on a “winter wonderland bus tour,” Poloncarz said. He said the bus got stuck in the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna and that rescue crews had to evacuate passengers and take them to a nearby shelter.
“These tourists are getting more than they bargained for with regards to their ‘winter wonderland tour’ as they’ve gone through one of the worst storms in U.S. history,” Poloncarz said.
The “colossal” snowstorm brought winds of nearly 80 mph to Buffalo, the governor said.
“This will go down in history as the most devastating storm” in Buffalo, Hochul said during a Christmas morning news conference.
Poloncarz said Monday that the death toll has now outpaced the Blizzard of 1977.
Buffalo initiated a travel ban as blizzard conditions moved in.
“I cannot overstate how dangerous the conditions still are,” Hochul said Sunday, urging people to stay off the roads on Christmas.
This storm marked the first time in history that the Buffalo Fire Department couldn’t respond to any calls, officials said. National Guardsmen have been called in.
Hundreds of people have been rescued from cars, Hochul said, adding, “We still have people who need to be rescued.”
Buffalo’s airport will be closed until Wednesday. Pittsburgh’s airport is sending plows to help dig out the runways.
The National Hockey League canceled the Tuesday game between the Buffalo Sabres and Columbus Blue Jackets due to the weather and the Sabres not being able to travel from Buffalo in time for the game.
Weather fatalities across the nation
Weather-related fatalities were also reported in Ohio, Vermont, Colorado, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky, according to The Associated Press.
The storm comes as brutally cold air slammed the country on Christmas morning.
The temperature plunged to minus 9 degrees in Minneapolis, 2 degrees in Chicago, 3 degrees in Denver, 15 degrees in New York, 16 degrees in Atlanta and 21 degrees in Dallas.
More than 6.3 million customers across the United States were without power at some point over the holiday weekend, officials said.
More than 165,000 customers woke up without power on Christmas morning across Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida. The majority of those customers had power restored by Monday, though 15,800 customers in Maine and 13,900 in New York — the vast majority in Erie County — remained without power Monday afternoon.
Airlines continue to cancel thousands of flights in what is becoming a Christmas nightmare for so many. More than 18,200 flights have been canceled since Wednesday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website. More than 3,000 flights were canceled into, out of or within the United States on Christmas Eve, and more than 2,000 flights were canceled on Christmas Day.
Another 3,500 flights were canceled in the United States Monday, as of 3:30 p.m. Southwest Airlines is having significant systemwide issues and has canceled 2,600, or about 65%, of scheduled flights.
(NEW YORK) – A look at the level of gun violence in the U.S. through statistics.
More than 6,000 children have been killed or injured in the United States by gunfire in 2022, the most ever recorded in the nine-year history of a nonprofit that tracks shooting incidents.
With five days to go in the year, the Gun Violence Archive found that 6,023 U.S. children 17 years old or younger have been killed or hurt in gunfire this year, surpassing the 5,708 killed or hurt 2021.
The Gun Violence Archive said it was the most children to die or be injured by gunfire in a single year since it started keeping track in 2014.
At least 306 children 11 years old or younger have been killed by gunfire in 2022, according to the website. Another 1,323 children between the ages of 12 and 17 died in shootings, according to the website.
In the first year the Gun Violence Archive began to track shootings in 2014, it recorded 2,859 children 17 years old or younger killed or injured by gunfire.
The grim statistics come after a 3-year-old girl in Kansas City, Missouri, was killed on Christmas Eve in what police suspect was an accidental shooting, Kansas City ABC affiliate KMBC reported.
The child shooting deaths in 2022 also include 19 students, all 11 years old or younger, killed in a mass shooting on May 24 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
One of the youngest victims killed by gunfire this year was 5-month-old Cecilia Thomas, who was shot in the head while sitting in a car in Chicago during a June 24 drive-by shooting.
(NEW YORK) — At least 39 people have died from the wintry weather wreaking havoc across the U.S. over Christmas weekend.
The highest number of fatalities is in New York state, where 17 people have died in the wake of a massive snowstorm, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Ten of New York’s deaths are in the city of Buffalo. Mark Poloncarz, the executive of Erie County, which encompasses Buffalo, said he expects more fatalities.
The “colossal” snowstorm brought winds of nearly 80 mph to Buffalo, the governor said.
“This will go down in history as the most devastating storm” in Buffalo, Hochul said during a Christmas morning news conference.
Buffalo initiated a travel ban as blizzard conditions moved in.
“I cannot overstate how dangerous the conditions still are,” Hochul said Sunday, urging people to stay off the roads on Christmas.
This storm marked the first time in history that the Buffalo Fire Department couldn’t respond to any calls, officials said. National Guardsmen have been called in.
Hundreds of people have been rescued from cars, Hochul said, adding, “we still have people who need to be rescued.”
Buffalo’s airport will be closed until Tuesday.
Weather-related fatalities were also reported in Ohio, Vermont, Colorado, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky.
The storm comes as brutally cold air slammed the country on Christmas morning.
The temperature was forecast to plunge to minus 9 degrees in Minneapolis, 2 degrees in Chicago, 3 degrees in Denver, 15 degrees in New York, 16 degrees in Atlanta and 21 degrees in Dallas.
More than 165,000 customers woke up without power on Christmas morning across Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida.
Over 3,000 flights were canceled into, out of or within the U.S. on Christmas Eve, and more than 2,000 flights were canceled on Christmas Day.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — A Texas A&M University student who went missing more than a week ago has been found dead, police said.
The body of 22-year-old Tanner Hoang was found in Austin on Saturday, a College Station Police Department spokesperson told ABC News.
ABC News has reached out to the Austin Police Department for further information.
Hoang was last seen the morning of Dec. 16, authorities said. His family said they were going to the College Station school for his graduation and reported him missing when he did not show up to lunch before the ceremony.
“He was supposed to graduate but I’m not sure what happened that would cause him to leave,” his uncle, Bao Hoang, told ABC Waco affiliate KXXV earlier this week.
The student’s phone had been turned off, making it difficult to track him, according to his family.
After his vehicle was spotted several times on video, the car was ultimately found unoccupied in Austin on Thursday, according to Amber Alert Network Brazos Valley. The car was located near Pennybacker Bridge Overlook on Highway 360 at the Colorado River, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Volunteers organized a search in the area on Saturday, with the community urged to take precautions due to frigid Christmas Eve temperatures and rough terrain. Though law enforcement officers “asked that all search and volunteer efforts cease,” organizers said in an update early Saturday afternoon.
Hoang’s uncle called the disappearance “uncharacteristic.”
“He is always available, always showing up to help,” his uncle told KXXV. “Anytime that I’ve been back to Texas or anytime his grandparents would need help, he would show up there. Anytime his parents would need help, family gatherings, always show up.”
“That’s why we’re quite in disbelief that he would leave without notifying us,” he added.
Amid the search for Hoang, family members spoke out to him to come home.
“Tanner, we love you. God loves you,” his uncle said to KXXV. “Come home as soon as you get this message or the messages that’s been on Facebook for you.”
“We hope that he’s okay,” he continued. “We hope that everything will come to a conclusion that will be a reunion with the family.”
The lake band is still raging, but it’s now south of the airport. Here’s a view of our office with some rather impressive snow mounds in the foreground. Many (many) cars are still buried throughout the area. pic.twitter.com/owto22GbF6
The “colossal” snow storm brought winds of nearly 80 mph, the governor said.
Buffalo initiated a travel ban as blizzard conditions moved in.
“I cannot overstate how dangerous the conditions still are,” Hochul said Sunday, urging people to stay off the roads on Christmas.
This storm marked the first time in history that the Buffalo Fire Department couldn’t respond to any calls, officials said. National Guardsmen have been called in.
Hundreds of people have been rescued from cars, Hochul said, adding, “we still have people who need to be rescued.”
The storm comes as brutally cold air slams the country on Christmas morning.
The temperature is forecast to plunge to minus 9 degrees in Minneapolis, 2 degrees in Chicago, 3 degrees in Denver, 15 degrees in New York, 16 degrees in Atlanta and 21 degrees in Dallas.
Over 165,000 customers woke up without power on Christmas morning across Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida.
Over 3,000 flights were cancelled into, out of or within the U.S. on Christmas Eve, and more than 1,600 flights are cancelled so far on Christmas Day.
(LOS ANGELES) — A family is pleading for answers a week after they say their daughter was shot in the head while driving on a California highway and remains on life support.
Ronni Newt, 26, was shot multiple times on Dec. 17 while on U.S. Route 101 in the San Fernando Valley, police said.
She was heading to meet up with friends at the time, her parents said.
“She said that she would be back in a couple of hours because we were going to decorate our tree,” her mother, Francine Webster, told ABC Los Angeles station KABC.
California Highway Patrol officers responded to the scene following reports of a traffic collision around 5:15 p.m. They found a black Audi sedan on the shoulder. The driver, Ronni Newt, had been stuck by “multiple gunshots” and was transported to a local hospital in critical condition, California Highway Patrol said.
“This is the call you never want to get. This is the thing as a parent you fear,” Robert Newt, the victim’s father, told KABC. “I pray every night for my kids to be protected.”
Ronni Newt, who was described by her mother as having a “big heart” and a “lot of personality,” was shot in the head and remains in a coma on life support, according to her parents.
“It’s beyond me that something could be said that could actually make you pull out a gun and shoot somebody,” Robert Newt told KABC.
In the week since the shooting, there have been limited leads into what happened and no suspects have been identified, a California Highway Patrol spokesperson said.
Newt’s parents are now urging any witnesses to come forward.
“If you saw anything, anything that was strange, anything out of the ordinary,” Robert Newt told KABC. “If you saw the color of the car, if you saw the make of the car — no clue is too small.”
The two have been by their daughter’s side in the hospital daily since the shooting and are praying for her recovery, while also waiting for answers.
“There are a lot of people that love her that are supporting her, that want to see whoever did this to her apprehended,” Webster told the station.
California Highway Patrol said it is seeking any dash-cam videos and recordings taken between 4:45 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 17, northbound and southbound along US-101 from I-405 to Tampa Avenue.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the CHP Southern Division’s Major Crimes Unit at -323-644-9550 or Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or lacrimestoppers.org.
