Officials are concerned about three homes on Scenic Drive in Dana Point, Calif., that are teetering on the edge of a cliff following multiple rounds of severe storms. CREDIT: KABC
(LOS ANGELES) — Officials in Southern California are concerned about three multimillion-dollar homes teetering on the edge of a cliff following multiple rounds of severe storms that triggered a large landslide.
Three homes on Scenic Drive in Dana Point, California, about 60 miles south of Los Angeles, are seemingly closer to the ridge of the steep cliff after a large chunk of dirt and rock sheared off amid the heavy rains, as shown by drone video taken in the region. The video also shows a pile of rock and dirt that cascaded down the cliffside piled on the beach below.
There is no immediate threat to the properties, officials told ABC Los Angeles station KABC following an inspection. One of the homeowners, who did not wish to be identified, told the station that his home is secure and has not been red-tagged by the city as too dangerous to occupy.
On Feb. 6, evacuations were ordered in Isla Vista in Santa Barbara County after a storm caused cliff erosion. The severe weather caused balconies to collapse on four oceanview apartments, the Santa Barbara Independent reported.
A forecast for even more rain could increase the level of concern for homes in Dana Point. Some coastal California areas could see up to 10 inches of rain in the next week, forecasts show.
Global warming can cause extreme rainfall events to become more frequent and severe, according to climate scientists. Combined with sea level rise, climate change is causing coastal erosion and transforming coastlines all over the world, researchers said.
“So it’s really important that we track these events and understand how our coast is changing over time,” Adam Young, researcher at the University of California, San Diego’s Coastal Processes Group, told ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — Antarctica-bound passengers aboard a Norwegian Cruise Line ship claim their course was rerouted mid-voyage to instead travel around South America, nearly 200 miles off course from the destination they say they booked.
The cruise ship was originally slated to travel around South America before heading on to Paradise Bay, Antarctica, but after passengers boarded, one traveler said she noticed the trip description had changed.
According to Helen Midler, the new description read “round-trip of South America” and the itinerary had been altered.
She posted videos about the changes to the TikTok account @ruinedvacation to express her disappointment, garnering millions of views.
“They are not going anywhere near mainland Antarctica, which is what we paid for,” she said in the video.
Other passengers have since taken to social media, sharing their disappointment and frustration in videos posted on TikTok.
“We feel we’re being cheated, being scammed,” one traveler said.
In a statement to ABC News, Norwegian Cruise Line said the ship did go to Antarctica, but instead of heading to Paradise Bay near the mainland, it instead went to Admiralty Bay, off an island more than 200 miles north of the original Antarctic destination.
“While we try to maintain original itineraries as much as possible, at times modifications are made to optimize the itinerary or to accommodate certain circumstances,” the statement from the cruise line said. “In addition, due to a recent regulatory requirement in the area, the ship is operating at a reduced speed, also impacting its original itinerary.”
“It’s been largely a disappointment, in terms of not knowing where we’re going,” passenger Eric Huang told ABC News this week. “I don’t feel like I experienced Antarctica on this cruise. I think I would have to come again to be able to do that.”
This is not the first time a ship has changed its intended course with passengers on board.
In December, passengers aboard the MSC Meraviglia said they thought they were headed to to Ocean Cay in the Bahamas, but 24 hours before departure, they said the destination was switched to Canada.
The cruise line at the time said the change had to happen because storms made it impossible to travel to the Bahamas.
Experts say this serves as a good reminder that no matter where you’re planning to travel on a cruise line, there is no 100% guarantee that’s where you’ll end up.
“We always recommend that passengers read their crews contract carefully,” Cruise Critic Editor-in-Chief Colleen McDaniel told ABC News. “Also, we recommend working with people like travel advisers who can serve as your advocate for you in case something goes wrong.”
(WASHINGTON) — Three police officers were shot in Washington, D.C., while trying to serve an arrest warrant at a home Wednesday morning, and the suspect is still barricaded and opening fire, according to D.C. police.
All three officers suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters. A fourth officer was also injured but was not shot, Smith said.
The incident unfolded around 7:30 a.m. when officers responded to a home to try to serve an arrest warrant for cruelty to animals, Smith said.
Officers tried to make contact with the individual inside the home, but the individual refused to go outside, the chief said. Officers then tried to go inside the home and the suspect then fired at them, Smith said.
The suspect remains barricaded and is continuing to fire shots, Smith said.
It’s not clear if any other people are inside the suspect’s home, she said.
Several schools in the area are on lockdown, according to law enforcement sources.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have responded to the scene.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The Anaconda Smelter Stack has been a towering landmark for the town of Anaconda, Montana, but it was also one of the factors behind the decades of environmental damage that is still being cleaned up.
Standing at over 585 feet tall, the stack was once used as part of the town’s copper processing and spread heavy metals and arsenic over 300 square miles, destroying vegetation and killing animals.
But after more than decades of pollution remediation work by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other groups, the city has been on the rebound. Greener grass, cleaner homes, and even an 18-hole golf course have popped up in the last couple of years.
“So to have a lot of this vegetation coming back, it’s really, really something neat,” said Charlie Coleman, the former project manager for the EPA’s Anaconda Smelter Remedial project.
And while Coleman and others said Anaconda’s turnaround is a success story that can be replicated across the country, residents in other parts of the state that are dealing with similar pollution fallout say they need more work and resources.
From 1884 to 1981, copper ore processed in Anaconda helped electrify the nation, and made coins, car radiators, air conditioning systems and other machines.
In 1983, two years after the copper plant closed down, the EPA designed the plant a Superfund site after it was determined that the nearby soil and water were polluted with hazardous chemicals.
Coleman worked in tandem with various government agencies, city officials and the mine’s owner, the Atlantic Richfield Company, which is a subsidiary of BP, to remove contaminants from the soil and waterways to acceptable levels.
Among the work done was removing 3 million cubic yards of waste, replanting new vegetation, wetlands and soil, cleaning local rivers and removing toxic dust from attics.
“We’ve cleaned up nearly three-quarters of the community,” Coleman said, adding that work will continue for at least one more year.
Some slate piles could not be moved, so the environmentalists came up with a plan to cover the piles and revegetate on top of them.
The EPA said the clean dirt on top dilutes any lingering containments to acceptable levels, under 400 parts per million.
Anaconda was recently taken off the EPA’s Superfund list.
Bill Everett, the CEO of the Anaconda-Deer Lodge County, told ABC News that the town struggled economically due to the pollution, but the cleanup has now led to a rise in developments, businesses attractions and new residents.
“The community had to scramble, find employment elsewhere, move in other directions, and try to somehow make this an economically stable community. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for 40 years and we’re just now finally starting to recover from that,” Everett said.
Environmentalists said the Anaconda smelter stack spread pollution throughout the area, and residents of nearby Butte, Montana said they’ve been disappointed with the Superfund cleanup effort in their community so far.
Butte was once the site of copper mining and the town sent their ore to Anaconda for processing, however, the operation left mine waste like lead and arsenic all over the community.
“I grew up across the street from mine dump that was called the Yellow Hill,” Butte resident Bill Foley told ABC News. “We’d go play on it and ruin our shoes, now you think about it and it’s crazy that we live like that.”
One of the town’s most contaminated sites is the Berkeley Pit, a colossal hole in the ground that’s flooded with one of the largest bodies of polluted water in the United States.
Cleanup has been going on since the 1980s but residents said the remediation efforts have been slow as the hillsides have many dead zones and there is toxic wastewater in the creek that runs through the middle of town.
Evan Barrett, a Butte resident, told ABC News that he has been frustrated by the EPA’s lead contamination guidelines that state levels must be 1,200 parts per million. Anaconda’s Superfund standards were 400 parts per million, according to Barrett.
“We have three times as much lead in the soil than they do over in Anaconda which makes no sense whatsoever,” he said.
There appears to be some hope as the EPA recently released new national guidance on lead contamination that may lead to a reduction in that 1,200 parts per million standard.
Aaron Urdiales, the director of Superfund and emergency management division for EPA Region Eight, told ABC News that he is aware of Butte residents’ concerns and noted that the data shows a decline in blood lead levels in the town.
“We’ve upped our public engagement. We’re pushing more for transparency within the data. But we do understand the concerns,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — Three police officers were shot in Washington, D.C., Wednesday morning with all suffering non-life-threatening injuries, according to D.C. police.
Authorities said the shooting scene “remains active.”
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are responding.
(NEW YORK) — A 13-year-old girl from South Carolina was found in Florida on Tuesday after she was allegedly kidnapped by a 35-year-old man from Wisconsin, authorities said.
The young teenager was reported missing from her hometown of Simponville, South Carolina, after she was last seen at her residence on Sunday evening, according to the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, which initially described the girl as a “runaway” in social media posts.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in the Florida Keys said it received information that the girl’s alleged captor — Tyler Michael Berlick of Mukwonago, Wisconsin — may be heading to the area. Both he and the girl were found by deputies inside a pickup truck in the parking lot of a Key Largo shopping center early Tuesday, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, which said it has notified the Florida Department of Children and Families.
Berlick was arrested and charged with kidnapping. He was being held without bond in the Monroe County Jail in Key West, according to online records. A date for his arraignment had not yet been set.
Miami ABC affiliate WPLG-TV reported that Berlick was awaiting extradition to South Carolina. Authorities said he met the girl through an “online chatting service and gaming app,” according to WPLG.
The FBI is leading the investigation into the incident.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — One person is dead and at least five people were injured after a vehicle crashed into a hospital in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, authorities said.
A vehicle crashed into the emergency room at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center shortly after 5:30 p.m. local time, Capt. Christa Stedman, a spokesperson for the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, said at a news conference Tuesday evening.
The driver of the vehicle was extricated from the car and received CPR, but was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Austin Fire Department Chief Thayer Smith.
Two children and one adult were transported to Dell Children’s Medical Center, according to Chief of Austin-Travis County EMS Robert Luckritz. One child was in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, while the adult and second child had injuries that were non-life-threatening, Luckritz said.
A second adult with potentially life-threatening injuries was transported to St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center, according to Luckritz.
Eight other people who were in the ER but not injured in the crash were being transported to different area hospitals so the emergency room could “regroup,” Chief Medical Officer Dr. Peter DeYoung said during Tuesday’s presser.
“This incident does not appear to be an intentional act,” a Facebook post from Austin Police Department said.
Vehicular homicide officers were on the scene to investigate the cause of the crash, officials said.
According to DeYoung, the building appears to be in good condition and none of the hospital’s operations were interrupted. The ER was re-routing ambulances but still accepting walk-in patients.
(KNOXVILLE, Tenn.) — A murder suspect wanted in the fatal shooting of a Tennessee deputy has been caught following a nearly weeklong manhunt, authorities said.
Kenneth DeHart was detained in Knoxville on Tuesday, the Blount County Sheriff’s Office said on social media while sharing a photo of a large police presence outside a residence.
The 42-year-old fugitive was wanted on first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder charges in connection with the shooting of two Blount County deputies on Thursday, state police said. He also faces one count of being a felon in possession of a weapon.
The shooting occurred during a traffic stop in Maryville Thursday evening, the Blount County Sheriff’s Office said. “Erratic driving” prompted the stop, authorities said. Blount County deputy Greg McCowan, 43, was killed and deputy Shelby Eggers, 22, was shot in the leg, the sheriff’s office said. She has since been released from an area hospital.
More than $100,000 in reward money was being offered for information leading to the fugitive’s arrest, according to the Blount County Sheriff’s Office. That includes a $40,000 reward offered by Smith & Wesson, a firearm manufacturer headquartered in Maryville.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had posted billboards across the Southeast region amid the search for the suspect, who was on the agency’s most-wanted list.
Maryville is located about 17 miles south of Knoxville.
In the wake of the shooting, the suspect’s brother and girlfriend were arrested in connection with the case on the charge of accessory after the fact, according to officials and court documents.
The suspect’s brother — Marcus DeHart, 41 — was taken into custody Friday “for aiding the defendant after the commission of the homicide,” Blount County District Attorney General Ryan Desmond said during a press briefing. He is being held on a $1 million bond.
His attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf and argued that the bond was “excessive” during a court appearance on Monday. A bond hearing in his case has been scheduled for Thursday.
The suspect’s girlfriend — Carrie Matthews, 32 — was also booked into custody in Sevier County after local deputies interviewed her about Kenneth DeHart’s whereabouts, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. While being interviewed at her residence Thursday night, Matthews took a call from someone purportedly named “Janeisha” who was later determined to actually be Kenneth DeHart, according to the affidavit. Matthews allegedly told the caller, “They’re here,” which the affiant claimed warned Kenneth DeHart “of impending apprehension or discovery,” according to the affidavit.
She was released from custody on Monday after a judge granted the request for a $350,000 bond with GPS monitors, according to ABC Knoxville affiliate WATE.
Attorney information for Matthews was not immediately available.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) –An Indiana man was arrested Tuesday for allegedly posting threats to kill Jewish people and U.S. government officials who expressed support for Israel following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, newly unsealed court records show.
An FBI arrest affidavit says Jeffrey Stevens, 41, admitted in interviews with law enforcement that he leveled the threats in posts to the CIA’s website as well as in a Facebook direct message to the Fort Wayne Police Department.
“I am going to shoot every pro-israel US government official in the head, and there is nothing you can do about it because you are the pathetic CIA,” Stevens allegedly said in a Nov. 17 post to the agency. “I am going to kill all of you.”
In his message to the Fort Worth Police Department, Stevens allegedly wrote, “I am going to kill every Jew in [Fort] Wayne, and there is nothing you can do about it,” the charging docs say.
Stevens, according to his arrest affidavit, tried to explain the posts to law enforcement by telling them he has a “drinking problem.”
His arrest is the latest in a wave of threats cases brought by the FBI in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed at least 1,200 people. In the Gaza Strip, at least 28,473 people have been killed by Israeli forces since the attack, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Pierre Thomas in December, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco revealed the FBI had seen a surge of “more than 1800” reports of threats and tips in some way related to the conflict, with more than 100 criminal investigations opened as a result.
Stevens has not yet entered a plea in his case and did not have an attorney listed for him as of Tuesday afternoon. The government has moved for him to remain detained pending trial, citing what they argue is his danger to the community and risk of fleeing prosecution.
(NEW YORK) — A major winter snowstorm is hitting the northeastern United States on Tuesday and could wreak havoc on roadways from New York City to Boston.
The fast-moving storm is expected to last only from Tuesday morning to Tuesday afternoon, but it could bring up to 1 foot of snow to parts of the Northeast.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Feb 13, 2:11 PM
New England snowfall totals
In Farmington, Connecticut, a whopping 15.5 inches of snow has been recorded so far.
Foster, Rhode Island, has seen 10 inches of snow, while Dudley, Massachusetts, recorded 8.8 inches.
Boston, where schools were closed as the city braced for 4 to 8 inches of snow, has recorded just 0.1 inch.
Feb 13, 2:00 PM
Snow totals near New York City
Tuesday’s storm dumped 4.9 inches of snow at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport and 4.2 inches at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Sussex, New Jersey, recorded 15 inches of snow.
In Manhattan, Central Park recorded 3.2 inches of snow — the park’s highest daily snowfall in more than two years.
New York City is under a travel advisory.
Bridgeport, Connecticut, has seen 7.6 inches of snow and the snow is still falling.
ABC News’ Melissa Griffin
Feb 13, 12:04 PM
More than 139,000 power outages in Pennsylvania
More than 139,000 customers are without power in Pennsylvania amid the fast-moving snowstorm.
In Philadelphia, public schools opened on a two-hour delay.
Feb 13, 12:00 PM
1,500 flights canceled
More than 1,500 flights have been canceled Tuesday, with airports in New York City and Boston hit the hardest.
Feb 13, 9:21 AM
Over 1,400 flights canceled
More than 1,400 flights have been canceled Tuesday, with airports in New York City and Boston hit the hardest.
Feb 13, 8:18 AM
Snow totals so far
The storm is hitting fast, with some in the Northeast waking up to massive snowfalls.
Jim Thorpe in eastern Pennsylvania has recorded 10.5 inches of snow so far, while Port Jervis, by the New York-New Jersey border, has seen 8.5 inches.
Feb 13, 8:07 AM
‘Avoid travel if possible’
The wet, heavy snow slamming the Northeast is bringing dangerous conditions to the roads.
Snowfall rates have reached 1 to 2 inches per hour Tuesday morning.
“Use extra caution or simply avoid travel if possible this morning,” the National Weather Service in New York advised.
Feb 13, 7:12 AM
Over 1,000 flights canceled
More than 1,000 flights have been canceled Tuesday, with airports in New York City and Boston hit the hardest.
Feb 13, 5:52 AM
50 million Americans on alert for heavy snow
Some 50 million Americans are on alert for heavy snow in the northeastern United States on Tuesday, as a storm is forecast to hit the region in the morning hours before exiting by the afternoon.
It’s the first time in two years that the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for New York City.
Rain began changing to snow early Tuesday and much of New York City was already under snow by 5 a.m. ET. The freezing line hadn’t quite made it to Philadelphia at that time but was expected to soon.
Since this is a wet snow falling into temperatures that are generally at or above freezing, the initial accumulation on the ground will melt before it starts to stick.
Snowfall rates are expected to be moderate, from 1 to 2 inches per hour, with heavier bands mixed in at times.
Winds are forecast to gust 20 to 40 miles per hour, blowing the snow and reducing visibility. However, due to the wet nature of the snow, blizzard-like conditions were generally not expected and should only be short-lived if they occur at all.
Coastal flooding was also expected to be an issue from Washington, D.C., to Delaware to New Jersey and Long Island and then from Cape Cod to Boston and Portland.
Feb 13, 4:00 AM
New York City, Boston close schools
New York City’s public schools, the largest system in the country, will be closed Tuesday, with classes moving to remote learning, Mayor Eric Adams announced.
This marks the first time in two years that New York City has been under a winter storm watch.
Boston Public Schools will also be closed Tuesday.
