(NEW YORK) — There were over 170 reports of severe weather in the U.S. on Saturday, the majority of them on the East Coast. Out West, fire alerts range from California to Wyoming and wildfires continue to blaze.
In New Jersey, A 58-mph wind gust was reported at Newark Airport. A 78-mph wind gust was reported just off shore of Cape May.
Quarter-sized hail was reported in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Nearly 4.55 inches of rain fell in Stanton, New Jersey, on Saturday. 3.39 inches of rain was reported near the New York-Connecticut border and nearly 4 inches of rain was reported near Buffalo, New York
New York City now has had 9.11 inches of rain so far for the month of July. The average rainfall for all of July is 4.60 inches. The wettest July on record in New York city is 11.89 inches of rainfall.
Boston has had 8.93 inches of rain so far in July. The wettest July on record in Boston is 11.69 inches.
Hartford, Connecticut, has had 8.40 inches for the month of July. The wettest July on record in Hartford is 11.24 inches.
There are still a handful of flash flood watches across parts of the Northeast Sunday. That is because some of the rain is still moving out and could cause some additional flooding. Some more rain showers will linger in parts of New England through the day Sunday. On Monday, there will still be an isolated chance of a shower, but overall the region will be drier and milder.
Temperatures will drop to comfortable levels in the Northeast for the next 48 hours, before the heat builds back up on Tuesday.
In the West, there are fire alerts from California to Wyoming. In California, monsoon storms could bring dry lightning which could easily start wildfires.
The Bootleg Fire in Oregon is now at 298,662 acres, still 22% contained. The Tamarack Fire in Alpine County, California, which began earlier in July, is now at 21,000 acres. This fire rapidly grew this weekend and there are new evacuation orders for parts of the region.
Excessive heat will continue today in parts of Idaho and Montana. The heat will slide eastward this weekend and give some of the upper Midwest hot temperatures including parts of North Dakota which could be over 100 degrees during the first part of this week.
(NEW YORK) — Local officials have the right to reimplement mitigation strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19 amid a surge in cases fueled by the delta variant, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Sunday.
“Unfortunately we’re seeing rises, particularly among the unvaccinated in many parts of the country now,” Murthy told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
Approximately 97% of new cases in the U.S. are among the unvaccinated and at least 58% of those cases were directly linked to the delta variant. At the end of May, the variant was estimated to account for just over 3% of new cases.
“In areas where there are low numbers of vaccinated people, where cases are rising, it’s very reasonable for counties to take more mitigation measures, like the mask rules coming out of LA,” Murthy continued. “And I anticipate that will happen in other parts of the country — and that’s not contradictory to the guidance the CDC issued.”
Los Angeles County reinstated an indoor mask mandate in all public places for all individuals, regardless of vaccination status and at least 10 additional counties in California, including the city of Berkeley, have fully reinstated mask mandates or highly recommended all residents wear masks indoors again.
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis told Raddatz in a separate interview on “This Week,” that the new mask mandate was not punishment for the vaccinated, but prevention.
“We still have 4 million people out of 10 million that haven’t been vaccinated — and many of them are young people,” Solis told Raddatz. “And we’re seeing that this transmission is so highly contagious that it will cost more in the long run.”
Murthy reinforced his support for LA County’s decision as an acceptable mitigation approach based on data on the ground. The county reported over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases daily this past week.
“We saw this during the last year of the pandemic, that we have large numbers of people gathering in indoor spaces that is the right setup for COVID-19 to spread,” Murthy said, adding that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention will provide surge response teams to assist regions experiencing high coronavirus cases.
Raddatz asked Murthy about the World Health Organization’s warning that the delta variant and three additional variants of concern could prolong the pandemic and possibly lead to the emergence of deadlier strains of COVID-19.
“If we don’t get this under control now, what do you anticipate the fall looking like?” Raddatz asked.
“I am deeply concerned,” Murthy responded. “We’ve made so much progress over this past year, but what I worry about are those that we still have — millions of people in our country who are not vaccinated.”
“We have to still protect our children under 12 who don’t have a vaccine available to them.” Murthy added. “Our kids depend on the people around them being protected, being vaccinated in order to shield them from the virus. And that’s why, again, it’s so important for us to get vaccinated.”
Raddatz also asked Murthy about his warning about COVID-19 misinformation online and what else social media companies like Facebook need to do to stop it.
“I’ve been deeply concerned about the flow of misinformation across technology platforms and throughout society over the last many months,” Murthy responded.
“I’ve called for greater transparency in terms of the data that they have to share with independent researchers so we can get a better sense of how much misinformation is flowing on these sites and what strategies are working to address them,” he added.
“I also ask people across our country to stop and verify your sources, before you post stories online,” Murthy concluded.
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis said Sunday that restoring the mask mandate there is “not punishment, but prevention” as the county responds to the alarming spike in cases of the highly transmissible delta variant.
“We’re up to almost 1,900 cases and over 460 individuals that are now in our ICU unit. This is very disturbing,” Solis told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “As responsible elected officials, we have to do something, and in this case, the county has the ability to do that through our health order, through our health officer.”
The county reinstated the mask mandate over the weekend, nearly a month after California Gov. Gavin Newsom waived many of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. Though roughly 52% of LA County residents have been vaccinated, it applies to all county residents regardless of vaccination status.
“We’re seeing that this transmission is so highly contagious that it will cost more in the long run if we have to see our hospitals being impacted, our ICU units, as well as our health care workers,” Solis said Sunday.
Raddatz asked Solis about the possibility the move might disincentivize vaccines.
“A recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that once vaccine-hesitant people saw that vaccinated people could go out in the community, it was an incentive, and those easing of restrictions helped the hesitant people go out and get the shot. Are you worried that they won’t do that now?” Raddatz asked.
“No, in fact, just yesterday we held an event out in a park and we saw many adults coming in with their children. And I think, because of the heightened information regarding the delta variant, that more people are more concerned,” Solis replied.
Solis said that the county is promoting programs aimed at “lessening the hardships” to receive a vaccine and to ease vaccine hesitancy.
“We are going with groups on the ground to parks, to swimming pools, to swap meets — anywhere you can think of where we are encouraging people to get vaccinated,” Solis said.
“I just want to caution people that we still have many youngsters under the age of 12, who are not eligible to get vaccinated. So we, as responsible adults, should be taking a proactive approach and making sure that we mask up and that we also get vaccinated as soon as possible,” Solis also told Raddatz.
Solis added that she believes more California counties will introduce similar mask mandates in the near future.
“I think that other counties and other jurisdictions are going to also follow suit in the coming days and let these numbers go in the different direction, but right now they continue to rise,” she said.
Raddatz asked about enforcement.
“Enforcement is always an issue, but the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department released a statement saying they will not enforce mask-wearing, arguing the order contradicts CDC guidelines,” Raddatz said. “So how do you plan on enforcing this mask mandate?”
“Our public health department is typically the individuals that go out and do inspections, so I don’t see where the sheriff really has to come in and weigh in on the manner that he might have thought,” Solis said.
“I’m not concerned about that. I think the public, overall, is smart enough to understand what is being said and how to protect themselves,” she added.
(WASHINGTON) — The Washington Nationals game was called to an abrupt halt on Saturday night after a shooting outside the stadium.
Police said at a late-night press conference that the shooting was an isolated incident and believed to be a shootout between two vehicles.
Earlier, the team had confirmed there was a shooting outside the Third Base Gate at Nationals Park. After initially telling fans to stay in their seats due to an “incident” outside, they were then told to exit the stadium through the Centerfield or Right Field gates.
The game was in the bottom of the sixth inning when fans heard loud pops outside the park. The game was halted as fans were seen heading for the concourse and some even exited the stands onto the field and into the dugouts.
The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department said two people were shot outside the park and there did not appear to be an ongoing threat. Police later said a third person, a woman who was attending the game but was outside the park, was also struck by gunfire.
She is expected to be OK, police said. Two others believed to be involved in the shooting are being questioned at the hospital.
One car involved in the shooting has been recovered and they are looking for the second, authorities said.
The Nationals were losing, 8-4, at the time the game was stopped.
The team said it will pick up the game on Sunday where it left off with a nine-inning game. The game will be part of a doubleheader.
A 6-year-old child was killed in a shooting in Washington, D.C., overnight with officials holding a press conference to announce a $60,000 reward for information into the shooting. Homicides have been on the rise in the city since 2017, according to city crime data.
ABC News’ Sarah Shales contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Europe’s devastating flood death toll rose to at least 183 on Sunday with hard-hit west Germany and Belgium reeling from fast-rising waters that destroyed neighborhoods, swallowed up streets and swept away cars.
There are at least 156 dead in Germany, according to authorities. The hardest-hit areas in Germany are Rhineland-Palatinate, where 110 were killed in the catastrophic flooding and in North Rhine-Westphalia, where 46 people died, the Koblenz Police and the German Ministry of Interior said. About 150 people remain unaccounted for in Germany.
In Belgium, at least 27 are dead and 103 others remain unaccounted for on Sunday, according to the Belgian Interior Minister. The death toll is expected to rise.
The front-runner candidate poised to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s September election, Armin Laschet, faced backlash after he was seen in photos turning to another person and laughing as Germany’s president spoke about the catastrophic floods to reporters, The Associated Press reported. Laschet has since issued an apology.
“The fate of those affected, which we heard about in many conversations, is important to us,” he wrote on Twitter Saturday night. “So I regret all the more the impression that arose from a conversational situation. That was inappropriate and I am sorry.”
Western countries in Europe were hit with record rainfall that caused rivers to swell and triggered catastrophic flooding this week throughout Germany and Belgium, and southern parts of the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Horrific images revealed entire communities inundated with water, collapsed edifices and rescue workers combing through the wreckage.
The waters started to recede in some parts of Western Europe as of Saturday and efforts were launched to clean up the leftover debris and potentially discover more bodies.
Many areas are still grappling without electricity or telephone service.
Belgian broadcaster RTBF reported that some 17,150 houses in Belgium were without power as of Saturday and roughly 30,000 households did not have access to drinking water. About 3,500 homes had no gas and officials warned that a shortage of emergency supplies may last for several weeks.
Officials said 85% of the homes inspected in the Liege region of Belgium are at risk of collapsing.
As the water receded in some parts of Germany, an ABC News crew was able to reach the picturesque village of Ahrweiler, which had been cut off by flooding and where numerous homes dating back to the 16th century were damaged.
A large, concrete bridge leading into the Ahrweiler was destroyed by the flooding and some homes along the Ahr River were split in half. Uprooted trees littered the river.
Surrounded by medieval fortress walls, residents in the town were out over the weekend shoveling thick mud off of cobblestone streets and pointed out a water line that was well over six feet tall.
One man in Ahrweiler told ABC News he saved his elderly mother from the floodwaters. He said the water rose so quickly he sought refuge on the roof of his home where he watched as the flood carried cars down the street.
The severe weather triggered widespread evacuations. Some 700 people were evacuated from part of the German town of Wassenberg after the breach of a dike on the Run River. Thousands of residents in several Dutch towns evacuated Thursday and Friday were allowed to return home Saturday morning.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier traveled Saturday to Erftstadt, southwest of Cologne.
Caretaker Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte visited impacted towns Friday and said the region had been through “three disasters.”
“First, there was corona, now these floods, and soon people will have to work on cleanup and recovery,” he said. “It is disaster after disaster after disaster. But we will not abandon Limburg,” the southern province hit by the floods. His government has declared the flooding a state of emergency, opening up national funds for those affected.
German and Belgian officials said rescue and recovery efforts are now underway and crews are working to shore up dikes and protect roads.
In Germany, more than 19,000 emergency forces are conducting rescue operations in the state of North Rhine Westphalia, according to the regional government. In the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, police said they received reports of 618 people injured, DPA reported.
Speaking alongside U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed shock over the scope of devastation from the flooding.
“I grieve for those who have lost their lives in this disaster,” Merkel said during a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, D.C. “I fear the full extent of this tragedy will only be seen in the coming days.”
Merkel returned to Germany over the weekend and visited the hard-hit town of Schuld in the Rhineland-Palatinate region. She described the devastation as “surreal” and “terrifying,” and pledged quick financial aid.
“Germany is a strong country,” Merkel told officials in Schuld. “We will stand up to this force of nature, in the short term, but also in the medium and long term.”
ABC News’ Morgan Winsor contributed to this report
(LONDON) — Europe’s devastating flood death toll surpassed 160 on Saturday, with hard-hit west Germany and Belgium reeling from fast-rising waters that destroyed neighborhoods, swallowed up streets and swept away cars.
Western countries in Europe were hit with record rainfall that caused rivers to swell and triggered catastrophic flooding this week in Germany, Belgium, southern parts of the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Horrific images reveal entire communities inundated with water, collapsed edifices and rescue workers combing through wreckage.
As of Saturday, the waters started to recede and efforts are underway to clean up the leftover debris and potentially discover more bodies.
In Germany, 141 people have been reported dead, with 98 confirmed dead in Rhineland-Palatinate state and another 43 in the neighboring North Rhine Westphalia state. Many are still missing more than two days after massive flooding hit the region, the outlet reported.
Belgium’s national crisis center said Saturday afternoon the country confirmed 24 deaths.
Many areas are still grappling without electricity or telephone service.
Belgian broadcaster RTBF reported that some 17,500 do not have power and approximately 30,000 households do not have access to drinking water as of Saturday morning in Belgium. About 3,500 homes have no gas and the lack of supply may last for several weeks.
The severe weather triggered widespread evacuations. Some 700 people were evacuated from part of the German town of Wassenberg after the breach of a dike on the Run River. Thousands of residents in several Dutch towns evacuated Thursday and Friday were allowed to return home Saturday morning.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is slated to travel Saturday to Erftstadt, southwest of Cologne.
Rescue workers launched a harrowing effort in Erftstadt on Friday after people got trapped when the ground gave way and their homes collapsed, according to The Associated Press. By Saturday morning no casualties in that incident had been confirmed, the outlet reported.
Caretaker Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte visited impacted towns Friday and said the region had been through “three disasters.”
“First, there was corona, now these floods, and soon people will have to work on cleanup and recovery,” he said. “It is disaster after disaster after disaster. But we will not abandon Limburg,” the southern province hit by the floods. His government has declared the flooding a state of emergency, opening up national funds for those affected.
Rescue and recovery efforts are now underway to shore up dikes and protect roads, German and Belgian officials said.
In Germany, over 19,000 emergency forces are conducting rescue operations in the state of North Rhine Westphalia, according to the regional government. In the west state of Rhineland-Palatinate, police said they received reports of 618 people injured, DPA reported.
Speaking alongside U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed shock over the scope of devastation from the flooding.
“I grieve for those who have lost their lives in this disaster,” Merkel said during a joint press conference at the White House in Washington, D.C. “I fear the full extent of this tragedy will only be seen in the coming days.”
ABC News’ Morgan Winsor contributed to this report
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has focused the opening months of his presidency largely on domestic issues, including crime and gun violence.
Last month, he unveiled a multi-tiered strategy on gun crime that includes giving federal resources to police departments and letting communities use pandemic relief funds for prevention programs, including the hiring of counselors and social workers.
“This shouldn’t be a red or blue issue — it’s an American issue,” Biden said at the time.
But how to deal with crime, particularly during ongoing conversations regarding the role of policing and alternative crime prevention matters, tends to splinter along party lines — and within the parties themselves. Not all Democrats are in lockstep with Biden’s plans, and some Republicans agree with them. Some 26% of Democrats disapprove of Biden’s work on crime, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, while only 6% of Republicans approve of how Biden has handled the issue.
One of Biden’s plans — increased funding, especially in impoverished areas, for gun crime prevention — has support across both parties: 61% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats.
“I feel like there’s always room for improvement,” Bailey Dockery, a Democratic voter from North Carolina, told ABC News after telling a pollster she disapproved, but adding that Biden is likely “doing the best he can.”
Dockery said that there “needs to definitely be control over who’s allowed to have a gun,” but she doesn’t think gun control laws should involve confiscating people’s guns: “When somebody tells you not to do something, you want to do it 10 times harder.”
“Crime reform is not what I think it should be, with the corrections system, criminal justice system … not enough rehabilitation,” Robert Bell, a Democratic voter from Ohio who also said he disapproves, told ABC News.
The administration should focus more on “what are the initiating factors in crime,” he said, including a lack of housing and community resources.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll was released during an uptick in crime in the United States, with 24% more homicides and 22% more gun assaults in the first quarter of 2021 compared with that period in 2020, according to a study by the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice. There are also ongoing discussions in both local and federal government about alternatives to policing aimed at the underlying causes of crime.
Federal policy on crime and related issues has also been under the microscope.
“Today, there is an emerging recognition that federal dollars have helped deepen today’s devastating fissures between police and the communities they purport to serve,” the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice think tank at New York University School of Law wrote in a recent analysis.
But while most Republicans polled said they disapprove of the Biden administration’s work on crime, some said they support his efforts.
“There seems to be less violence going on since he’s been in power,” Paul Brazezicke, a Republican voter from Pennsylvania, told ABC News in a follow-up interview.
Sandra Buchanan, a Republican from Mississippi, said she approves of Biden’s handling of crime because “I think he’s doing a good job on everything he’s doing” and feels that crime isn’t the fault of the president but of individuals.
Other Republicans who spoke with ABC News said they’re skeptical of some alternatives to policing, including hiring more social workers to work alongside police, but they do believe improving economic opportunities in underserved areas would help.
“I just think, if someone’s at the point where they’re committing a crime” or in a similar high-stakes situation, they won’t be talked out of it by a social worker, said David Patton, a voter from Connecticut.
But he does believe increased funding for communities could have an impact. Patton said he was a driver for Frito-Lay who delivered to inner-city communities, and in “one city where they did some nice work … [it] made people more respectful to the area, for lack of a better word.”
Sheila Tabone of Mississippi, once a Republican but now a registered independent, said she felt that using social workers to reduce crime wouldn’t work “because it’s too little, too late in a lot of cases.”
She said she was a psychiatric nurse for six years, and focused on individuals with mental illness in the community at times, adding, “We do not have the resources for these people so they can live.”
When it comes to funding communities, Tabone said “throwing money at a problem without a plan doesn’t work,” but she supports plans to fund and train police departments, and plans “to help people who want to live a decent life to live a decent life.”
The views of Democratic voters not in lockstep with the administration or national Democrats on crime echo those of recent New York City Democratic mayoral primary winner Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and a former police officer. He called the priorities of national Democrats on gun crimes “misplaced” in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday, saying more focus should be on the spread of handguns than on just assault rifles.
But Adams also was among the community leaders and law enforcement officials who met with Biden in the White House on Monday to discuss plans for reducing gun crimes. He told reporters afterward, “Why did it take so long before we heard the gunshots that families were listening and hearing every night. … This president said, this is not the America we’re going to live in.”
(BRISTOL COUNTY, Mass.) — The Bristol County Sheriff’s Office in Massachusetts is the first law enforcement agency in the country to implement a K-9 unit with canines able to detect COVID-19.
“Today, festivals are happening, restaurants are full and concert venues are packed,” said Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson in a statement published Thursday. “We’ve made so much progress, and our new COVID-19 detection program is one way the people of Bristol County can stay ahead of the curve.”
Huntah, a 9-month old female black lab, and Duke, a 9-month-old male golden lab/retriever mix, are the two canines that have now joined the Bristol County K-9 unit after completing a COVID-19 detection training program developed by the International Forensic Research Institute at Florida International University.
The program, which uses masks worn by COVID-19 positive patients, kills the virus with an ultraviolet light, leaving the smell of the virus for dogs to detect.
The canines are then trained to sniff out the virus odor, or detect the change in metabolism of a person infected with COVID-19 without the risk of infection, making the program safe for dogs during the training process.
With this training, the dogs are able to detect the coronavirus with over 90% accuracy, Dr. Ken Furton, provost and executive vice president at Florida International University, told ABC Radio’s “Perspective” podcast in February.
“More than nine times out of 10, when the odor is there or a positive mask is there, the dogs alert and they get very few false positives,” Furton said. “So they’re very, very accurate, actually more accurate than even PCR testing in the laboratory.”
According to the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office, Huntah and Duke will be used to detect the virus in schools, town buildings, nursing homes and medical facilities. Captain Paul Douglas sees these two new additions to the K-9 unit as a “decontamination tool” to keep these spaces safe against the virus.
“The dogs can detect the COVID odor on a counter or table if it was recently touched by a COVID-positive individual, or even detect the odor on a tissue used by someone with COVID,” Douglas said.
With this detection program developed by scientists, trained dogs will be able to detect all variants of COVID-19, including the delta variant.
“This is all science,” Douglas said during a canine graduation ceremony on Wednesday. “This program was developed by professors, doctors and scientists at FIU, and we couldn’t be more proud or excited to execute it here in Bristol County.”
(NEW YORK) — Over 55 million Americans are at risk for flash flooding this weekend as severe weather heads toward the Northeast.
Portions of the Northeast are nearly five times wetter than average for July so far. New York and Boston both could approach all-time wettest July before the month’s end.
Tornadoes and damaging winds are also possible in the Northeast today.
A slow moving frontal system is bringing very heavy rain from the central U.S. to the East Coast. Over 3 inches of rain caused flash flooding in the Detroit region on Friday. Over 5 inches of rain was reported in Indiana, nearly 6 inches of rain was reported in Illinois, and over 10 inches of rain was reported in Kansas.
The system is moving east this morning and will bring more heavy rain to parts of the Ohio Valley and ultimately into the Northeast. Severe storms, including the risk for possible tornadoes and damaging winds will be possible from Maryland to New York today, including Philadelphia and New York City.
Flash flood watches are in effect from Indiana to Massachusetts. The rainfall threat across parts of the Northeast is particularly concerning. The region is well above average for rainfall.
New York City has had 8.49 inches of rain so far for the month of July. To put that in context, New York City’s average rainfall for all of July is 4.60 inches. The wettest July on record in New York city is 11.89 inches.
Boston has had 8.92 inches of rain so far in July. Boston currently is having it’s third-wettest July on record. The wettest July on record in Boston is 11.69 inches.
The precipitation forecast for storms Saturday and Sunday shows locally over 3 inches of rain. While not a certainty, it is looking possible, that Northeast cities will be approaching or exceeding their wettest July on record — and that may happen this weekend, in spots.
Flash flooding is a concern. As the ground is very saturated, the heavy rain will likely cause flash flooding very quickly.
Meanwhile, in the West, a heat wave is persisting across parts of the region, but it is not nearly as bad as the last few heat waves have been. In fact, there are only a couple of records being threatened over the next few days.
More concerning is the risk of dry lightning across California and Western Nevada on Sunday night. Dry lightning can quickly start wildfires, that will quickly burn out of control.
Additionally, more monsoon-related flooding will be possible across Arizona and New Mexico.
Here are the updated fire numbers:
Beckwourth Complex Fire
Size: 105,163 acres
70% contained
Near Beckwourth, CA
Bootleg Fire
Size: 273,582 acres
22% contained
Near Beatty, OR
River Fire
9,500 acres
59% contained
Mariposa County, CA
Snake River Complex Fire
102,866 acres
31% contained
Outside of Lewiston, ID
Red Apple Fire
11,111 acres
51% contained
Central Washington
