54 people rescued from roof of Tennessee hospital due to floodwaters from Hurricane Helene
(ERWIN, Tenn.) — At least 54 people were trapped on the roof of a hospital in Tennessee on Friday after floodwaters due to Hurricane Helene quickly surrounded the medical center.
Everyone was rescued safely, Sen. Bill Hagerty said in a statement.
Unicoi County Hospital — located in the northeastern part of the state on the border with North Carolina — took on so much flooding that those inside could no longer be safely evacuated and had to relocate to the roof.
In addition to the people trapped on the roof, seven people were in rescue boats. The National Guard and the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) are currently engaged in “a dangerous rescue operation,” according to Ballad Health, a health care company that runs a chain of hospitals.
“I don’t think very many people have seen something like this before,” Ballad Health CEO Alan Levine said while speaking at Unicoi County High School. “The most important thing is the safety of our employees and patients. Thank God, thanks to the great work of Tennessee and Virginia partnering to help us get this rescue underway, they’re all safe.”
Rep. Diana Harshbarger posted on the social platform X on Friday afternoon that helicopters had arrived to help evacuate people off the roof.
Ballad Health said in a statement on X on Friday that it received notice a little after 9:30 a.m. ET from the Unicoi County Emergency Management Agency that the hospital needed to be evacuated to the water from a nearby river rising quickly.
Although ambulances were quick to help evacuate patients, the hospital became flooded so quickly that the ambulances could not safely approach the hospital.
TEMA coordinated with local emergency management agencies so boats could be deployed to assist with the evacuation. However, water began flooding the hospital building causing an “extremely dangerous and impassable” that prevented boats from reaching the hospital.
What’s more, high winds had previously prevented helicopters from evacuating the hospital.
“We ask everyone to please pray for the people at Unicoi County Hospital, the first responders on-scene, the military leaders who are actively working to help, and our state leaders,” Ballad Health said in a statement. “Ballad Health appreciates the support and effort of Mayors Garland Evely, Patty Woodby and Joe Grandy, each of whom has offered assistance and have maintained ongoing contact with Ballad Health leadership.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Faul and Mike Noble contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — NATO troops, vessels and aircraft took to the frigid North Atlantic Ocean last month to sharpen their skills for a potential future war at sea, whether in the tumultuous Atlantic or in waters closer to their hypothetical Russian adversaries.
The drills — led by U.S. Naval Forces Europe and the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet — “focused on the strategic waterways and airspace surrounding Iceland,” a NATO press release said, an area it described as “a vital hub in the North Atlantic.” NATO forces practiced tracking enemy naval forces — including submarines — and responding to mass casualty events.
But one part of the exercise was designed with a different region, though the same hypothetical enemy, in mind.
With U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft acting as their eyes, Polish Naval Strike Missile (NSM) units used their time in Iceland to simulate strikes on enemy ships out at sea.
Lt. Bartlomiej Gryglewski, a liaison officer for the Polish navy’s naval missile unit, told ABC News that his contingent performed every step up until the actual firing of the munitions. “We ‘performed’ a lot of strikes,” Gryglewski said, describing the Norwegian-made NSM as a “pretty awesome” weapon.
The combination of the “precise missile” and the information gathered by the American aircraft above gives a “a high percentage chance — almost 100% — that the target will be hit,” Gryglewski added.
The North Atlantic, though, is not the expected hunting ground.
“We almost always perform our exercises in the Baltic region,” Gryglewski said, “protecting the Baltic Sea region from the enemy” as part of Poland’s coastal defense system.
NATO’s ‘lake’
There, Russia is “facing a real imbalance” with its NATO rivals, Sidharth Kaushal of the U.K.’s Royal United Services Institute think tank told ABC News.
NATO’s inclusion of Finland and Sweden — a direct consequence of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — has prompted some officials to jokingly refer to the Baltic Sea as the “NATO Lake.”
The trope “is a bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit,” Kaushal said. “The maritime imbalance is significantly in NATO’s favor, and that’s a huge problem for Russia.”
The Baltic Sea remains a key oil export route for Russian ships departing terminals in St. Petersburg. Commercial and military vessels alike must transit the sea to reach the Atlantic Ocean, passing through the Gulf of Finland and the narrow Danish straits with NATO eyes on all sides.
Russia’s strategic Kaliningrad exclave is surrounded by NATO nations, its approaches in sight of the Latvian, Polish and Swedish coasts.
In the event of war, NATO aircraft and vessels could launch attacks on Russian territory from within the Baltic region that would “give Russian air defenses very limited warning times,” Kashual noted.
“There’s a whole range of conundrums that the alliance’s preponderance in the Baltic Sea faces the Russians with,” Kaushal said. “Reminding Russia of that fact is probably an important goal for the Americans, and for the wider alliance.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the Kremlin have routinely criticized NATO military drills — particularly those close to its border. In July, for example, Moscow hit out at NATO drills in Finland as “an integral part of NATO’s comprehensive provocative efforts to contain Russia.”
Control of the Baltic Sea is not a given for the Western allies. Russia’s naval cruise missile bombardment of Ukraine from the Black Sea since 2022 has proved devastating, and proved that Moscow can “pose a real threat at depth across Europe,” Kashual said.
“Sinking them early and demonstrating the ability to do so would be a real priority for regional countries like Poland, even if the aggregate balance of forces is now heavily skewed in NATO’s direction in the Baltic,” he added.
“There’s a temporal question; can the Baltic Fleet be sunk in a manner that’s both timely and cost effective before it’s done an unacceptable level of damage across Europe with its cruise missiles?”
Polish NSMs, Kashual added, could prove to be “a big part” of NATO’s answer to that question.
Poland’s government has said as much. “Due to the reinforcement of the coastal missile units, manned and unmanned reconnaissance platforms, modern mine warfare and submarines, we will greatly increase our capabilities to protect our coastline,” the Defense Ministry wrote in its 2032 plan.
Still, Western militaries may have to grapple with the same industrial strains that have so hamstrung Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Advanced technology like the NSM may work well, but restocking munitions might prove a challenge. Last fall, the Polish Defense Ministry inked a deal with NSM producer Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace for “several hundred” more missiles.
Naval missile troops have plenty of active case studies to turn to. In the Black Sea, Ukraine has been able to hold back the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and even sink the Moskva flagship.
In the Middle East, the Houthis in Yemen have hit dozens of commercial ships and attacked Western warships in nearby waters. The group has even claimed to have fired on vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.
“I think that everybody at this time is getting some experience from those,” Gryglewski said of the two ongoing conflicts. “But that’s all I can say about this for the moment.”
(NEW YORK) — Nine people are dead and one other has been injured after a vehicle crashed into a canal in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Monday evening, authorities said.
At approximately 7:30 p.m. on Monday, authorities began receiving calls reporting a car in a canal on Southwest Conners Highway near Belle Glade, Florida, Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Capt. Tom Reyes said in a statement to the media. Once at the scene, authorities found one vehicle upside down with only the wheels visible, Reyes continued.
“Last night in Belle Glade, a tragic crash occurred at the 5800 Block of Hatton Highway, resulting in multiple fatalities. Tragically, Fire Rescue confirmed 4 victims were pronounced deceased on the scene, and 6 were transported to a local hospital where 5 additional victims passed away,” according to the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office. “We have one survivor for a total of 10 victims including babies. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families during this heartbreaking incident.”
Fire rescue personnel, including divers, along with the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, responded to the crash, officials said.
The scene has been turned over to the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office who will determine the cause of the crash, Reyes said, and the investigation by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office remains open.
(NEW YORK) — Seven months after a trial judge fined Donald Trump $454 million for business frauds that the judge said “shock the conscience,” a New York appeals court appeared skeptical Thursday of some of the arguments underpinning the New York attorney general’s case against the former president.
A panel of five judges at New York’s Appellate Division, First Department heard Trump’s appeal and peppered both sides with concerns about the case — appearing to question some of the key elements of the state’s case, including the application of a consumer fraud statute, the justification for the financial penalty prosecutors sought, and the private nature of the transactions in question, mirroring well-worn defense arguments that failed during the case’s lengthy trial this year.
Trump himself did not attend Thursday’s hearing in New York.
“We have a situation where there were no victims, no complaints,” argued D. John Sauer, the same attorney who successfully argued Trump’s presidential immunity appeal to the Supreme Court earlier this year. “How is there a capacity or tendency to deceive when you have these clear disclaimers?”
While the judges expressed some skepticism about some of the defense’s claims — with one judge remarking that factual inaccuracies could have resulted in Trump’s statements being “completely fallacious” — some of the defense arguments were echoed in the judges’ questions.
“The defendants’ statements were not made for ordinary people,” noted Associate Justice David Friedman. “They were directed at some of the most sophisticated actors in business.”
Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale, arguing for New York Attorney General Letitia James, emphasized the magnitude of Trump’s alleged misstatements and their importance to the banks that loaned the former president hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Deutsche Bank would not have given these loans without the financial strength being inflated,” Vale said. “The financial statements were coming in each year, and they were important, critical to the loans each year.”
A series of questions also focused on the New York fraud statute — Executive Law 63 (12) — that the attorney general used to bring her case. Trump’s lawyers have insisted the law should not apply to profitable transactions between financial institutions and the Trump Organization.
“How do we draw a line or put up some guardrails to know when the attorney general is operating within her broad sphere or 63(12) or going into an area where she doesn’t have jurisdiction?” asked Associate Justice John R. Higgitt.
Vale responded by arguing that Trump’s frauds impacted consumers by inserting false and misleading information into the marketplace, and that Trump’s fine has a deterrent effect.
“A big point of these statutes is for the attorney general to go in quickly to stop the fraud and illegality before the counterparties are harmed,” Vale said.
When pressed about the size of the penalty and whether it was “tethered” to the limited harm incurred by the banks that did business with Trump, Vale argued that the profitability of the transactions should not give Trump a free pass to use false information.
“It is not an excuse to say our fraud was really successful so we should get some of the money,” said Vale.
In an 11-week trial that concluded in February, New York Judge Arthur Engoron found that Trump, his eldest sons, and two top Trump Organization executives exaggerated Trump’s wealth to secure better terms from lenders, for which he fined the former president $454 million.
Trump, following the ruling, secured a $175 million bond while he appeals the judgment.