Hurricane Rafael could strengthen to Category 3 before landfall in Cuba: Latest track and forecast
ABC News
(FLORIDA KEYS, Fla.) — Hurricane Rafael, now a powerful Category 2 hurricane, could strengthen into a major Category 3 hurricane later in the day before making landfall in Cuba on Wednesday night.
A tropical storm warning is in effect for the Florida Keys, where heavy rain, gusty winds and even tornadoes are possible on Wednesday and into Thursday morning.
By the weekend, Rafael will weaken as it stalls in the Gulf of Mexico.
Rafael isn’t posing a major threat to the U.S. Gulf Coast, but some of the tropical moisture could move toward the coast and add to the rain from an approaching cold front.
Most models predict Rafael sitting in the Gulf into next week and possibly moving southwest toward Mexico.
(NEW YORK) — A potential hurricane — which would be named Helene — is churning in the Caribbean and is forecast to make landfall in Florida on Thursday.
The system is forecast to become Tropical Storm Helene early Tuesday morning.
It will then move into the Gulf of Mexico and strengthen to a hurricane on Wednesday morning.
Hurricane watches were issued in Tulum, Mexico; Cancun, Mexico; and Cuba.
The storm is forecast to continue to strengthen to a Category 2 or Category 3 hurricane before making landfall along the Florida Panhandle or Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night.
Flash flooding, strong winds and storm surge are the biggest threats.
The Tampa, Florida, area and the Florida Panhandle are expected to get the worst of the storm surge.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he’s declared a state of emergency in 41 counties.
“Now is the time to make an emergency plan, know your evacuation zone, and be as prepared as possible for the storm,” he said on social media.
After landfall, Helene’s heavy rain and flash flooding may move inland to Tallahassee, Florida; Atlanta; and Nashville, Tennessee.
(NEW YORK) — Two now-retired chiefs from the New York City Fire Department were arrested early Monday morning following a yearlong corruption investigation, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Retired Chief Brian Cordasco was arrested at home on Staten Island. Retired Chief Anthony Saccavino was arrested at home in Manhattan, the sources said.
Saccavino and Cordasco “repeatedly abused their positions of trust as high-ranking officials in the New York City Fire Department” by soliciting and accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribe payments in exchange for providing preferential treatment to certain individuals and companies, according to an indictment unsealed Monday in Manhattan federal court.
The two men were chiefs with the FDNY Bureau of Fire Prevention, which regulates the installation of fire safety and suppression systems in commercial and residential buildings. For nearly two years, the indictment said, Saccavino and Cordasco misused this authority for their own financial gain.
The two allegedly accepted $190,000 in bribes in exchange for expediting inspections, according to the indictment.
The FBI had searched their homes and offices earlier this year. he FDNY placed the chiefs on modified duty at the time. The New York City Department of Investigation searched FDNY headquarters as well.
The alleged scheme appears to have been discovered as an offshoot of the investigation into whether Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign took illegal money from Turkey in exchange for expediting the inspection of the new Turkish consulate.
Cordasco publicly complained about a so-called “City Hall List” of building projects that should be prioritized by FDNY inspectors, according to the indictment.
(NEW YORK) — A third house has collapsed in four days on the North Carolina coast as officials closed off the beach due to dangerous debris on the shore and in the water, officials said.
Cape Hatteras National Seashore law enforcement rangers responded to a Dare County dispatch call at approximately 1:08 p.m. on Tuesday to reports of a house collapsing on G A Kohler Court in Rodanthe, North Carolina, according to a statement from the National Park Service.
“Once on scene, rangers confirmed the collapse of the unoccupied house,” officials said. “The owner of the house has hired a debris cleanup contractor and Seashore employees plan on supplementing cleanup efforts.”
Due to dangerous debris on the beach and in the water, Cape Hatteras National Seashore has temporarily closed the beach from G A Kohler Court in Rodanthe to Wimble Shores North Court in Waves, a coastal length of just over two miles.
“Swimmers and surfers are urged to stay out the water in front of the villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo, as there is a large amount of hazardous floating debris being transported by the waves that will cause injuries to those entering the water along the tri-villages area,” the National Park Service said. “Additionally, at the north end of Rodanthe and for miles to the south, the Seashore continues to urge visitors to wear hard-soled shoes when walking on the beach to avoid injuries from nail-ridden wooden debris.”
“The biggest concern is just cleaning everything up, you know?” Paul Troy, the homeowner of the first collapsed house, told ABC News’ Raleigh station WTVD-TV. “We get a lot of slack, all of these homeowners do that they don’t care. These are money machines and that’s not the case. We lose sleep over littering the beach.”
Troy and his family have owned the home since 2008 and hoped to move it before the collapse.
“At the beginning of the summer, we lost 13 vertical feet. We lost the staircase. We lost part of the septic system,” he said. “We chose not to rent it out the rest of the summer because we were going to wait and see what the beach did, see if it came back.”
Homeowners there say the ocean’s threat to their property is a major concern.
“We’ve stayed in many of these houses that are completely underwater now. It’s a shame and I think the town of Rodanthe is going to be suffering,” Nancy Engel, who lives in Rodanthe, told WTVD in August.
Collapsing homes along the ocean can cause a myriad of problems for people as well as the local ecosystem which led to the superintendent of the National Park Service covering Cape Hatteras launching a pilot program to buy up some of the homes to tear them down, according to WTVD.
“We had to have willing sellers’ houses that were essentially in the ocean at high tide every day. We found the money to purchase those properties. We removed the houses completely, demolished them completely and restored the beach. And if we went out to that location today, you wouldn’t have much to see because it would just be a beautiful beach,” David Hullac with the U.S. National Park Service told WTVD.
Tuesday’s house collapse is the third home to collapse in Rodanthe since Friday and the 10th house collapse in the past four years.
No injuries were reported in connection with any of the collapses and the clean up efforts by authorities is ongoing.
