Once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm hits Gulf Coast, with record-breaking snowfall in Florida
An ABC News graphic shows the radar for the southeastern United States at 5 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (ABC News)
(TALLAHASSEE, FL) — For much of the Gulf Coast, the snowstorm that’s expected to end soon was a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm.
Many areas saw more snow than they have in at least 130 years, making this truly a historic event.
Florida just saw the most snow on record, with a preliminary 8.8 inches observed in Milton, which is north of Pensacola. This is the highest snow total on record for the state, according to the National Weather Service.
Snow reports from the last 24 hours include about 1.2 inches in Houston, Texas. That’s the official number because it was taken at the city’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, but the southeast part of the city saw over 4 inces. The NWS said it “is one of the top snowstorms to impact the Houston area.”
Elsewhere in the South, the snowfall was higher. In Louisiana, Baton Rouge saw 7.6 inches, New Orleans saw 8 inches and Lake Charles saw at least 4.8 inches, with up to 6 inches in some areas. Lafayette has seen 9 inches.
The snowfall the most recent highest total in New Orleans was from New Year’s Even in 1963 when 2.7 inches fell.
The 7.5 inches that fell in Mobile, Alabama, and the 7.6 inches in Pensacola, Florida, were all-time records.
Snow is still falling early Wednesday along the coastal Carolinas, in Georgia and in northern Florida.
About 5 inches have so far been reported in parts of coastal North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Even North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, said it’s seen 3.8 inches — and it’s still snowing there.
The snow is expected to end around 7 a.m. for the east coast, exiting Charleston, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, last.
Rain will continue in the Florida peninsula into the afternoon, heading south and exciting Miami, with lingering spot showers expected through the evening and again on Thursday for the Florida peninsula.
(WASHINGTON) — While driving home Wednesday night on the George Washington Parkway near Ronald Reagan National Airport, Ari Shulman said a “spray of sparks” in the sky caught his attention as he watched in horror the midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter unfold.
Authorities said Thursday that the crash shattered the regional commuter airplane into pieces as it and the military helicopter plummeted into the icy Potomac River, killing everyone aboard both aircraft — 67 victims combined.
“I looked back and [the plane] was banked all the way to the right … it was illuminated yellow underneath and there was a spray of sparks on the underside,” Schulman told ABC News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts.
Security video released shortly after the crash confirmed Shulman’s description of the first major U.S. air disaster in nearly 16 years.
Video footage showed Flight 5342 with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard making its final approach to Reagan National when it was struck by a Black Hawk helicopter traveling south with a flight crew of three.
“I knew something was very wrong because it was very, very close to the ground — banked all the way to the right,” Shulman of Alexandria, Virginia, said.
He said he glanced at the road for just a moment.
“I looked back again and it was gone,” Shulman said. “I didn’t see any crash into the ground. I didn’t see a fireball, an explosion, or flames.”
Fire Chief John Donnelly of the Washington D.C. Fire Department said at a news conference Thursday morning that an American Airlines plane, operated by its subsidiary PSA Airlines, was found “inverted” in three pieces in waist-high water of the Potomac. He said the helicopter was discovered nearby.
“At this point, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident,” Donnelly said.
Donnelly said the search-and-rescue mission was not a search-and-recovery operation. He said 27 bodies had been recovered from the airplane and one from the helicopter.
Donnelly said that at 8:48 p.m. local time, the control tower at Reagan National sent out an alert of a plane crash.
“Very quickly, the call escalated,” Donnelly said.
He said 300 first responders raced to the river in a desperate attempt to find survivors, which would prove futile. Within 10 minutes, the first emergency unit arrived on the grisly scene, surveying the wreckage of both aircraft in the Potomac River.
“The water that we’re operating in is about 8 feet deep,” Donnelly told reporters at the somber early-morning briefing. “There is wind … pieces of ice out there, so it’s just dangerous and hard to work in. And because there’s not a lot of lights, you’re out there searching every square inch of space to see if you can find anybody.”
He added, “Divers are doing the same thing in the water. The water is dark, it is murky, and that is a very tough condition for them to dive in.”
Meanwhile, the medical staffs of three major Washington, D.C., hospitals said they were prepared to treat victims, but as the minutes turned into hours, no ambulances arrived from the crash site with patients.
From the banks of the Potomac, search helicopters were seen probing the water with searchlights as fire boats made trips back and forth through the icy Potomac, transporting what appeared to be debris from the crash, including suitcases.
Inside, the usually bustling airport was eerily quiet Wednesday evening. The departure and arrivals boards were nearly blank.
Jack Potter, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, said some family members were waiting to pick up loved ones before the crash, and American Airlines had set up a center in the airline’s lounge for family members.
(MIAMI) — Two people are dead after Florida authorities alleged a Miami-Dade Transit bus driver pulled out a weapon and opened fire on a bus during a disturbance.
The shooting erupted just before 3 a.m., when a Miami-Dade Transit bus driver was involved in a disturbance with two male passengers aboard the bus, Officer Diana Delgado of the Miami Gardens Police Department said at a news conference Sunday.
During the disturbance, the bus driver pulled out a weapon and opened fire, shooting the men, according to Delgado.
The two passengers were taken to HCA Florida Aventura Hospital in critical condition and later died from their injuries, according to police.
ABC affiliate TV station WPLG reports both of the shooting victims were male.
It was unclear, according to authorities, whether the bus was moving at the time of the shooting or how many passengers were aboard the bus.
The driver is being detained by police, Delgado said Sunday.
(WASHINGTON) — A former top FEMA official who was removed as part of the political blowback over payments to New York City for housing migrants in what critics called “luxury hotels” has sued the Trump administration, alleging she was “unlawfully terminated from her position” without due process.
Mary Comans, who served as the FEMA’s chief financial officer since 2017, claims in the suit that her firing led to her being “falsely condemned online” by prominent individuals including tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been overseeing government cost-cutting measures as the head of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency.
Comans’ lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia on Tuesday, claims she was terminated “without any warning.” The suit says the government “failed to undertake any process to enable Ms. Comans to appropriately respond” to the allegations, and then put out a press release that she claims was in violation of the privacy act.
“Additionally, the defendants falsely, deliberately, and publicly portrayed Ms. Comans’ actions in such a manner that third parties have asserted her conduct to have been criminal, which is defamation per se, thereby further contributing to the damages she has suffered,” the filing states.
The lawsuit says the press release led to her action being “widely, publicly, and falsely condemned” by online influencers including Musk. The lawsuit includes a screenshot of one of Musk’s tweets replying to a post about Comans, in which he wrote she had committed “A criminal action.”
“Prior to her termination, Ms. Comans was an exemplary employee with absolutely no disciplinary history and had received “Achieved Excellence” ratings for every year that she served as an SES,” the filing states.
Comans has asked a judge for a declaration that DHS and FEMA’s actions were illegal, and has requested monetary damages.
