South braces for severe weather including flash flooding
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A storm is bearing down on the southern Plains and Texas, where residents are bracing for severe weather, including flash flooding.
On Wednesday evening, when the storm moves in, there’s a chance for damaging winds, hail and even an isolated tornado in Texas.
On Thursday, the storm will fully blossom in the South, bringing the threat of tornadoes and damaging winds from Houston to Jackson, Mississippi.
Flash flooding could be an issue from Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, to Paducah, Kentucky.
A flood watch has been issued for three states — Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri — where some areas could see up to 5 inches of rain from Wednesday night to Thursday night.
The same storm system will move into the Northeast on Friday, bringing rain to the Interstate 95 corridor and the potential for ice and snow to higher elevations in Pennsylvania, New York and New England.
(SHILOH, Ala.) — At a recent church service in Cleveland, a group of visitors from a rural Alabama community nearly 900 miles away, including pastor and business owner Timothy Williams, joined congregants in singing the spiritual “I Don’t Mind Waiting.”
Williams has grown used to waiting.
After six years of frequent flooding, two presidential administrations and numerous reassurances from top officials, homeowners like Williams who live in the majority-Black Shiloh community say they are still waiting for state and federal agencies to make them whole.
Now, with the Biden administration ending Monday, they feel they are running out of time.
“The longer they put us on hold, things are getting worse and worse,” said Williams, who has been advocating for Shiloh since 2018, after community members say a project by the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) to widen an adjacent highway led to flooding on their properties.
When the state denied responsibility for the flooding, community leaders turned to the federal government for help. In September 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration opened an investigation into their concerns.
The administration says it aims to complete investigations within six months, but after a year with no resolution, Shiloh residents focused their efforts on reaching the top transportation official in America: U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Shiloh residents became hopeful last spring when Buttigieg traveled to their community to see how runoff from the expanded highway drained onto their properties. He toured the historic community, listening to residents and telling them Washington would make things right.
The people of Shiloh say they were optimistic about what was to come, but when the federal investigation came to a close in October — more than two years after it began — the resulting Voluntary Resolution Agreement with ALDOT fell short of their expectations.
The deal required the state to mitigate future flooding in Shiloh, but it did not address existing property damage. It also did not assign blame for the flooding, raising questions as to whether any government entity is liable for compensating the residents for their losses.
“We are closely coordinating with the Federal Highway Administration on our efforts to follow through with the terms of the Voluntary Resolution Agreement,” ALDOT spokesperson Tony Harris told ABC News.
On the brink of yet another administration change, Williams wants Buttigieg to commit more resources to Shiloh in his final days in office.
“We want him to give us a binding written agreement that will cover the damages of the people’s homes and their properties and make the people whole,” Williams said. “That’s all we’re asking him to do and he can do that.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Transportation, however, said the secretary cannot meet this demand.
“Congress has not authorized any programs or funding for DOT that can provide emergency relief directly to communities experiencing hardship, so this whole-of-government approach is critical to help the Shiloh community access federal assistance that is not available through DOT alone,” the spokesperson told ABC News.
The flooding in Shiloh has consequences ranging from transportation to housing to environment, spanning the jurisdictions of a web of federal agencies. Some of these departments are involved in a task force led by the U.S. Transportation Department to identify resources available for Shiloh, an Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson told ABC News.
“EPA shared all funding opportunities and technical assistance available to the community,” the spokesperson wrote, adding that Shiloh community members applied for an EPA grant program in November.
Since the Voluntary Resolution Agreement did not assign liability for the flooding – the responsibility for finding government funds to fix the flood damage has largely fallen to the Shiloh community members. They now say they’ve been wading through red tape while their homes fill with water.
With the clock ticking toward another Trump administration, Shiloh community leaders are worried they’ll be left behind. They aren’t waiting for federal agencies to come to them anymore.
In December, Williams and his daughters traveled from Alabama to Ohio, where Buttigieg was scheduled to speak before the City Club of Cleveland.
In his address, Buttigieg discussed the accomplishments of his administration, including tackling infrastructure inequities in vulnerable communities.
“Many communities had transportation projects done to them rather than with them, often because they lacked the wealth or political power to resist or reshape them,” Buttigieg said.
Listening closely alongside the Williams family were some of their supporters: Shiloh-area native Dr. Robert Bullard, known as the “father of environmental justice” for his pioneering research, and representatives from the Sierra Club.
“The point of transportation is to connect, and yet there were so many places where transportation functioned to divide, sometimes contributing to racial and economic divisions,” Buttigieg told the audience. “We can do something about it, and we are.” In the case of Shiloh, however, what exactly can be done and who should do it remains unclear. All the while, the flooding continues.
When asked by ABC News if he would meet with the Shiloh families who’d come to Cleveland, Buttigieg said he “would want to take that up directly with them.”
“We’ll continue to do everything we can, both within and beyond any kind of formal and official steps, to try to support that community because I’ll never forget what they’re going through,” Buttigieg said.
After they were denied another meeting with the secretary, Williams and Bullard put together a petition with roughly 5,000 signatures demanding a binding agreement to cover damage to residents’ properties.
On Tuesday, the group traveled another 900 miles, heading to Washington to deliver their petition directly to the U.S. Transportation Department before Buttigieg’s term ends.
“We want to see a victory,” Bullard said. “How this community overcame all odds and got the resources from the federal government to make them whole.”
Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous joined the group to call for justice in Shiloh.
“Their community’s been turned into a drainage ditch by the Alabama Department of Transportation with U.S. Department of Transportation dollars,” Jealous said.
After relentless flooding and tireless advocacy, Shiloh’s 150-year legacy still hangs in the balance. While Washington politics churn on, their homes continue to sink and runoff drowns their generational wealth. Bullard stressed that there is still time for Washington to act.
“It’s already been two administrations that have allowed this to happen,” Bullard said. “This should not — and must not — bleed into a third administration.”
ABC News Senior National Correspondent Steve Osunsami contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump slammed the judge in his criminal hush money case Tuesday, a day after the judge refused to dismiss Trump’s conviction on the grounds of presidential immunity.
New York Judge Juan Merchan on Monday rejected Trump’s request to vacate the verdict in the case based on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision.
Trump had sought to dismiss his criminal indictment and vacate the jury verdict on the grounds that prosecutors, during the trial earlier this year, introduced evidence relating to Trump’s official acts as president that was inadmissible based on the Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling that Trump is entitled to presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken while in office.
“Acting Justice Juan Merchan has completely disrespected the United States Supreme Court, and its Historic Decision on Immunity,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Tuesday, calling Merchan’s ruling, without evidence, “completely illegal.”
Merchan, in his ruling, determined that the evidence in the case related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”
The judge “wrote an opinion that is knowingly unlawful, goes against our Constitution, and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it,” Trump wrote in his post.
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — Nearly a full week has passed since Alex Shekarchian and Moogega Cooper hastily packed a few belongings and fled from the second natural disaster to upturn their lives in three months.
In October, the couple survived Hurricane Milton, which slammed the Florida coast. Now, they are among thousands of residents to lose their homes in the unprecedented firestorm continuing to burn across Los Angeles County.
“We’ve seen weather events get more and more extreme. That Category 5 [hurricane] was unprecedented,” Cooper told ABC News of experiencing back-to-back natural disasters on both coasts. “This firestorm was unprecedented.”
Shekarchian recalled driving home last Tuesday evening and seeing a “lightning strike of fire” in the hills near their home in Altadena. He said that when he got to his house, there was no electricity and he found Cooper sitting inside next to candles “like the candles we had from when we survived Hurricane Milton.”
Fueled by hurricane-strength winds, the Eaton Fire ravaged the communities of Altadena and Pasadena, destroying at least 7,000 structures, including homes and businesses, officials said. As of Monday, the fire was 33% contained after consuming more than 14,000 acres.
The Eaton Fire is one of several blazes to break during Tuesday and Wednesday’s Santa Ana windstorm, which struck during a severe drought, authorities said. At one point, seven wildfires were burning all at once across a 45-square-mile area of Los Angeles County.
The Palisades Fire in the oceanside community of Pacific Palisades remains the largest of the fires. The Palisades Fire has destroyed more than 5,000 homes and scorched nearly 24,000 acres. The inferno was 14% contained Monday as firefighters braced for a new Santa Ana wind event forecast to buffet the area through Wednesday.
At least 24 fire-related deaths occurred in the Eaton and Palisades fires, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Offices confirmed. Nearly two dozen people remain unaccounted for, according to the Los Angeles County sheriff. Many of those who died in the fires were elderly or disabled, officials said.
A third major fire, the Hurst Fire near Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley, was stopped by firefighters at 799 acres and was 95% contained on Monday.
Planning to rebuild
Cooper said the blaze that destroyed her home swarmed her neighborhood with incredible speed.
“I actually didn’t realize I was going to lose my home until we saw the news of the fire spreading far beyond where mentally I was prepared for them even to go,” Cooper told ABC News.
Even after evacuating, Cooper said she believed they would find their home still intact only to learn she and Shekarchian suffered a complete loss.
The couple said that unlike a lot of homeowners, they have home insurance to rebuild and have already decided to do so.
“I think of it as not necessarily losing a physical structure, but we lost a home, we temporarily lost that sense of community,” Cooper said. “And that’s why I want to rebuild.”
Shekarchian added, “It was an easy decision when we knew that we wanted to be part of that rebuild with restaurants we lost, the stores we lost.”
On top of everything, Shekarchian said he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer just days before the fires struck.
Shekarchian, an entertainment lawyer, said the movie “Wicked” is helping him get through the horror, which he said was choreographed by one of his clients, Christopher Scott.
“We’re just dancing through life kind of,” Shekarchian said of how he and Cooper are trying to maintain a positive attitude. “Dancing through cancer, dancing through homelessness.”
‘It was a nightmare’
Jeffrey and Cheryl Ku also of Altadena told ABC News they believe they were among the first people to see the Eaton Fire ignite at the base of an electrical transmission tower in the hills near their home at 6:19 p.m. on Tuesday.
“My husband had come home from work, and he ran in the house and just started screaming, ‘There’s a fire on the hill. We need to get out,'” Cheryl Ku said. “I ran out back, saw the fire at the poles and I immediately called 911.”
A Ring doorbell camera on their home captured the scary moments after the couple spotted the fire charging into their neighborhood. The Ring video recorded Jeffrey frantically hosing down the exterior of his home while constantly trying to keep an eye on flames advancing toward him.
“It was a nightmare,” Jeffrey Ku said. “And I think the worst part was every time I checked on the fire, it got worse.”
The couple said their home was left standing.
Neighbors of the couple told ABC News they also saw the Eaton Fire apparently ignite near the transmission tower and rapidly explode.
“There was no other fire, no flames anywhere around,” said neighbor Pedro Rojas, who recorded video of the flames near the transmission tower at 6:24 p.m. on Tuesday. “Because it was so dark that if there were flames in any other places we would have noticed it.”
Fire officials trying to determine the cause of the Eaton Fire and the other blazes told ABC News they were aware of the videos showing flames near the transmission tower at the onset of the firestorm.
The Southern California Edison company issued a statement to ABC News, saying that while the Eaton Fire started in its service area, a preliminary analysis shows “no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start of the fire.” The utility company also said no fire agency has suggested its equipment caused the Eaton Fire to ignite.
But Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, told ABC News on Monday that the company cannot yet rule out the possibility that its energy infrastructure played a role in sparking the wildfires.
‘My guardian angel’
After losing their Altadena home of 25 years in the Eaton Fire, Ivan and Robyn Migel said the only thing to survive was a ceramic angel they had in their garden.
“That was my guardian angel in my garden,” Robyn Migel told ABC News.
She said that while her stove, refrigerator and furniture “vaporized” along with their house, the angel survived without even cracking.
“It was just marked by smoke from the flames. I thought that was a beautiful sign,” Robyn Migel said.
Ivan Migel said that when he saw the angel amid the rubble, he burst into tears.
“It also just gave me hope to move forward and to rebuild from this experience,” Ivan Migel said.
The Migels said their daughter was injured while evacuating their home when an ember fell from the sky and hit her in the face.
Robyn Migel said she now regrets not grabbing more family heirlooms and photos in the half-hour they were given to evacuate.
“I’ve just had to let go of that sadness of what we didn’t do in those moments because my family and my pets got out safely and that was the most important,” Robyn Migel said.
Learning his home and business were lost
Mike Geller of Pacific Palisades told ABC News that he not only lost his home, but also the jewelry store his family has owned in Palisades Village for almost three generations.
Now at age 48, Geller said he has to start over.
“Thank God I was able to retrieve my birth certificate. But every possession my children have accumulated … gone, decimated,” Geller said. “I’m in shock. I’m not even sure how I’m talking to you. I’m absolutely in shock. I’m just going through the motions. It hasn’t really set in yet.”
Geller said he has filed a personal insurance claim, but doesn’t know when it will be processed. He said he and many of his neighbors, especially older residents who bought their homes decades ago for $50,000 to $75,000, will not have the means to rebuild.
“Those people will not be able to come back. And if they do and they have insurance, will they rebuild?” Geller said. “Look, if I’m 75, 80 years old, you know, how much time do I have?”
Geller said he and his wife are considering not rebuilding.
“It’s about quality of life,” he said. “If it takes me three years to rebuild, how much time do I actually have left at that point?”
