Residents told to ‘leave now’ as wildfires threaten Oklahoma towns
ABC News
(NORMAN, Okla.) — Winds of up to 75 mph were fanning multiple fast-moving Oklahoma wildfires on Wednesday morning, prompting evacuation orders for towns in the path of the flames, officials said.
Firefighters are battling blazes in Logan, Pawnee, Beckham and Roger Mills counties, including one about seven miles northwest of Sweetwater, near the Oklahoma-Texas border, officials said.
Residents of Meridian were ordered to evacuate early Wednesday as a fire came within two miles of the Logan County town. Officials rescinded the order after several hours as a cold front developed and raised humidity in the area, officials said.
In Roger Mills County, residents of Durham and Dead Warrior Lake were also told to evacuate around 4 a.m. local time Wednesday, as a fire nearby was spreading rapidly, officials said.
The fires erupted amid red flag warnings for extreme fire danger that were issued by the National Weather Service.
“Firefighters and incident responders should anticipate extreme fire behavior, including wind-driven and torching fire,” the NWS office in Norman, Oklahoma, said in a social media post around 6 a.m.
There were no reports of injuries or structures damaged from the blazes.
The fires came on the heels of a 30,000 acre wildfire that erupted on Friday in Logan County and destroyed more than 100 homes. The Logan County fire was just 25% contained on Tuesday and officials suspect embers from the blaze caused the new fire near Meridian on Wednesday.
At one point over the weekend, there were 130 fires reported in 44 counties across Oklahoma that killed four people, destroyed more than 400 homes and burned a total of 170,000 acres, officials said.
The Oklahoma fires erupted amid severe weather across the South and Midwest, which included several deadly tornadoes and dust storms. At least 42 people were killed, including two young brothers in North Carolina when an uprooted tree fell on their mobile home.
Up to 26 million people were under red flag warnings on Wednesday morning from west Texas to Illinois. Dangerous fire conditions — including high winds, dry vegetation and low humidity — are also expected Wednesday in parts of West Virginia, eastern Ohio and eastern Kentucky.
Up to 75 million people were under high wind alerts on Wednesday in 20 states from Nebraska to Georgia.
Meanwhile, more than 3 million people were under a blizzard warning on Wednesday from Colorado to Minnesota, where blowing snow is expected to be so strong that visibility will be reduced to a quarter-mile or less, making travel on roadways hazardous. Snow accumulations could reach 2 to 10 inches across the area, with winds gusting over 70 mph.
A line of thunderstorms is expected to move through the upper Midwest on Wednesday, creating the risk of strong tornadoes. Cities with the greatest risk of seeing severe weather include Peoria and Springfield, Illinois. Severe weather is also expected to move into Chicago; Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, Indiana; and Louisville, Kentucky.
ABC News’ Kenton Gewecke and Ginger Zee contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Mayor Eric Adams of New York City will limit his public schedule this week, as he undergoes “routine” medical tests during a series of doctors’ appointments, an aide said.
“Over the last few days, Mayor Adams hasn’t been feeling his best,” Fabien Levy, the mayor’s spokesperson, said on social media late Sunday.
Levy asked for privacy for the mayor’s personal matters. Adams’ office “will continue to communicate in the unlikely event he is unable to fully discharge his duties on any particular day,” Levy said.
“New Yorkers can rest assured that their local government will continue to deliver for them every day as our committed workforce at City Hall, and more than 300,000 employees at dozens of city agencies, continue to show up on the most important issues,” Levy said.
Adams, 64, is expected to stand trial on federal corruption charges in April.
He was indicted in September and charged with five criminal counts, including wire fraud, bribery and solicitation of contribution from a foreign national. He pleaded not guilty.
Adams meet with President-elect Donald Trump prior to his inauguration earlier this month, according to his office.
“President Trump and I had a productive conversation about New York’s needs and what’s best for our city, and how the federal government can play a more helpful role in improving the lives of New Yorkers,” Adams said in a statement.
Adams said he and Trump “did not discuss my legal case.”
ABC News’ Claire Brinberg contributed to this report.
(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.
(SANFORD, Fla.) — A 17-year-old was arrested on Sunday after posting a video online allegedly plotting a shooting at a high school in Florida, according to the Sanford Police Department.
Officials said they received an anonymous tip on Saturday regarding a “video of an unknown male threatening to shoot up Seminole High School.”
The video “pictured the subject with multiple guns, vests and other items of concern,” authorities said in a statement on Sunday.
Timothy A. Thomas, 17, was ultimately confirmed as the student in the video, police said. Thomas was charged with intimidation through a written or electronic threat of a mass shooting or act of terrorism, police said.
Thomas is a student at Elevation High School, which is approximately 4 miles from Seminole High School. He was found at his residence and “taken into custody without incident,” officials said.
The weapons — which were seized after the teen’s arrest — were “extremely realistic Airsoft replicas,” according to police.
Sanford Chief of Police Cecil Smith applauded the “swift dedication and arrest” of the suspect.
“This fact action and teamwork most likely prevented a tragedy and saved multiple lives,” Smith said in a statement.
Serita Beamon, superintendent of Seminole County Public Schools, said she was “thankful” for law enforcement’s prompt response to the threats.
“The safety of our students and staff is our highest priority, and we will continue to take any potential threat seriously, and act quickly,” Beamon said in a statement.
Anyone with additional information about the incident should reach out to the Sanford Police Department or Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477).
