Once-in-a-generation storm to bring historic rainfall, flooding: Latest forecast
ABC News
(OKLAHOMA CITY, OK) — A once-in-a generation extreme weather event is beginning Wednesday with a tornado outbreak and will continue into the weekend with four days of dangerous flooding pounding the same region.
First, wind gusts up to 50 mph are possible all day Wednesday for more than 65 million Americans across 13 states from Texas to Ohio.
A tornado watch is in place for Oklahoma, eastern Kansas and northwest Missouri on Wednesday morning. At least two tornadoes have already been reported in Missouri on Wednesday morning.
There’s a rare high risk (level 5 of 5) warning for destructive storms, which could bring strong, long-track tornadoes of EF3+ strength, very large hail up to the size of tennis balls and destructive winds greater than 70 mph.
Wednesday’s high risk area spans Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, to Paducah, Kentucky. The high risk lasts from Wednesday afternoon until midnight.
A level 5 of 5 high risk is issued less than 1% of days; people within the area are three times more likely to be hit by a tornado than in a 1 of 5 risk area.
A level 4 of 5 warning is in effect from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Louisville, Kentucky.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has declared a state of emergency.
“We’re really concerned about people’s safety, especially in the overnight, because when storms or tornadoes hit while people are asleep, that’s sadly when we’ve lost the most people,” he said in a statement. “So, everybody out there, be really careful.”
But the biggest threat is from the rain.
Historically high rainfall will create a particularly dangerous situation, or PDS, for flooding Wednesday through Sunday.
Nearly 4 million Americans are under the PDS flood watch in Arkansas, northern Mississippi and western Tennessee through Sunday morning. Cities in the PDS flood watch include Memphis, Little Rock, Jonesboro and Union City.
On Wednesday, a moderate risk for excessive rainfall (level 3 of 4) is in place from Little Rock to Memphis to Nashville to Louisville.
Overall, more than 32 million Americans are under a general flood watch until Sunday morning. Major cities in this general flood watch include Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Detroit.
On Thursday, the flood threat grows even more extreme over the same area. A rare high risk (level 4 of 4) from excessive rainfall will be in place from Jonesboro to the Memphis suburbs to Paducah.
On Friday, a moderate risk (level 3 of 4) for excessive rainfall is in place from just north of Dallas to Jonesboro to St. Louis.
On Saturday, the final day of this multiday life-threatening event will bring even more heavy rain from Jonesboro to Memphis to Louisville to Cincinnati.
The four-day event will leave 10 to 15 inches of rain or more over the bull’s-eye area from Jonesboro to Paducah. Seven to 10 inches of rain is possible from Little Rock to Memphis to Louisville to Cincinnati.
The system will finally be on the move Sunday afternoon, bringing rain to the Southeast on Sunday evening, Monday and Tuesday.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Top white shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell will represent President Donald Trump as he appeals his criminal hush money conviction in New York, according to court filings Wednesday.
The new attorneys filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, signaling their intention to appeal Trump’s conviction to New York’s Appellate Division, First Department.
Among Trump’s new lawyers is firm co-chair Robert J. Giuffra.
“President Donald J. Trump’s appeal is important for the rule of law, New York’s reputation as a global business, financial and legal center, as well as for the presidency and all public officials,” Giuffra said in a statement. “The misuse of the criminal law by the Manhattan DA to target President Trump sets a dangerous precedent, and we look forward to the case being dismissed on appeal.”
The change in attorneys followed Trump’s naming of his former lead attorneys, Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and John Sauer, to top roles in the Justice Department.
Blanche has been nominated for deputy attorney general, Sauer as solicitor general, and Bove as principal associate deputy attorney general.
Sauer led Trump’s successful appeals, including at the U.S. Supreme Court, that led to the dismissals of federal prosecutions in Trump’s Jan. 6 and classified documents cases.
Blanche and Bove led the defense team at Trump’s criminal trial in New York that ended in Trump’s conviction last May on all 34 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.
The judge in the case, Juan Merchan, sentenced Trump prior to his inauguration to an unconditional discharge, sparing Trump any prison time, fines or probation.
Fort Knox, Kentucky: Exterior view of the United States Bullion Depository at Ft. Knox, Kentucky. (Bettmann via Getty Images)
(FORT KNOX, KY) — President Donald Trump is casting doubt — without providing evidence — over whether much of the nation’s store of gold still exists at the famous United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, raising questions about whether somebody “stole” it.
What’s more, he’s said he wants to go to Fort Knox to see for himself.
The ultra-secure facility holds approximately 147.3 million ounces of gold, according to the U.S. Mint.
In raising questions, Trump is echoing Elon Musk, who has repeatedly questioned the whereabouts of the gold.
Their expressed skepticism comes despite Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying that there is an audit every year and that “all the gold is present and accounted for.”
It’s also despite Trump’s treasury secretary in his first term, Steven Mnuchin, personally visiting the reserves and confirming that the gold was there.
Still, both Musk and Trump continue to raise questions without evidence.
In an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast released Friday — one of Musk’s first comprehensive interviews since becoming a “special government employee” — Musk repeated this suspicion.
“A live tour of Fort Knox would be awesome … is the gold there or not? They say it is — is it real? Or did somebody spray paint some lead?” he asked.
In fact, these concerns appear to be brought to Musk’s attention recently. On Feb. 15, he reacted to an X post that asked him to look into the gold supply, in which he responded, “Surely it’s reviewed at least every year?”
Fort Knox is a military base that has stored U.S. gold since 1937, according to the U.S. Army’s website.
What do Trump and Musk believe?
Last week, Trump brought up the gold supply after being asked about Musk’s most recent DOGE efforts.
“We have found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud so far. And we’ve just started. We’re actually going to Fort Knox to see if the gold is there, because maybe somebody stole the gold. Tons of gold,” Trump said.
He raised it again at his recent meeting with the nation’s governors at the White House on Feb. 21, saying that they plan to “open the doors to Fort Knox.”
“You grew up hearing about Fort Knox. You can’t get in. You can’t even see it. Nobody sees it. You go there and the place is dry,” Trump said.
Trump also referred to the site as the “fabled Fort Knox” while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One last week.
Musk — who has been tasked to eliminate government waste and fraud — has repeatedly expressed suspicion about the gold bars.
“This gold is the property of the American people. I sure hope it’s still there!” he wrote on X last month. He has also repeatedly touted that the gold could have been stolen, asking on X, “who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox?”
Musk floated the idea of live-streaming a walkthrough of Fort Knox, responding to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ coverage of his comments by suggesting he’d like to film inside the vaults.
He repeated this idea during the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, in addition to saying, “part of this is also, you know, let’s have some fun.”
During Musk’s podcast appearance with Joe Rogan on Friday, Rogan asked the billionaire to think about his DOGE findings in relation to the gold.
“Think about all the other stuff that you pointed out. All the checks that just go out, the NGO payments, the social security people … now apply that to the gold,” Rogan said, to which Musk replied, “absolutely.”
Not all members of Trump’s administration share the same doubts.
“I think the gold is probably there. It’s probably almost certainly there,” David Sacks, Trump’s crypto czar, told Fox News last week, though he still agreed with the president’s calls to investigate the matter.
“Nobody thinks this is a crazy idea to go check because we don’t know,” Sacks added, arguing that “we cannot fully trust that our gold is still in Fort Knox” because of the “corruption” in Washington.
When was the gold last seen?
According to the U.S. Mint, “the only gold removed has been very small quantities used to test the purity of gold during regularly scheduled audits,” and no other gold has been transferred to or from the depository “for many years.”
The building was constructed using 16,000 cubic feet of granite, 4,200 cubic yards of concrete, 750 tons of reinforcing steel, and 670 tons of structural steel, the U.S. Mint says.
The gold is located at Fort Knox because it is “far from either coast, adjacent to a military installation for added security and close to a rail head for transportation,” according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Mint.
The depository has a strict no-visitors policy, as Trump alluded to, and even the president is restricted from accessing the vault. Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only non-authorized person to obtain access.
However, it first opened it in 1974 for journalists and a congressional delegation to view the reserves after rumors swirled surrounding the gold’s whereabouts.
“We’ve never done this before and we’ll probably never do it again,” then-Director of the U.S. Mint Mary Brooks said after displaying the gold supply, according to a New York Times report following the visit.
The second viewing came over 40 years later in 2017 during Trump’s first administration. Then-Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were members of a delegation invited to view the gold.
“The gold was there when I visited it,” Mnuchin said in Feb., adding that he’s “sure” nobody’s moved it and emphasizing the “serious security protocols in place.”
Former Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin — who was present during this visit — also attested to the gold being at Fort Knox.
“The reality is, there is an extraordinary amount of gold that is in there,” Bevin told Fox News Business last week. He added that he agrees in transparency and that “the people’s wealth should be known and accounted for, no question.”
“Is it possible that through the years things could be taken? It is,” he admitted, before arguing that the building “is so ridiculously secure that it is not possible to sneak anything out of there.”
Bevin also floated the possibility that Musk, as the world’s richest man, may want to see what his riches look like “in physical form.”
“It is almost equivalent to how much his net worth is,” Bevin said, admitting that he would want to see the gold, too, if he were Musk.
There are “restrictions on sharing any information related to the facility’s security,” according to documents detailing the 2017 visit’s schedule and security measures published by CNN.
“Access to the USBD is limited, as the facility exists solely for the storage of gold,” the document said. “To prevent compromise of security, photographs will be subject to review by the U.S. Mint Police.”
“The Treasury Secretary allows the visit when rumors persist that all the gold had been removed from the vaults,” the U.S. Mint said in a statement.
After affirming that “all” of the gold was present, Bessent said last month, “any senator, they call the Treasury, we’re happy to arrange a visit. They can do an inspection.”
According to the Treasury’s monthly status report tracking gold owned by the Treasury, 147.3 million ounces of gold were recorded in Fort Knox as of Jan. 31, 2025.
Fort Knox has also been utilized to temporarily store valuable historical items, such as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution during World War II, as well as the Magna Carta.
The urgency to locate the gold comes despite the U.S. dollar no longer being linked to the value of gold. In 1971, Roosevelt ended the gold standard and switched to a fiat money system.
However, the traditional belief that the U.S. dollar and gold have an inverse relationship still prevails. When the dollar weakens — especially during times of inflation — the value of gold is believed to increase.
Conspiracy theories surrounding Fort Knox
Rumors of the gold being missing or stolen have been a decades-long conspiracy theory.
In 1971, Peter Beter, a lawyer and financial adviser to former President John F. Kennedy, alleged that British spies informed him that the gold in Fort Knox was secretly removed, the Washington Post reported.
Beter’s book, The Conspiracy Against the Dollar, continued to make such allegations that gold was missing. The 1974 visit, inviting journalists and congressmen to view the vault, followed soon after.
The 1964 James Bond film, “Goldfinger,” also centers around a gold smuggler who is being investigated for scheming a break in of Fort Knox in an attempt to contaminate its gold supply.
In 2010, then-Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was outspoken in his suspicions regarding the gold’s whereabouts. He introduced the “Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2011” which called for a full audit of U.S. gold reserves.
When asked during an interview last month if he thinks the U.S. government has all the gold it claims to have, Paul said “no, I don’t. But I don’t have evidence to prove it.”
“Even if they showed us the gold, maybe the gold has been loaned out,” Paul said, citing ways that the government can “deceive the people.”
Musk has expressed support for Paul, even throwing his support behind calls for the former congressman to audit the gold.
Last month, in response to X posts asking Paul to audit the Federal Reserve, Musk responded “good idea” and “this will be great.”
Ron Paul’s son, Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, weighed in with a similar position to his father. Responding to Musk’s tweet asking whether the Fort Knox gold supply is reviewed every year, Rand Paul responded, “Nope. Let’s do it.”
On Feb. 21, Rand Paul penned a letter to Bessent requesting to audit the gold reserves at Fort Knox.
Appearing on “Fox and Friends” last month, Rand Paul acknowledged that the treasury secretary attested that the gold was there but emphasized the need for it to be audited, arguing “the more transparency, the better.”
Musk appears to not mind that his claims are perceived to be tied to conspiracy theories.
During The Joe Rogan Experience, the podcast episode opened with Rogan and Musk attempting to ask Musk’s Grok AI machine if all the gold is still in Fort Knox. While Grok AI did not provide an answer, she asked if Musk was a “conspiracy theorist” to which the two shared bouts of laughter over.
“These conspiracy theories don’t really spread per se on their own, beliefs in these conspiracy theories are instead a product of politicians and media elites sharing these ideas to trusting audiences who are already disposed toward believing them,” Peter Uscinski, professor at University of Miami that specializes in conspiracy theories, told ABC News.
“Trump and his allies have shared numerous conspiracy theories over the past eight years; there is nothing new about this, and it ties in closely with Trump and Musk setting themselves up as people who are uncovering fraud in the government,” Uscinski added.
ABC News’ Will Steakin contributed to this report.
