Over 1,400 flights canceled nationwide as snowy weather hits upper Midwest
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(NEW YORK) — Over 1,400 flights have been canceled nationwide with the majority due to weather hitting the upper Midwest, according to FlightAware.
Chicago O’Hare International Airport is the most impacted airport by far, with over 930 cancellations and over 750 delays as of Saturday afternoon. Flights leaving to O’Hare are delayed an average of five hours due to snow and ice, according to the FAA.
Chicago Midway has 187 cancellations and 85 delays. Both airports have been issued ground stops.
The heaviest snow in Chicago is expected Saturday between 12 p.m. and 8 p.m.
The snow becomes lighter overnight into Sunday morning, with some lingering snow winding down by 12 p.m. Sunday. Between 6 to 10 inches of snow are possible.
A cross-country storm already brought snow from Montana to Missouri later Friday. The storm has begun to move into parts of the Midwest Saturday morning, impacting travel for millions making the journey back home from the holiday.
Winter weather alerts are up for millions ahead of this system from North and South Dakota down to Indiana and Michigan.
(NEW YORK) — Sea level rise caused by climate change could cause thousands of toxic sites in the U.S. to flood in the coming decades, according to new research.
Under a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario, more than 5,500 hazardous sites across the U.S. will be at risk of a 1-in-100-year flood by the year 2100, according to a paper published Thursday in Nature. These sites include facilities that handle sewage, toxic waste, oil and gas and other industrial pollutants as well as formerly used defense sites, according to a paper published Thursday in Nature.
Of the the at-risk sites, at least 3,800 locations are projected to flood by 2050, the study found.
Many of the U.S. coastlines are heavily industrialized for a variety of reasons, including access to raw materials and proximity to open seas transportation, Lara Cushing, an associate professor of environmental health science at the University of California Los Angeles and lead author of the paper, told ABC News.
In the past several decades, extreme flooding events caused by storms like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017 flooded industrial facilities, releasing toxic chemicals into the floodwaters and air, Cushing said.
Researchers at UCLA put together a database of industrial and contaminated sites, such as sewage treatment plants, active oil and gas refineries and other types of industrial facilities — a total of nearly 50,000 sites across 23 coastal U.S. states and Puerto Rico, Cushing said. They then estimated flood risks at those locations for the years 2050 and 2100 under greenhouse emissions scenarios: high emissions and moderate emissions.
The findings indicate that the states at most risk of flooding at toxic sites include Florida, New Jersey, California, Louisiana, New York, Massachusetts and Texas. Those seven states account for nearly 80% of the hazardous sites at risk by 2100, according to the paper.
“That gives us a sense of where we might want to focus our efforts,” Cushing said.
If these sites were to flood, they could pose serious threats to public health and neighboring communities, according to the paper.
Oil-related infrastructure, such as refineries, ports and terminals, are particularly risky due to the possibility of oil spills but also because of the chemicals that are used to refine the oil, Cushing said.
The researchers also found that residents in marginalized communities will likely be impacted by flooding at toxic sites at higher rates.
The researchers defined neighborhoods across the U.S. into census block groups, classifying them as either being near at-risk sites or not near at-risk sites, but still in coastal areas, Cushing said. They then compared the census geography to different metrics of social marginalization or vulnerability to flooding related to adverse outcomes, such as income, housing tenure, linguistic isolation, access to vehicles and other demographic factors.
They found that low-income communities, communities of color and communities with low levels of voter turnout and access to vehicles are more likely to live near sites of future flood risk due to sea level rise, Cushing said.
Human-amplified climate change is the primary cause for present-day rising sea levels, according to climate scientists. Sea level rise is also accelerating, with the U.S. coastline projected to experience an sea level rise of about 11 inches, according to the federal government’s Fifth National Climate Assessment. That amount of sea level rise previously took 100 years to reach, between 1920 and 2020.
The Gulf Coast — especially in states like Louisiana and Texas — is of particular concern due to the high concentration of petrochemical industries in low-lying areas, increased threat of strong hurricanes and projected level of sea level rise in the region, Cushing said.
By 2050, the eastern Gulf Coast is projected to experience an average sea level rise of 8 to 12 inches, with an even greater increases of 12 to 16 inches along the western Gulf Coast, according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
Much of the risk of sea level rise is already locked in due to past emissions, the researchers said. But mitigation for global warming is needed to prevent the most drastic outcomes, Cushing said.
“The implications of our research suggests that this issues needs more attention, both in terms of mitigation plans and emergency preparedness and also things like cleanup plans and standards for legacy contamination,” she said.
In addition, coastal communities, including underserved groups, need access to critical data and resources in order to effectively fortify their resilience to climate change, said Rachel Morello-Frosch, a professor of environmental health sciences community health sciences at UCLA and co-author of the paper.
“There are potential solutions, if policy makers are ready to move forward,” Morello-Frosch said in a statement. “And there is a clear need for disaster planning and land-use decision-making, as well as mitigation strategies to address the inequitable hazards and potential health threats posed by sea level rise.”
(NEW YORK) — The suspect who was killed in a shootout over the weekend that left four Kansas law enforcement officers injured was identified on Sunday as a 22-year-old man, whose grandfather was also hurt in the incident, authorities said.
The suspect, Stephen M. McMillan, allegedly opened fire on officers who responded to a “domestic disturbance” call at his family’s rural farmhouse in Osage County, Kansas, at around 10:30 on Saturday morning, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI).
Three Osage County Sheriff’s Department deputies and a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper were shot in the confrontation that unfolded near Carbondale, about 16 miles south of Topeka, authorities said.
Two wounded deputies underwent surgery overnight at Stormont-Vail Regional Medical Center in Topeka and were listed in good condition, the KBI said in a statement on Sunday. The third deputy was discharged from the hospital, according to the KBI.
The injured highway patrol trooper was initially treated for a gunshot wound at Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center and later transferred to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, according to the KBI. He has since been released, officials said.
McMillan’s 77-year-old grandfather, whose name was not released, remained hospitalized as of Saturday evening with a gunshot injury and is expected to survive, according to the KBI.
During a news conference on Saturday, Col. Erik Smith, superintendent of the Kansas Highway Patrol, said the shooting occurred after a woman at the farmhouse called 911 seeking help for a domestic disturbance that was unfolding.
Upon arrival, the officers encountered the allegedly armed McMillan standing outside the residence, authorities said.
“After being on scene for less than 10 minutes, gunfire erupted,” Smith said.
Five officers, including an additional highway patrol trooper who was not injured, opened fire on the suspect outside the farmhouse, killing him, according to KBI Director Tony Mattivi, who also said McMillan’s grandfather was injured during the exchange of gunfire.
A motive for the shooting remains under investigation by the KBI, Mattivi said.
(NEW YORK) — Over 20 “ill-prepared” hikers were rescued from New Hampshire’s Mount Washington after they were trapped in “full winter conditions” without the proper gear, with some developing hypothermia, according to the Mount Washington Cog Railway.
The hikers, who were rescued on Saturday by railway officials, had reached the mountain’s 6,288-foot summit, but “most had no idea that summit services would be unavailable and that the state park was closed for the season,” Andy Vilaine, the assistant general manager for the Mount Washington Cog Railway, said in a statement on Saturday.
The train was heading to the summit as normal when crew members discovered “several distressed hikers,” Vilaine said in a statement to ABC News.
The hikers told the train officials they “didn’t think they would be able to hike back down,” with Vilaine agreeing after “assessing some of their conditions and outward appearance,” he said.
Many of the hikers were showing the “beginning signs of hypothermia” due to their “poor choice of clothing, including non-waterproof layers and sneakers,” Vilaine told ABC News.
Some of the hikers even admitted it was “their first hike ever,” Vilaine said.
Near the summit, temperatures on Saturday reached roughly between 15 to 18 degrees, with a wind chill anywhere between minus 5 and zero degrees, Vilaine said.
Train crew members created space “anywhere we could” for the hikers, with some even placed in locomotive cabs “with the heat on full-blast so they could start to reverse the effects of hypothermia,” Vilaine said.
“Had we not been able to assist the hikers with the one-way ride, there is little doubt in my mind that several more complex rescue efforts may have needed to be undertaken,” Vilaine told ABC News.
After the hikers were rescued, New Hampshire State Parks released a statement on Sunday urging those hiking in the winter conditions to be responsible as “multiple people have arrived at the summit the last few days very unprepared for winter and required assistance.”
Another hiker was rescued from Mount Washington on Sunday after he was “caught in a windblown snow with a dying light and cellphone near the summit,” according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.
The 20-year-old hiker from Rhode Island was “on the upper reaches of the Tuckerman Ravine Trail,” which is approximately 0.3 miles below the mountain’s summit, when he alerted rescuers that his headlamp and cellphone were “rapidly dying,” the fish and game department said in a press release on Monday.
The hiker was “found to have done some research on his hike, but was absolutely unprepared for the conditions that he encountered,” the department said. The 20-year-old was found uninjured and “thanked the rescuers multiple times in the aftermath of this event,” the department said.
“This situation could have had a very bad outcome, and everyone involved recognized that fact,” the department said.
Officials emphasized that hikers must bring “everything needed to hike in winter conditions,” or to simply “just hike another day.”
“It’s literally a life or death situation if they go up there unprepared,” Lt. Mark Ober with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department told Manchester, New Hampshire, ABC affiliate WMUR.
Cris Hazzard, a professional hiking guide and author, known as “The Hiking Guy,” previously told ABC News that several minutes of “homework” before embarking on an outdoor excursion — including checking the website of the trail or park or downloading an app like AllTrails — can help hikers avoid challenging conditions or become aware of specific closures.
