Arctic blast to blanket much of US with below-freezing temperatures
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(NEW YORK) — Millions of Americans should prepare for an Arctic blast that will blanket much of the country in below-freezing temperatures over the next several days.
Frigid conditions are expected over a large swath of the contiguous U.S. in the aftermath of a powerful cold front moving through the East Coast on Wednesday, forecasts show.
Once the rain and wind has subsided, the icy conditions will extend east and south from the upper Midwest — reaching as far as Texas and Florida.
The cold air moving over the Great Lakes while they are still ice-free is expected to generate a lake effect snow event.
The National Weather Service has issued a lake effect snow warning for portions of northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York, where locally 2 feet to 3 feet of snow is possible, forecasts show.
A winter storm warning has also been issued across portions of Wisconsin and Michigan, where locally 1 foot to 2 feet of lake-effect snow is possible.
Chilly temperatures got an early start in the upper Midwest. On Wednesday morning, wind chills dipped to as low as -38 degrees in eastern North Dakota.
The arctic air mass will then move east and south, bringing the coldest air of the season from Texas to New York. A frost advisory has even been issued for parts of northern Florida, including Gainesville.
The frigid temperatures are expected to last through Friday and evening Saturday morning in some regions, including Minneapolis, Chicago, New York City and Atlanta.
The cold will begin to ease this weekend, first across the center of the country, then reaching the East Coast by Sunday and Monday.
Above average temperatures are favored across much of the country next week, according to the latest forecast from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
(NEW YORK) — A former OceanGate employee got emotional while remembering the people killed in the catastrophic implosion of the company’s Titan submersible during a hearing on the incident Tuesday.
“I had the privilege of knowing the explorers whose lives were lost,” Amber Bay, former OceanGate director of administration, said during the U.S. Coast Guard hearing. “There’s not a day that passes that I don’t think of them, their families and their loss. It’s been a difficult year for them, for all of us.”
OceanGate co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush, French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, were killed when the Titan imploded during a deep-sea voyage to the Titanic wreckage in June 2023.
Bay said she believes the teenager was the youngest person to ever dive on the Titan, and that there were “no true misgivings” about his age ahead of the dive.
“Stockton had spoke to the family directly on a few occasions and met with them personally,” she said. “So there was no concerns once they had been spoken with and understood. Everyone understood and was ready and excited to dive.”
Bay started working for OceanGate in December 2018. She said part of her duties included the care of the “mission specialists” — what the company called those who paid to go on dives — during expeditions.
She described a mission specialist, who paid $250,000 for the Titan dive, as someone who was “curious about deep-sea exploration” and understood that “this wasn’t a luxury trip.”
“As Stockton put it, there was no chocolate on the pillow,” she said. “They were invited to be involved and take an active role as much as possible as they wanted to.”
Towing concerns
Bay said she was present for all Titan missions in 2021 and 2022, as well as the first three in 2023 — missing the fourth and fifth, which would turn out to be the last, due to a family obligation.
OceanGate utilized the Horizon Arctic as its support ship in 2021 and 2022, though the vessel was no longer available in 2023 so they started utilizing the Polar Prince, she said. The 2023 missions started earlier in the year than previous missions due to the Polar Prince’s availability, she said.
Asked if she had any concerns about towing the Titan the 370 nautical miles to the Titanic wreck site, she said, “Certainly.”
“I think anybody would have, you know, concerns that this was going to be more challenging and more difficult in some aspects,” she said. “Stockton assured us that he was up for the challenge and the team was up for the challenge.”
She noted differences in the weather and water conditions on the 2023 missions compared to previous years.
“The seas were much higher than earlier on, than I remember being on the Horizon Arctic,” she said. “It was much colder. There’s a lot of rain.”
Asked if the Titan was ever damaged during the towing that year, she said she believed the vessel lost or damaged a fairing — a plastic cover that goes over the sub, “just like a car bumper.” She said on one or two occasions the platform also took on water and started to list.
Bay refutes prior witness testimony
A former OceanGate contractor who testified during the hearing last week, Antonella Wilby, told investigators about a conversation she had with Bay about a 2022 dive, during which passengers heard a loud bang as the Titan was ascending.
Wilby testified that when she brought up a customer’s concerns about the loud bang to Bay, Bay told her, “You have a bad attitude. You don’t have an explorer mindset. You know, we’re innovative and we’re cowboys, and a lot of people can’t handle that.”
Asked to explain those remarks on Tuesday, Bay refuted the testimony.
“I don’t believe that either of those statements is exactly what I had said,” she said.
She said Wilby’s concerns were “looked into and notated,” though she had no knowledge of what she was specifically referencing.
Bay said she did not deal with safety concerns and would refer people to the head of engineering, the director of operations and Rush.
“I did ask her if she did have concerns, to bring those up to those particular people,” Bay said.
She said she believed OceanGate staff felt comfortable raising safety concerns with Rush.
“I wasn’t witness to those types of meetings, but I was witness to people saying, ‘Oh yeah, I talked to Stockton about that today,'” she said.
OceanGate’s financial problems
At the beginning of 2023, OceanGate’s finances were “getting very tight,” and employees were asked to have their paychecks deferred once, Bay said.
“We were looking to make ends meet, and if we were able to defer our paychecks, there was an offer that Stockton had derived — I believe with an attorney or whomever — that we could delay our paychecks and be paid a small amount of interest and recaptured at a specific time,” she said.
She said she and Rush delayed their paychecks once.
Phil Brooks, the former engineering director of OceanGate, testified on Monday that he left the company in February 2023 in part due to the financial issues.
“It was clear that the company was economically very stressed,” he said.
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the deadly implosion.
The two-week hearing on the incident is scheduled to run through Friday.
(NEW YORK) — A massive plume of moisture from the Pacific called an atmospheric river will hit the West Coast on Tuesday afternoon and last into Friday.
The storm is expected to become a bomb cyclone — which means the pressure in the center of the storm will drop 24 millibars within 24 hours.
The storm could be so strong that it even drops close to double that rate — meaning more than 40 millibars in 24 hours.
Numerous alerts for snow, flooding, high wind and high surf have been issued along the West Coast, from the San Francisco Bay area to Oregon to Washington.
Rain totals could surpass 1 foot in Northern California and southern Oregon. More than 3 feet of snow is possible in the higher elevations.
Wind gusts could reach 85 mph along the coast and waves could climb to 34 feet.
By the weekend, some of the rain from this system will make its way to Southern California.
(MINNEAPOLIS, Mn) Police in Minneapolis arrested a man early Monday morning on charges of second-degree attempted murder for allegedly shooting his neighbor following a year-long dispute.
The arrest came after an intense standoff between a SWAT team and the suspect, 54-year-old John Herbert Sawchak, who surrendered peacefully on Monday, according to police.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, whose office is prosecuting the case, confirmed to ABC News on Monday that Sawchak is in custody and is being held on suspicion of second-degree attempted murder after allegedly shooting his neighbor, Davis Moturi, on the evening of Oct. 23, 2024.
“It was a very traumatic moment,” Moturi told ABC News in an interview on Sunday from his hospital bed. “Just to realize that like, you’ve been injured like that. Not only, not only shot, but shot in your neck and the people are fighting to save your life. And you don’t know if you can make it.”
According to a probable cause statement obtained by ABC News, Moturi’s’ wife told police that her husband was shot while he was outside pruning a tree near the couple’s property line. The incident was captured on surveillance video that was obtained by ABC News.
The suspect allegedly told Davis Moturi, “Touch my tree again and I’ll kill you,” Moturi’s wife told police, according to the probable cause statement.
Police said that the incident came after a year-old dispute between Moturi and Sawchak.
“Defendant has made countless other threats and engaged in almost constant harassment of the victim and his wife since they purchased their home in September 2023,” the probable cause statement said, referencing at least 19 other incidents of “vandalism, property destruction/theft, harassment, hate speech, verbal threats and threatened physical assaults” – the oldest of which dates back to October 2023.
“Even before [the shooting], it had a major impact on my life,” Moturi told ABC News, referencing the ongoing dispute with his neighbor.
According to charging documents obtained by ABC News, Sawchak is facing three additional felony charges for stalking, harassment and assault.
Minneapolis Police Department Chief Brian O’Hara said during an early morning press conference on Monday that there were multiple warrants out for Sawchak’s arrest, but he evaded police for four days and refused to emerge from his home.
“Minneapolis police exhausted all of our efforts to peacefully bring this situation to a resolution without prior to escalating the use of force with a SWAT team and special tactics,” O’Hara said.
“Thankfully, our officers were able to peacefully arrest this individual tonight after several hours of a SWAT operation,” he added.
ABC News’ attempts to reach out directly to Sawchak were unsuccessful and it is unclear if he has retained an attorney. Hennepin County District Attorney Mary Moriarty told ABC News on Monday that Sawchak is in custody and is scheduled to make his first appearance in court on Tuesday afternoon.
O’Hara said on Monday that police made “dozens of attempts” to arrest Sawchak since April but “were unable to make contact with this individual.”
O’Hara acknowledged that law enforcement “failed” to protect Moturi in this case.
“We were unsuccessful,” O’Hara said, in reference to prior attempts to arrest the suspect. “And so in that sense, yes, we failed. We failed this victim. He should not have been shot. But I will say this – we had no reason to suspect that he would shoot … the neighbor from inside the house.”
