At least 11 dead after record-breaking snowstorm swept across the South
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(NEW YORK) — The Gulf Coast is digging out from a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm that struck from Texas to Florida, closing airports, crippling roadways and leaving freezing temperatures in its wake.
At least 11 deaths have been attributed to the storm and accompanying cold blast.
In Dale County, Alabama, one person was killed in a house fire after leaving their stove on to keep them warm and a second person was killed in a car accident, according to the local coroner.
One person died from hypothermia in Georgia and two people died in the cold in Austin, Texas, officials said.
Southwest of San Antonio, five people died when a tractor-trailer collided with other vehicles on an icy road, the Texas Department of Safety said.
In Moncks Corner, South Carolina, a 71-year-old man died while shoveling snow, according to the Berkeley County Coroner’s Office.
This storm brought more snow to some cities than any other storm in at least the last 130 years.
Florida saw its most snow on record, with 9.8 inches of snow recorded in Milton, northeast of Pensacola.
Pensacola also saw an all-time record for the city with 8.9 inches.
Texas experienced its first-ever blizzard warning. Beaumont, Texas, recorded 5.2 inches of snow — an all-time record.
Mobile, Alabama, saw an all-time record high of 7.5 inches.
In Louisiana, Baton Rouge saw 7.6 inches.
New Orleans recorded 8 inches, marking the most snow in the city since 1895.
And the danger isn’t over. An extreme cold warning is in effect Thursday morning from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle, with temperatures dropping as low as 12 degrees in parts of the Gulf Coast.
For Louisiana, this is the coldest it’s been in over 100 years, state climatologist Jay Grymes said.
While snow has melted in many areas, the freeze remains a serious threat. Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Joe Donahue is urging “everyone to avoid unnecessary travel.”
Many of the areas hit hard by the storm will thaw soon; temperatures are expected to climb to the 50s and 60s by Sunday.
(NEW YORK) — Dangerous, heavy rain is pounding the Los Angeles area, bringing a threat of flooding and debris flow to spots impacted by the recent devastating wildfires.
The rain will fluctuate from heavy to moderate to light throughout the morning, and rates may approach 1 inch per hour on steeper terrain.
One to 2 inches of rain is expected in the LA area, with more rain possible at higher elevations.
The rain will reach San Diego on Thursday morning and will end across Southern California in the afternoon.
Over 20 million people from the Los Angeles area to the San Diego area are under a flood watch.
The greatest risk for flooding and debris flow is in burn scar areas left by wildfires.
The burn scars and mountains around San Diego — where 1 to 3 inches of rain is expected — are the greatest risk for debris flows and rockslides.
In LA County, evacuation orders and warnings were issued for some burn scar areas impacted by January’s devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, according to the sheriff’s department and the mayor’s office.
“Wireless Emergency Alerts have been sent to targeted areas in and around where the Evacuation Warnings and Orders will be in effect,” the mayor’s office said.
(WASHINGTON) — While driving home Wednesday night on the George Washington Parkway near Ronald Reagan National Airport, Ari Shulman said a “spray of sparks” in the sky caught his attention as he watched in horror the midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter unfold.
Authorities said Thursday that the crash shattered the regional commuter airplane into pieces as it and the military helicopter plummeted into the icy Potomac River, killing everyone aboard both aircraft — 67 victims combined.
“I looked back and [the plane] was banked all the way to the right … it was illuminated yellow underneath and there was a spray of sparks on the underside,” Schulman told ABC News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts.
Security video released shortly after the crash confirmed Shulman’s description of the first major U.S. air disaster in nearly 16 years.
Video footage showed Flight 5342 with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard making its final approach to Reagan National when it was struck by a Black Hawk helicopter traveling south with a flight crew of three.
“I knew something was very wrong because it was very, very close to the ground — banked all the way to the right,” Shulman of Alexandria, Virginia, said.
He said he glanced at the road for just a moment.
“I looked back again and it was gone,” Shulman said. “I didn’t see any crash into the ground. I didn’t see a fireball, an explosion, or flames.”
Fire Chief John Donnelly of the Washington D.C. Fire Department said at a news conference Thursday morning that an American Airlines plane, operated by its subsidiary PSA Airlines, was found “inverted” in three pieces in waist-high water of the Potomac. He said the helicopter was discovered nearby.
“At this point, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident,” Donnelly said.
Donnelly said the search-and-rescue mission was not a search-and-recovery operation. He said 27 bodies had been recovered from the airplane and one from the helicopter.
Donnelly said that at 8:48 p.m. local time, the control tower at Reagan National sent out an alert of a plane crash.
“Very quickly, the call escalated,” Donnelly said.
He said 300 first responders raced to the river in a desperate attempt to find survivors, which would prove futile. Within 10 minutes, the first emergency unit arrived on the grisly scene, surveying the wreckage of both aircraft in the Potomac River.
“The water that we’re operating in is about 8 feet deep,” Donnelly told reporters at the somber early-morning briefing. “There is wind … pieces of ice out there, so it’s just dangerous and hard to work in. And because there’s not a lot of lights, you’re out there searching every square inch of space to see if you can find anybody.”
He added, “Divers are doing the same thing in the water. The water is dark, it is murky, and that is a very tough condition for them to dive in.”
Meanwhile, the medical staffs of three major Washington, D.C., hospitals said they were prepared to treat victims, but as the minutes turned into hours, no ambulances arrived from the crash site with patients.
From the banks of the Potomac, search helicopters were seen probing the water with searchlights as fire boats made trips back and forth through the icy Potomac, transporting what appeared to be debris from the crash, including suitcases.
Inside, the usually bustling airport was eerily quiet Wednesday evening. The departure and arrivals boards were nearly blank.
Jack Potter, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, said some family members were waiting to pick up loved ones before the crash, and American Airlines had set up a center in the airline’s lounge for family members.
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. District Judge Amir Ali denied the Department of Justice’s request to push the midnight deadline by which the Trump administration needs to pay more than $1.9 billion in foreign aid.
The case is now in the hands of a panel of three appellate judges – each nominated to the bench by Democratic presidents – who will decide whether to issue an emergency stay of the deadline.
In his decision denying the request to stay his deadline, Judge Ali criticized the Trump administration for waiting until Tuesday to raise the argument that they lack the ability to restart the funding.
“This is not something that Defendants have previously raised in this Court, whether at the hearing or any time before filing their notice of appeal and seeking a stay pending appeal. That is so even though Plaintiffs’ motion to enforce explicitly proposed compliance on this time frame,” Ali wrote.
Ali ordered the Trump administration on Tuesday to dole out delayed payments that could total nearly $2 billion, according to a USAID official, to multiple nonprofit groups, determining the Trump administration violated the terms of a temporary restraining order issued two weeks ago regarding freezing foreign aid.
A top official with the United States Agency for International Development claims that complying with Tuesday’s court order would require paying foreign aid groups nearly $2 billion, arguing the payments “cannot be accomplished” in the timeframe set by the court.
Lawyers with the Department of Justice asked Ali in a late-night filing on Tuesday to issue a stay of his order that requires the Trump administration to pay by Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. any outstanding debts to foreign aid groups for work completed prior to Feb. 13. The Trump administration initially tried to freeze the payments via an executive order before Judge Ali ordered the payments to resume two weeks ago.
DOJ lawyers argued that fulfilling the payments is not only technically impossible but would also prevent the Trump administration from ensuring the payments are “legitimate.”
“The order apparently requires the Government to expend taxpayer dollars without regard to any processes for ensuring that the expenses are legitimate—even though Executive Branch leadership harbors concerns about the possibility of waste and fraud and is in the process of developing revised payment processing systems to address those concerns,” DOJ attorney Indraneel Sur wrote in a late-night filing.
According to Peter Marocco, the deputy administrator of USAID and director of foreign assistance at the State Department, complying with the court order would require dispersing $1.5 billion between 2,000 payment requests at USAID and an additional $400 million in payments at the State Department.
Judge Amir Ali, a Biden-era appointee, excoriated Trump administration attorneys during a lengthy hearing on Tuesday over its failure to pay the groups for work they conducted prior to President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order, which froze all foreign aid for 90 days. Ali also signed an order to enforce a temporary restraining order he signed on Feb. 13, ruling the groups must be paid by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
“Plaintiffs submitted evidence that defendants have not lifted the suspension or freeze of funds as the [temporary restraining order] required. Defendants have not rebutted that evidence, and when asked today, defendants were not able to provide any specific examples of unfreezing funds pursuant to the Court’s TRO,” Judge Ali said after a two-hour hearing today.
Lawyers with the Department of Justice acknowledged that the Trump administration ignored the temporary restraining order, which prohibited them from freezing foreign aid funds since the order was issued. Instead, they argued that they should not be required to pay back the money because of “sovereign immunity.”
During an extended exchange with Ali, a DOJ lawyer struggled to answer basic questions about the Trump administration’s compliance with the temporary restraining order, which prevented the administration from freezing funds.
“I’m not sure why I can’t get a straight answer from you on this. Are you aware of an unfreezing of the disbursement of funds for those contracts and agreements that were frozen before February 13?” Ali asked. “Are you aware of steps taken to actually release those funds?”
“I’m not in a position to answer that,” DOJ attorney Indraneel Sur said.
“We’re 12 days in and you’re here representing the government…and you can’t answer me whether any funds that you’ve kind of acknowledged or covered by the court’s order have been unfrozen?” Judge Ali responded.
“All I can do, really, is say that the preparations are underway for the joint status report on compliance,” Sur said.
At one portion of the lengthy court hearing, Sur attempted to offer a legal justification for the Trump administration’s noncompliance, prompting a stern response from the judge about his order, the terms of which he said were “clear as day.”
“The purpose of this hearing is to understand and to hear arguments on the motion to enforce TRO. It is not an opportunity to re-litigate the TRO,” Ali said.
The DOJ filed a notice of appeal Tuesday.
A lawyer representing the nonprofits who brought the case argued that the lack of a response from the Trump administration amounts to defiance of the court order.
“What the court’s colloquy with the government has revealed is that the government has done nothing to make the flow of payments happen,” he said. “As far as we are aware, there’s been zero directives from the agency with respect to the unfreezing of funds.”
