Eagles parade: Philadelphia fans prepare for big Super Bowl celebration

(UNITY TOWNSHIP, Pa.) — The dangerous search for a missing grandmother who officials believe fell into a deep sinkhole in Pennsylvania is now considered a recovery effort, police said Wednesday.

A challenging excavation has been underway at an abandoned coal mine in Unity Township since Tuesday when police said Elizabeth Pollard was reported missing after she was not heard from after searching for her cat.

The sinkhole is believed to be tied to the mine and formed while Pollard was walking in the area, officials said.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Steve Limani said authorities are “virtually positive” that she is in the mine, though do not believe she could still be alive at this stage based on the conditions underground, including the level of oxygen.

“I know we had a lot of hopes,” Limani said during a press briefing Wednesday evening, calling the development “difficult.”

“Unless it’s a miracle, most likely it’s recovery,” Limani said, later noting that it’s “definitely recovery” at this stage.

Rescue crews have been pumping oxygen into the mine, though it’s “lower than what you’d want for someone to try and sustain their life,” he said.

Cameras and sound devices have not found any signs of life that would warrant them to try to push ahead with urgency at the risk posed to search crews, he said.

He said authorities have had an “emotional” conversation with Pollard’s family to update them on the shift to a recovery effort.

“It feels like we failed,” an emotional Limani said. “But if somebody else gets hurt, I think it would be worse.”

Limani said crews will continue to work to recover Pollard and are preparing for inclement weather to resume the search on Thursday.

“We’re not quitting,” he said. “We are going to continue to work through this. It’s just taken longer than we thought. And the mine is just not in good condition.”

Pollard was last seen Monday evening, police said. Her vehicle was located shortly before 3 a.m. Tuesday with her 5-year-old granddaughter safe inside, though Pollard was nowhere to be seen, police said.

While searching for Pollard in the area, troopers found an apparent sinkhole with an opening about the “size of a manhole” 15 to 20 feet away from the vehicle, according to Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Steve Limani.

Local firefighters, a technical rescue team and the state’s Bureau of Mine Safety worked alongside an excavation team to remove dirt to access the sinkhole, Limani said.

Search crews were able to make entry into the mine area, though the integrity of the mine has been compromised by the water they are using to break up the ground, Limani said. Parts of the mine have started to buckle and collapse, he said.

“We’re afraid we’re going to make it worse if try to continue to plow forward with the techniques that we were using,” he said.

The area where the sinkhole formed has a “very thin layer of earth” and appears to have been deteriorating “for a long time,” Limani said. Other areas near the sinkhole have been deemed unsafe and will be quarantined off with round-the-clock police surveillance, Limani said.

The mine last operated in 1952, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. The depth to the coal seam in this area is approximately 20 feet, a department spokesperson said.

Once the scene is clear, the department will investigate the site “to determine if this issue is the result of historic mine subsidence,” the spokesperson said.

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(NEW YORK) — Snow and rain are in the forecast for some parts of the U.S. as travelers hit the road and head to the airport for Thanksgiving.

Here’s your weather forecast for the holiday week:

Tuesday

Rain is sweeping across the East Coast from New York to Alabama on Tuesday morning.

There’s a slight chance for freezing rain in southern Vermont and the southern Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York before it warms enough to change to rain mid-day.

The rain will end in New York City and the Mid-Atlantic by mid-afternoon. Boston will be dry by 7 p.m.

In the West, 3 to 6 inches of rain is possible for the foothills of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range through Tuesday morning.

Heavy rain is also hitting California’s San Joaquin Valley.

Snow is falling at higher elevations from California to Colorado, with winter storm warnings in effect.

California’s snow will end Tuesday night; totals could reach 3 to 5 feet in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains.

Treacherous travel is expected in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains as snowfall there continues through Wednesday. Up to 3 feet of snow is possible and avalanche warnings are in place.

Wednesday

The East Coast and West Coast will be dry on Wednesday, setting up a good holiday travel day for both coasts.

Interstate 70 will be the hardest-hit by rough weather, with snow in the Colorado Rockies and rain in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio.

In the South, temperatures will be well above average, with highs in the 70s and 80s. Houston may reach a record high for the second time this week.

Thanksgiving

Spectators heading to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City should bring umbrellas and raincoats, as the parade will be rainy with temperatures in the 40s. The breeze could reach 10 to 15 mph.

Rain will be falling across most of the East Coast Thursday morning, while snow hits northern Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

Much of the Interstate 95 corridor will be soggy throughout the day, especially north of Philadelphia where the rain will continue through the afternoon.

Meanwhile, temperatures will reach the 70s in Arizona and the 80s in Florida. But highs will only be in the 30s and 40s in the Midwest.

Friday

On Friday, snow will be falling from West Virginia to Pennsylvania to western New York.

Rain will move through north and central Florida, but it won’t reach Miami until Saturday morning.

Low temperatures may plunge to the single digits in Minneapolis for the first time this season Friday or Saturday morning.

High temperatures will only reach near freezing in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Omaha, Nebraska. The highs will only be in the 20s in Chicago.

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(NEW ORLEANS) — The anticipation surrounding Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans is not just about which team will win, it’s whether or not the city can pull the game off without a serious security breach.

New Orleans has hosted 10 Super Bowls in previous years, but Sunday’s game at the Superdome is different. Just over a month before Sunday’s kick-off, the city was the target of a terrorist attack on New Year’s Day in which a driver racing down Bourbon Street killed 14 people, injured 57 others, and heightened fears among locals that the city is unprepared for the estimated 100,000 visitors expected to arrive this week.

“New Orleans never had a reputation as a high target type place” for terrorism, “it was always ‘the Big Easy,'” said Eric Cook, executive chef and owner of St. John, a restaurant in the city’s Central Business District that is just a short walk from the stadium. The attack, he said, “really made everyone realize we’re all vulnerable at any time. I have concerns about it, I really do.”

Security concerns were heightened this week after President Donald Trump announced he is planning to attend the game, a first for any sitting president.

NFL Chief Security Officer Cathy Lanier said the NFL changed its security plan since the attack and is “constantly monitoring what is going on in the environment and security worlds” in the days leading up to the game. She said more than 2,700 state, federal, and local law enforcement will be present in and around the Superdome and private drones are prohibited. She declined to talk in specific about other measures the league is taking, citing security concerns.

In the weeks following the Bourbon Street attack, the FBI gave the game a Special Event Assessment Rating (SEAR) 1 rating, “defined as a significant event with national and/or international importance that requires extensive federal interagency support,” according to a threat assessment the agency released in late January.

The FBI said the game, along with days of activities leading up to kick-off, make it “an attractive target for foreign terrorist organizations, homegrown violent extremists, domestic violent extremists, lone offenders, hate crime perpetrators, and those engaged in other reportable targeted violence due to their potential to cause mass casualty incidents and draw attention to ideological causes.”

The report warns that a copycat attack is possible since “vehicle ramming has become a recurring tactic employed by threat actors in the west.” Other factors contributing to the threat environment is unrest in the Middle East, the high number of pre-game events in the city, the use of unauthorized unmanned aircraft systems, and the potential of cyberattacks “designed to facilitate short-term financial gain or highly visible, symbolic disruptions.”

Eric DeLaune, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans, is tasked with coordinating federal efforts around the Super Bowl. “In the days ahead, there will be a significant increased law enforcement presence in New Orleans, some of which will be visible and obvious,” he told reporters Monday.

A congressional delegation led by Alabama Rep. Dale Strong, the chair of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology, this week toured the site of the Bourbon Street attack and the Superdome before a briefing by the NFL and law enforcement officials.

“This tragedy could happen in any state, any city—that is why it is so important that we invest in local law enforcement and give them the capabilities they need to prevent crimes before they happen,” Strong said in a statement

Guns allowed, but not coolers

The Bourbon Street attack triggered a state of emergency from the state, which Gov. Jeff Landry followed up weeks later with an executive order that established a wide security perimeter around Bourbon Street, from Canal to St. Ann Streets and Royal to Dauphine Streets. Coolers and ice chests are prohibited and bag checks conducted by the Louisiana State Police will start Wednesday at every entry point leading to Bourbon Street.

For French Quarter residents like Glade Bilby, who has called the neighborhood home for more than 40 years and is president of French Quarter Citizens, a non-profit that focuses on quality of life issues, the added security is “welcome.” He said, however, the security focus on Bourbon Street is limiting.

Another attack “could happen anywhere,” he said. “If this happened on Barracks, Gov. Nichols, it still affects the French Quarter which is an international brand. If you’re really intent on doing evil, you’ll be able to do it no matter what.”

Bilby is among many here who have been vocal all week about the contraction established by Landry which prohibits coolers into the security perimeter while state law allows people to carry in firearms without a permit. “That’s very problematic. It ties one hand behind law enforcement’s back,” Bilby said.

When Landry took office last year, he signed into law legislation to allow for the carrying of a concealed handgun without a permit or training. He rejected pleas from lawmakers in New Orleans to make the French Quarter and other entertainment districts in the city exempt. That means, according to Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche “there’s nothing that can be done legally with respect to people bringing firearms into the French Quarter.”

If law enforcement discovers a checked bag contains a handgun, “they have no recourse but to let them walk into the French Quarter, and that poses a real threat,” Goyeneche told WWL radio last month.

Landry’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment. He has not commented on rejecting the carve-out on his gun legislation for the French Quarter but said upon signing the gun bill: “It’s fundamentally clear—law-abiding citizens should never have to seek government permission to safeguard themselves and their families.”

New Orleans City Councilmember Joe Giarrusso said the city will continue to advocate to state lawmakers that an exception should be made to prohibit conceal carry in the French Quarter because the environment is so unique.

“You have so many tourists packed into a small space and we’re encouraging people to drink alcohol inside and outside. That’s the ethos of what is going on there,” he said. “Alcohol and guns don’t mix. This is not a partisan issue.”

Investigations pending

Besides the refusal to carve out the French Quarter as a gun-free zone, concerns remain that the city hasn’t learned a lesson from the security gaps that safety officials have said made it easier for Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S.-born citizen from Texas, to drive a truck for at least three blocks in the early morning of New Year’s Day.

Two investigations — one by the city council and a second launched by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill — are looking into why protective columns designed to block vehicle traffic were removed and why other anti-vehicle barriers were not deployed.

“The People of Louisiana deserve answers,” said Murrill. “We are committed to getting a full and complete picture of what was done or not done, and more importantly, what needs to change so we can prevent this from ever happening again.”

New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told the city council she hired former New York Police Commissioner William J. Bratton to serve as a consultant to investigate the security lapses.

Bratton did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the investigation.

Still, for all the promises and pending investigations and final reports, the big game will still proceed Sunday. Cook said an outcome without a major safety incident will be critical for businesses like his own that saw traffic drop following the New Year’s Day attack.

“We hope the success of this weekend will generate more trusting folks to come down here and visually see that New Orleans is open for business and we’re safe and we’re prepared,” Cook said.

Giarrusso admitted that New Orleanians are “weary and wary” but have no choice but to move forward.

“The whole point of terrorism is to prevent people from doing what in free society people are allowed to do,” he said. “We have to find a sweet spot of finding reasonable safety protection for people and ensuring we’re leading our lives the way we’re supposed to.”

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