Pets flee to vacant animal hospital amid California wildfires
(Jon Putman/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LOS ANGELES) — Southern California has been severely hit by wildfires, prompting mass evacuations and state of emergency declaration from Gov. Gavin Newsom. The dangerous winds and extreme fire conditions are expected to last through Thursday.
With residents facing evacuation orders, family pets face an uncertain situation.
Many people in the region have exotic pets and care for animals like llamas, horses and goats that need a safe place to go during this dangerous event.
Some hotels have been accommodating pets like dogs and cats, but the sheer number of animal evacuees has strained their capacity. Fortunately for pet owners, veterinarian Annie Harvilicz stepped up to care for animals.
Harvilicz owns a vacant veterinary hospital, which she opened up to house animals affected by the wildfires. The idea came to her after her brother asked for a favor as his family evacuated. They could only take their dog into the hotel they went to, but not their cat or rabbit, so he reached out to Harvilicz for alternate accommodation for those two.
“And when I moved them in, I looked around at the different examine rooms that were empty and thought, you know, we can help here,” Harvilicz told ABC News. “There is a lot of people who are probably in the same situation my brother is in. So that’s when I started getting the word out that we could take in some animals.”
Harvilicz has mainly been helping people who have multiple pets, as hotels may have a limit on how many they will accept per family. She praises the hotels for even taking in pets and is enthusiastic about how many people are calling, ready to help her.
“Most people that are reaching out to me are people ready to help,” Harvilicz said. “There’s probably a 50 to 60:1 ratio between the people who are contacting me to help versus the people who actually need help.”
(WASHINGTON) — Members of Congress, the Supreme Court and other dignitaries will gather at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday afternoon for a lying-in-state ceremony for former President Jimmy Carter.
Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver one of the eulogies for Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.
Carter lands in DC
A plane carrying the Carter family and the casket of former President Jimmy Carter has landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland for several days of ceremonies in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Navy Memorial will be the first stop for the motorcade to honor Carter’s service as a lieutenant in the Navy.
Carter en route from Georgia to DC
The Carter family is accompanying former President Jimmy Carter’s remains on a flight from Georgia’s Dobbins Air Reserve Base to Washington, D.C. for the late president’s final journey to the nation’s capital.
“Hail to the Chief” was played and troops fired a 21-gun salute after the coffin was taken out of the hearse. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was among the officials at the base to witness the coffin’s transfer from the hearse to the plane.
Carter is survived by four children — John William (Jack), James Earl III (Chip), Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff) and Amy Lynn — and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The flight will land in the D.C. area around 2 p.m.
The late president’s first stop in snowy D.C. will be the U.S. Navy Memorial to honor his time in the service.
That will be followed by a 4:30 p.m. ET service at the U.S. Capitol, which will be
Carter leaves Carter Presidential Center for final time
Former President Jimmy Carter is leaving the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta for the final time Tuesday morning as Carter Center employees and their families look on.
The former president had been lying in repose at the center since Saturday, allowing the public to come pay their respects.
At a Saturday service at the Carter Presidential Center, Carter’s son Chip Carter thanked his parents for their service and sacrifice.
“The two of them together changed the world,” he said, overcome with emotion.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded the Carter Center after his presidency to improve health around the world and enhance freedom and democracy.
Carter to head to DC for services at Capitol, Washington National Cathedral
Former President Jimmy Carter’s remains will be escorted from the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday for the 39th president’s final trip to the nation’s capital.
His remains will leave the Carter Center at 11:30 a.m. ET.
The first stop in D.C. will be the U.S. Navy Memorial in honor of the former president’s service.
At 4:30 p.m. ET, members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs and other officials will congregate at the U.S. Capitol for a lying in state ceremony. Vice President Kamala Harris, Senator Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson are expected to deliver eulogies and lay wreaths.
Carter’s remains will lie in state at the Capitol from Tuesday evening to Thursday morning, allowing the public to pay respects.
On Thursday morning, former presidents and other dignitaries will attend a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden will deliver a eulogy.
On Thursday afternoon, Carter’s body will return to his hometown of Plains, Georgia, for a private service and private interment. Carter will be buried next to his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, who died on Nov. 19, 2023, at the age of 96.
A new exhibit titled “77 Minutes in Their Shoes” honors the victims of the Robb Elementary shooting. (Sarah Sudhoff)
(UVALDE, TEXAS) — When authorities were trying to identify the victims of the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, many of the children could only be identified by the shoes they were wearing that day.
“How often do you take your child to school and not pay attention to what they’re wearing that day?” Kimberly Rubio, mother of victim Alexandria “Lexi” Rubio, said to ABC News.
A new exhibit titled “77 Minutes in Their Shoes” underscores this question to raise gun violence awareness while honoring the 21 victims of the Uvalde mass shooting on May 24, 2022. The exhibit, which runs Jan. 10 to Jan. 19 at the Canopy Projects Gallery in Austin, is a collaboration between Houston artist Sarah Sudhoff and Lives Robbed, a gun violence prevention non-profit created by families of the children killed in the Uvalde mass shooting.
“I thought, ‘What are children wearing when they’re gunned down in schools? And how do we bring this to the attention of Americans?’ And so that’s kind of how the idea was born,” Rubio, who is also president of Lives Robbed, said.
The “77 Minutes” in the exhibit’s name refers to how long the gunman was in the school before police confronted him and ended the massacre.
Sudhoff, a Cuban American artist whose work often merges themes of motherhood and gender with social issues like gun violence and domestic violence, told ABC News that the exhibit was partly influenced by others showcasing the clothing women wore on the night they were sexually assaulted.
However, in this exhibit, photographs of the shoes and portraits of family members with the shoes will be on display. Thirteen of the 21 families participated in the exhibit and all photographs were shot by Sudhoff.
The photographer said she chose to print the images on sheer fabric hanging from the ceiling so that the public can experience the portraits in a more direct manner.
“These portraits are on fabric, and they are thin and you can see through them and maybe you’ll see somebody else through them,” Sudhoff said.
She added, “I intentionally did not make them rigid, I did not make them hard, I wanted you to see the public through them, I wanted them to move because these families are still evolving, they’re on an endless journey, they’re on this unfortunate, heartbreaking journey, and they’re constantly moving and shifting and morphing.”
Although “77 Minutes in Their Shoes” honors the victims of the mass shooting, Rubio said creating the exhibit still posed moments that were emotionally challenging.
“The hardest part was when we took the photos at Robb Elementary featuring the three moms [Rubio, Veronica Mata, and Gloria Cazares] and our girls’ shoes,” Rubio said. “That was difficult—to be back at Robb, to think about taking them to school that morning and the shoes they were wearing, walking into that school and never walking back out.”
The exhibit’s opening weekend also includes panels tackling topics such as gun violence prevention, legislation, art activism, and grief. Arnulfo “Arnie” Reyes, who taught at Robb Elementary School and was the sole survivor of classroom 111, is speaking on a panel titled “The Classroom After Tragedy” to talk about his former students and his recovery.
“It’s always important for me to be one of the voices that supports this and speaks on behalf of the students that are no longer here … I might have a little bit more of an impact just because I was there,” Reyes said to ABC News.
Reyes said he tries to spread awareness and support the families of the victims every opportunity he gets, and he hopes that by participating in the exhibit, that he can continue to advocate for his students and inspire change.
“I would like for people to come with an open mind to see the shoes, to see this is all they have left,” Reyes said. “Something that I said from the beginning is that I would try to do anything that I can do to not let these babies die in vain, and I hope that people join me in that journey to not let anybody else die in vain and to change things.”
(SAPELO ISLAND, G.A.) — The “catastrophic failure” of an aluminum ferry gangway caused the deaths Saturday of seven people who were attending an annual cultural event on historic Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia, officials said Sunday.
Three other people were critically injured and remained hospitalized Sunday afternoon, Commissioner Walter Rabon of the Georgia Department of Natural Resouces said during a news conference.
Among those killed was 77-year-old Charles Houston of Darien, Georgia, the chaplain for both the DNR and the Georgia State Patrol, Rabon said.
Rabon said the aluminum gangway, which was installed at the Marsh Landing Dock on Sapelo Island in November 2021, gave way in the middle under the weight of people boarding the ferry to leave the island.
“One end of the gangway was in the water. One end of the gangway on the landward side was still attached,” Rabon said, adding that the gangway was supported by two standing platforms, and that at the time of the incident, the ferry Annemarie was moored to a stationary dock next to one of the platforms.
In addition to Houston, those who perished were identified Sunday by McIntosh County Coroner Melvin Amerson as Jacqueline Crews Carter, 75; Cynthia Gibbs, 74; Carlotta McIntosh, 93; and Isaiah Thomas, 79. They were all from Jacksonville, Georgia. Also killed, according to Amerson, were William Johnson, Jr., 73, and Queen Welch, 76, both of Atlanta.
Rabon said it remains under investigation how many people were on the gangway when it collapsed. He said at least 20 people ended up in the water and another 20, including DNR staff and good Samaritans, jumped in to try to save people.
Rabon said that while the gangway was routinely inspected, “I can’t say that we get up under it and inspect it daily.”
“The initial findings of our investigation at this point show the catastrophic failure of the gangway causing it to collapse,” Rabon said.
In a statement Sunday, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources confirmed that the gangway was inspected less than a year ago, in December 2023, by Crescent Equipment Company.
On Saturday, the number of visitors to the island swelled to more than 700 from a normal daily average of less than 100, Rabon said. He said the Gullah Geechee people, descendants of enslaved Africans who were brought to the southeastern United States, were holding an annual cultural day on the Island on Saturday when tragedy struck.
Rabon said a second ferry and additional runs were added on Saturday to accommodate the large crowd.
When asked by reporters if the extra stress from the added ferry runs could have been a factor in the collapse, Rabon said, “At this time, I would not rule out anything as being a possibility.”
As part of the investigation, officials were reviewing the maintenance records of the gangway, he said.
“What I can say is that it is a structure failure. There should be very, very little maintenance to an aluminum gangway like that, but we’ll see what the investigation unfolds,” Rabon said.
During Sunday’s news conference, J.R. Grovner, a Sapelo Island resident and tour guide, spoke up, claiming that four months ago he complained to one of the ferry captains about the condition of the gangway.
“I brought it up to one of the ferry captains that the gangway wasn’t stable. I brought up concerns about the railing on the boat, that the railing is not locking properly down in the slot,” Grovner said, adding that he also complained to the U.S. Coast Guard about ferries being over capacity.
Rabon said, “At this time, I’m not aware of any complaints.”
Authorities received the first 911 call about the gangway collapse at the visitor’s landing dock at about 3:50 p.m., officials said. The incident sparked a large emergency response that included local authorities, the Georgia State Patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard, and sheriff’s deputies from McIntosh County and neighboring Camden County, as well as the McIntosh County Fire Department.
Emergency crews used boats equipped with sonar and helicopters to attempt to find and rescue people who fell into the water.
Everyone who went into the water has been accounted for, Rabon said Sunday.
An engineering and construction team was expected to help in the investigation.
The White House released a statement late Saturday from President Joe Biden.
“We are heartbroken to learn about the ferry dock walkway collapse on Georgia’s Sapelo Island,” Biden said in the statement. “What should have been a joyous celebration of Gullah-Geechee culture and history instead turned into tragedy and devastation. Jill and I mourn those who lost their lives, and we pray for the injured and anyone still missing. We are also grateful to the first responders at the scene. My team is in touch with state and local officials, and we stand ready to provide any assistance that would be helpful to the community.”
Vice President Kamala Harris is also “praying for all those who were killed or injured in the collapse of the ferry dock walkway on Georgia’s Sapelo Island,” she said in a statement Saturday.
“Our administration is in close touch with state and local officials, and we have offered any federal support the community might need. As always, we are deeply grateful for the heroism of our first responders,” Harris said in the statement.
She added that in the face of this tragedy, they will “continue to celebrate and honor the history, culture and resilience of the Gullah Geechee.”
In a statement posted on X, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he was heartbroken by the tragedy and asked for prayers.
Sapelo Island is located about 70 miles south of Savannah, Georgia.
The Georgia Department of National Resources manages Sapelo Island, which is home to a research reserve and the Hog Hammock community, a small enclave made up of a few dozen full-time residents who are the descendants of enslaved African Americans.
The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of enslaved Africans who were brought to the southeastern U.S., primarily in coastal areas and who, because of their relative isolation, preserved many of their indigenous African traditions, according to the National Park Service.
Husband and wife Beverly and Irvin Jones told ABC News they were among those on the gangway when it collapsed. Irvin Jones said he felt the gangway slipping and made a split decision to jump onto the floating dock.
“We got almost to the boat and I felt it start to slide, like going backward,” Irvin Jones said. “So, I leaped and jumped. The two girls behind me, they fell in. The whole ramp fell in and collapsed.”
Irvin Jones added, “It happened so fast, people couldn’t react. It was sad. It was so sad. It was horrible. Not even 8 feet from me, I see one guy already drowned. One lady just jumped in to try to save a baby.”
Beverly Jones said she saw people in the water trying to hold on to their children.
“It was just horrific,” Beverly Jones said. “They were trying to hold on. There was nothing to hold on to.”
ABC News’ Laryssa Demkiw, Michelle Stoddart and Faith Abubéy contributed to this report.
