Summer scorcher: Dangerous heat moves to South after baking Northeast, Midwest
(NEW YORK) — Life-threatening heat spread across the eastern half of the U.S. this week, first hitting the Midwest, then the Northeast and now the South.
Chicago hit 99 degrees on Tuesday, breaking the city’s daily record of 97 degrees. Some schools in the area closed early due to the weather.
On Wednesday, the heat moved east. Record highs were shattered in Washington, D,C., which reached 101 degrees, and Greenwood, Mississippi, which reached 103 degrees.
The final tennis major of the year, the U.S. Open, which is underway in New York City, operated under an “extreme weather policy,” with stadium roofs partially closed and extended breaks for players.
The heat has now left the Midwest and Northeast.
On Thursday, the South is in the bull’s-eye, with record highs possible in cities including Nashville, Tennessee; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Louisville, Kentucky.
The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — is forecast to soar to 100 degrees in Washington, D.C., and Charleston, South Carolina; 102 degrees in Nashville; Richmond, Virginia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Charlotte, North Carolina; 103 in Raleigh and Charleston, West Virginia; and a scorching 105 in Jackson, Mississippi.
Friday will bring one more day of record heat. By the weekend, cooler air will move in.
There are hundreds of deaths each year in the U.S. due to excessive heat, according to CDC WONDER, an online database, and scientists caution that the actual number of heat-related deaths is likely higher.
Last year marked the most heat-related deaths in the U.S. on record, according to JAMA, a peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Medical Association.
(NEW YORK) — As summer begins to wind down, most children and teenagers across the U.S. are getting ready to head back to school.
Not far behind the start of the school year is the typical start of the season for respiratory viruses, including flu, RSV and COVID-19.
Since early May, COVID-19 test positivity and emergency department visits that are diagnosed as COVID-19 infections have steadily increased, although hospitalizations and deaths continue to remain at historically low levels, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Despite these upward trends, school officials from various districts told ABC News that they feel prepared to handle cases of any respiratory viruses that may emerge, and to try and prevent classroom disruptions because of them as much as possible.
“We’re always preparing, and I feel very confident that we’re going to have a great school year, and we’ll get through this respiratory season with no problem,” Kim Baumann, lead county nurse for Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) in Georgia, told ABC News.
Limiting school closures
During the first year of the pandemic, schools switched to remote learning to help stem the spread of the virus.
Since then, individual classrooms and, in some cases, entire schools have temporarily gone virtual when outbreaks have popped up.
This year, schools generally are trying to avoid closing if they can, should another viral outbreak surface, in part to avoid the student academic performance losses widely seen during pandemic remote learning. A recent study conducted in collaboration with the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, for example, looked at math and reading scores for grades three through eight and found that “academic achievement gaps that widened during the pandemic still remain and have worsened in some states.”
Arizona State Superintendent of Education Tom Horne told ABC News that he wants schools to operate normally, regardless of a surge in cases. While noting that Arizona is a “local control state,” meaning that it’s up to the local school boards to decide if they want to close schools, he is adamantly against school closures.
“Closing of the schools that occurred last time was an unbelievable disaster,” he said. “Kids are way behind academically. We’re still experiencing it now, and I think some of them will be affected for the rest of their lives.”
Horne pointed to research that has suggested COVID-19 infection tends to affect children less severely than older adults or those with pre-existing medical conditions.
“So, it makes no sense to close the schools, and I will strongly advocate against it,” Horne said.
By comparison, the leaders in Gwinnett County, Georgia, say they are not advocating for school closures, but that any decision regarding whether classes need to be conducted remotely due to outbreaks will come after conversations with the local health department.
Vaccinating to prevent severe illness
Doctors and other public health experts say that one of the best things students can do to prepare themselves for the upcoming year is to receive the updated COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC recommends everyone aged 6 months and older receive an updated vaccine.
Vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna will be available for those aged 6 months and older, while the Novavax vaccine will be available for those aged 12 and older. The updated vaccine will likely be released either late August or early September and will target the JN.1 variant of the virus, an offshoot of the omicron variant.
The vaccine “reduces, not only the chance for hospitalization, but also reduces disease burden overall, just so that kids and adults alike are not severely impacted by it, and of course, it is continued to be recommended,” Dr. Jay W. Lee, a member of the Board of Directors at the American Academy of Family Physicians, told ABC News.
Lee said sometimes he encounters parents who are reluctant to vaccinate their children because of research suggesting children are not affected by COVID-19 as severely as adults. However, he said he tries to explain to parents that the benefits of vaccinating children far outweigh any risks, using their reluctance as “an opportunity for me to lean in and ask questions about why it is that they’re feeling that way.”
Lee said he also tells parents that “we do continue to have ongoing concerns about long COVID and the impacts that it has on cognitive abilities as well as respiratory and cardiac issues,” adding that “The science is not fully complete yet on the impacts of long COVID, but we are seeing more and more of it as we escape the gravitational pull of the pandemic.”
Kim Baumann, the lead nurse in Gwinnett County, said schools in the district will host vaccine clinics in coordination with the local health department throughout the year “which will include COVID and flu, or however that combination is going to look this coming fall,” further noting that “we always provide frequent vaccine clinics and get that information out to our families to make it readily available.”
Clear language on how to stay safe
School officials said that they are getting the word out regarding when parents should keep their children home from school.
Tom Horne, in Arizona, said whenever a student or staff member is sick – whether they have COVID-19 or the common cold – they should stay home so that they have the proper rest and so they don’t infect others
Baumann said one of the ways officials are preparing for the new school year is to send reminders through schools’ newsletters, websites and other media about best practices to stay safe, including “Good hand washing, [and] using respiratory hygiene, as far as covering your coughs and sneezes.”
Baumann also said there is a team of custodians who make sure schools, particularly in high-touch areas, are cleaned and sanitized throughout the day, especially during peak season of respiratory viruses
She added that children can wear masks to school if they so choose. GCPS is also distributing reminders of reasons to stay home, including if a student develops respiratory virus symptoms such as fever, chills, fatigue, cough, runny nose, and headache, said Baumann.
“We understand COVID is going to be with us. This is not something that’s going away. It’s going to be something that we’re going to have to continue to deal with,” Bernard Watson, director of community and media relations at GCPS, told ABC News. “So, we’ve sort of accepted that as part of our new normal, and that’s why we’re taking all these steps to ensure that we’re hitting the high-touch areas to make sure that they are clean. We have our nurses on standby to deal with situations where students are sick.”
“But the most important thing … is letting parents know and letting our staff know that if [students or staff] feel sick, it’s okay to stay home and seek treatment, because we all know that if we have a healthy environment in our schools, then our kids are learning better,” Watson continued. “But if people are coming to school when they’re sick and they’re spreading it, that’s not good because it puts other people in danger of getting sick, and it interrupts teaching and learning, which is our primary focus.”
Dr. Lee of the American Academy of Family Physicians said one of the best things that schools can do to be prepared for a potential viral outbreak is offer clear policies and language regarding when students should stay home.
“There’s a lot of pressure on parents to send their kids to school. Maybe they’ve got work or job or other obligations,” he said. “Unfortunately, when you send a child to school that has an illness and they’re confined in small spaces – and especially younger kids, [who] are not as good about kind of washing their hands or covering their mouth and those types of things – it can be a source for rapid spread in a community.”
“And so, I think if the schools can continue to have very clear language and policy around when children should stay at home under the guidance of the local public health agencies, I think that would be super helpful,” Lee said.
(NEW YORK) — A 9-month-old child has died after being left in a car by the child’s grandmother for nearly eight hours in what authorities are investigating as a heat-related death.
The incident occurred in Beeville, Texas, some 100 miles southeast of San Antonio, on Wednesday when the Beeville Police Department said a child was found unresponsive at approximately 4 p.m. in the child safety seat of their grandmother’s car, according to a statement from the Beeville Police Department.
“Beeville police detectives are currently on the scene of what appears to be a temperature related death of a 9-month-old child,” authorities said in their statement on Wednesday. “A preliminary investigation has determined that the child’s grandmother had left the child in the rear seat of her car in the child safety seat since approximately 8:30 this morning. The child was found at approximately 4pm non-responsive by the grandmother.”
This comes just one day after a 22-month-old toddler was found dead in another alleged heat-related hot car incident in Corpus Christi.
“The incident is being worked as a criminal homicide,” police said. “The Beeville police are being assisted by the Department of Public Safety Texas Rangers. No charges have been filed in connection to this case at this time, but such charges are expected to be filed.”
According to Kids and Car Safety, there have been at least 25 other cases in which children in the United States have died in hot cars in 2024. Texas has the most child deaths caused by hot cars from 1990 to 2023 with a total of 156 deaths.
(SALIDA, Colo.) — An insurance underwriter who was rescued on a central Colorado mountain after allegedly being left behind by his co-workers was hiking to raise money for World Central Kitchen, according to his company.
The hiker, 46-year-old Steve Stephanides, was rescued on Saturday after enduring a night stuck on 14,230-foot Mt. Shavano during a freezing rain storm, officials said.
Contacted by ABC News on Wednesday, Stephanides said his company, the Beazley global insurance firm, was still gathering facts about the expedition and referred all questions to his company’s spokesperson.
Breazley CEO Adrian Cox, who is based in London, released a statement Thursday morning to ABC News, praising the Chaffee County Search and Rescue — South, an all volunteer rescue team in Colorado, for saving his employee’s life.
“We are very grateful to the Chaffee County Search and Rescue South who came to the aid of one of our employees after he encountered difficulties during a charity hike. Chaffee County SAR’s swift response and brave actions, during adverse weather conditions, ensured that our colleague was rescued and returned safely,” Cox said.
A spokesperson for Beazely confirmed to ABC News that company employees were on Mt. Shavano as a part of an annual charity hiking trip to raise money for World Central Kitchen, the nonprofit humanitarian organization founded in 2010 by celebrity chef José Andrés to deliver meals in disaster areas around the globe, including war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
“This charity hike has been running for over a decade and many individuals have participated on multiple occasions,” Cox said. “We are proud of their commitment to their fundraising efforts and will continue to work with those involved to ensure they fully recover from this incident and get the support they need.”
Cox did not provide additional details on how the near-tragedy occurred on the annual office charity hike.
“In what might cause some awkward encounters at the office in the coming days and weeks, one member of their party was left to complete his final summit push alone,” Chaffee County Search and Rescue — South said in a statement.
Previous online posts and photos from Beazely colleagues indicate that this was at least the second year in a row Stephanides has participated in the charity hike.
The office outing gone wrong unfolded Friday on Mt. Shavano in central Colorado’s San Isabel National Forest, according to Danny Andres, president of the volunteer rescue group.
“Our subject was getting close to the summit and took a break, and some of the people who were in his group were starting to head down,” Danny Andres told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday. “He decided to carry on up the summit.”
While 14 employees made it down the mountain safely, rescue officials said one was left to complete the summit solo. Andres said the worker made it to the summit at 11:30 a.m., but when he tried to descend, he became “disoriented as to where the trail was.”
The hiker used his cellphone to pin-drop his location to his co-workers, who informed him that he was on the wrong route and instructed him to hike back up to the summit to get to the correct trail down, rescue officials said in a statement.
“In his initial attempts to descend, he found himself in the steep boulder and scree field on the northeast slopes toward Shavano Lake,” according to officials.
Just before 4 p.m. local time on Friday, Stephanides sent another location pin-drop to his colleagues that he was near the correct trail. Shortly after that message, a strong storm passed through the area with freezing rain and high winds, rescue officials said in a statement.
“Being in those kind of cold, freezing rain, winds it takes a toll on you,” Andres said.
At least seven different rescue teams from across Colorado were involved in the search for Stephanides.
Stephanides also lost his cellphone reception on the way down the mountain, and following his rescue, told lifesavers he had fallen at least 20 times on the steep slopes and was unable to get up the last time he fell.
Making matters worse, Stephanides’ colleagues had inexplicably collected belongings left in a boulder field to mark the path down, officials said.
When his colleagues didn’t hear from him, they reported Stephanides missing at 9 p.m., some eight-and-a-half hours after he started his descent, officials said.
Rescue teams found Stephanides in a gully near a drainage creek and carried him down the mountain on a gurney, officials said. He was and taken to a hospital in stable condition, officials said.
Rescuers said Stephanides was “phenomenally lucky” that the weather cleared on Saturday and he regained enough cellphone service to call 911.
“All of the teams that were involved are all volunteer rescuers,” Andres said. “It’s tiring, but it’s rewarding when we go out and find people and are able to reunite them with their loved ones. It’s fantastic.”
ABC News’ Laryssa Demkiw and Emme Marchese contributed to this report.