Why Milton is already a hurricane for the record books
(SARASOTA, Fla.) — While it’s still hours away from making landfall and has yet to cause any damage, Hurricane Milton is already rewriting the record books, officials said.
“I think for the west-central coast of Florida, this has the potential to be the most impactful hurricane we’ve seen in living memory, given the scope of the impacts from the storm surge,” Mike Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center, told ABC News.
Milton is forecast to make landfall between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET Wednesday near Sarasota as a Category 3 hurricane with wind gusts of over 100 mph. On Wednesday afternoon, Milton was a Category 4 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico about 150 miles southwest of Tampa, and moving toward Florida’s west coast at 16 mph.
Once it makes landfall, the hurricane is expected to create a 10-to-15-foot storm surge in Sarasota and a storm surge of 8-to-12 feet from Tampa down to Fort Myers.
But the storm, the ninth hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, has already made an impact on the record books.
Milton is the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin in terms of pressure since Hurricane Wilma, which hit Florida in 2005. The storm is also the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin in terms of windspeed since Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
On Monday, Milton was producing maximum winds of 180 mph, making it the third strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin on record in terms of wind.
According to the National Hurricane Center records, Milton is one of the top rapidly intensifying hurricanes after increasing 95 mph in 24 hours this week. Only hurricanes Wilma and 2007’s Felix had a greater intensification, according to the records.
Milton is also the fifth strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin on record by pressure.
Brennan said Milton is a different beast from other hurricanes due to its “unusual” track.
“Often we see hurricanes approach Florida from the east or the southeast,” Brennan said. “But this track is somewhat unusual and is really a worst-case scenario for these very storm-sensitive areas along the west coast of Florida because the circulation of Milton is going to be pushing that Gulf of Mexico water right up onto dry land here in these vulnerable places.”
(NEW YORK) — Utah placed a blanket ban on at least 13 books in schools, including works by Sarah J. Maas, Judy Blume, Rupi Kaur, Margaret Atwood and other authors, in what free speech advocates say is the first state book ban.
The Utah State Board of Education put together a list of titles that have met the statewide threshold for removal based on a newly enforced law.
H.B. 29, signed by Gov. Spencer Cox in March, requires all schools to remove a book if school officials from at least three school districts or at least two school districts and five charter schools have determined that a book constitutes “objective sensitive material.”
“Objective sensitive material” is defined under the law as an instructional material that constitutes pornographic or indecent material, which is further defined in Utah law as depicting or describing sex or nudity while also lacking “serious value” for minors.
This first set of removed material — that state officials say will be updated in accordance with further book restrictions — includes Forever by Judy Blume, a coming-of-age book that touches on sexuality; Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, a post-apocalyptic novel, and Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, a poetry book about “violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.”
“The Board is committed to following the law and the list will be updated if and when needed,” a spokesperson for the state Board of Education said in a statement to ABC News.
Several groups have spoken out against the banning of these books, including PEN America, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting free speech, and Let Utah Read, a coalition of Utah residents, educators, librarians and others.
“Allowing just a handful of districts to make decisions for the whole state is antidemocratic, and we are concerned that implementation of the law will result in less diverse library shelves for all Utahns,” said Kasey Meehan, a program director for PEN America’s Freedom to Read initiative.
Advocacy groups say they fear this is just the start of “statewide book purges.”
“Unlike some legislators who are out to make political hay and use national culture war issues to divide us, Utahns understand that great American authors like Judy Blume, Sherman Alexie, and Toni Morrison are not pornographers, and no one should be criminally charged for selling, giving, or lending a book to a high school student,” Let Utah Read said in a statement, referencing other authors who have faced bans in schools across the country.
(NEW YORK) — A witness got emotional recounting the day of the doomed Titan submersible dive while testifying Thursday during the U.S. Coast Guard’s hearing into the deadly implosion.
Renata Rojas, a banker who had previously gone on a dive to the Titanic on the experimental vessel, was volunteering and assisting the surface crew during the 2023 expedition when the submersible catastrophically imploded on a deep-sea voyage to the shipwreck site, killing five people, including OceanGate founder Stockton Rush.
The hearing took an approximately 10-minute break on Thursday during Rojas’ testimony so that she could compose herself before discussing the June 18, 2023, dive.
“They were just very happy to go,” Rojas recalled of the passengers, crying during her testimony. “That’s the memory I have. Nobody was really nervous. They were excited about what they’re going to see.”
Rojas testified that beyond issues with a dinghy, there was nothing unusual about the day of the dive — everything was done on time and they had “wonderful weather.”
She said the submersible went into the water on schedule, around 9:15 a.m. local time. She said she was waiting to hear updates on the dive after breakfast a couple hours later, but they had no update on the communications with the sub.
There was a loss of communication with the Titan at approximately 10:47 a.m. local time, according to the Coast Guard. The sub was expected to surface at about 3 p.m. local time, the Coast Guard said.
Rojas said there didn’t seem to be anything of concern until about 5 or 6 p.m. local time.
“Usually they’re allowed at least an hour in the bottom. Could it be possible that if they were in front of the bow, everybody begged in the sub to take another hour?” she said. “Like if it was me in the sub, I probably would have said, ‘Please give me another hour.’ You have to take that into account.”
After three hours of searching the surface for the sub, per OceanGate loss-of-communications protocol, the surface ship Polar Prince contacted the Canadian Coast Guard at 7:10 p.m. local time, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Debris from the Titan was found after a four-day search.
In addition to Rush, those killed in the implosion included French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet, British businessman Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.
Rojas said she had saved “for a long time” for her own expedition to the Titanic. She said she didn’t think it would ever happen until she was connected with OceanGate.
She said she signed up in 2016 or 2017 to go on a dive in 2018, though didn’t go until July 2022. She said OceanGate had to make a new carbon-fiber hull and the COVID-19 pandemic caused delays.
She said she knew the submersible was experimental but felt safe.
“I knew what I was doing was very risky. I never, at any point, felt unsafe by the operation,” she said.
Asked if any OceanGate employees or past employees ever brought up safety concerns to her, Rojas said there was one who told her she wouldn’t get in the sub.
“This is never really sold as a Disney ride,” she said. “This is an expedition where things happen, and you have to adapt to change. That was, at least for me, it was very clear.”
She said as a passenger, she felt she was given the opportunity to voice any safety concerns, though never did personally.
“I knew the risk that I was taking, and still decided to go,” she said.
She said she understood that the sub was not classified by a certification society.
“It was similar to the Apollo program — they tested by doing,” she said. “Neil Armstrong didn’t ask somebody, ‘Is this vessel classed?’ before he went to space. He just got in and went.”
“For me, it was the drive of exploration,” she said. “Exploration requires risks.”
Rojas had done several dives with OceanGate, including a 2016 dive to the Andrea Doria shipwreck on OceanGate’s Cyclops 1 submersible. She said she paid $20,000 to go on it.
David Lochridge, the former director of marine operations for OceanGate, testified on Tuesday that Rush was difficult to work with during that Andrea Doria dive. Lochridge said Rush, who was piloting the sub, ended up getting the vessel stuck in the wreck and panicked. Lochridge said Rush was behaving unprofessionally and refused to relinquish control until Rojas, with tears in her eyes, yelled at Rush to give Lochridge the “effing controller” that piloted the vessel.
Lochridge testified that Rush threw the PlayStation controller at his head and one of the buttons came off, though he said he was able to repair it and get them back to the surface.
Rojas refuted part of Lochridge’s testimony on Thursday, saying, “He must have gone on a different dive. Nobody was panicking, nobody was crying, and there was definitely no swearing and yelling.”
She said Rush put the controller on the floor at Lochridge’s feet, and she did not see it broken.
Rojas, an experienced scuba diver, said she went on other dives with OceanGate until the Titan was ready to go to the Titanic. She recounted a 2015 meeting with Rush.
“He told me a sub had not been made, that he had plans to make a sub to go to Titanic,” she said. “It was going to take time, but he wanted me to go out on other expeditions, and, you know, kind of test the waters of how they did things.”
She said she enjoyed being a mission specialist — what OceanGate called its paying customers.
“It was fun. I was learning a lot. I was working with amazing people,” she said. “Some of those people are the very hard-working individuals that were just trying to make dreams come true.”
Rojas is the first mission specialist to testify during the two-week hearing, which started on Monday. Another, Fred Hagen, is scheduled to testify on Friday.
“We all want to find out what happened,” Rojas said at the close of her testimony on Thursday.
“What we have all gone through — it’s still raw,” she said, crying. “Nothing is going to bring our friends back. I hope that this investigation creates an understanding that with exploration, there’s risk. And without taking that risk and the exploration, the world would still be flat. I hope that innovation continues so that we can make the oceans accessible to people like me.”
(NEW YORK) — A New York City teacher was struck by a stray bullet on the eve of the first day of school while setting up his classroom, police said.
The bullet flew through the window of the sixth-floor classroom, striking the 33-year-old teacher in his right hand, police said.
The incident occurred shortly before noon Wednesday at a middle school in the Bronx borough, according to the NYC Department of Education.
The bullet is believed to have been fired from an elevated surface a long distance from the school, M.S. 391, police said.
“The school was not targeted,” Deputy Chief Keiyon Ramsey with the NYPD’s Patrol Borough Bronx told reporters during a news briefing Wednesday.
The teacher suffered a graze wound to the palm of his right hand, Ramsey said. He was transported to a local hospital in stable condition and has since been released.
One fired bullet was recovered from the classroom and is being processed, Ramsey said.
Police are working to determine where the bullet came from and who fired it, according to Deputy Chief Louis Deceglie with the NYPD’s Detective Bureau Bronx Commanding Officer.
“We are currently searching all rooftops nearby, looking for both ballistic evidence and video evidence,” Deceglie told reporters during Wednesday’s briefing.
No students were in the classroom at the time of the shooting, as school does not start until Thursday. Additionally, no students were around the school at the time, Ramsey said.
“This egregious display of violence is both upsetting and reprehensible,” the DOE said in a statement. “NYPD immediately responded to the scene where one educator sustained non-life-threatening injuries. We will provide support additional support to this school community.”
There will be additional school safety agents and police officers at the middle school for the first day of school on Thursday “out of an abundance of caution,” Ramsey said.