Tag Archives: Alaska

Gun was given back to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida shooting suspect last month

Workers prepare airplanes on the tarmac at Ft. Lauderdale International Airport after it re-opened following a mass shooting in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

By Zachary Fagenson

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) – Police in Alaska took a handgun from the man accused of killing five people at Fort Lauderdale’s airport on Friday, but they returned it to him last month after a medical evaluation found he was not mentally ill, authorities said on Saturday.

Esteban Santiago, a 26-year-old Iraq war veteran, had a history of acting erratically and investigators are probing whether mental illness played a role in the latest U.S. mass shooting. According to court papers, he told agents he planned the attack and bought a one-way ticket to Florida.

Santiago was charged on Saturday in federal court and could potentially face the death penalty if convicted in the case, U.S. prosecutors said.

Marlin Ritzman, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s office in Anchorage, told a news conference Santiago walked into the office in November and said his mind was being controlled by a U.S. intelligence agency. He was turned over to local police, who took him to a medical facility for a mental evaluation.

“Santiago was having terroristic thoughts and believed he was being influenced by ISIS (the Islamic State militant group,)” Anchorage Police Chief Chris Tolley told the news conference.

A handgun police took from Santiago during the evaluation was returned to him early last month, Tolley told reporters. The police chief said it was not clear if it was the same weapon used on Friday.

Officials in Anchorage said the gun was returned because Santiago had not been adjudicated to be mentally ill.

“As far as I know, this is not somebody that would have been prohibited (from having a gun) based on the information they had,” U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler told the news conference.

Investigators said they have not ruled out terrorism as a motive and that the suspect’s recent travel is being reviewed.

Federal prosecutors charged Santiago with carrying out violence at an airport, causing serious bodily injury, using a firearm during a crime of violence and causing death to a person through the use of a firearm, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

He will appear in court in Fort Lauderdale on Monday.

Five people were killed and six wounded in the rampage, while about three dozen were taken to local hospitals with bruises or broken bones suffered in the chaos as passengers fled the crowded baggage claim area.

‘METHODICAL’ SHOOTING

Authorities say Santiago arrived in Ft. Lauderdale on a connecting flight from Alaska and retrieved a Walther 9mm semi-automatic handgun from his checked luggage before loading it in a bathroom and shooting indiscriminately.

According to the criminal complaint, Santiago fired the weapon 10 to 15 times, aiming it at his victims’ heads.

“He was described as walking while shooting in a methodical manner,” the complaint said.

Witnesses said the gunman, who was wearing a blue “Star Wars” T-shirt, said nothing as he fired and surrendered to police only after running out of ammunition.

The Broward County sheriff has said it took the first deputy about 70 to 80 seconds to contact the suspect after the first shots rang out and that when the deputy confronted him, he dropped the gun and was taken into custody.

Authorities said three of the six victims who suffered gunshot wounds are in intensive care. The others are in good condition. Those killed included a volunteer firefighter in his sixties and a retiree on holiday with her husband.

Santiago served from 2007 to 2016 in the Puerto Rico National Guard and Alaska National Guard, including a deployment to Iraq from 2010 to 2011, according to the Pentagon.

A private first class and combat engineer, he received half a dozen medals before being transferred to the inactive ready reserve in August last year.

An aunt said Santiago returned from his deployment “a different person,” MSNBC reported.

Santiago’s brother Bryan, who lives in Puerto Rico, told CNN he believed authorities did not do enough to help his mentally ill sibling.

“They had him hospitalized for four days, and then they let him go. How are you going to let someone leave a psychological center after four days when he is saying that he is hearing voices?” Bryan Santiago told CNN.

The attack was the latest in a series of U.S. mass shootings, some inspired by Islamist militants, others carried out by loners or the mentally disturbed.

Last June, Florida was the scene of the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, when a gunman apparently inspired by Islamic State killed 49 people and wounded 53 at the gay nightclub “Pulse” in Orlando.

(Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York, Alex Dobunzinskis in Los Angeles, and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)

Alert level raised for Alaska volcano after explosion detected

Cleveland Volcano in Alaska

By Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) – Scientists raised the alert level for a remote Aleutian volcano on Monday after an explosion was detected on the mountain and heard by residents of a tiny village some 45 miles (72 km) away, a monitoring website said.

Cleveland Volcano, a 5,676-foot (1,730-metre) peak on the uninhabited Chuginadak Island, about 940 miles (1,504 km) southwest of Anchorage, was raised to orange from yellow by the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

The orange code, the second-highest on the scale, is issued when a volcano is “exhibiting heightened or escalating unrest with increased potential of eruption,” according to the observatory. A red code is issued when an eruption is imminent or under way.

The observatory said that an explosion was detected on Cleveland by both infrasound and seismic data and heard by residents of Nikolski, a settlement of less than 50 people on Umnak Island about 45 miles (72 km) to the east.

Infrasound instruments measure air pressure around the volcano.

Scientists said that cloudy weather obscured Cleveland’s peak in satellite images but that no evidence of an eruption cloud had been detected at a height of 28,000 feet (8,534.4 meters).

Previous explosions have spewed ash emissions, according to the observatory.

The volcano, named after U.S. President Grover Cleveland, is one of the most active of Alaska’s scores of volcanoes and its ash cloud could pose a threat to aircraft when it erupts.

It forms the western portion of Chuginadak Island and has been intermittently producing small lava flows and explosions since 2001, the observatory said.

Chuginadak Island is part of Alaska’s Aleutian archipelago, a geologically active chain of volcanic islands that is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire and is very prone to earthquakes.

Earlier this year Mount Pavlof on the Alaska Peninsula erupted with little advanced warning, spewing an ash cloud up to 20,000 feet (6,096 meters) high that prompted aviation warnings across the region.

Pavlof is currently at yellow on the alert scale, meaning that it is “exhibiting signs of elevated unrest” but not erupting, according to the observatory.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory is a joint program of the U.S. Geological Survey, the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the State of Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Massive volcanic eruption in Alaska causes flight diversions

Alaska Volcano

(Reuters) – A volcano on the Alaska Peninsula erupted with little advanced warning over the weekend, spewing an ash cloud up to 20,000 feet (6,096 meters) high that prompted aviation warnings across the region, scientists said on Monday.

Mount Pavlof, one of the most active volcanoes on the peninsula, began erupting shortly after 4:00 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time on Sunday, said Jessica Larsen, coordinating scientist with the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute.

“Pavlof is known to us for having a pretty quick onset to eruptions, it doesn’t always give us long precursory signals,” Larsen said.

“If you look at some of the seismic data that we have, the intensity really ramped up pretty fast. It was quite abrupt,” she said.

Photos on the Alaska Volcano Observatory website showed the plume towering over the icy slopes of Mount Pavlof and drifting to the northwest.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a “red” aviation alert in response to the 20,000-foot-high ash cloud, which required that flights to be re-routed. The alert could affect local and regional air traffic, as well polar routes and cargo flights from Anchorage.

Larsen said the eruption did not pose any immediate danger to nearby communities on the peninsula, which were monitoring the ash fall. The closest residential area is Cold Bay, located 37 miles (60 km) southwest of Pavlof.

There have been more than 40 eruptions from Pavlof, including between May and November of 2014, when ash plumes also triggered aviation warnings. Such events can last weeks or months.

“This 20,000-foot ash cloud is not unusual for Pavlof at all,” Larsen said, adding that the highest recorded plume from the volcano was 49,000 feet.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Major earthquake in southern Alaska felt for hundreds of miles

JUNEAU, Alaska (Reuters) – A powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck remote southern Alaska early on Sunday, unleashing shudders felt several hundred miles from the tremor’s lakefront epicenter at the far end of Cook Inlet from Anchorage, the state’s largest city.

No injuries were reported, but several neighborhoods in the town of Kenai – roughly halfway between the quake’s center and Anchorage – were temporarily evacuated after a gas explosion damaged four homes several hours later, a city spokesman said.

As of Sunday night, local utility company Enstar was still investigating whether the earthquake triggered a gas leak believed to have caused the blast, company spokesman John Sims said.

There were also reports of brief power outages in Anchorage, about 160 miles southwest of the epicenter, and cities immediately to the north and south.

The quake, initially reported at a 7.3 magnitude, struck at 1:30 a.m. about 30 miles east-southeast of Pedro Bay on the shore of Iliamna Lake, at the foot of a mountain chain just west of Cook Inlet, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported.

The quake was felt as far away as Whitehorse, the capital of Canada’s Yukon Territory more than 600 miles east of Anchorage, according to the USGS.

It was recorded 79 miles beneath the surface, a depth that helped keep damage to a minimum, said Dara Merz, a research technician with the Alaska Earthquake Center in Fairbanks.

“If you take into account how deep it was, that’s a lot of earth and rock that seismic waves have to work through to get to the surface,” Merz said.

The Fairbanks agency reported a series of aftershocks reaching magnitudes of up to 4.7, though Merz said even larger tremors could follow.

Alaska, a seismically active state, records anywhere from 80 to 100 quakes daily, most of them hardly ever noticed. One of the more powerful quakes to hit Alaska in recent years was a 7.9 magnitude temblor that struck beneath the ocean floor near the Aleutian Islands chain in June 2014, but it caused no injuries or major damage.

Following Sunday’s quake, jittery Anchorage residents and hotel guests who briefly fled their buildings took to social media sites to share their experiences. Some posted photos of stores with aisles littered by fallen merchandise knocked off shelves to the floor.

The quake produced no tsunami threat, according to the U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

(Reporting from Juneau by Steve Quinn; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler and Tom Hogue)

3-Year-Old Starts Movement to Help Homeless Community

Compassion is not an emotion reserved for adults and three year old Patrick McClung from Anchorage, Alaska is the perfect example.  

According to local news station KTVA,  Patrick broke down in tears back in October when his mother, Destinee McClung, explained to him what being homeless means.

“Everyone he knows has a house and has food and has toys,” McClung said. “And so it really genuinely hurt his heart to kind of realize that there are people that go without.”

He even cried over the matter, saying through tears in an emotional video McClung posted to her Facebook page that, “I don’t want them to sleep on a piece of cardboard.”

ABC News reported that Patrick was so affected by what he had learned that he put his hurt into action. The 3-year-old and his mother have set up donation boxes around town, collecting clothing and toiletries for homeless people.  

People have been eagerly donating to Patrick’s project with blankets, socks and other cold-weather apparel, to hygiene-related items like shampoo, conditioner, soap and diapers.  The toddler himself has gone to great lengths to donate, selling his beloved trains so he could buy items for those in need.

So far Patrick is proud to show others that he has collected 10 large bags of donations for those that have so little.

“It’s for all the people, and they don’t have homes,” Patrick explained to KTVA, showing off the items. “And they’re very cold.”

In addition to collecting goods for the homeless, the 3-year-old has also started volunteering at a soup kitchen handing out desserts and chatting with people.

China Showing Off Military Might

China is making a demonstration of its military might both through ocean maneuvers and a parade of new technology.

The first major flexing of China’s military muscle came during the incident of ships off the coast of Alaska during a visit by President Obama.  The ships entered US territorial waters for the first time, passing within 12 nautical miles of the Alaskan coast.

US military officials say the ships complied with international law despite their proximity to Alaska.

“They already had one of their icebreakers up in that area, and they weren’t that far away with an exercise, and they’ve already started their return transit,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told Reuters.

Meanwhile, the military used the anniversary of the ending of World War II to display in a parade a missile that’s designed to take out an aircraft carrier.

The missile, called the Dongfeng DF-21D, is designed to enter space like an intercontinental ballistic missile but the warhead will detach and use radar to target a ship.

“The significance of that weapon is that its warhead, once it detaches from the launching vehicle, is able to slow its descent, turn on a radar seeker, and maneuver to engage a moving ship if it is in the radar “footprint” of the seeker,” Michael McDevitt, a retired United States rear admiral and analyst at CNA Strategic Studies, told the New York Times.

“This is unusual because normally ballistic, by definition, means that once fired, a weapon goes straight to where it was aimed. Heretofore, a ballistic missile with a conventional warhead would not be effective against a moving target because during the time of flight of the missile the target would have moved. The maneuvering warhead is Cold War technology, first introduced as I understand it with the Pershing II land-based missiles Reagan stationed in Europe.”

The missiles have a range of about 900 miles, meaning China could use them to keep American naval vessels out of the South China Sea in the event China attacks Taiwan.

Chinese Warships Operate Near Alaskan Coast for First Time

Five Chinese naval vessels have been spotted operating in the Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast for the first time.

The Wall Street Journal confirmed Pentagon officials saying they haven’t seen the Chinese navy act in this manner until now.

“The officials said they have been aware in recent days that three Chinese combat ships, a replenishment vessel and an amphibious ship were in the vicinity after observing them moving toward the Aleutian Islands, which are split between U.S. and Russian control,” the Journal stated the officials confirmed.

“They said the Chinese ships were still in the area, but declined to specify when the vessels were first spotted or how far they were from the coast of Alaska, where President Barack Obama is winding up a three-day visit.”

“This would be a first in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands. I don’t think we’d characterize anything they’re doing as threatening,” an unnamed defense official told the Washington Free Beacon.

Analysts speculate this is another attempt by China to assert their influence beyond their region.  China’s leader will be in Washington this month to meet with President Obama and the action could be an attempt to show strength before the meetings.

Explosion Reported At Alaskan Volcano

Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) reported Tuesday a major explosion that rocked the Cleveland Volcano.

The scientists said that the explosion likely produced an ash cloud but that it stayed below 20,000 feet and was not a threat to commercial aircraft.

“We see this quite often and we think that they are associated with some sort of ash production,” U.S. Geological Survey geologist Kristi Wallace said.

The AVO recorded a similar explosion from the Ring of Fire placed volcano last November.

The Cleveland Volcano forms the western part of Chuginadak Island and is about 940 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska.

The volcano has been seismically active over the last 14 years, with occasional lava flows and small ash clouds that stay below the 20,000 foot level of concern by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Quakes Shake Oregon, Alaska, Utah

The Fourth of July weekend had more than fireworks shaking things up in Utah, Oregon and Alaska.

Oregon residents started their day out in an unusual way when a 4.2 magnitude quake struck around 8:42 a.m. Saturday.  The quake was centered about 12 miles east of Eugene.

Officials from the Lane County Sheriff’s office and the Oregon Department of Transportation reported no damage being reported.  Residents say that the quake caused some shaking of homes, pictures to fall off walls and wood piles to shift.

In Utah, a 4.0 magnitude quake struck around 10 a.m., 1 mile south of Panguitch or 200 miles south of Salt Lake City.

Panguitch Fire Chief Dave Dodds told the Deseret News the quake lasted between three and four seconds but caused no major damage.

Alaska was the most shaken up with weekend quakes.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported Alaska was shaken by two quakes within one minute.

The first, a 4.9 magnitude quake, struck around 4:49 p.m. about 24 miles southwest of Talkeetna.  The second quake a minute later in the same area was reported at magnitude 5.1.

Also, the Arctic community of Kaktovik in the Arctic Ocean reported a quake around 11:26 a.m. that measured 4.6 according to the USGS.

Powerful Geomagnetic Storm Strikes Earth

A severe geomagnetic storm struck Earth Tuesday morning.

Scientists say the storm is rated as G4 on a scale that has a maximum of G5.  The storm is the strongest to hit the planet during the current 11-year solar cycle.

The Space Weather Prediction Center says the storm could bring voltage control problems at many power systems.  Also electrical systems and devices in areas like Alaska and Canada could be damaged by the intensity of the storm.

The storm could also impact GPS and other satellite based systems throughout the day.

The NWPC says the storm was created by sun activity on March 15th.

The last major storm to strike the planet was January 7th when a G3 rated storm passed over the planet.