Important Takeaways:
- South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) declared a State of Emergency in response to more than 100 wildfires breaking out in the state that had impacted 4,200 acres.
- In a press release, McMaster explained that there were “ongoing response operations to more than 175 wildfires” that had broken out. McMaster noted that due to the “dangerous wildfire conditions,” a statewide ban on burning would “remain in effect until further notice.”
- “This State of Emergency ensures that our first responders, who are working tirelessly and risking their lives to protect our communities from these wildfires, have the resources they need,” McMaster said in a statement. “Dangerous wildfire conditions require that a statewide burning ban remain in effect until further notice. Those who violate this ban will be subject to criminal prosecution.”
- The largest brush fire in the state, which “remained uncontained at 1,200 acres” as of Sunday afternoon, was reported to have erupted in “a community west of Myrtle Beach,” USA Today reported. As result, residents in several neighborhoods were forced to leave their homes.
- Residents in the communities of Saluda and Tryon, in North Carolina, were also faced with a fire, which the Saluda Fire & Rescue Department said had reportedly been started “by a downed power line.”
- In a Facebook post from the Polk County Emergency Management/Fire Marshal, it was revealed that the Melrose Fire was “still approximately 400 acres with 0% containment.”
- As South Carolina and North Carolina are facing wildfires, the National Weather Service Columbia South Carolina warned in a Facebook post that “the combination of dry fuels & low humidity continues concerns for dangerous fire behavior today.”
- ABC News reported that a fire that broke out in Horry County, “had scorched more than 300 acres by Sunday morning,” while homes in Georgetown County were affected after a wildfire broke out roughly “35 miles south of Myrtle Beach.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The first of this week’s back-to-back-to-back winter storms is bringing snow, ice and rain to a 1,500 mile stretch of the eastern US Tuesday morning.
- Another winter storm will hit some of the same areas in quick succession and dump the most substantial snow of the season over Chicago. The third storm is the most serious flood threat Southern California has faced since January’s devastating wildfires.
- Each is another link in a chain of disruptive storms unbroken since the start of February.
- Snow will pile up: It’s snowing over parts of the Tennessee Valley and Appalachians Tuesday morning, where 1 to 3 inches have already fallen. There’s more to come into Wednesday morning as the storm tracks east. Washington, DC, could get up to 6 inches of snow Tuesday which could snarl travel during the afternoon commute.
- State of emergency and school closures: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency, and the Virginia Department of Transportation urged residents to “stay off the roads once the storm arrives.” Several schools in the state are closed. Schools in the DC area and Maryland also announced early dismissals and closures, citing anticipated disruptions, along with similar impacts at schools in Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana.
- Power outages and treacherous travel likely: Significant amounts of ice – more than 0.25 inches – are possible through Wednesday in parts of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. “Ice accumulations could make many roads treacherous and impassable,” the National Weather Service warned Tuesday. “The weight of ice on tree limbs and power lines could produce numerous outages.”
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Important Takeaways:
- California has declared a state of emergency for H5N1 bird flu amid fears that the virus could jump to people and start to spread.
- The move comes in response to a major outbreak of the virus among the state’s cattle which has spilled over and infected dozens of dairy workers.
- The announcement follows news that an individual in Louisiana was hospitalized with H5N1, becoming the country’s first severe case.
- The declaration of emergency gives California state and local resources to contain the outbreak, including hiring staff or issuing contracts for things like tests or personal protective equipment (PPE).
- Governor Gavin Newsom said the move would free up funds and ‘streamline and expedite’ the state’s efforts to tackle the outbreak.
- California has identified H5N1 in 645 dairy herds since its first detection in late August and nearly half of those were reported in the past 30 days, highlighting the rapid spread of the virus.
- Thirty-four of the US’ 61 human bird flu cases have also been in California
- Experts have described it as a pandemic ‘unfolding in slow motion.’
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Important Takeaways:
- More than 100,000 people are under evacuation orders as several blazing wildfires continue to tear through parts of California.
- Apocalyptic scenes continue in San Bernardino County where the Line Fire has already caused 6,000 residents to flee.
- Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency after several days of triple-digit temperatures stoked the wildfire that burned so violently it created its own thunderstorm-like weather systems.
- As of Monday night, the Line Fire had charred more than 23,000 acres, with more than 36,000 structures under threat.
- Firefighters have been working in steep terrain and challenging conditions in temperatures above 100 degrees, limiting their ability to control the blaze.
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Important Takeaways:
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Tuesday in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes as severe land shift in the area is threatening the community and disrupting power lines.
- More than 200 homes in the city, around 30 miles south of Los Angeles, had their power cut Monday as a long-running ground shift close to them is threatening utility lines.
- “The city is located on four out of five sub-slides that comprise the Greater Portuguese Landslide Complex,” the governor’s office said. “Land movement at part of the Complex has significantly accelerated following severe storms in 2023 and 2024.”
- “This is unprecedented,” Rancho Palos Verdes City Council member Barbara Ferraro said Sunday. “No one knows really, in a way, what to do.”
- Southern California Edison cut off electricity Sunday to 140 homes in the Portuguese Bend community, an outage that it says is indefinite because the shifting ground threatens utility poles and raises the risk of fires in the city.
- Officials say the land there has been shifting slowly for decades, but the problem is worse than it used to be. “The movement has accelerated dramatically over the last 12 months, where some areas are moving up to 10 inches a week,” said City Council member David Bradley. “You can almost see the ground move.”
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Important Takeaways:
- US state is rocked by more than SIXTY earthquakes with up to 5.1 magnitude in a week
- A single county has reported more than 60 earthquakes in the last week, sparking a State of Emergency to be declared.
- Scurry County in West Texas was hit by a 5.1-magnitude quake on Friday, which was felt as far north as Oklahoma, followed by a 4.5-magnitude the next day.
- The epicenter in Hermleigh has now experienced 62 seismic events since last Monday (July 23)
- No damages or injuries have been reported.
- The largest quake was felt about 80 miles away in Lubbock and across parts of the South Plains.
- West Texas is not located on a major fault line, but features 250 minor ones that extents outward 1,800 miles from the Dallas-Fort Worth area
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Important Takeaways:
- Heavily armed gangs tried to seize control of Haiti’s main international airport on Monday, exchanging gunfire with police and soldiers in the latest attack on key government sites in an explosion of violence that includes a mass escape from the country’s two biggest prisons.
- The Toussaint Louverture International Airport was closed when the attack occurred, with no planes operating and no passengers on site.
- Associated Press journalists saw an armored truck on the tarmac shooting at gangs to try and prevent them from entering airport grounds as scores of employees and other workers fled from whizzing bullets.
- The surge in attacks follows violent protests that turned deadlier in recent days as the prime minister went to Kenya seeking to move ahead on the proposed U.N.-backed security mission to be led by that East African country.
- Henry took over as prime minister following Moise’s assassination and has postponed plans to hold parliamentary and presidential elections, which haven’t happened in almost a decade.
- Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who now runs a gang federation, has claimed responsibility for the surge in attacks. He said the goal is to capture Haiti’s police chief and government ministers and prevent Henry’s return.
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Important Takeaways:
- Dem-led Portland declares state of emergency over fentanyl crisis: Oregon Governor wades into turmoil three years after woke city decriminalized drugs that has caused ‘economic and reputational harm’
- Oregon leaders have declared a 90-day state of emergency in Portland to battle the city’s debilitating fentanyl crisis three years after decriminalizing possession of all drugs.
- Governor Tina Kotek, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson made the declaration and are directing their agencies to work with first responders in connecting people addicted to the synthetic opioid with resources including drug treatment programs and to crack down on drug sales.
- Fentanyl addicts who interact with first responders in Portland’s downtown in the next 90 days will be triaged by this new command center. Staff can connect people with various resources from a bed in a drug treatment center to meeting with a behavioral health clinician to help with registering for food stamps.
- ‘Our country and our state have never seen a drug this deadly addictive, and all are grappling with how to respond,’ Kotek said.
- Oregon became the first state in the country to decriminalize the possession of all drugs including heroin and cocaine in 2020.
- But residents have since demanded for politicians to take action on the open-air drug markets that surfaced and fueled a homelessness crisis.
- Opioid deaths in Oregon more than tripled from 280, before the de-criminalization of drugs was voted in, to 955 in 2022.
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Important Takeaways:
- Putin ordered a national nuclear alert for Wednesday; exercises will be held in 11 time zones
- They are preparing for the fact that 70 percent of the country will be destroyed in a Western nuclear attack, and a general state of emergency will have to be ordered
- Before, there was never such a comprehensive preparedness, extending from the Ukrainian border to Kamchatka, only region-by-region tests simulating a nuclear attack were held, reports the British newspaper Metro
- The test also models the secondary threat of damage to nuclear power plants and other key facilities.
- State and regional authorities must organize emergency rescue teams to provide food and health care and to protect against radioactive radiation.
- The population must be permanently relocated from the zone that has become life-threatening, similar to Chernobyl, which means an internal population exchange on an unprecedented scale.
- Meanwhile, Putin is moving away from nuclear Armageddon to one of his nuclear bunkers in various parts of the country, and he also has at his disposal a fleet of “Doomsday” Il-80 Maxdome aircraft that can act as an air control center.
- The exercise is being held four days before Putin’s 71st birthday.
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Important Takeaways:
- Heavy rain and flooding on Friday making for an extremely challenging and dangerous Friday morning commute and led to subway and rail service suspensions and the closure of a terminal at LaGuardia Airport.
- Parts of New York City have already seen five inches of rain as of 11 a.m.
- Flash flood warnings were issued for much of NYC and surrounding counties in New Jersey, the Hudson Valley and into Connecticut into the early afternoon, and were likely to be extended further.
- Flooding is possible for much of the tri-state area as a result of the heavy rain, which comes as the ground is already water-logged due to the remnants of Ophelia that drenched the region last weekend.
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