Tag Archives: Washington

Military Troops Brought in to Fight Western Wildfires

With over 100 wildfires burning in Western states, the U.S. military is now training troops to join the fight against them and provide relief to some of the 25,000 firefighters on scene.

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reported that 200 active duty troops will be split into 10 units of 20 men and all deployed to the same fire.  The move marks the first time that active duty military has been called out to fight domestic fires.  The troops will come from 17th Field Artillery Brigade of the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington.

National Guard troops have already been on the scene at several fires to help firefighters.

Officials in Idaho reported that an elderly woman died and 50 homes were destroyed in a cluster of fires along the Clearwater River.  The “Clearwater Complex” fire has burned more than 50,000 acres of timber & brush.

A spokesman for Clearwater fire command said that they are facing significant shortages and have had requests for reinforcements for ground forces and aircraft returned “UTF” or “unable to fill.”

Currently fourteen major wildfires are impacting Idaho.  Oregon and Washington have more than 30 large fires and have totaled the highest property losses from the flames.

At least 32 homes were destroyed in fires burning in north-central Washington near the resort town of Chelan.

“It’s A Miracle”: Teen Survives Plane Crash, Walks To Safety

Aviation experts and rescue personnel are calling it a “miracle” that 16-year-old Autumn Veatch not only survived the crash of her grandparent’s plane but was able to walk two days through the Washington wilderness until she found a trailhead and a passing motorist.

“It’s a miracle, no question about it, ” Lt. Col. Jeffrey Lustick of the Civil Air Patrol said Monday. “Moments of joy like this can be hard to find.”

Veatch said that her grandparents were killed in the crash according to a transcript of the 911 call made from a Mazama, Washington store where the motorist took the girl.

“So tell me exactly what happened,” the dispatcher told the girl, according to a transcript of the call posted by CNN.

“I was riding from Kalispell, Montana, to Bellingham, Washington, and … well, I don’t know where, but we crashed and I was the only one that made it out,” Veatch said in a low voice.

“Made it out from the collision?”

“From the plane,” she said.

“Or survived?”

“Yeah, the only one that survived.”

“Are you injured at all?”

“Yeah, I have a lot of burns on my hands, and I’m … kind of covered in bruises and scratches and stuff.”

Officials tried to tell the media they didn’t know the condition of the girl’s grandparents until the transcript was released to CNN.

“Autumn said they flew out of the clouds, and then flew into the side of a mountain. She was able to get out, and she spent the night by a river before hiking to the highway, where she was rescued,” Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers said.

“It gets cold up there at night, pretty high elevations, so she survived not only the crash, then going through that. I will just tell you this from all of us here — we are just impressed with her, she’s like a kind of superhero.”

Veatch was being treated for her injuries at Three Rivers Hospital where she was listed in stable condition.  Hospital officials said she was suffering mostly from exposure after spending two days in the wilderness.  Veatch’s father said she was “pretty banged up.”

The hospital added she suffered from rhabdomyolysis, a muscle disorder that was likely caused by an injury from the crash.

Officials are still searching for the crash site.

Scientists Say Odds Good Seattle Will Be Destroyed By Earthquake

A group of scientists say that a long overdue earthquake for the Pacific Northwest will strike in the next 50 years and will completely wipe out the city of Seattle.

A new report in the New Yorker highlights the problems of the Cascadia subduction zone which runs for 700 miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest from Cape Mendocino, California through Vancouver Island.  The zone is named after the Cascade Range of volcanic mountains that runs much of the same course about 100 miles inland.

The amount of time between quakes averages 243 years and because the last major quake took place in 1700, the fault is 72 years past the average date for a major quake.

Katheryn Schulz of the New Yorker spoke with Kenneth Murphy who oversees FEMA’s Region X which encompasses Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.  He said that when the “big one” hits…either a partial giving way of the southern part of the zone resulting in an 8.0-8.6 quake or a full-margin rupture between 8.7 and 9.2…there will no longer be a Pacific northwest.

“Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast,” Murphy told the New Yorker.  FEMA estimates say that 13,000 people will die in the quake and resulting tsunami.  At least 27,000 will suffer some kind of major injury.

Cities that are west of Interstate 5 include Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene and the capitals of Oregon (Salem) and Washington (Olympia).

“This is one time that I’m hoping all the science is wrong, and it won’t happen for another thousand years,” Murphy says.

Chris Goldfinger, a paleoseismologist at Oregon State University and one of the world’s leading experts, says that the chance of the “big one” taking place in the next 50 years is 1 in 3.

Ice Cave Collapse Kills 1; Injures 5

An ice cave that is part of the Big Four Ice Caves at Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest east of Seattle partially collapsed, killing a 34-year-old woman.

Eight people were in the back of the cave when the collapse took place around 5 p.m. Tuesday.  The caves had large warning signs about instability but the caves were not blocked.

“It’s not illegal to go in the caves. However, we’ve been saying since mid-May, it’s extremely dangerous with all this hot weather,” Shari Ireton with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office told CNN before noting that hot weather weakens the caves.

“There was a large pile of ice and rock that came down,” she said. “So it wasn’t just one big slab. … It wasn’t a piece of a shelf coming off.”

“They’re essentially a frozen-over avalanche chute sitting over a waterfall, sitting below a giant rock shoot,” Ireton added. “It’s incredibly dangerous.”

A witness told ABC that she heard a pop before the ice gave way.

“Everybody was happy. It was really cool. … [Then] we heard a pop and I got really nervous and I just look up and there’s, I see there’s this sheet of ice coming down,” said Chloe Jakubowski, 18. “I crouched down as quickly as I could and I put my hands over my head.”

“It was really scary,” she said. “I just didn’t know if those were going to be my last few moments.”

A 25-year-old man hurt in the collapse remains in intensive care at Harborview Medical Center although his status was upgraded from critical to serious.

Washington Woman Dies From Measles

Washington state officials have confirmed a woman’s death from measles, the first person in the U.S. to die of the disease in 12 years.

The Washington State Department of Health said it was likely the woman became exposed during an outbreak in Clallam County, just northwest of Seattle.  The disease was reported in six people in the county versus a total of 11 in the state.

The woman visited a medical facility at the same time as a person later diagnosed with measles.  She had a variety of health issues that depressed her immune system which caused death via pneumonia from measles.

“This tragic situation illustrates the importance of immunizing as many people as possible to provide a high level of community protection against measles,” the state health department’s statement read. “People with compromised immune systems often cannot be vaccinated against measles.”

The CDC said that measles were effectively eliminated in the United States in 2000 but are making a comeback due to adults who are delaying or avoiding vaccinations for their children.

The CDC said that 178 people have been diagnosed with measles in the United States this year with many connected to an outbreak at Disneyland during the 2014 holiday season.

Washington Wildfire Destroys Two Dozen Buildings

More than a thousand people were forced to flee in Wenatchee, Washington due to a raging wildfire that burned as many as two dozen buildings.

Officials said as of Monday morning the fire was partially contained but is still threatening homes in the path of the flames.

The fire is being called the Sleepy Hollow Fire and is located about 140 miles east of Seattle.  It started Sunday afternoon and quickly consumed over 3,000 acres.  Dry conditions and gusting winds were key factors in the accelerated spread of the fire according to local officials.

Among the destruction was a cardboard recycling plant. One firefighter’s car was partially destroyed when embers flew through the window and ignited the car’s back seat.

The eastern part of Washington has been experiencing temperatures over 100 degrees and the governor issued an emergency proclamation that allows state resources to be used to battle wildfires.

The fire was stopped by firefighters before it could reach multiple residential subdivisions, saving hundreds of homes.

However, that wasn’t the only problem in the Wenatchee area; an ammonia leak at a nearby fruit packaging plant had officials playing “shelter in place” warnings on social media.  The cloud dissipated without causing further damage to residents.

Patient With Extreme TB At National Institutes of Health

A woman with extremely hard to treat tuberculosis has been sent to the National Institutes of Health in Washington as health officials are tracking down hundreds who may have had contact with her.

“The patient was transferred to the NIH via special air and ground ambulances,” the NIH said in a statement.

The woman reportedly traveled to three states before she felt ill enough to seek medical attention.

“The patient traveled in April from India to the United States through Chicago O’Hare airport,” the CDC said in a statement provided to NBC News.  “The patient also spent time in Missouri and Tennessee. Seven weeks after arriving in the United States, the patient sought treatment for and was diagnosed with active TB.”

The woman is now isolated at the NIH after her initial isolation in Chicago.

“The patient is staying in an isolation room in the NIH Clinical Center specifically designed for handling patients with respiratory infections, including XDR-TB. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, is providing care and treatment for the patient in connection with an existing NIH clinical protocol for treating TB, including XDR forms. NIAID has treated other XDR-TB patients in the past under this protocol,” the NIH said.

The patient, whose identity is being kept secret, is facing months or years of treatment.  XDR-TB sometimes requires surgery to remove pockets of infection.  Up to half the people infected with the strain cannot be cured.

Girl Builds Homes For The Homeless

A 9-year-old Washington girl believes “everyone should have a place to live.”

For Hailey Ford, it’s more than something she says.  It’s something that she lives out every day.

Hailey is building 8 foot by 4 foot wooden structures designed to give one homeless person a place to sleep.

“It just doesn’t seem right that there are homeless people,” Hailey told the King 5 News. “I think everyone should have a place to live.”

But a home is not where Hailey started…it was with a garden.

Hailey met a homeless man named Edward who found himself on the street after losing his job at a grocery store.  Hailey’s mother provided Edward with a sandwich on the day they met but Hailey wanted to do more.  So she started a garden, Hailey’s Harvest, which donated 128 pounds of produce to feed the homeless in 2014.

Hailey teamed with Together Rising, a non profit who gave Hailey a $3,000 grant toward her project.

“We can’t think of a better example than our Hailey — she’s proof that no person – or act of kindness — is too small to change the world,” Together Rising founder Glennon Doyle Melton said in a statement provided to The Huffington Post.

Hailey says the first completed shelter will go to Edward.

Court Rules School Violated Rights Of Student Preacher

A federal judge delivered a major victory for the religious freedom of students when he ordered a Washington school to erase the suspension records of a student who preached at school.

Cascade High School senior Michael Leal had been suspended by the school three times last October saying that his handing out of Gospel literature and preaching violated school policy.  The school told him that if he continued his actions he would be expelled for causing a “disruption” on campus.

The Pacific Justice Institute stepped in after the third suspension to defend Leal’s rights.  Now, a federal judge says the school was wrong.

“Plaintiff’s suspensions on October 2, 9, and 31, 2014, are vacated. Defendant shall remove the Notices of Disciplinary Action or Short Term Suspension dated October 2, 9, and 31, 2014, from his record,” US District Court Judge Thomas Zilly wrote in his decision and awarded Leal $1 as nominal damage.

The judge also declared the school’s policy against non-student written handouts unconstitutional.

“Defendant is hereby enjoined from enforcing the requirement that materials be ‘written and/or produced by students.’ That language is severed from the Policy and Procedure of the Everett Public Schools,” the court ordered.

The school now has a “free speech zone” where students can express views.

“Everyone needs to hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s absolutely necessary,” Leal said.  He is scheduled to graduate on June 10th.

Seattle Student Uncovered As ISIS Recruiter

A journalism student from Seattle has been uncovered by authorities as a prominent female ISIS recruiter.

Rawdah Abdisalaam reportedly ran a twitter account called “@_UmmWaqqas” that had over 8,000 followers.  The account called on all Muslims to join the Islamic terrorist group.

“This is all I do pretty much,” one post stated, which included a photograph of Abdisalaam’s laptop–sitting on an Islamic State flag—playing Islamic lecture videos. “My aspiration is to become like A’isha Radi Allahu Anha (the wife of Mohammed) in every sense.”

“May Allah bless our Mujahideen in Dawlatul Islam,” she wrote in another Tweet. “May Allah grant them victory over their enemies and bless the Islamic State!”

Friends of Abdisalaam were shocked to discover she was working with ISIS.  They say that she has fled Seattle and could have left the country. She also reportedly had contact with Keonna Thomas, a Philadelphia woman arrested earlier this year for attempting to join ISIS.

FBI Director James Comey said that social media is a growing path for the terrorists to recruit members.

“It’s almost as if there is a devil sitting on the shoulder saying, ‘Kill, kill, kill, kill’ all day long,” he said. “[They are] recruiting and tasking at the same time. … In a way, the old paradigm between ‘inspired’ and ‘directed’ breaks down here.”