Yardley Makefield Marine Rescue leaving the Yardley Boat Ramp along N. River Road heading down the Delaware River on Monday morning July 17, 2023, in Yardley, Pa. Search and rescue units are looking for two lost children caught in flood waters Saturday. (Alejandro A. Alvarez/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
High-water rescue crews pulled people from flooded homes and vehicles Wednesday in Kentucky, where waves of thunderstorms prompted flash flood warnings and watches. A search continued for two children swept away after torrential rains in the northeastern United States.
The National Weather Service issued flash flood watches and warnings, estimating that as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain could fall in the area where Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri meet at the convergence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The weather system will then move Thursday and Friday over New England, where the ground remains saturated after recent floods.
With so much rain falling so quickly, it was a “life-threatening situation” in the Mayfield and Wingo areas early Wednesday, according to Keith Cooley, a senior forecaster with the weather service in Paducah, Kentucky.
In Mayfield, a city of 10,000 that was especially hard hit by storms that produced deadly tornadoes in December 2021, the flooding appeared concentrated in older neighborhoods, where the overflowing Red Duck Creek usually meanders toward Mayfield Creek, which feeds the Mississippi.
“I know we’re weary of this, but also so hopeful for the future,” Mayfield Mayor Kathy O’Nan said. “I don’t think this is going to set us back any, but we all feel that enough is enough.”
In Connecticut, a woman died after being swept down a swollen river Tuesday with her 5-year-old daughter. State Fire officials say the pair were swimming in the Shetucket River in Sprague when they were swept away by currents that have been running high because of the recent heavy rains in New England. They were found unconscious downstream and taken to a local hospital, where the mother, a woman in her 30s, died. Fire officials say the daughter was stabilized at a local hospital and is expected to survive.
And in Pennsylvania, searchers are still trying to find two children visiting from South Carolina who were swept away in what one fire chief called “a wall of water” that hit their family and killed their mother Saturday. Four other people also died in those flash floods.
Emergency officials described the flash flooding as a catastrophic threat in Kentucky’s Graves County, where Mayfield is the county seat. With major flooding already occuring and more rain on the way, Sheriff Jon Hayden urged drivers Wednesday to stay off the roads.
“Many roads have been washed out, many cars have driven into water and drowned out,” Hayden posted on social media. He said His House Ministries opened their church for anyone needing shelter.
Mayfield police urged people to closely watch for updates since many roads were becoming impassable and the area was expecting another 3 to 6 inches of rain. A short time later they began restricting travel due to flooding, with numerous roads under water.
Crews have had to rescue people from homes, but there haven’t been any reports of injuries or deaths, said Trooper Sarah Burgess, a spokesperson for Kentucky State Police Post 1, which covers 11 western Kentucky counties. Graves County appears to be hardest hit so far, she said.
O’Nan said she had no reports of injuries or deaths from the flooding after about six inches had fallen since midnight. Emergency officials and police officers were going door to door and finding that most residents had self-evacuated.
“There have been no injuries reported, which is just a blessing,” O’Nan said. She added that power briefly went out in the southern part of the city, which is still recovering from the 2021 tornados that toppled the county courthouse and killed dozens of people.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 26, 2022, with Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter for $44 billion, Russia warning of a possible threat of World War III, the FDA approving a COVID treatment for children under 12, and more.
Plastic pollution is a problem that experts say is only getting worse. One organization is looking to change that. Activists want to save the beauty of our oceans, with the beauty of art. Brad Parks, conservation education director of the Washed Ashore project, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
The federal mask mandate for planes and other public transportation has been grounded. A federal judge in Florida struck down the nationwide requirement saying it exceeds health officials' authority. Dr. Sampson Davis, emergency medicine physician, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
UPSIDE foods, a company that makes cultivated meat products, recently raised $400 million in a Series C round.
UPSIDE says it's developing a way to grow real meat, poultry, and seafood, without the need to raise animals for human consumption. It's a process that gets the attention of some big-name backers, including Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Dr. Uma Valeti, Founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 25, 2022, with Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin visiting Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron is reelected as president of France, Twitter is talking to Elon Musk about his purchase bid, and more.
An increasing number of countries are recognizing "Rights of Nature", a legal movement that says ecosystems and species have basic rights to exist and flourish. Grant Wilson, executive director at Earth Law Center joins Cheddar News to explain what the movement is aiming to achieve.
Removing carbon from our atmosphere has become a goal for scientists and entrepreneurs around the world, and while many have begun to develop promising technology solutions, a few big names in tech, including Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta and McKinsey, are committing nearly $1 billion dollars to fund carbon removal technology through 2030 through a new initiative called Frontier, an advanced market commitment to incentive following through on development. Hannah Bebbington, the head of strategy for Frontier, joined Cheddar News to discuss. "What Frontier aims to do is help get this market on track by sending that strong demand signal such that we can scale up capacity really significantly in the next couple of years," she said.
Autumn Peltier, an indigenous water activist, joined Cheddar News to talk about the lack of access to clean water among indigenous communities in Canada. “I say the government to hold themselves accountable for the promises that they make because Canada and indigenous people have a long history of broken promises and they still continue to this day to keep breaking promises with the nation's people," she said. "Less talk and more action is very much expected from me."
Jonah Goldman, the managing director at Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy, joined Cheddar News to talk about the promising growth in the climate change-conscious investments the organization has made over the years. ”I mean when we're looking at some of the hard to abate technologies and cement and steel and aviation fuel, all of those have promising pathways that weren't there again just a few years ago," he said. "We invest across all of the technology areas that are driving emissions, greenhouse gas emissions and there really are exciting products and technologies coming out in almost every one of those sectors.”
Robert Bonnie, farm production and conservation undersecretary for the USDA, spoke to Cheddar about climate-smart strategies to help farmers reduce carbon emissions from agriculture. "We share the costs of installing those practices on their lands in ways that will protect the climate and maintain agricultural productivity, and we're also partnering with farmers to draw in private investment in greenhouse gas emissions reductions provided by agriculture and forestry," he said. The hope is to get farmers and ranchers to produce climate-smart commodities to lessen the impact of climate change.
