November 26, 2020 • No Comments • National News

ABC NewsBy DANIEL MANZO, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — The holiday storm that has been tracking across the country brought some severe weather and heavy rain to parts of the Midwest and the south on Wednesday.

There was one reported tornado in Mississippi that did some damage as well as strong thunderstorm wind reports in parts of Indiana and Ohio.

Heavy rain in the South also brought some flash flooding, especially in parts of the New Orleans metropolitan area.

On Thursday morning, heavy rain forming along the frontal system associated with the holiday storm is bringing heavy rain to the Northeast, including to major metro areas.

Locally, over an inch of rain could be possible from this storm, which could cause some flash flooding on area roadways.

For those that are headed out and about for Thanksgiving, it could be treacherous with heavy rain at times and some flooding in spots.

The other weather story for Thanksgiving is a critical fire threat in Southern California.

Dry and gusty Santa Ana winds are expected in the region starting Thursday and lasting through Friday and gusts, especially in the mountains, could reach 65 mph and relative humidity could be as low as 5%.

These are critical fire conditions and any fires that do develop could become quite erratic. The fire danger is expected to persist into Friday.

While most of the country will get away with a quiet Thanksgiving in terms of sensible weather, there are indications that the weather pattern is about to change.

A new storm will develop in the southern U.S. as early as late Friday and Saturday and the initial impacts of this storm will be widespread heavy rain that will be moving across the southern U.S. this holiday weekend.

The rainfall is expected to be somewhat excessive, with a widespread 2 to 4 inches of rain expected from Texas to Georgia, and locally 4 to 6 inches of rain in parts of extreme Southeast Texas and Louisiana which could result in flash flooding concerns this weekend.

By early next week the precise placement of this storm and a blast of colder air becomes a little more complicated and forecast confidence begins to decrease.

However, forecast models are indicating that the storm will become pretty well organized and pull a surge of cold air down into parts of the eastern U.S. with a surge of moisture along the East Coast.

Perhaps the more concerning issue with this set up is that storm slows down and stalls over the eastern U.S., which means there could be several days in a row next week of unsettled weather from the Midwest to the Northeast.

The likely impacts include a very heavy rain even for the Northeast major cities with flooding possible.

Gusty winds along the coast will also be possible, as will coastal flooding.

However, on the colder western side of the storm, areas of snow are likely to develop but it remains too early to determine where the heaviest snow will occur.

But due to the rush of cold air, there could be snowfall well into the Tennessee Valley.

Overall, it remains too early to determine the precise impacts of this storm but it appears several days of unsettled weather is ahead beginning in the South this weekend and then the Midwest and Northeast next week.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 25, 2020 • No Comments • National News

iStock/narvikkBY: JULIA JACOBO, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — Health care workers across the country are pleading with the public to follow COVID-19 guidelines as the nation struggles to contain another wave of the virus.

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 reached 260,000 on Wednesday, and almost every state in the U.S. is experiencing an increased rate of infection, according to Johns Hopkins University.

At the Pablo Pinto General Hospital in Mineral Wells, Texas, about 90 miles west of Dallas, doctors and nurses are “struggling to transfer patients to higher levels of care,” the hospital’s CEO, Ross Korkmas, wrote on a statement posted to Facebook Tuesday.

Both the intensive care unit and COVID-19 unit at the hospital are full, and more patients are currently admitted than ever before, making it difficult for patients in need to be transferred to higher levels of care, he said.

Korkmas called on the community to help slow the spread of the virus.

“Please help protect your neighbor, help protect your coworkers, help protect OUR community from the spread of a virus. Wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands and please limit gatherings,” Korkmas wrote. “You are the front line to stop the spread and we need your help!”

Kenneth Remy, a doctor at the Missouri Baptist Medical Center and the Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, posted a video to Twitter last week showing what it’s like for a patient who is about to be placed on a ventilator.

“This is what it looks like when you breathe 40 times a minute,” he wrote. “I hope that the last moments of your life don’t look like this.”

The city has seen record numbers of deaths and hospitalizations in the past 10 days, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Remy used the video as a teaching moment.

“This is serious,” he said. “I beg you, please practice the precautions to reduce transmission of COVID disease so that we can effectively prevent disease for you and your loved ones.”

Health care workers have been witnessing death and suffering for nearly nine months now, leaving them burned out and with low morale, Dan Meyer, a doctor at Maine Medical Center in Portland, told ABC Portland affiliate WMTW-TV.

The difficulties are compounded as people continue to ignore public health measures, Meyer said.

“When you encounter those situations, it just makes it so much more difficult as a health care worker, and I really worry about what’s happening to health care workers in this country … the challenge they face in burnout and wellness and gratitude goes a long way,” Meyer said.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci echoed those pleas, urging Americans to keep Thanksgiving celebrations as small as possible.

“A sacrifice now could save lives … and make the future much brighter as we get through this,” Fauci said on Good Morning America Wednesday.

North Carolina Central University on Tuesday released results of a study that showed 77% of North Carolinians plan to spend Thanksgiving with people from outside their home. Hospitalizations in neighboring counties are up by 69%, ABC Durham, North Carolina, affiliate WTVD-TV reported.

“It makes me extremely sad. I just worry about my own team, because my team now has to step up and work harder,” Loc Culp, an ICU nurse manager at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, told WTVD-TV.

The hospital’s pulmonary and critical care division chief, Shannon Carson, warned that if health guidelines aren’t followed on Thanksgiving, future holidays could be ruined as well.

“Don’t make one day of warm family gathering turn into a Christmas in the intensive care unit,” Carson said. “It’s just not worth it.”

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