(NEW YORK) — Large portions of Manhattan in New York City were without power Friday morning as at least 1.3 million people are still without power along the East Coast after Isaias wreaked havoc on the region earlier this week.
Con Edison, the city’s main power company, said there are at least 123,808 customers without power, including those who had previously lost power as a result of the storm, as of 6:30 a.m. Friday.
The new power outages in New York City Friday, according to Con Ed’s outage map, were in the Upper West Side, Harlem and Upper East Side neighborhoods.
ConEd, in a statement to ABC News, said the supply has been restored to those areas.
“We are investigating a problem on our transmission system that caused three networks in Manhattan to lose their electric supply at about 5:13 this morning,” ConEd said in a statement.
A live camera from ABC News New York City station WABC-TV showed a large section of the Upper West Side completely dark. A station camera also showed the electricity out in the Upper East Side.
Subways in the city are also being impacted because of the Manhattan power outage, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
Lines impacted, according to the MTA, include the A, B, C, D, 1,2,3, E, F, N, Q, and R trains.
“Expect delays as we are getting reports of power outages in some parts of uptown Manhattan,” the MTA tweeted. “This is also affecting stations and third-rail power.”
Thousands have been without power in the city this week as a result of Isaias.
“We realize it is incredibly frustrating to be without power and that is why we are working around the clock to get customers back in service,” Robert Schimmenti, Con Edison’s senior vice president, Electric Operations, said in a statement Thursday. “We have additional mutual aid and contractor workers arriving each day to help us restore service safely. We assure our customers that our crews will remain on the job 24-7 until everyone has their power back.”
UnCruise Adventures CEO Captain Dan Blanchard. (ABC News)By AMANDA MAILE and MINA KAJI, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — One of the first U.S. cruises to resume sailing amid the novel coronavirus pandemic was cut short after a passenger tested positive for COVID-19.
The 63 passengers and crew aboard the UnCruise Adventures’ ship were just three days into their Alaskan vacation when they were informed Wednesday the guest had tested positive and they would have to return to port.
“This was the guest’s second test following a negative test result,” UnCruise Adventures said in a statement. “The guest is showing no symptoms and no other guests or crew are showing outward symptoms of any kind.”
UnCruise Adventures was able to circumvent the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no-sail order because its ships carry less than 250 people.
“Social distancing was actually a reality aboard our boat,” UnCruise Adventures CEO Captain Dan Blanchard told ABC News, “as well as all the standard things you would think of masks, no buffets, plated meals, separated tables. So we felt, and still do feel, that the actual vessel itself and the way that our trips run, provide a very low opportunity for transmission.”
The cruise line has now decided to suspend all future 2020 Alaska departures as the entire industry struggles with how to weather the coronavirus crisis.
“It has affected our life immensely,” Blanchard said. “This year we’ll have about 2% of our normal revenue and — and that’s devastating.”
The CDC’s no sail-order expires at the end of September, but major U.S. cruise lines have voluntarily suspended operations until at least the end of October.
“This has been a bit of a come to Jesus moment,” Blanchard said, “about how easily even with proper testing, somebody got on board.”
Blanchard hopes they can start operations again in the winter in Hawaii, but acknowledged the situation is still very fluid.
“We’ve been really lobbying Congress for rapid testing,” Blanchard said. “That would change the game and would allow sailing before an absolute vaccine.”
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Thursday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE St. Louis, Detroit (Postponed) Pittsburgh 6, Minnesota 5 Philadelphia 5, NY Yankees 4 Cleveland 13, Cincinnati 0 NY Yankees, Tampa Bay (Postponed) Arizona 5, Houston 4 Kansas City 13, Chi Cubs 2 Atlanta 4, Toronto 3 Miami 8, Baltimore 7 Milwaukee 8, Chi White Sox 3 AMERICAN LEAGUE Oakland 6, Texas 4 LA Angels 6, Seattle 1
NATIONAL LEAGUE Colorado 6, San Francisco 4 NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION Sacramento 140, New Orleans 125 Milwaukee 130, Miami 116 Phoenix 114, Indiana 99 LA Clippers 126, Dallas 111 Portland 125, Denver 115 Houston Rockets 113, LA Lakers 97
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE Vancouver 3, Minnesota 0 Philadelphia 3, Washington 1 Las Vegas 6, St. Louis 4 Columbus 4, Toronto 3 Calgary 4, Winnipeg 0
(STURGIS, S.D.) — Despite concerns about large gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many as 250,000 motorcycle enthusiasts from around the country are expected to roll into western South Dakota for the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally beginning Friday and lasting 10 days.
Such a crowd would make it the largest event in the country to take place during the pandemic.
In a survey by the city in May, 60% of Sturgis residents said they preferred to cancel the event. But local business owners who rely on this once-a-year gathering for a huge percentage of their revenues, combined with a realization by city managers that the bikers were going to come to the area no matter what, prompted the city council to sanction the rally.
“The city fathers here wouldn’t cancel this rally if it were the middle of World War 7,” said Brent Bertlson, who has a home in Sturgis and will be attending his 26th rally this year. He said that “the money the city takes in is a number that Ripley wouldn’t believe.”
He’s not wrong. Sales tax revenue from the rally brought Sturgis, a town of 7,000 people, $26 million last year, according to City Manager Daniel Ainslie.
The event generated $655 million in 2019 across South Dakota, because many of the visitors spend time and money throughout the state as they travel to the rally, and often buy big-ticket items like motorcycles and motor homes while there.
“That’s a lot of money for a small state,” said Ainslie.
Rod Woodruff, owner of the Buffalo Chip, a campground and concert venue just outside the city where thousands of bikers will stay, explained how critical the rally can be.
“We spend the whole year getting ready to host the motorcycle rally and music festival,” he said. “And without it, we wouldn’t have a business.”
But even though the rally is going ahead, Ainslie noted the city is concerned about COVID-19. It has taken measures both to shrink the event, which normally draws close to 500,000 people, and to mitigate the potential for the virus to spread. It eliminated advertising and canceled parades, events and contests.
During the 10 days, any Sturgis resident who does not want to venture into the crowd can call upon city volunteers to have them shop for and deliver food and other necessities. In the week after the rally, the city will offer mass testing to any resident who interacted with the visitors.
Woodruff said he and other business owners have also taken precautions prompted by the pandemic.
“We will have hand sanitizer everywhere,” Woodruff said. “All our food will be takeout. We have signs everywhere reminding people to keep 6 feet apart.”
But the Buffalo Chip is not mandating masks. And those familiar with the rally say mask-wearing and social distancing will not be common.
“Those who attend are mavericks,” said Joel Heitkamp, a frequent Sturgis attendee. “This is the rebel crowd and they think they are cool because they don’t do what society tells them to do.”
This attitude might seem fitting in South Dakota, a state that never imposed a lockdown.
“South Dakota is fairly conservative, very independent,” said Christine Paige Diers, the former director of the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum. “The same could be said for the motorcyclists. They’re an independent lot. They don’t want you telling them what you can and can’t do.”
The age of the motorcyclists is a factor that is both concerning and possibly reassuring. Most of those in attendance are an older demographic — and more at risk for serious complications from the virus.
“It’s not a young person’s sport anymore,” said Heitkamp. Only half-joking, this rally veteran added, “I’m 58 and if I went this year, I’d be among the youngest people there.”
But while an older crowd may be more vulnerable to the disease, Woodruff believes their better judgment will balance those risks.
“This is not a college kid crowd. These are mature people, accustomed to having made their own decisions about how to live their lives,” he said. “They know what is necessary to calculate and minimize the risks of catching a COVID virus.”
Another factor that may minimize the potential spread of the disease is the spread of the land around Sturgis. The hundreds of thousands that come to the rally will not all be in one place. Bertlson pointed out that “the vast majority of people coming here are camping, staying in tents, campers or motor homes. They are all spread out over the Black Hills. And a vast majority of events happen outside.”
But in the town itself, Paige Diers painted a troubling picture: “Main Street will be packed with people. Crowds walking up and down the sidewalk, checking out the vendors, looking at the motorcycles. So social distancing would be extremely difficult.”
Sturgis itself has not been hit hard by the virus. The city is in Meade County, which has had only one death so far. But this huge gathering comes in a state that had severe outbreaks in meatpacking plants early in the pandemic and that even now is renewing concerns among health officials. According to an internal Federal Emergency Management Agency memo obtained by ABC News, cases are on the rise in the Sioux Falls area with 298 new cases reported in the week ending Aug. 2, a 22.2% increase from the week before.
“You’re just adding fuel to a fire,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and ABC News Medical Contributor. “South Dakota is already experiencing increases in transmission. COVID is not under control in South Dakota; it’s just not.”
He is worried that gatherings like this, with visitors from different locations, have brought infections back to other communities during the pandemic and Sturgis being located in a rural part of the state should be of no comfort. The rally, said Brownstein, could put a huge strain on an area that “does not have the capacity to handle a surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement to ABC News about the rally, “Large gatherings make it difficult to maintain CDC’s recommended social distancing guidelines, which may put attendees at risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Any identification of cases following a large gathering would not likely be confirmed until 2-3 weeks after the event.”
For Bertlson, such concerns are overblown.
“I think people will be cautious,” he said. “But rational people informed of the facts are not that scared of this COVID.”
He called Sturgis “a freedom rally,” adding, “Bikers are big believers in freedom. I’ve heard from people tired of being locked down and being told what they can and can’t do. A lot of these people are saying, ‘I’m going to Sturgis.'”
Phototreat/iStockBy QUINN OWEN and KIARA BRANTLEY-JONES, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — The number of unauthorized crossing attempts by migrants at the southern border increased in July when President Donald Trump’s administration used a controversial public health order to rapidly send them back, citing COVID-19 concerns, according to data released by Customs and Border Protection Thursday.
Last month, border agents conducted more than 35,000 rapid returns or “expulsions” of unauthorized migrants under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s direction.
Since the CDC order was first issued in March, immigration agents have used it more than 105,000 times.
“We’re trying to remove them as fast as we can to not put them in our congregate settings, to not put them into our system, to not have them remain in the United States for a long period of time, therefore increasing the exposure risk of everybody they come in contact with to include the work force of all those different entities that would be impacted,” Mark Morgan, the acting CBP commissioner, told reporters Thursday.
Morgan said more than 90% of people subjected to the order were removed within two hours of their arrest by CBP. Others that qualified under the Convention Against Torture guidelines were referred to agents in citizenship and immigration services for humanitarian review.
Asked about plans to eventually end or scale back the order, Morgan deferred to the CDC.
“They will be the ones that make the decision ultimately from a public health perspective,” Morgan said.
This week, government lawyers defended ICE’s use of private hotels to hold minors before they’re sent back under the order, after ICE was accused of violating a decades-old court agreement that sets requirements for immigrant minors in custody.
“DHS’s use of hotels to house minors pending their expulsion pursuant to the Title 42 process comports with CDC’s general guidance to detention facilities, which state that the ideal quarantine conditions are individual rooms with solid walls and a closed door,” the government said in a Tuesday court filing, citing Title 42, the United States Code dealing with public health, social welfare and civil rights which CBP says grants them the authority to quickly send migrants back across the border without a hearing in immigration court.
Asked why the minors can’t be housed at the Office of Refugee Resettlement while following social distancing measures — the federal agency that typically houses unaccompanied minors and connects them with family or sponsors — Morgan said the risk to public health is too great.
“If we introduce these individuals to ORR, we’re defeating the entire purpose of Title 42,” Morgan said. “We’re still introducing these individuals into our system throughout and creating a greater exposure risk to the American people.”
More than 180 immigrant advocacy organizations and human rights groups — including Americans for Immigrant Justice, Center for Justice and International Law, Columbia Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and Freedom Network USA — wrote to Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, in April, urging him to end the practice.
“The Trump Administration has proposed to expand the national security bar for asylum to include certain infectious diseases as a national security threat. During this time of pandemic, it would bar asylum seekers from countries where COVID-19 is prevalent,” Immigrant Legal Center tweeted Thursday.
The Uncage Reunite Families Coalition held a press conference Thursday morning to call on Arizona’s congressional delegation to investigate the detention of unaccompanied minors at a Hampton Inn hotel in Phoenix.
Rep. Raquel Teran, D-Ariz., spoke at the presser and strongly criticized the Trump administration for its ill treatment of undocumented immigrant children. Teran cited major issues including the pandemic, systemic racism and the detainment of undocumented children, saying it all shows that the current administration is “[willing] to sacrifice children to further a heartless political agenda.”
Eddie Chavez Calderon, the campaign organizer for Arizona Jews for Justice, spoke at the presser and called for advocacy groups to help migrant children, saying that action can be taken without government assistance. He also demanded that no children be deported by themselves.
“There is no moral high ground on this to counter,” said Calderon. “This is simply an ugly smudge on who we are right now… this is about revolution both morally and communal.”
Members of the URFC called the detainment a violation of basic human rights and the law, alleging that taxpayer dollars are being used to keep the children detained in hotels without taxpayers knowing the full extent of how their money is being spent.
The presser ended with a message asking citizens to call the House of Representatives to demand answers about the whereabouts of undocumented migrant children that have been deported and full reports about the conditions of the hotels where the children stayed.
franckreporter/iStockBy WILLIAM MANSELL, ABC News
