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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 4: Davidson, DNA, Buckells’ Codes & All Our Questions & Theories

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Warning: contains spoilers for Line of Duty series 6 episode 4.

After all the excitement of episode four (read our spoiler-filled review here), fans could be forgiven for taking a recovery day before putting their minds to work and trying to figure out series six’s many mysteries. But did Steve and Chloe take a rest after that shoot-out? No, so in their honour, neither will we. After all, as Kate told Ted in that piss-stinking underpass make-up scene, we’ve got a case to solve.

Jargon of the week: Nominal

Anybody convicted, cautioned, reprimanded, warned or arrested of a recordable offence has a “nominal record” on the Police National Computer, and is therefore a nominal. In the show, it seems to mean the chief individual/suspect in an investigation. In the series five opener, AC-12 referred to both Lisa McQueen and John ‘Clayton’ (before they knew he was an undercover officer) as “the nominal.”

Who is Jo Davidson’s “nominal” blood relative?

Episode four’s cliffhanger was that Jo Davidson is related to a mystery nominal previously known to AC-12. The forensics search at Farida Jatri’s house found DNA deposits matching Jo Davidson (supporting Farida’s account of having been in a relationship with and framed by Davidson). When Davidson’s deposits were checked against the various police DNA databases, they also came up with a match for another individual – thereby a blood relative of Davidson. It has to be somebody of significance to AC-12’s previous investigations into the OCG and corrupt police officers. Tommy Hunter? Fellow Scots ACC Derek Hilton or DCC Mike Dryden? We ponder the potential suspects in more detail here.

Who is Jimmy Lakewell again?

Think of him as the male Gill Biggeloe, a defence solicitor who, at some stage in his career, crossed paths with a member of the OCG and from that point onwards accepted bribes to act as their corrupt brief in legal situations. In series four, when the OCG needed an innocent man to frame for the murders of Leonie Collersdale and Baswinder Kaur and the attempted abduction of Hana Reznikova, Jimmy delivered them Michael Farmer. Lakewell had met Farmer years earlier when he defended him against a sexual assault charge. Because of Farmer’s learning disability and police record, Lakewell knew he’d be easy to frame – which he would have been if Roz Huntley, Tim Ifield and AC-12 hadn’t got involved.

Lakewell also colluded with bent copper ACC Hilton to have Steve Arnott attacked by one of the OCG’s ‘Balaclava Men’ when he was getting too close to the cover-up, and generally did all kinds of underhand business in exchange for OCG bribes to support his lavish lifestyle. He was arrested by Roz Huntley, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice, and was serving time in HMP Blackthorn before he made contact with Gail Vella, and Steve’s plan to get him into witness protection led to Jimmy’s murder by the OCG.

Who leaked the transport route from HMP Blackthorn?

Steve’s plan to spirit Jimmy Lakewell away from prison and into witness protection was compromised by somebody who knew the exact route the transport convoy was planning to take. The OCG knew where to stop the van carrying Jimmy and open fire. It’s likely that one of the corrupt prison guards at Blackthorn (the same one who facilitated Jimmy’s murder by Lee Banks, witnessed by Ian Buckells, and closed the door on the cell while Jimmy was being killed perhaps) was the leak. Chloe suggests that the leak could have come from inside AC-12, an idea batted away by Ted Hastings as not happening under his watch, who clearly has a short memory for dodgy corrupt coppers like the Caddy and Jamie Desford operating under his watch.

Did Jimmy Lakewell talk?

Interesting. Back at the station, after the ambush on the transport, Hastings, Bishop and Arnott interview Lakewell, who has been scared into not giving evidence and refused cooperation. Trying to persuade him to talk, Steve questions how safe Lakewell will be back in prison and Jimmy tells him “They’ll know I didn’t talk. That’s right, isn’t it DI Arnott? I didn’t talk.” After a pause, Steve gives him a slight nod.

If you go back to the moment just before the convoy came under attack, after Steve asks Lakewell what Vella was investigating, there’s a cut to Chloe. In that time just before the attack, it’s possible that Lakewell did tell Steve something, knowing that whatever he said could never be traced back to him because the context would make the evidence inadmissible. With nothing to lose then, could Jimmy have pointed Steve in the right direction in that brief time? What Lakewell was asking Steve in that interview room was ‘Are you going to tell them that I talked?’ and Steve, being a straight-up guy, nodded that he would keep quiet. For all the good it did Lakewell in the end.

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 4 Review: Mother of God!

By Louisa Mellor

Line of Duty: the Jo Davidson Family Mystery

By Louisa Mellor

What did Buckells’ initialisms mean?

You won’t find these in an official police lexicon. The initialisms next to which Ian Buckells saved the phone numbers of female suspects in his mobile are surely a little gag, poking fun both at Line of Duty’s taste for jargon and acronyms, and at Buckells’ coarse blokey persona. Use your imagination, really: RGT could be ‘really great tits’, FAF could be ‘fit as f**k, NA ‘nice arse’, BJL, well, you get the idea. Jo was right about one thing, Buckells really is a twat.

So, Buckells was bent then?

He was certainly abusing his position as a police officer to coerce female suspects into giving him sexual favours in exchange for dropping charges. Was he though, working for the OCG? The fact that they had him witness Lakewell’s murder to show him ‘what happens to a rat’ suggests so, although that could equally have been done to shut him up and stop him from saying he’d been framed, just like they did to Farida. Kate says the bellend persona is all an act, but you can make up your own mind. Even if Buckells didn’t know he was a pawn of the OCG, by promoting an idiot like him so far above his ability, ‘H’ could pull the wool over a senior officer’s eyes multiple times without even having to bribe or blackmail him.

Will Kate ultimately side with Jo?

You can take the girl out of AC-12, but you can’t take the AC-12 out of the girl. It’s pretty much certain now that Kate is not deep undercover, as suspected early on. She’s genuinely moved on from anti-corruption, but happens to have found herself in to a unit swimming with bent coppers. The question is: does Kate really believe that Davidson is innocent? Or does she suspect the truth – that Davidson’s bent but being coerced into it? This episode, Kate wanted to give the ‘Osman warning’ (issued by police to prospective victims of death threats) to Davidson, but was overruled by Hastings. She did, however, tip Jo off that Ryan was following her, which ultimately led to Kate’s job being threatened by Jo when Ryan showed his true colours. As a stand-up officer, Kate’s priority is the preservation of life. What steps might she take to preserve Davidson’s? And will it put her own life in danger?

Is this the end of AC-12?

Unless they can uncover H (who, at this stage, all signs point to being CC Osborne) before the end of the month, that’s it. Rohan Sindwhani and CC Osborne are redistributing funding away from internal investigations and to frontline services (always a PR-friendly move), and planning to merge ACs 3, 9 and 12 into one department. Staff will have the opportunity to apply to join the merged department or transfer to others, but 90% will go. The clock is ticking, Ted. The clock is ticking.

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Line of Duty continues next Sunday the 18th of April at 9pm on BBC One.

The post Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 4: Davidson, DNA, Buckells’ Codes & All Our Questions & Theories appeared first on Den of Geek.

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the-little-crime-writer · 6 years

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Beltway Sniper Attacks

At 5:20 P.M on October 2, 2002, Ann Chapman was preparing for the end of the day at the hobby retailers in Aspen Hill, Maryland, at which she worked as a cashier. With no warning, the window of the shop suddenly cracked and she felt the wind of a high-velocity .223 rifle bullet crack past her head, so close that it touched her hair. She had just survived the first attempted killing by the individual who would become known as the Beltway Sniper (so called because he seemed to use the Washington Beltway road system to move between attacks), a person who for the next three weeks would terrorize the states of Washington D.C, Maryland, and Virginia. By October 24, 10 people were dead and three were seriously injured.

_______________________________________________

Lethal Accuracy

Within 45 minutes of the shooting at Aspen Hill, the Beltway Sniper took his second shot. This time his aim was perfect-a single bullet killed 55-year old James Martin as he walked across the parking lot of a Glenmont supermarket. These incidents in themselves warranted a major police investigation, but nothing prepared the local police for what would occur the following day, Thursday October 3. Between 7:41 A.M and 9:15 P.M, the faceless sniper shot dead another five people. What was apparent was that the selection of victims had a distinctly random quality about it. They included 39-year old James Buchanan, 34-year old housecleaner Sarah Ramos, and 72-year old father of five Pascal Charlot. All had been killed in open, public locations within reach of major roadways. By the end of the day, it was not only state and Federal law enforcement agencies that were bursting into action, but also a startled urban media. Panic rippled through the public, stirred even further by the shooting of a 43-year old mother of two, Caroline Seawell as she loaded up her minivan with goods outside a mall in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. She survived, but for the citizens using and living around the Washington Beltway, casual activities such as filling the car at the gas station or using a supermarket now seemed fraught with risk.

The main figurehead of the police investigation into the murders was the police chief of Montgomery County, Charles Moose. The Montgomery County police, however, provided the command center for a particularly wide investigation that involved agencies such as the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco, and Firearms (BATF) and the FBI. All pooled their forensic and investigatory resources in an attempt to find the killer before he struck again.

Timeline of a Murder

1: October 3, 2002. 8:46 A.M Sarah Ramos, a 34-year old Salvadorean immigrant of Silver Springs, Maryland, sits on a bench outside the Leisure World Shopping Centre in Aspen Hill. Ramos works several jobs, and is waiting for a bus to come and take her to another place of work.

2: John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo are parked nearby in their blue Chevrolet Caprice. They have already shot two people dead in the last hour, one at 7:41 A.M and the next at 8:12. They spot Ramos sat on the bench, reading to pass the time.

3: Muhammad moves into the rear of the car, lying flat on the specially designed luggage compartment. In the rear of the trunk, he has already drilled two holes-one for the muzzle of the weapon, and the other for the telescopic sight of the gun. He now takes aim at Ramos.

4: 8:47 A.M Muhammad fires a single shot. Witnesses at the scene recall hearing a crack, then seeing Ramos slump forward, with blood pouring from her head. The .223 bullet from Muhammad’s Bushmaster rifle destroys Ramos’ brain and skull, killing her instantly.

5: Muhammad and Malvo, having taken a young, promising and innocent life, pull away from the scene. They kill two more people that day alone. Initial 911 calls at the scene report that the women has shot herself. Only when police investigators arrive do they realize that she has been shot by a third party.

Tarot Card Killer

Unfortunately, for many days to come the Beltway Sniper seem to have the advantage. At 8:09 A.M on Monday October 7, shortly after Charles Moose had cautiously reassured the public that there was no reason to keep children off school, the sniper put a bullet through a 13-year-old Iran Brown outside Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Maryland. Incredibly the boy survived, but for the police it was apparent that not only was the sniper feeding off the media coverage, but he was also a potential child killer. There was another alarming development - the Death card from a pack of Tarot Cards was found at the scene of the shooting inscribed with the words “Call me God.” In addition to the title Beltway Sniper, the shooter was now also labeled the “Tarot Card Killer.” Radio and TV broadcasts were now filled with experts, real and professed, who offered profiles of the killer and suggestions as to how the police could track him down. Yet despite hurling huge law enforcement resources at the ease, the sniper seemed to remain elusive.

Finding A Killer

Between the Iran Brown shooting and October 22, five more people were shot dead by the sniper, mostly in parking lots or gas stations around Virginia and Maryland. The killer was also becoming bolder, more tatunting. He started to leave messages and letters around the scenes of the shootings, boasting to the police about his impunity while also making blackmail demands for millions of dollars and threatening that “Your children are not safe, anywhere, at anytime.”Yet the sniper’s confidence would actually be his undoing. In a mocking phone call to Chief Moose’s office, the sniper mentioned his involvement in an armed robbery in Montgomery, Alabama, in September 2002, during which a liquor store clerk was shot dead. The FBI pulled details of the crime, and obtained fingerprints from a handgun magazine dropped near the scene of the crime. The FBI ran the fingerprints through their national database, and found that they belonged to 17-year old John Lee Malvo, a known associate of 41-year old ex-soldier John Allen Muhammad. Vehicle license checks revealed that Muhammad owned a blue Chevrolet Caprice that had been checked during random traffic stops around the areas of the shootings over the past few weeks. (For many days during the investigation, the police had been looking for a white box van believed to be associated with the shootings, although investigations into this vehicle proved to be a waste of time.) On October 24, around 3 A.M., the blue Caprice was spotted in a parking lot in Frederick, Maryland. Within minutes, police and FBI tactical units surrounded the vehicle and apprehended Malvo and Muhammad, who both gave themselves up with surprising compliance. Discovered in a bag in the car was Muhammad’s Bushmaster XM-15 .223 rifle, which forensics later linked to 11 of the 14 shootings. Further investigations revealed that the Caprice had been modified so that Muhammad could lay across the floor of the trunk and shoot through a small aperture drilled into the trunk itself, a modification that explained the inability of witnesses to provide sightings of the shooter.

Profiling

John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo were a curious pair. Muhammad was the sniper-he had served in the U.S Army for nine years, during which time he saw active service in the first Gulf War (1990-1) and became classified as an expert in M16 rifle marksmanship. (The Bushmaster XM-15 is a civilian/law enforcement version of the military M16.) Malvo seemed to have simply acted as his compliant sidekick. Muhammad was actually born John Williams, but later changed his surname to reflect on a conversion to Islam in the 1980s. His life up to the murders was a litany of emotional, marital and commercial failures. If we were to spot a final catalyst for killing spree, it may have been when his (second) ex-wife won full custody of their three children, with a restraining order placed upon Muhammad. Many people go through tough lives without resorting to serial murder. During the trial in 2003, the court found both men guilty, sentencing Malvo to life imprisonment without parole and Muhammad to death. Despite his appeals, Muhammad was executed by lethal injection on November 10, 2009.

Timeline of a Murderer-the Beltway Shootings

October 2, 2002 (Victim, none) At 5:20 P.M a shot fire is fired through a window of Michael’s Craft Store in Aspen Hill, Maryland. No one is injured.

October 2, 2002 (Victim-James Martin Age: 55) At 6:30 P.M. Martin is shot and killed in the parking lot of a Shoppers Food Warehouse grocery store, Glenmont.

October 3, 2002 (Victim-James L. Buchanan Age: 39) At 7:41 A.M. landscaper Buchanan is shot dead near Rockville, Maryland, while mowing the grass at the Fitzgerald Auto Mall.

October 3, 2002 (Victim-Premkumar Walekar Age: 54) At 8:12 A.M. part-time taxi driver is killed in Aspen Hill in Montgomery County, while filling his car at Mobil gas station.

October 3, 2002 (Victim-Sarah Ramos Age: 34) at 8:47 A.M. Ramos is shot and killed at Leisure World Shopping Centre in Aspen Hill, while seated on a bench, reading a book.

October 3, 2002 (Victim-Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera Age: 25) At 9:58 A.M. shot and killed while vacuuming her Dodge Caravan at a shell station in Kensington, Maryland.

October 3, 2002 (Victim-Pascal Charlot Age: 72) At 9:15 A.M. Charlot is shot while walking on Georgia Avenue at Kalmia Road, in Washington DC. He dies of his injuries shortly afterward.

October 4, 2002 (Victim-Caroline Seawell Age: 43) At 2:30 P.M. Seawell is shot in the parking lot of a Michael’s Craft Store at Spotsylvania Mall in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, while loading purchases into her minivan.

October 7, 2002 (Victim-Iran Brown Age: 13) At 8:09 A.M. Brown is shot and injured outside the Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Maryland.

October 9, 2002 (Victim-Dean Harold Meyers Age: 53) At 8:18 P.M. Meyers is shot dead while pumping fuel at a Sunoco gas station on Sudley Road in Prince William County, Virginia.

October 11, 2002 (Victim-Kenneth Bridges Age: 53) At 9:30 A.M Bridges is shot dead while pumping fuel at an Exxon station off interstate 95 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.

October, 14, 2002 (Victim-Linda Franklin Age: 47) At 9:15 P.M. Franklin, an FBI intelligence analyst, is shot dead at a Home Depot in fairfax County, Virginia.

October 19, 2002 (Victim-Jeffrey Hopper Age: 37) At 8 P.M Hopper is shot and injured in a parking lot near the Ponderosa Steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia.

October 22, 2002 (Victim- Conrad Johnson Age: ?) At 5:56 A.M Bus driver Johnson is shot dead on the steps of his bus in Aspen Hill, Maryland.

#beltway sniper attacks #true crime #true crime community #tcc #murder #serial killers #murder victims #timeline of a murder #timeline of a murderer #john lee malvo #john allen muhhammad

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reseau-actu · 5 years

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China has reportedly reassigned over 60,000 soldiers to plant trees in a bid to combat pollution by increasing the country's forest coverage.

A large regiment from the People's Liberation Army, along with some of the nation's armed police force, have been withdrawn from their posts on the northern border to work on non-military tasks inland.

The majority will be dispatched to Hebei province, which encircles Beijing, according to the Asia Times which originally reported the story. The area is known to be a major culprit for producing the notorious smog which blankets the capital city.

We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.

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The idea is believed to be popular among members of online military forums as long as they can keep their ranks and entitlements.

It comes as part of China's plan to plant at least 84,000 square kilometres (32,400 square miles) of trees by the end of the year, which is roughly equivalent to the size of Ireland.

The aim is to increase the country's forest coverage from 21 per cent of its total landmass to 23 per cent by 2020, the China Daily newspaper reported.

Zhang Jianlong, head of China's State Forestry Administration, said by 2035 the figure could reach as high as 26 per cent.

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1/50 19 April 2019

Ultra-Orthodox Jews burn leaven in the Mea Shearim neighbourhood of Jerusalem ahead of the Jewish holiday of Passover, in Jerusalem

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2/50 18 April 2019

Christian worshippers take part in the procession of the holy Thursday, during the Catholic Washing of the Feet ceremony on Easter Holy Week, at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's old city

EPA

3/50 17 April 2019

A young girl runs past UWSA military contingents before a parade held to mark the 30th anniversary of Wa State in Panghsang, also called Pang Kham of autonomous Wa region, north-eastern Myanmar. Wa declared itself as an independent State on 17 April 1989. Although the government of Myanmar does not recognize the sovereignty of Wa State, Myanmar military has adopted a ceasefire with the state since 9 May 1989. Wa State has been notorious for drug smuggling in the Golden Triangle of the last 30 years, although it declared its region a drug-free zone in 2005

EPA

4/50 16 April 2019

Firefighters spray water as they work to extinguish the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. The huge blaze that devastated the cathedral is "under control", the Paris fire brigade said early on April 16 after firefighters spent hours battling the flames

AFP/Getty

5/50 15 April 2019

Smoke and flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris

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6/50 14 April 2019

Indonesian soldiers and police at a general security roll call for the upcoming general elections in Jakarta. Some 192 million Indonesians are set to cast a ballot in the world's third-biggest democracy, with a record 245,000 candidates vying for positions from the presidency and parliamentary seats all the way down to local council jobs

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7/50 13 April 2019

Hindu devotees throw holy flammable powder onto a fire as they perform rituals during Gajan Festival celebrations in Kolkata. The festival falls on the last day of the Bengali calendar which also coincides with the birth of Lord Shiva, according to Hindu mythology

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8/50 12 April 2019

A woman visits the exhibition 'Mirrors: In and Out of Reality' in Barcelona, Spain. Maths, physics and photonics melt in this exhibition presented by Cosmocaixa in which visitors can enter a big kaleidoscope to walk through and experience with the effects and particularities of mirrors. The exhibition will be open to public until 6 June 2019

EPA

9/50 11 April 2019

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10/50 10 April 2019

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Event Horizon Telescope/National Science Foundation/Reuters

11/50 9 April 2019

Sudanese protesters chant slogans as they rally in front of the military headquarters in the capital Khartoum. Sudan's police ordered its forces to avoid intervening against protesters as three Western nations threw their weight behind demonstrators' demands for a political transition plan in the country

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12/50 8 April 2019

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13/50 7 April 2019

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14/50 6 April 2019

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15/50 5 April 2019

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Getty

16/50 4 April 2019

Security agents and police officers hold back migrants during the evacuation of a makeshift camp at Porte de la Chapelle, in the north of Paris. More than 300 migrants and refugees were evacuated on early April 4 from a makeshift camp to accomodation structures

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17/50 3 April 2019

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18/50 2 April 2019

Children eat next to the debris of damaged homes at Purainiya village in Nepal's southern Bara district near Birgunj, following a rare spring storm. The freak storm tore down houses and overturned cars and trucks as it swept across southern Nepal killing at least 27 people and leaving more than 600 injured

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19/50 1 April 2019

A forensic expert works next to the remains of a small plane that crashed near Erzhausen, Germany. Natalia Fileva, chairwoman and co-owner of Russia's second largest airline S7, died when a private jet she was in crashed near Frankfurt on Sunday, the company said

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20/50 31 March 2019

Ukrainian comic actor and presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers a speech following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine

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21/50 30 March 2019

Catalan pro-independence protesters throw rocks during a counter-demonstration against a protest called by Spanish far-right party Vox against the Catalan independence push in Barcelona. Polls suggest Vox, which campaigns against illegal immigration and "radical" feminism, will become the first far-right party to win seats in the Spanish parliament since the late 70s and could emerge as a kingmaker in Spain's increasingly fragmented political landscape

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22/50 29 March 2019

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23/50 28 March 2019

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24/50 27 March 2019

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25/50 26 March 2019

Palestinians sisters girls look at a destroyed Hamas site close their family's destroyed house after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. According to reports, Israel continued to launch air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight after a rocket allegedly fired hit a house near Tel Aviv in central Israel injuring at least seven people

EPA

26/50 25 March 2019

US President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold up a proclamation recognising Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights as Netanyahu exits the White House

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27/50 24 March 2019

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28/50 23 March 2019

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29/50 22 March 2019

An aerial view shows damaged buildings after an explosion at a chemical plant in Yancheng in China's eastern Jiangsu province. Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered local governments to prevent any more industrial disasters after a chemical plant blast left 47 people dead, injured hundreds and flattened an industrial park in the latest such catastrophe to hit the country

AFP/Getty

30/50 21 March 2019

A child is transported on a fridge during floods after Cyclone Idai, in Buzi, outside Beira, Mozambique

Reuters

31/50 20 March 2019

Indian Hindu devotees are sprayed with coloured water as they celebrate the Holi festival at the Kalupur Swaminarayan Temple, in Ahmedabad. Holi, the popular Hindu spring festival of colours is observed in India at the end of the winter season on the last full moon of the lunar month

AFP/Getty

32/50 19 March 2019

Shards of ice pile up on Lake Michigan along the South Haven Pier

Kalamazoo Gazette/AP

33/50 18 March 2019

Emergency services stand at the 24 Oktoberplace in Utrecht where a shooting took place. Several people were wounded on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht, with local media reporting counter-terrorism police at the scene. "Shooting incident... Several injured people reported. Assistance started," the Utrecht police Twitter account said. "It is a shooting incident in a tram. Several trauma helicopters have been deployed to provide help."

AFP/Getty

34/50 17 March 2019

Coffins of victims of the crashed accident of Ethiopian Airlines are gathered during the mass funeral at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The crash of Flight ET 302 minutes into its flight to Nairobi on March 10 killed 157 people onboard and caused the worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft model involved in the disaster

AFP/Getty Images

35/50 16 March 2019

Brenton Tarrant, the man charged in relation to the Christchurch massacre, makes a sign to the camera during his appearance in the Christchurch District Court. A right-wing extremist who filmed himself rampaging through two mosques in the quiet New Zealand city of Christchurch killing 49 worshippers appeared in court on a murder charge. Australian-born 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant appeared in the dock wearing handcuffs and a white prison shirt, sitting impassively as the judge read a single murder charge against him. A raft of further charges are expected

AFP/Getty

36/50 15 March 2019

An injured person is loaded into an ambulance following a shooting at the Al Noor mosque in New Zealand. At least 49 people have been killed and dozens more are seriously injured after shootings took place at two mosques in Christchurch. Police have arrested an Australian citizen – a 28-year-old man – and another three people, following the second shooting

Reuters

37/50 14 March 2019

Relatives of crash victims mourn and grieve at the scene where the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed shortly after takeoff on Sunday killing all 157 on board, south-east of Addis Ababa. The French air accident investigation authority said that it will handle the analysis of the black boxes retrieved from the crash site and they have already arrived in France but gave no time frame on how long the analysis could take

38/50 13 March 2019

Men carry a child who was rescued at the site of a collapsed building containing a school in Lagos, Nigeria

Reuters

39/50 12 March 2019

A crab stuck in plastic in Verde Island Passage, Philippines. According to data from the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Filipinos dispose 163 million pieces of single-use plastic sachets daily. An underwater exploration conducted by Greenpeace in Batangas, found single-use plastic sachets between, beneath, and on the corals and seabed of Verde Island Passage, the epicenter of marine biodiversity in the world

EPA

40/50 11 March 2019

Representatives of bereaved families from the affected prefecture offer flowers at an altar for victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster during the 8th national memorial service in Tokyo on. On March 11, 2011 a devastating 9.0-magnitude quake struck under the Pacific Ocean and the resulting tsunami caused widespread damage and claimed thousands of lives.

AFP/Getty

41/50 10 March 2019

South Sudanese Catholic faithful believers attend a church service in Udier town

AFP/Getty

42/50 9 March 2019

Activists of Ukrainian nationalist parties scuffle with police officers during a rally to demand an investigation into the corruption of Ukraine's armed forces officials, in Kiev

Reuters

43/50 8 March 2019

Algerian protesters demonstrate against their ailing president's bid for a fifth term in power, in Algiers

AFP/Getty

44/50 7 March 2019

French gendarmes arrive for evacuation as prison guards block the entrance to the penitentiary center of Alencon, in Conde-sur-Sarthe, northwestern France, two days after a prison inmate seriously wounded two guards in a knife attack before being detained in a police raid. - The prison of Alencon / Conde-sur-Sarthe, where two guards were seriously stabbed on March 5 by a radicalized detainee, was blocked again on March 7 by about a hundred prison guards.

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"Companies, organisations and talent that specialise in greening work are all welcome to join in the country's massive greening campaign," he said.

"Cooperation between government and social capital will be put on the priority list.”

Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93 Source: The Independent

#Actu

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jacewilliams1 · 5 years

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Remembering a Christmas tragedy 50 years later

The 1960s heralded the dawn of the Jet Age for air travelers. And for regional carriers the step up to turbine power often took the form of the Convair CV-580, a conversion of the redoubtable twin-engine Convair series from P&W R-2800 piston engines to Allison 501 turboprops.

An early adopter was Allegheny Airlines, one of the storied regional operators plying the skies over the Northeast and upper Midwest during that decade, flying a route structure that encompassed some of the most challenging weather and terrain in America.

A period ticket folder shows Allegheny’s obvious pride in their new “Jet Powered” airplanes.

All things being equal, the airline had a good reputation among aviation professionals and the flying public. But during the holiday season of 1968, in an isolated Pennsylvania community, Allegheny’s professionalism, safety culture and luck would abandon the airline to a sequence of events no fiction writer could invent. And the echo of those tragedies continues to resonate a half century later.

The Tragedies

Allegheny flight 736 to Washington, DC, originated in Detroit with intermediate stops in Erie, Bradford, and Harrisburg. The Christmas Eve departure from Detroit was delayed almost an hour by the late arrival of the airplane. But the Erie leg and turnaround had been routine as the CV-580 climbed into darkness for the short hop to Bradford. Fifteen minutes later, Erie Approach cleared flight 736 to the Bradford VOR in preparation for the runway 32 approach and relayed the Bradford Flight Service Station’s hourly weather observation: “ceiling broken two thousand one hundred, visibility one mile blowing snow… wind thirteen gusting twenty two.” The report would not be a cause for concern to this experienced crew. But they were unaware that conditions were rapidly changing.

At 20:06 the First Officer reported over the Bradford VOR outbound on the approach. Erie authorized a frequency change to the Bradford Flight Service Station and requested notification when the flight was on the ground. Moments after checking in with Bradford, the Flight Service specialist relayed a report of “poor” braking conditions on ice and packed snow given by a previous Convair crew. Flying outbound from the VOR both pilots discussed the landing conditions:

First Officer (FO) – “little bit of ground contact”

Captain – “Yeah, I saw the runway when we went over it”

FO – “I hope you see it when we get down to minimums”

Captain – “But that’s not the problem. It just means getting stopped.”

FO – “that’s it…. I don’t like, especially when they are reported poor”

Their task was to get the airplane down on the first 1000 feet of the 6500 foot runway to ensure there was adequate length to stop. By 20:09 they completed the procedure turn inbound and initiated a 600 foot-per-minute descent. During the next 30 seconds, the First Officer verbally briefed the missed approach, the step-down fix (2900 feet MSL) and the minimum descent altitude (2643 feet MSL, 500 feet AGL).

Two minutes prior to impact, they began configuring the Convair for landing. A minute later the First Officer told the Captain, “You’re about two and a half miles from the end of the runway.” Beyond that point, they stared through a shroud of blowing snow focused on making visual contact with the runway. The descent rate gradually increased to 1500 feet per minute. Ten seconds before impact, the Captain turned on the landing lights and began to extend the gear. Eight seconds later, the First Officer, staring into the reflected glare, said, “I don’t see a thing.”

As this was transpiring, the Flight Service specialist at Bradford recorded a special surface observation. It showed the ceiling had dropped to 800 feet and visibility to one-half mile. This was immediately radioed to flight 736 but there was no reply. As minutes passed both Flight Service and Erie Approach became concerned. An inbound flight from Jamestown, New York, was directed to hold over the Bradford VOR until the Flight Service specialist at Bradford and the controller at Erie Approach could sort things out.

Flight 736 impacted terrain just beyond the Kinzua railroad bridge.

Inside the shattered fuselage of flight 736, the surviving passengers hung upside down in pitch darkness while coming to the realization that the airplane had crashed. Those who were able to free themselves emerged into deep snow on a hellish night of 30-knot winds at 10 degrees F. Some of them managed to start a fire using Christmas packages, seat foam and anything else on the ground that would burn. And the able-bodied began pulling the injured they could reach out of the wreckage.

Flight 736 was nearly half an hour overdue when the call went out to responders. The State Police swung into action, but everything was working against them. Bradford and its surrounding communities are located in a remote corner of Western Pennsylvania abutting the Allegheny National Forrest. Clinics were either closed for Christmas or minimally staffed. Responders were occupied with family or at social functions. No one knew where the crash was, but every potential location was inaccessible. Still, with the information they had, calls went out to citizens who owned four-wheel drive vehicles and the response came to life.

Thirty-five minutes after the crash, the flight from Jamestown (Allegheny flight 734) remained in a holding pattern above Bradford. Erie Approach cleared it for the VOR approach and asked them to look for evidence of flight 736. On the inbound descent, the crew spotted the survivors’ fire and reported its distance and bearing form the Bradford VOR. Geographically, it was just north of the Kinzua railroad bridge, a local landmark.

A young physician was one of the first to get a call from the State Police. Still wearing a shirt and tie, he navigated his Jeep along a snowbound railroad grade toward Kinzua gorge. In time, a fire came into view through the streaming snow storm. It was surrounded by stunned survivors. The first arrivals tried to open access to the twisted wreckage using axes and crowbars but timely evacuation of the casualties might prove impossible. If ambulances could get in at all, they would need to back down the railroad grade one at a time (there was no room to turn around). To further complicate rescue, the remains of the Convair rested in an icy marsh, its crust easily broken by the weight of a person.

The State Police had made a crucial decision early on to ask each responder to contact anyone they knew who owned a snowmobile. Now these began arriving to pull the injured, hypothermic passengers to ambulances on toboggans. Ultimately they were taken to the community hospital in Bradford or a nearby clinic in Kane.

Rescuers toiled more than four hours to extract the living from the mangled fuselage. Frozen and exhausted, they were wrapping up when the doctor and another responder decided to reenter it for a final check. They heard faint cries coming from the badly crushed forward area near the wing. There, a teenage girl was pinned in her seat. The twisted seat was cut out of the airframe using flashlights and a hacksaw. Decades later, her rescuers would recall that as she was being taken away she had wished them “Merry Christmas.”

The fatally injured passengers were recovered on Christmas Day. One survivor had apparently died from hypothermia.

The NTSB investigating team started arriving on Christmas Day to begin the forensic recovery effort. Thirteen days later, they would achieve the distinction of being the only investigation in history to arrive at the scene of a crash before the airplane!

The second accident aircraft was Allegheny flight 737. And it was a frightening mirror image of the Christmas crash of flight 736. In fact, 737 was Allegheny’s return flight from Washington, DC, to Detroit. The crew also was flying the Bradford VOR approach but in the opposite direction (to runway 14). On descent, flight 736 had initially impacted trees, one of which severed the starboard wing rolling the airplane inverted prior to ground impact. Flight 737 suffered a similar fate. More remarkable was the absence of a post-crash fire in both mishaps.

Allegheny 737 proceeded uneventfully from Harrisburg when, at 20:23, Erie Approach cleared them to descend to 4000 feet and then cleared them for the Bradford VOR approach to runway 32. The crew was given the current weather observation: “ceiling eight hundred overcast, visibility one and one half and light snow showers, wind one seventy degrees at ten [knots].”

They were instructed to contact the Bradford Flight Service Station. Calling Bradford, the crew reported the flight’s position as 10 miles (southeast) from the VOR. Then they requested a change in their approach clearance to runway 14 to accommodate the wind and runway conditions. The Flight Service specialist coordinated an amended clearance with Erie Approach and relayed it to the flight.

By then, they were just one minute from the Bradford VOR. The flight continued outbound from the VOR and started the published course reversal. By 20:32 the captain had radioed “procedure turn inbound” and started a 1000 feet-per-minute descent. That descent would continue down to 2,500 feet MSL – a mere 350 feet above the airport elevation and 800 feet below the published minimum altitude for that segment of the approach.

The flight briefly leveled off (for about eight seconds) then resumed the descent. At 20:39, an anxious Allegheny gate agent walked the short distance to the Flight Service office and inquired whether they had any further communication with flight 737.

On the evening of January sixth, five miles northwest of the Bradford airport, a group of friends was watching college basketball on television. Behind the set was a picture window overlooking a golf club fairway. The sharp crack of splitting trees drew their attention to a dark shape materializing out of the night and drifting across the window. In a split second, the remains of flight 737 slid to a stop on its back. The debris trail had passed within 100 yards of the house.

Local authorities must have been in disbelief when they received the call, but good site access, and recent experience, contributed to a timely and efficient response. As the witnesses to the crash struggled through deep snow, they encountered survivors emerging from gaps in the torn fuselage and led them to shelter in the golf course pro shop. There, they removed an interior door and pressed it into service as a stretcher to carry the more severely injured. A fourth friend, just arrived, used his station wagon to transport the most critical to the hospital in Bradford. And the rescue continued in good order as more resources arrived.

The investigation

Although these accidents were treated as separate occurrences by the NTSB, both investigations were essentially carried out by one team. It would need to find an explanation for how four experienced pilots could have deviated so fatally from published instrument procedures.

The CV-580 cockpit was well equipped by 1960s standards with weather radar, a flight director and an ad-hoc coat rack.

No defects in the airplanes’ mechanical systems or navigation equipment were uncovered that could have precipitated either mishap. But, was there any way such a profound loss of awareness could have affected all four pilots at a critical phase in the approach? The investigators didn’t think so.

So began an extensive engineering and flight test program to expose any hidden flaw in the CV-580 static system that could have delivered erroneous pressure signals to the cockpit altimeters. In the end, the Allegheny engineers and test pilots, and the NTSB investigators, only proved the original Convair certification engineers had done their job properly. And, one by one, other factors like the autopilot mode, VOR facility calibration, flight instrument error and crew fatigue were eliminated.

Ultimately, the investigation centered on human factors and Allegheny’s crew procedures. In that respect, the Christmas accident provided more information to work with. From the cockpit voice recorder they knew the crew was concerned about braking conditions on the runway and, consequently, not being too high at the touchdown zone. From the flight data recorder, they determined the copilot had misreported the airplane’s position to the (flying) captain as 2.5 miles from the runway when, in actuality, it was 2.5 miles (DME) from the VOR. The runway lay a mile farther beyond – a small error, but made at a crucial point in the approach.

Allegheny’s flight procedures required the pilot not flying to call out the altitude, airspeed and descent rate upon reaching 500 feet above the airport elevation. None of the calls was made by the first officer as flight 736 broke through the 500 foot level. Allegheny procedures would also require him to observe the outside conditions and call out ground references no later than 100 feet above the published Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA). But, on the Bradford VOR approach, the MDA was also 500 feet.

That would require the first officer to complete the two tasks simultaneously! A fact that was not lost on the NTSB who opined, “It is possible, therefore, that his attention was focused outside the cockpit in an attempt to comply with the former duty, with the result that heoverlooked the latter.” There is every reason to believe if the “500 feet” call had been made, the captain would have arrested the descent.

The approach plate used by Flight 736’s crew. The Bradford VOR is situated 0.9 miles from the end of the runway. “A small but critical navigation error.”

In its final report, the NTSB gave the probable cause of the crash of flight 736 as: “[a descent] through the Minimum Descent Altitude and into obstructing terrain at a time when both flight crew members were looking outside the airplane.” Contributing factors were “minimal visual references available at night on the approaches to the Bradford Regional Airport” and “a small but critical navigational error during the later stages of the approach.” The rapid change in visibility was cited also.

Determining a cause for the January 6th crash of flight 737 would prove more challenging. The cockpit voice recorder revealed little about the crew’s activities. There was no approach briefing (a plate for the VOR Rwy 14 approach was located in the cockpit) and none of the required call outs were recorded. Similarly, the flight data recorder showed a steady descent through the MDA (interrupted by a brief level off) and into terrain. Both ceiling and visibility were well above minimums.

The NTSB examined 13 possible explanations. Ten were dismissed after analyzing the available flight data, engineering studies and human factors data. Of the three that remained no determination could be made as to which represented the accident’s probable cause: “(1) misreading of the altimeter by the captain, (2) a malfunction of the captain’s altimeter after completion of the instrument approach procedure turn, and (3) a misreading of the instrument approach chart.”

The Board cited an Air Force study showing that visual interpretation of a standard three-pointer altimeter is susceptible errors (in 1000 foot increments).

Afterwords

Within months, a new precision instrument landing system (ILS) approach was installed at Bradford. The airport had been eligible for it years earlier, but FAA funding shortfalls had delayed its implementation.

A number of the Safety Board’s recommendations went on to become cornerstones of a new methodology called “Crew Resource Management.”

Today, most scheduled airlines do not allow non-precision approaches. But for the rest of us, they remain a fact of life. Non-precision approaches won’t disappear in my lifetime and probably not in yours. For the record, I have been guilty of every single error and oversight committed by the Allegheny crews on those tragic flights. The only difference was my outcomes were better.

The post Remembering a Christmas tragedy 50 years later appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2018/12/remembering-a-christmas-tragedy-50-years-later/

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inside919 · 7 years

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This just on... http://inside919.com/news/at-least-18-dead-in-wake-of-harvey-13000-rescues-reported/

At least 18 dead in wake of Harvey; 13,000+ rescues reported

HOUSTON (AP) – The Latest on Tropical Storm Harvey (all times local):

The death toll from Harvey has risen to at least 18 as three more fatalities have been confirmed in the Houston area.

The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences updated its storm-related deaths Tuesday night to include an 89-year-old woman, Agnes Stanley, who was found floating in 4 feet (1.2 meters) of floodwater in a home. A 76-year-old woman was found floating in floodwater near a vehicle. Her name was not released. A 45-year-old man, Travis Lynn Callihan, left his vehicle and fell into floodwaters. He was taken to a hospital, where he died Monday.

Family members and authorities have reported at least 18 deaths although the bodies of some victims apparently swept away in the floodwaters have not been found.

____

8:30 p.m.

CLICK FOR 25 IMAGES OF HARVEY FLOODING

Federal and local agencies say they have rescued more than 13,000 people in the Houston area as well as in surrounding cities and counties in Southeast Texas since Tropical Storm Harvey inundated the area with torrential rain.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Tuesday his agency has rescued about 4,100 people.

Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña says his agency has rescued more than 3,000.

Parisa Safarzadeh, a spokeswoman for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office says her agency has rescued more than 3,000 people. Houston is located in Harris County.

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Mike Hart says his agency has rescued more than 3,000 individuals. Hart says the Coast Guard total includes rescues in Houston, but also in outlying cities and subdivisions outside of Houston, as well as in surrounding counties, including Brazoria, Galveston and Matagorda.

______

8:15 p.m.

Beaumont police say a woman has died after she and her young daughter were swept into a rain-swollen drainage canal while trying to escape their stalled vehicle.

A police statement said the woman pulled her vehicle into a theater parking lot about 3:35 p.m. Tuesday, where it became stalled by high water. The woman then took her daughter, exited the car and was swept about a half-mile away.

Two Beaumont police officers and two fire-rescue divers in a rubber boat spotted the mother floating with the child, who was holding onto her mother. Officers pulled the child and the mother into the boat. The child was responsive but suffering from hypothermia; the mother was unresponsive and efforts to revive her failed. The child is hospitalized in stable condition.

Authorities and family members have so far reported more than a dozen deaths from Harvey.

___

7:55 p.m.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has amended his curfew order to run from midnight to 5 a.m., instead of beginning at 10 p.m.

Turner announced the change on Twitter Tuesday evening, about an hour after initially imposing the curfew.

Police Chief Art Acevedo said at an earlier news conference that curfew violators will be stopped, questioned, searched and arrested.

There have been scattered reports of looting during the flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey.

___

7:35 p.m.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says that the Toyota Center – home of the NBA’s Rockets – has been opened as a shelter for people displaced by flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey.

Turner announced during a news conference Tuesday evening that the downtown basketball arena will be used to help reduce overflow at the nearby George R. Brown Convention Center, which is now sheltering 10,000 people. Officials had initially planned to have 5,000 individuals at the convention center.

Turner says people will still have to go to the convention center first before going into the Toyota Center.

Turner thanked Rockets owner Les Alexander for letting the city use the basketball arena as a shelter and also thanked him for his donation of $10 million for Harvey relief efforts.

Turner says because Houston police have been spread thin due to ongoing water rescues and other efforts, 50 Texas National Guard members will be stationed at the convention center to provide security.

___

7:20 p.m.

Officials say they have evacuated homes northeast of Houston after a chemical company said there is a risk of an explosion at its flooded plant.

The Harris County Fire Marshal’s office said in a tweet Tuesday that homes within 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) of the Arkema plant in Crosby have been evacuated out of precaution.

Arkema says in a news release that it manufactures organic peroxides in Crosby, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Houston. The company says the chemical compounds must be stored at low temperatures, but it lost refrigerated storage after power went out and backup generators were inundated.

Arkema said it shut down the Crosby site before Harvey made landfall last week, but a crew of 11 had been kept onsite. That group was removed Tuesday.

___

7 p.m.

Harris County has confirmed the storm-related death of 64-year-old Alexander Kwoksum Sung, who drowned at a clock repair business Sunday in Houston. He was found in more than a foot of debris on Monday.

Authorities and family members have so far reported more than 10 deaths from Harvey.

___

6:30 p.m.

Authorities at a small city near Houston say a boater who was helping rescue people from the Harvey floodwaters has located a deceased man.

Friendswood Police spokeswoman Lisa Price said Tuesday authorities are not exactly sure how the man died and they haven’t been able to confirm his identity.

Price says officers are still on the scene and the body has been taken to a funeral home.

Authorities earlier had confirmed five deaths that are believed to be related to Harvey. Another six people are missing and presumed dead after a van fell into a bayou.

___

6:25 p.m.

One of the nation’s busiest trauma centers has abandoned evacuation plans and will discharge patients more quickly as it prepares for an expected surge of new patients with injuries related to Harvey.

Spokesman Bryan McLeod said Tuesday that Ben Taub Hospital’s case management workers will help patients who “no longer require hospitalization” get back home or to shelters if their homes are flooded or inaccessible.

McLeod said “we’re going to need those beds once the next wave comes.”

Ben Taub is Houston’s main public hospital of last resort, and many patients are poor and uninsured.

Building repairs continue on a burst sewage pipe and leaks that damaged the basement of the hospital’s main building and affected pharmacy, food service and other key operations.

McLeod said the hospital has enough food to last until Thursday, when all hospital staff and administrators will be expected back at work.

___

6:10 p.m.

Authorities say an 83-year-old woman has died after her vehicle was caught in floodwaters caused by Tropical Storm Harvey in Walker County, north of Houston.

Officials with the Texas Department of Public safety say a state trooper out checking the road conditions early Tuesday morning came across Ola Mae Crooks’ vehicle. Sgt. Richard Standifer with the Texas Department of Public Safety tells The Associated Press that the trooper contacted the swift water rescue team, which recovered the body.

Sgt. Steven McNeil with the Texas Department of Public Safety tells the Huntsville Item newspaper that a preliminary investigation indicates Crooks drowned when her car was swept off a farm-to-market road at the San Jacinto River near her home. McNeil says it appears Crooks was trying to cross the bridge and the swift water carried her vehicle off the road and into the flood waters.

___

5:50 p.m.

Hundreds of people are waiting in line at the George R. Brown Convention Center to register with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster assistance.

Many evacuees arrived with what was in their pockets and nothing else.

John Boyce lived in a west Houston apartment and had to be pulled out by boat. He was initially taken to a local hospital and was given paper scrubs to wear before being taken to the convention center, because his clothes were wet and soaked in sewage.

His two possessions are a cell phone and a wallet. He dried the cards inside the wallet on a piece of cardboard, and his cellphone worked after he held the battery under a bathroom hair dryer.

He took his first shower Tuesday in a mobile unit brought in by the Red Cross.

FEMA is expected to provide assistance to people left homeless in Harvey.

The 49-year-old Boyce hopes he can get enough money to travel to Alaska and join his daughter and grandchild. He says, “I have nothing to go back to here.”

___

5:30 p.m.

For the drenched Houston region, an end to the rain and a sunny day are almost in sight. But that’s only because meteorologists forecast Harvey to come inland Wednesday, then slog through Louisiana and take its downpours north. Arkansas, Tennessee, parts of Missouri and southern Illinois are on alert for Harvey flooding in a couple days.

Harvey is forecast to return inland around the Texas-Louisiana line and close to Beaumont, Texas, early Wednesday morning or late Tuesday night with 45 mph (72 kph) winds and heavy rains, spending much of Wednesday in Louisiana. Along the Gulf Coast, rain is expected to continue Wednesday but taper off.

Dennis Feltgen, National Hurricane Center spokesman says, “Texas is going to get a chance to finally dry out as this system pulls out.”

But Feltgen cautioned that this doesn’t mean Harvey is ending.

Flash flood watches are already posted for parts of Tennessee, southern Illinois and southeast Missouri.

Those areas and Arkansas could get six or seven inches of rain, but it won’t be anything like what southeast Texas got.

The National Weather Service in Houston forecasts less of an inch for the city on Wednesday, and only a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms for Thursday. And then for Friday it says, “mostly sunny.”

___

5:15 p.m.

In far North Dallas, hundreds of volunteers are handling a steady stream of cars, trucks and trailers loaded with water, diapers and other goods for hurricane relief.

The drop-off point announced by the city of Dallas is managed by the nonprofit Trusted World, which also has other drop off points in office buildings and other public locations.

The volunteers say they have seen thousands of vehicles loaded Tuesday with items to donate for hurricane relief. The volume of vehicles loaded with items to donate extended out onto and down the northbound frontage road of the Dallas North Tollway. One 34-foot trailer belonging to a cabinet maker was filled with bottled water and other items. The drop-off point was open from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.

___

4:15 p.m.

Harvey has gained a bit of strength but stayed a tropical storm. Its winds increased from 45 mph (72 kph) to 50 mph (80 kph).

But the National Hurricane Center says that reading Tuesday afternoon may be unusual because it was from a low flying hurricane hunter airplane.

Forecasters say heavy rains are continuing to spread over southeastern Texas and southern Louisiana.

The rains in Cedar Bayou, near Mont Belvieu, Texas, reached 51.88 inches (132 centimeters) as of 3:30 p.m. CDT. That’s a record for both Texas and the continental United States but it doesn’t quite pass the 52 inches (133 centimeters) from tropical cyclone Hiki in Kauai, Hawaii, in 1950 (before Hawaii became a state).

___

3:20 p.m.

An official says that a levee protecting a subdivision of homes in a county south of Houston has been fortified after being breached but warns the threat is far from over.

Brazoria County spokeswoman Sharon Trower said Tuesday afternoon that the levee had been fortified. Earlier in the day the county had posted on Twitter: “NOTICE: The levee at Columbia Lakes has been breached!! GET OUT NOW!!”

She says that some water did get through but it wasn’t substantial. She warns that authorities don’t know how long the fortification will hold. She also notes the breach happened due to rainwater but that the nearby Brazos River continues to spill out of its banks.

Trower says that the mandatory evacuation ordered Sunday morning still stands and notes that most of the residents in the area have left.

Brazoria County Judge Matt Sebesta has said that there are hundreds of homes in the tree-lined subdivision situated around a golf course.

___

3:10 p.m.

Federal regulators say dozens of offshore oil-and-gas platforms and rigs in the Gulf of Mexico have been evacuated as Tropical Storm Harvey continues to dump heavy rainfall on the region.

The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in a statement Tuesday that workers were evacuated from 102 production platforms, which is nearly 14 percent of the 737 manned platforms in the Gulf.

Five of the 10 drilling rigs currently operating in the Gulf also had been evacuated as of noon Tuesday. The bureau estimated that approximately 19 percent of the Gulf’s oil and natural gas production was “shut-in,” or temporarily halted, as of midday Tuesday. Offshore facilities will be inspected once the storm has passed.

The Texas Gulf is a key area for U.S. oil refineries and oil and gas production.

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2:55 p.m.

Facebook and Google are matching donations to people affected by Hurricane Harvey, the tech giants announced on Tuesday. Facebook says it will match every dollar raised through its platform, up to $1 million, for the Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s Hurricane Harvey Recovery Fund. The money will support local recovery and rebuilding efforts. U.S. Facebook users are getting a message at the top of their news feed on how to donate.

Google says it is matching $1 million in donations to the American Red Cross. To donate, go to https://www.google.org/harvey-relief/ . The company also matched donations from employees, and said Tuesday it donated $750,000 between its nonprofit arm, Google.org, and employee contributions to organizations such as the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and Save the Children.

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2:30 p.m.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner confirmed that police Sgt. Steve Perez has died after he became trapped in his patrol car as he was driving to work.

The Houston Chronicle has reported that the 30-year officer was heading to work Sunday when he became trapped in high water on Interstate 45 in north Harris County and then couldn’t get himself out of his car.

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2:05 p.m.

NAACP interim President Derrick Johnson says his organization will carefully monitor government assistance in Houston and other areas to ensure minority neighborhoods get adequate resources following Harvey’s destruction on the Gulf Coast.

Johnson says the NAACP’s goal will be “to ensure that resources directed from the federal government don’t skip neighborhoods.”

Johnson told the National Press Club Tuesday that he met with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency earlier in the day. He says the NAACP has a responsibility to make sure “equity is at the table” during recovery efforts, noting that minority neighborhoods suffered disproportionately during Hurricane Katrina.

Johnson is the former president of the Mississippi State Conference NAACP. He says Katrina shows “it is critically important for the association to ensure that the recovery is equitable.”

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1:35 p.m.

Gov. John Bel Edwards says Louisiana is offering to shelter storm victims from Texas while the state also helps its own residents who were rescued from Harvey’s floodwaters overnight.

Edwards said at a news conference Tuesday in Baton Rouge that he expects Texas officials to decide within 48 hours whether to accept the offer and transport flood victims to Louisiana shelters.

Approximately 500 people were evacuated Monday night and early Tuesday from flooded neighborhoods in southwest Louisiana. Edwards says about 200 of them spent the night in area shelters.

Edwards says more than 600 members of the Louisiana National Guard are on storm-related duty. Many are assisting with rescue efforts.

Edwards says Tropical Storm Harvey was strengthening slightly after moving back into the Gulf of Mexico but wasn’t expected to become a hurricane again before its predicted Wednesday landfall in Louisiana.

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#13000+#Dead #Harvey #least #reported #rescues #Wake

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