KAIDEN LEE-WELCH, 1, VICTIM OF HURRICANE FLORENCE IN NC; BODY FOUND

KAIDEN LEE-WELCH, 1, VICTIM OF HURRICANE FLORENCE - BODY FOUND TODAY:

PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY & VOLUNTEER TO HELP THE CITIZENS OF NORTH CAROLINA.


Post Sources: Charlotte Observer, NBC News, The State, Youtube


**** Florence’s toll: Infant killed by tree, 1-year-old swept away, killed by floodwaters


This story was updated at 10:45 a.m. Monday.

Rescue workers in Union County on Monday found the body of a 1-year-old boy who was swept away in floodwaters on Sunday, adding to Tropical Storm Florence’s death toll.

The Union County Sheriff’s Office said shortly after 10 a.m. that the boy’s body had been recovered. Investigators said his mother drove around barricades on a flooded section of N.C. 218.

Kaiden Lee-Welch’s mother was driving east towards Wadesboro, investigators said, when her car was floated off the road by waters from nearby Richardson Creek.

“Her vehicle left the roadway and came to rest amongst a group of trees,” the Union County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “She managed to free herself and Kaiden, who was in a car seat, but lost her grip on him in the rushing water.”

On Monday, a Union County Sheriff’s deputy guarding the barricade on NC-218 said he’s been here since 1992 and has never seen the water so high.

Two rescue workers were seen coming out of a flooded soybean field near the road, carrying what appeared to be a container covered with a white blanket shortly after 10:30 am as a helicopter hovered overhead.

Elsewhere in Union County, deputies also recovered a man’s body in Marshville on Monday morning.

Observer news partner WBTV reported he was found beside a car after floodwaters receded on Landsford Drive.

In Dallas, N.C., an infant boy was the first person reported killed by the storm in the Charlotte area.

Kade Gill died Sunday after a large pine tree fell on his mobile home Sunday afternoon, Gaston County police confirmed. Sunday was also the day he turned three months old, reported Observer news partner WBTV.

The Charlotte region was starting to dry out Monday and clean up after Florence’s soaking, which delivered 11 inches or more to parts of the city and sent creeks and streams overflowing their banks.

Monday morning, 12,385 customers in Charlotte remained without power, Duke Energy reported, along with almost 4,000 in surrounding counties. City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County offices remained closed.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools were canceled for the third straight day, leaving 148,000 students and the children who attend daycares linked to the CMS calendar home again.

In Dallas, police said a three-month-old boy was at home with family members on Moses Court, off Old Willis School Road, around 12:45 p.m. Sunday when the tree fell.

“It basically just cut the trailer in half,” Gaston County Police Capt. Jon Leatherwood said.

The boy was pronounced dead at Carolinas Medical Center Sunday afternoon, Leatherwood said.

The Gaston Gazette identified his parents as Olen and Tammy Gill, and said the boy was in his mother’s arms on the couch when the tree crashed through the home and struck him in the head. Tammy Gill was hospitalized at CaroMont Regional Medical Center and released Sunday, the newspaper reported.

Kade Gill was alive and crying when his parents pulled him from the home, reported the Observer’s news partner WBTV.

“The tree had divided us,” Kade’s father, Olen Gill, told WBTV. “So I am in the kitchen. She (Kade’s mother) is in the living room on the couch. I had to come out and rip the air conditioner out of the window, and that’s when we handed him through the window.”

Including this case, Hurricane Florence has killed at least 17 people in the Carolinas. Eleven of those fatalities were in North Carolina.

Partial levee breach

A flash flood warning had been issued for southwestern Rowan County until 11:45 p.m. Sunday, the National Weather Service said.

It also said that at 8:44 p.m., “Rowan County Emergency Management is reporting a partial breach of the Lake Corriher levee in Landis.”

But it appeared Monday morning that the remainder of the levee would hold.

“Due to the decrease in heavy rainfall, water levels have receded from the dam and levee,” Rowan County Emergency Management said in a statement. They planned to continue monitoring the situation. Landis is about 30 miles northeast of Charlotte.

Rising creeks

Meanwhile, creeks rose all over the Charlotte area Sunday afternoon. The southern part of Mecklenburg County and its neighbors to the southeast faced particular trouble.

Rain gauges there measured massive rainfall over the past three days: 10.9 inches at Matthews Elementary School, 11 inches nearby on U.S. 74, 10.2 inches at McAlpine and Sardis roads.

At 1:30 p.m., after much of the metro area had been pelted since early morning with gusting winds and sheets of rain, the National Weather Service issued a rare emergency flood warning for south Charlotte, Pineville, Matthews and Mint Hill. There, the drainage basins of some of Mecklenburg County’s best-known creeks began spilling over into roadways, bridges and neighborhoods.

The emergency warning was quickly extended to Union and York counties.

The weather service told residents in the quickly expanding emergency flash-flood area that they faced an “extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation,” and the agency urged people not to travel unless they were evacuating.

“SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” the weather service said in an unusually urgent Sunday afternoon statement.

In Union, afternoon flooding had already closed roads and bridges and set off home rescues, authorities said. At 4:15 p.m., the county Emergency Management Service announced a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew due to worsening conditions.

By 4 p.m., several creeks had risen above flood stage, the National Weather Service said. The Weather Service said McAlpine Creek would flood homes around Colony Road and Weirton Place and Little Sugar Creek was likely to flood homes near Archdale Drive.

Buildings near Addison Drive in southeast Charlotte were already taking on water from McMullen Creek, the National Weather Service said, and buildings along N.C. 51 in Pineville are at risk of flooding.

“At least 20 roads have been closed due to floodwaters in the southern part of (Mecklenburg) county. Travel is dangerous,” the National Weather Service said.

The threat of similar flooding is expected to cross the state line later today and move south into the fast-growing York County cities of Fort Mill, Rock Hill and Tega Cay, the weather service said.

Meanwhile, flooding along the Catawba River could come as early as Monday, Duke Energy says.

Doug Outlaw, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Office in Greenville-Spartanburg, said bands of rain from the remains of Florence moving across South Carolina set off widespread flooding throughout Chesterfield County, S.C., then crossed the state line into Union County. There, rising creeks fed by rainfall and runoff crested bridges and roads, and forced home evacuations, he said.

In south Mecklenburg, rain also brought the water levels in Briar Creek, McMullen Creek and Little Sugar Creek to near flood stage, leading the weather service to issue the rare emergency flood warning, Outlaw said.

Across the region, Duke Energy says water could begin spilling out of several of its lakes above and below Charlotte starting as early as Monday evening, utility spokeswoman Kim Crawford told the Observer on Sunday.

The most immediate flooding threats are to areas along lakes James, Rhodhiss and Lookout Shoals, Crawford said, where the reservoirs are expected to be several feet above full pond by Monday evening, Crawford said.

Duke is also monitoring Mountain Island Lake, a major source of the region’s drinking water. But Crawford said Duke’s fears of flooding there have eased for now due to tapering rainfall in that part of the county.

Elsewhere, as the rainfall and runoff move southward, and are passed dam to dam around Charlotte, the flood threat moves into Duke’s reservoirs in South Carolina. The threat is particularly heightened at Lake Wateree, the last and lowest reservoir on the chain.

Catawba Riverkeeper Sam Perkins says the combination of rainfall and runoff will plague the Catawba basin for days or even weeks to come.

Duke began preparing for the arrival of Florence weeks ago by lowering water levels 4 to 5 feet in its four biggest reservoirs — James, Norman, Wylie and Wateree — in anticipation of what Florence was expected to dump across the region.

All that will be compounded by a massive runoff from the river’s countless tributaries, stretching hundreds of miles from the mountains to the S.C. Upstate.

As with rainfall, the bulk of the power outages appear to have occurred in the more heavily populated area of the region, according to Duke Energy.

The number of Mecklenburg County residents doubled throughout Sunday morning, to almost 30,000. At midday, Union County had 5,100 Duke customers without power; Gaston County, 3,800; and York County, 3,200.

By comparison, in New Hanover County/Wilmington alone, where the storm made landfall last week, the outages approached 104,000. Duke estimated that as many as three-quarters of its N.C. customers, or 3 million in all, could lose power before the storm ends.

Much of the Charlotte area and Western North Carolina remained under a flash flood watch into Monday morning.

The National Weather Service says the South Fork River in Gaston County is expected to crest at 6 1/2 feet above flood stage on Monday, threatening roads, bridges, parks and homes, particularly in and around Cramerton.
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***** North Carolina 1-year-old missing after being swept away by rushing floodwater
Kaiden Lee's mother lost her grip on the child's hand after getting out of their car.
The search resumed Monday morning, according to officials.
A North Carolina 1-year-old was swept away by rushing floodwaters caused by Florence after his mother lost her grip on the child.
Search and rescue teams spent hours looking for Kaiden Lee-Welch overnight on Sunday into Monday after water from the deadly storm flooded the highway his mother was driving on as she headed east to Wadesboro, North Carolina.

"I was holding his hand, trying to hold him, trying to pull him up ... I couldn't hold on anymore, and he let go," Lee's mother told FOX 46 WJZY.

The search for Kaiden resumed Monday morning, Union County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post.

Kaiden's mother, identified as Dazia Lee by FOX 46 WJZY, told authorities she drove around a barricade on North Carolina Highway 218 toward Wadesboro, when she encountered the swift water rising from Richardson Creek.

The water pushed her car off of the road and and left her stuck in a group of trees, according to police.

Lee was able to get Kaiden out of the car, but the water caused her to lose her grip.

Lee sobbed as she described her son to the local news outlet.

"My son is 1 years old. He's the sweetest boy you could ever have," she said.

It was not immediately clear why Lee was traveling on the highway.

"I did everything everything I could from the moment I was pregnant to the moment I lost him. I did everything I could as a parent to save him and protect him," she said.

Family members joined police in searching for the boy overnight. Police urged residents to avoid Highway 218 due to ongoing flooding.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said on Sunday that flood waters were raging across the state and have created an enormous risk for residents of the state.

With Florence, which has been downgraded to a tropical depression, making its way across the region, flash flood warnings were in effect across much of North Carolina, as well as in northeast South Carolina and southwest Virginia, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The storm is responsible for at least 17 deaths, with the majority the victims located in North Carolina. Two babies and a mother were killed in separate incidents in Gaston County and Wilmington.

HURRICANE IRMA TARGETED ORLANDO, FL (MOSTLY BLACK POPULATION), JUST AS KATRINA TARGETED NEW ORLEANS (MOSTLY BLACK POPULATION)

HURRICANE IRMA TARGETED ORLANDO, FL (MOSTLY BLACK POPULATION:

JUST AS KATRINA TARGETED NEW ORLEANS (MOSTLY BLACK POPULATION).

THOUSANDS OF BLACK PEOPLE HAD TO EVACUATE FLORIDA.

JUST AS THOUSANDS OF BLACK PEOPLE HAD TO EVACUATE NEW ORLEANS IN 2005 DURING HURRICANE KATRINA.

MANY OF NEW ORLEANS BLACK POPULATION WERE NOT ALLOWED TO MOVE BACK AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA.


Sources: AP, Orlando Sentinel, NY Times, Washington Post


****** Hurricane Irma leaves trail of downed trees, high water, power outages in Florida


Hurricane Irma battered the Florida Keys and South Florida, swiped the Tampa area and unexpectedly targeted Orlando at the last moment late Sunday, bringing hours of rain and strong winds that left about 6.5 million homes and businesses without power and 200,000 people in shelters.

At least two people were killed during the storm in Orange County. About 900,000 homes and businesses were still without power Monday night in five Central Florida counties, and residents came outside after hours indoors to find downed trees blocking streets and damaging homes and cars.

And about 4 a.m. Monday, a lake in west Orange County’s Orlo Vista neighborhood overflowed leading to flooding. Orange County firefighters and members of the National Guard pulled more than 200 people from 500 homes and took them to local shelters.

“How are we going to survive from here?” asked Gwen Bush, a resident who walked through thigh-deep floodwaters. “What's going to happen now? I just don't know.”

No injuries were reported in the neighborhood.

In South Florida, Gov. Rick Scott said he saw boats washed ashore and flood damage when he flew over the Florida Keys Monday. He did not know whether there were casualties, but said he hoped everyone who did not evacuate survived the storm.

“The Keys right now,” Scott said, “not having water, not having sewer, not having electricity, I mean, how can you live there?”
“Marathon was completely underwater,” said state Rep. Holly Raschein, R-Key Largo. “Cudjoe Key took a direct hit; we’re still having problems communicating there. Flooding on Big Pine.

It’s pretty widespread. The good thing is a lot of people did evacuate, so we’re seeing a bad situation that could have been worse.”

Tampa and St. Petersburg were spared the damage some meteorologists feared when the storm did not hug the state’s gulf coast, and instead headed closer inland.

The National Weather Service recorded maximum wind gusts of 79 mph at Orlando International Airport, and gusts of 83 mph in Cocoa Beach.

The higher winds brought damage to Central Florida.
Edgardo Plaza, 53, looked out from the seawall where his sailboat was docked at SunDance Marine in Palm Shores, Brevard County. He could see only the mast and ropes dangling. The ocean had buried the rest of the vessel.

"I checked on it last night, and it seemed fine," he said perched atop wood and metal debris along the harbor. "I can't believe it."
The damage was only an ounce of what Brevard County saw during Hurricane Irma, which left many without electricity and nearly half of the county’s 579,000 residents without running water.

About 80 percent of Polk County was without power, including shelters. Polk County officials warned drivers of potentially dangerous downed power lines.

In nearby Lake County, firefighters in Clermont rescued a 23-year-old man who was crushed in bed when a tree fell through his roof, police Sgt. Malcolm Draper said. During a lull in the storm at 1:45 a.m., when sustained winds were higher than 50 mph and gusting to 90 mph, firefighters hurried to the home and lifted the tree from the man.

Fire Chief Carle Bishop drove the man to South Lake Hospital, where authorities quickly realized he needed surgery but no doctor was available. Police officers went to a doctor’s home and drove him to the hospital, where the man successfully underwent surgery for internal injuries. He is in stable condition, Draper said.

More than 30 people were rescued in Volusia County during Hurricane Irma on Sunday night and Monday morning.

Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen said the west side of the county and Beach Street in Daytona Beach sustained the most damage, particularly downed trees.

“In the end, if we all work together we can all guarantee a safe return to normalcy,” he said.

The biggest hurdle will be restoring power, he said. More than 220,000 customers in Volusia County were without power as of Monday afternoon, according to Florida Emergency Management.

As the day went on and winds quieted, people across Central Florida tried to return to normal. Against advice, some left their homes — 24 people were arrested on charges of curfew violations in Orange County , including three on burglary charges. Others just got out of the house — a person in an inflatable T-Rex costume and black flip-flops found a tree blocking an Orlando road and climbed onto it as people nearby filmed with their cell phones.

Schools are still closed Tuesday. Most curfews were lifted by Monday afternoon, though Mount Dora instituted another one from Monday night to 6 a.m. Tuesday because of a power line down.

Robert and Maria Gonzalez said they looked outside their Kissimmee home overnight in the night and saw flood waters almost up to the front door. The water looked like a lake — and they joked they didn't know they'd gotten a lake house.

"We were thinking, 'Please don't come in,'" Maria Gonzalez said.

The couple and their 10-year-old son had seen images of residents stranded because of flooding in Houston after Hurricane Harvey weeks before. They feared they could end up in the same situation.

Water seeped into their garage on Town & Country Drive, but they found no damage. Water had begun to recede midday Monday, but still not enough they would risk driving their van through it, they said.

Despite curfews and hazardous debris blocking off streets, local highways across counties in Central Florida were used all day Monday. Florida Highway Patrol troopers were pulling over drivers who refused to follow road laws at intersections where traffic lights were still out.

FHP spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Montes said drivers should exercise additional caution until road conditions return to normal, which could take some time.

One fatality in the storm was a car crash: Heidi Zehner, 50, died after losing control of an SUV on State Road 417 Sunday evening as the storm approached. The other, Brian Buwalda, 51, was apparently electrocuted at Leith and Westchester avenues in Winter Park by a downed power line Monday morning.

The University of Central Florida offered to house up to 1,000 National Guard members and 250 of their vehicles on campus as recovery continues, a university spokeswoman said.

Saturday’s UCF football game against Georgia Tech was canceled Monday.

In Seminole County, the driver of a van accidentally drove head first into a sinkhole that opened in the parking lot of the Astor Park apartments off Tuskawilla Road near Red Bug Road.

The driver, who was not injured, was pulled out of the vehicle from the back window of the van by a resident Good Samaritan.
Jeff Lane was out walking his dog on Monday morning in his neighborhood near Aloma Avenue and SR 417.

Overnight, a wind gust tore his kitchen skylight open.

"I threw some blankets down and grabbed a storage crate to catch the water," he said. "It's not too bad."
He said the sound of the storm reminded him of Charley in 2004.

"We were without power for three weeks after Charley," he said. "Hopefully it won't be that long."

HURRICANE HARVEY TARGETED HOUSTON, TX (MOSTLY BLACK POPULATION) JUST AS KATRINA TARGETED NEW ORLEANS (MOSTLY BLACK POPULATION)

HURRICANE HARVEY TARGETED HOUSTON, TX (MOSTLY BLACK POPULATION:

JUST AS KATRINA TARGETED NEW ORLEANS (MOSTLY BLACK POPULATION)

THOUSANDS OF BLACK PEOPLE HAD TO EVACUATE TEXAS.

JUST AS THOUSANDS OF BLACK PEOPLE HAD TO EVACUATE NEW ORLEANS IN 2005 DURING HURRICANE KATRINA.

MANY OF NEW ORLEANS BLACK POPULATION WERE NOT ALLOWED TO MOVE BACK AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA.


Sources: AP, Black America Web, NY Times, Washington Post


******* Tropical Storm Harvey Leaves Houston Underwater


Tropical Storm Harvey sent devastating floods pouring into the nation’s fourth-largest city Sunday as rising water chased thousands of people to rooftops or higher ground and overwhelmed rescuers who could not keep up with the constant calls for help.

The incessant rain covered much of Houston in turbid, gray-green water and turned streets into rivers navigable only by boat. In a rescue effort that recalled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, helicopters landed near flooded freeways, airboats buzzed across submerged neighborhoods and high-wheeled vehicles plowed through water-logged intersections. Some people managed with kayaks or canoes or swam.

Volunteers joined emergency teams to pull people from their homes or from the water, which was high enough in places to gush into second floors.

The flooding was so widespread that authorities had trouble pinpointing the worst areas. They urged people to get on top of their homes to avoid becoming trapped in attics and to wave sheets or towels to draw attention to their location.

Judging from federal disaster declarations, the storm has so far affected about a quarter of the Texas population, or 6.8 million people in 18 counties. It was blamed for at least two deaths.

As the water rose, the National Weather Service offered another ominous forecast: Before the storm that arrived Friday as a Category 4 hurricane is gone, some parts of Houston and its suburbs could get as much as 50 inches (1.3 meters) of rain.

That would be the highest amount ever recorded in Texas.
Some areas have already received about half that amount. Since Thursday, South Houston recorded nearly 25 inches (63 centimeters), and the suburbs of Santa Fe and Dayton got 27 inches (69 centimeters).

“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall is beyond anything experienced before,” the National Weather Service said in a statement.

Average rainfall totals will end up around 40 inches (1 meter) for Houston, weather service meteorologist Patrick Burke said.

The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brock Long, predicted that the aftermath of the storm would require FEMA’s involvement for years.

“This disaster’s going to be a landmark event,” Long said.
Rescuers had to give top priority to life-and-death situations, leaving many affected families to fend for themselves.

Tom Bartlett and Steven Craig pulled a rowboat on a rope through chest-deep water for a mile to rescue Bartlett’s mother from her home in west Houston. It took them 45 minutes to reach the house. Inside, the water was halfway up the walls.

Marie Bartlett, 88, waited in her bedroom upstairs.

“When I was younger, I used to wish I had a daughter, but I have the best son in the world,” she said. “In my 40 years here, I’ve never seen the water this high.”

The city’s main convention center was quickly opened as a shelter.

Gillis Leho arrived there soaking wet. She said she awoke Sunday to find her downstairs flooded. She tried to move some belongings upstairs, then grabbed her grandchildren.

“When they told us the current was getting high, we had to bust a window to get out,” Leho said.

William Cain sought shelter after water started coming inside his family’s apartment and they lost power. “I live in a lake where there was once dry land,” he said.

Some people used inflatable beach toys, rubber rafts and even air mattresses to get through the water to safety. Others waded while carrying trash bags stuffed with their belongings and small animals in picnic coolers.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said authorities had received more than 2,000 calls for help, with more coming in. He urged drivers to stay off roads to avoid adding to the number of those stranded.

“I don’t need to tell anyone this is a very, very serious and unprecedented storm,” Turner told a news conference. “We have several hundred structural flooding reports. We expect that number to rise pretty dramatically.”

The deteriorating situation was bound to provoke questions about the conflicting advice given by the governor and Houston leaders before the hurricane. Gov. Greg Abbott urged people to flee from Harvey’s path, but the Houston mayor issued no evacuation orders and told everyone to stay home.

The governor refused to point fingers on Sunday.

“Now is not the time to second-guess the decisions that were made,” Abbott, a Republican, said at a news conference in Austin. “What’s important is that everybody work together to ensure that we are going to, first, save lives and, second, help people across the state rebuild.”

The mayor, a Democrat, defended his decision, saying there was no way to know which parts of the city were most vulnerable.

“If you think the situation right now is bad, and you give an order to evacuate, you are creating a nightmare,” Turner said, citing the risks of sending the city’s 2.3 million inhabitants onto the highways at the same time.

Jesse Gonzalez, and his son, also named Jesse, used their boat to rescue people from a southeast Houston neighborhood.

Asked what he had seen, the younger Gonzalez replied: “A lot of people walking and a lot of dogs swimming.”

“It’s chest- to shoulder-deep out there in certain areas,” he told television station KTRK as the pair grabbed a gasoline can to refill their boat.

The Coast Guard deployed five helicopters and asked for additional aircraft from New Orleans.

The White House announced that President Donald Trump would visit Texas on Tuesday.

He met Sunday by teleconference with top administration officials to discuss federal support for response and recovery efforts.

The rescues unfolded a day after Harvey settled over the Texas coastline. The system weakened Saturday to a tropical storm.

On Sunday, it was virtually stationary about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Victoria, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of about 40 mph (72.42 kph), the hurricane center said.
Harvey was the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in 13 years and the strongest to strike Texas since 1961’s Hurricane Carla, the most powerful Texas hurricane on record.

Wyclef Jeans Cries For Haiti, Calls For Evacuation & Defends Yele

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wyclef Jean Defends Yele Haiti Charity


Wyclef Jean's very public effort to raise money for Haiti earthquake victims has brought his charity, the Yele Haiti Foundation, under fire.

A report by The Smoking Gun, and a subsequent article in The Washington Post, brought the foundation's financial history, and its effectiveness as an NGO, under scrutiny.

"The group has a lackluster history of accounting for its finances, and that the organization has paid the performer and his business partner at least $410,000 for rent, production services, and Jean's appearance at a benefit concert," according to The Smoking Gun.

TSG also pointed out that in August 2009, Jean's charity filed its tax returns for the first time in its twelve year history, but even then returns were only filed for 2005, 2006, and 2007.

“It’s questionable. There’s no way to get around that,” Art Taylor, president and chief executive of the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, based in Arlington, Va., told The Associated Press about Yele Haiti's financial history.

“Here’s the bottom line: for an earthquake of catastrophic proportions, do people really believe that this organization is in a position to do anything right now?” he said.

The Yele Haiti Foundation has already revealed that it was not prepared for the overwhelming response to Jean's text-messaging campaign, which launched Tuesday. By Wednesday, the influx in texts had crashed the server.

People were asked to donate $5 by texting "YELE" to 501501. Yele Haiti and Jean managed to raise more than $2 million in just two days.

Jean posted a six-and-a-half minute video on YouTube in response to the allegations on Saturday evening.

"Coming back here, after digging kids up ... this is what I come back to, an attack on my integrity and my foundation," he began.

He went on to say that he has video footage to serve as proof of his dedication, and that he is disgusted by those attacking Yele Haiti.


Sources: MSNBC, NBC New York, CNN, Yele, Youtube

President Obama Moved During Airspace Violation

This afternoon due to a small plane owner's navigating mistakes and whose actions caused an Airspace violation, President Barack Obama and Vice-President Biden were quickly moved to another (unknown) location until the incident was peacefully resolved.

In addition Capitol Staff were evacuated as the premises was locked down.

William Wales, owner of the Cessna 180 plane and his wife, were traveling in route from Maine to North Carolina to see their daughter, when they became lost and wandered into restricted airspace near the White House causing a security disturbance.

Two F-16 fighter jets and two Coast Guard helicopters escorted Wales to the Indian Head Airport in Charles County, Maryland. Afterward Wales was questioned by the Secret Service.

The Secret Service confirms that every since Sept. 11, 2001, whenever an unauthorized aircraft enters the restricted airspace surrounding the White House, this type of swift action to protect the sitting President's life is commonplace.

I'm just grateful that both President Obama and Vice-President Biden are safe.


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Sources: Huffington Post, NY Times, Fox News, Flickr, Google Maps