“It was bedlam,” recalled Elfin Forest resident Nancy Reed. “Absolute bedlam.”

After being trapped in traffic during the 2014 Cocos Fire, Reed is among many looking to avoid previous evacuation woes. Reed, who scrambled to load her animals and connect her trailer to her car, was unable to evacuate due to traffic along the road. Other residents were unable to make multiple trips back to rescue all of their animals after mandatory evacuations began. 

Reed owns five horses, two dogs and two cats. She credits Jazzi, her 18-year-old competitive riding horse, with helping her through her husband’s death in 2006. 

“There is no way in hell I am leaving her with a fire,” she said. “No way in hell. You wouldn’t do that with your child. You would do whatever you had to do if it was your child.”

Wendy Said, a horse trainer in Harmony Grove, loaded her donkey and two horses in her 40-foot trailer the evening before the fire closed in. She waited two hours to pull out of her driveway and onto Country Club Road, a dead-end passageway that feeds onto the main road. 

“It’s a mess every single time,” Said lamented. “I’ve lived here for 33 years; it gets worse every time.”

Reed and Said are among two neighbors who conducted a census of horses in Elfin Forest Harmony Grove. Coordinating with local and state officials, Reed is working on plans for staging areas when the next disaster strikes. 

“We’ve got to do something better because you cannot let family members perish,” Reed said.

Elfin Forest and Harmony Grove are home to more than 500 horses, according to the neighborhood census, which also includes chickens, goats, and alpacas. When fires strike, residents are at the mercy of the unpredictable nature of the burn — as well as crowded traffic conditions that are exacerbated by cattle trailers and multiple trips required to evacuate pets. 

Residents fear future neighborhood developments may further complicate evacuation. The town council has sued San Diego County over two proposed developments — Valiano and Harmony Grove Village South — that, combined, would add more than 700 homes to the area. Council Chairman JP Theberge said the developments’ approvals violate a “good-faith promise” by the county that it would not approve more housing in the area.

Both of them surround Harmony Grove Village, a 700-home development approved in 2007. The site is estimated to be completed in 2020, according to the company website. Theberge said the new residents have become a part of the community; however, he’s unsure how a full neighborhood will factor into evacuation. 

“We’re still not clear on what’s going to happen when the next fire comes and we have 750 homes already built,” Theberge said. 

Said, whose property is near the site for Valiano, describes the proposed development a “tomb.”

“How would we, in the best case scenario, get our horse trailers onto Country Club Drive?” she asked. 

Said and Reed, both longtime residents of Elfin Forest Harmony Grove, attribute the success of Elfin Forest Harmony Grove, as well as the support they’ve received on forming protocol, to the shared culture of autonomy and ownership.

“This is a resilient community,” Reed said. “People take care of one another. They care about one another.”

Kailey Broussard

Kailey Broussard is a master’s student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. As an undergraduate, Broussard reported on historic flooding in south Louisiana, as well as fraternity hazing at her alma mater, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her work has won regional recognition from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Southeast Journalism Conference. She also served in various reporting and editing positions at the university’s student publication, The Vermilion. Her previous work can be found in The Advocate, The Current and The Independent. View her work on her website here.

kaileybroussard.com

The post Rural San Diegans plan for next wildfire — and horse evacuation appeared first on State of Emergency | News21.

“Call the store – tell them I’m alive.”

His next words?

“I’m fine — I’m in a tree.” 

It was July 30, 2016, and Dave Carney found himself climbing to the top of a cherry tree outside The Wine Bin, the wine and liquor store he owns in historic downtown Ellicott City, Maryland.

Sitting in the tree, Carney recalled an unimaginable scene unfolding below him.

“There are logs floating by, I’m literally watching the dumpster [floating] in the parking lot. I’m watching cars float away,” he said. 

Attempting to escape the flood waters, Carney held on to the cherry tree as the flood that would claim two lives and wipe out the city’s historic downtown cascaded around him. 

“It was surreal,” he said. “It was like watching a movie that is not there.”

The next morning, Carney heard something no business owner wants to hear. 

“Sam, my staff person, came down and called me and said, ‘I think you’re out of business,’” Carney recalled.

“I think the town is closed,” he recalls her telling him.

But like many other business owners in town, Carney persevered and reopened his store, only to be flooded again less than two years later. 

Flooding is part of the town’s history. Established as a mill town in 1772, Ellicott City sits in one of the lowest parts of Howard County, Maryland. Given the steep terrain and abundant water sources, the area made for an ideal location to harvest the water’s power to grind flour and wheat.

Over two centuries later, the mills have left, but the water’s power hasn’t. 

In 2016 and 2018, Ellicott City experienced two 1,000-year storms. The Patapsco River and its tributary, the Tiber River, which runs under several businesses in town, rose past capacity after six inches of rain fell in just two hours. Less than two years later, eight inches of rain fell in the town in another two-hour span, once again causing the rivers to rise and overflow.

While cars were swept away by water and sidewalks around town were torn up by both floods, the city’s small businesses scene took a big hit in both storms. 

Before the 2016 flood, Ellicott City’s Main Street housed 141 businesses that contributed $124.2 million in business activity to Howard County, Maryland, and employed 955 workers, many of who live above the businesses they work in, according to a report by the University of Baltimore’s Jacob France Institute.

About a quarter of the businesses left by the end of 2018 after the second flood, according to Ellicott City Partnership, the organization responsible for preserving the heritage and vitality of historic Ellicott City.

The picturesque East Coast town’s economy relies on businesses like Carney’s business, small ice cream parlors, restaurants and bars and boutique shops to generate income. 

This summer, Ian Schwindt pointed to a spot on the wall just below the ceiling in Mooreko’s Ice Cream, a small ice cream shop he manages in the city’s downtown. 

“The water was up to here,” said Schwindt, holding his hand about six-and-a-half feet up the freshly painted wall, referring to the 2018 flood.

“A lot of people lost their businesses for the second time,” said Chris McIntyre, who works at Moorenko’s Ice Cream and also lives above it.

Joan Eve Shea-Cohen was one of these people.

After her antique shop, Joan Eve Antiques and Collectibles, was filled with water and destroyed in the 2016 flood, Shea-Cohen reopened her business in a new, smaller location. 

“Everyone said we would reopen,” Shea-Cohen said. Why wouldn’t I ⁠— they said it was a 1,000-year flood.” 

But then the 2018 flood destroyed her business for a second time. 

Between physical damage taken on by the buildings and lost inventory, including fine china, chandeliers and antique furniture, Shea-Cohen said she lost nearly $400,000 between the two floods. 

“I couldn’t go back there again,” Shea-Cohen said. “Not financially and not in my mind.”

Today, the town continues to rebuild its downtown, taking small steps to return to the way it used to, according to local business owners.

The current plan in place to manage flood waters in town includes the demolition of four buildings, most of them once housing businesses, to help alleviate future flooding in the town, according to Howard County Executive Calvin Ball’s office. 

The four buildings are built above where the Tiber River runs, and removing the buildings would give the river more space to rise and move before it reaches capacity and makes its way to the road. 

Things still aren’t back to the way they used to be, Carney said

“After the ‘16 flood, everything was normal,” Carney said. “Now, it doesn’t look normal it’s physically changed.”Outside The Wine Bin, the cherry tree he climbed in to save himself during the 2016 flood still stands tall — overlooking construction crews working to manage water for the next time it floods.

Christian Gravius

Christian Gravius is a recent graduate of St. Bonaventure University where he majored in journalism and minored in English. Gravius covered high school sports for the Olean Times Herald in New York, and worked as a marketing intern at the world’s largest YMCA in Estes Park, Colorado. Gravius covered the St. Bonaventure Bonnies in the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in Dallas. Gravius won the top award in the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation competition for an essay he wrote about a former teammate’s running career before and after a life-changing accident. Gravius will pursue a master’s degree at South Dakota State University in sports and recreation administration. See his work here.

christiangravius.wixsite.com/website

The post Small businesses take a big hit after Maryland town floods twice appeared first on State of Emergency | News21.

Bounce houses, barbecues and face painting are recurring trademarks at the annual White Mountains Community Firewise Block Party. But this year included a new attraction, presentations from the Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire (CPAW) program. 

The program is funded by the U.S. Forest Service and other private foundations to work with wildfire-vulnerable community and provide fire safety training, land use planning, hazard assessments and wildfire risk trend research to make the community fire adapted. The National Wildfire Coordinating Group defines that as “a human community consisting of informed and prepared citizens collaboratively planning and taking action to safely coexist with wildland fire.”

Since its establishment in 2015, CPAW has partnered with 30 communities in 13 states across the country to make them fire adapted. 

The program received 27 grant applications from seven different states this year and accepted four. The 2019 communities are Pinetop-Lakeside, Gunnison County, Colorado, Redding, California and Mariposa County, California.

Kelly Johnston, forestry and fire behavior expert and the lead of the CPAW Pinetop-Lakeside project said the program’s decision to work with the community was a “no-brainer” because of the area’s susceptibility to wildfires and the willingness of officials to work together.

In the last two decades, Pinetop-Lakeside has been forced to evacuate twice by two historic Arizona wildfires — the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire and the 2011 Wallow Fire, which collectively burned more than 998,000 acres.

“I’m very excited to have CPAW working with us because they not only save lives and structures, but they make the jobs of our firefighters much safer. It’s a win-win for everyone,” said Jim Morgan, fire chief of the Pinetop Fire Department, who led to the application for the grant. “If we can survive wildfires, we can have a home to go home to and forests to enjoy.”

To make learning about wildfire safety both fun and consistent, the Pinetop Fire Department co-hosted the annual Firewise Block Party for the fifth time, Morgan sees this as a resource to the people.

“If we can get an early start to fire safety education, we can get a multigenerational change to our culture,” Morgan said. “If we start teaching kids to be fire safe it becomes embedded into them. It becomes a part of them for their whole lives.”

On the Friday before the party, the CPAW team hosted a wildfire training day. 

“We are really focused on empowering people to move forward so they can carry on in the long term to reduce wildfire risk through land planning,” Johnston said. “These meetings and sessions are so important because we are essentially passing them the torch.”

The day after the training, Johnston joined other presentations during the party on topics such as homeowner fire safety, defensible space, fire wise landscaping and evacuation preparedness.

Residents of Pinetop-Lakeside join more than 832,000 Arizonians who live in intermixed communities, meaning housing and wildland vegetation intermingle, according to the Department of Agriculture’s 2010 Wildland Urban Interface report. Data shows close to 40 million people across the country live in similarly forested communities.

Communities nestled in the forest are more vulnerable to wildfires. Across all the states, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have the largest percentage of their population living in forested communities, according to the report.

The approximately 4,300-person town of Pinetop-Lakeside is located in the largest Ponderosa pine forest in the world. According to the National Park Service, despite the tree itself being fire resistant, forests filled with Ponderosa pine are susceptible to wildfires because of the flammable foliage that surrounds the trees.

“We have not done the thinning that needs to occur to make that land manageable,” Morgan said. “That’s one of the things we are trying to educate our community on.”

The process to make Pinetop-Lakeside fire adapted began in April when CPAW made their first visit to the community. Johnston and other members of his team met with forestry experts, homeowners and the fire department.

“The real test to know whether or not the community is adapted is how well it fares if a wildfire goes through the community … The answer to that we won’t know until we respond to a significant wildfire and evaluate how we did,” Morgan said. “Being fire adapted can take many years and a community can never reach a fully adapted status because there is a dynamic relationship with the environment.”

The wildfire threat has been ever-present this year. According to data from the National Interagency Fire Center, more Arizonan land has been burned by wildfires in the first six months of 2019 than in all of 2018.

Johnston and other members of the CPAW team will present their research and recommendations during their final trip to Pinetop-Lakeside that is being planned sometime between October and December.

CPAW has been operating on yearly budget and within the next few months, will know if the USFS will continue its approximately $1 million funding of the  program. If granted, applications from wildfire-vulnerable communities will be opened in August.

Anton L. Delgado

Anton L. Delgado is a senior at Elon University where he studies journalism and international and global studies. At Elon, he serves as the managing editor of the school newspaper and as a multimedia journalist for Elon News Network. Delgado spent spring 2019 in Morocco as a news correspondent for Morocco World News. He has previously worked for Save the Children Jordan and Town&Country Philippines. Delgado dreams of working as an investigative journalist in conflict zones. View Delgado’s work here.

www.antondelgado.com

The post Wildfire-vulnerable communities adapt to ever-present threat appeared first on State of Emergency | News21.

Burnell Smith bought a cabin on Abel Island in 1976 as a vacation home for his growing family. While he lives full-time in nearby Guttenberg, he enjoys escaping to the island for fishing and spending time with his grandkids.

“It’s a beautiful spot. Everybody likes a place on the water. We’ve enjoyed it,” Smith said.

The island isn’t only a summer haven for families and retirees, but also a testament to the power of preparedness when dealing with flooding. This spring, the island, which is in fact a peninsula, was twice underwater following the river’s crests caused by excessive snowmelt.

Bite marks from a beaver in the stairs leading into Smith’s house from the garage are the only remaining damage despite several feet of flood water.

Next door, Chuck Hemann, former president of the Island Association and one of several year-round residents, has tricked out his house to be able to sustain five feet of water before any significant damage would occur.

Hemann bought his home on Abel Island in 2005 and is grateful that his work now allows him to live there full-time. In 2014, he decided to rebuild his home and go beyond basic floodplain building requirements,  such as installing flood vents, to make sure his home was “built for the water.” That included installing a jacuzzi lift and removable stairs and using water-resistant materials on the interior and exterior of his house.

Flooding is one of the realities that island residents live with, Hemann said.

“It is going to happen, and it’s going to happen regularly,” Hemann said. “Hopefully it’s not every year. Hopefully it’s not multiple times a year.”

Based on flood patterns, Hemann expects his house to take on water about every seven years, but acknowledges that flooding anomalies like this year can happen.

“We’re not in control. We may think we are, but we’re not. And every now and then, Mother Nature will give us an event like it did this spring just to remind us of that,” Hemann said.

Not everyone is as vigilant about flood safety and preparedness and Hemann and Smith.

The National Weather Service’s La Crosse Weather Forecast Office in Wisconsin reported two official crests above the moderate flood stage for that part of the Mississippi. The first on April 5 at 19.6 feet and the second on April 27 at 19.95 feet. The closeness of the two events made travel on and off the island nearly impossible for several weeks.

With only one road connecting the island to the mainland at Guttenberg, it was critical that residents evacuated before water rendered the road undriveable, said Clayton County Director of Emergency Management Sarah Moser.

Her department sends out evacuation notices when the river reaches 18.5 feet. Despite these notices, Moser said a few people ignored their warnings about the flooding.

“I was out there and people were driving through it, like 50 yards of floodwater. That’s the other hard part to it. Roads close and some people still drive through it,” Moser said. “I don’t want a car going into the Mississippi.”

This year’s flooding is nothing new for the island community. According to the National Weather Service, excluding this spring’s crests, it has been flooded by over 19 feet of water nine times since 1951.

Because of the two floods this spring, Smith said he expects some people will move, but most residents understand the risks and rewards of living on the island.

Hemann agreed that the majority of residents who have stayed after past crests have the “island mindset,”  or the understanding that although there are inherent risks to living several yards away from the Mississippi, the proximity to the water is what makes living on Abel Island so unique.

“It’s really appealing to me that if I’m sitting here on a Tuesday night and I decide I want to go for a boat ride then in five minutes I can be on the water and boating,” Hemann said. “So it really suits my lifestyle.”

Allie Barton

Allie Barton is a recent graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. As an undergraduate, Barton worked on several short documentaries. She also worked as a producer for “Catalyst” at Arizona PBS, a series that explores scientific research at ASU. In her senior year, she traveled to Peru with other Cronkite students to produce a multimedia report on the plight of the more than 700,000 Venezuelan migrants who have settled there to escape economic and political instability. In the fall, Barton will be a master’s student at the Cronkite School, working as a reporter for Cronkite Noticias, the school’s Spanish news broadcast. Her work can be found here.

alliebarton.wixsite.com/mysite

The post The “island mindset” of a resilient Iowa community appeared first on State of Emergency | News21.

The fire burned nearly 124,000 acres of the Superstition Wilderness and the Tonto National Monument. The difficult terrain made putting firefighters on the ground a potentially deadly risk.

“Our main value is firefighter safety and public safety,” said Dick Fleishman, a fire information officer. “We’re not going to put people in this ground where we can barely get them in-and-out of there.”

Leaving the creation of situational awareness, scale mapping and infrared imagery to Unmanned Aerial Systems, also known as drones.

In the last eight years, the number of federal drone flights has grown from 260 in 2010 to 10,342 last year, according to data from the Department of Interior. In Arizona, drone usage has increased by 184% in the last two years.

Justin Baxter, a drone fire operations specialist, and his three-man team flew a Matrice 600 (M600) during the Woodbury Fire.

“We’ve been doing a lot on this fire with infrared work just based on how rugged the terrain is,” Baxter said.

Assessing wildfire burned land was one of Baxter’s most common missions during the Woodbury Fire. The infrared and normal cameras attached to the M600 allow operators to compare land temperature as they monitor burn zones for hotspots, which have the potential to ignite new fires.

“The drones are not putting out the fires,” Baxter said. “Somebody still needs to go in there and put it out. But we can mitigate some of the risk, some of the exposure and identify areas of concern a little bit sooner.”

New technology now allows drones to not only spot fires but start them.

Attachable infrared cameras and Plastic Sphere Dispensers equip drones to ignite and monitor backburns, a firefighting tactic used to reduce flammable brush in an area that has the potential to fuel an oncoming wildfire.

The dispensers drop what Baxter refers to as “ping pong balls” filled with two chemicals that combine to ignite small fires. The drones then monitor these fires as they burn brush, letting firefighters focus on other mitigation and suppression techniques during an active wildfire.

“Drones are a new technology that we’re trying to implement,” said Ryan Berlin, a mitigation and education specialist who was flown in from Idaho for the Woodbury Fire. “We’re still in the infancy of the drones.”

As of 2018, the Bureau of Land Management had 531 drones and 359 operators in its service and provided support during earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, animal migrations and search and rescues.

According to the Department of Interior’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Program 2018 Use Report, the 10,342 flights of 2018 totaled 1,785 hours in air, a more than 100% increase in both flights and hours in air from 2017. These flights occurred in 42 states and at least two territories, with more than half of the flights taking place in Hawaii, Oregon, Alaska, Colorado and Idaho.

Arizona had the eighth-most amount of drone flights in 2018, with 570. While statistics on the number of drone flights in 2019 won’t be available until the end of the year, drone usage in Arizona is likely to increase, as this fire season has already burned more land than in all of 2018, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center.

At the end of 2018, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, which promoted the Department of Interior’s search for new wildfire management, mitigation and suppression techniques. One of the provisions called for agencies to “maximize appropriate use of unmanned aerial systems” — drones — in wildfire fighting and recovery.

With support from the White House and data showing increasing interest in federal drone usage, Baxter looks forward to seeing the program grow.

“I hope that this tool is just like the chainsaw. You’re going to have the EMT that carries a first aid kit. The sawyer that carries the chainsaw and the UAS pilot that carries the UAS,” Baxter said. “Instead of exposing a helicopter pilot to a recon flight or a captain of a crew to hike a ridge nobody’s ever been up. Give them give them the tools to make their job just a little bit safer.”

Anton L. Delgado

Anton L. Delgado is a senior at Elon University where he studies journalism and international and global studies. At Elon, he serves as the managing editor of the school newspaper and as a multimedia journalist for Elon News Network. Delgado spent spring 2019 in Morocco as a news correspondent for Morocco World News. He has previously worked for Save the Children Jordan and Town&Country Philippines. Delgado dreams of working as an investigative journalist in conflict zones. View Delgado’s work here.

www.antondelgado.com

The post Drone usage on the rise in wildfire fighting appeared first on State of Emergency | News21.

She’s strong and mighty, she protects against enemies and, according to Conway city spokesman Bobby M. Kelly, “she held on like hair on a biscuit” when her city was in danger.

Her name is Lollie Levee.

Conway needed a defender after the flood of 1927. Historian Cindy Beckman recounted that up to 15 feet of water from the Arkansas River covered the Lollie district, prompting the construction of the seven-mile pile of earth in 1929. Later named the Lollie Levee, residents of the city and of Faulkner County refer to the levee as a she, as if she were a person.

The flood of 2019 was the Lollie Levee’s greatest test yet in 90 years. Residents in the area became concerned after the river breached the levee in Dardanelle, Arkansas. The damage was catastrophic. Many farms and homes flooded.

Faulkner County Judge Jim Baker said that the levee in Dardanelle was constructed in the same year as the levee in Lollie, so after hearing that the Dardanelle levee breached, he was sick to his stomach. “I was concerned about it,” he said of the Lollie Levee.

Farmers bordering the Lollie levee were told to prepare for evacuation. If the levee were to breach, their fields would be inundated with feet of water, enough to decimate their crops for the year. Their homes would have been swept away as well.

Conway residents were worried, too. If the levee breached, water would have crept into the western part of the city for the first time in history. One resident was particularly anxious about a shopping complex along one of the city’s main roads, far away from the levee. “All that was in the flood projections,” Robyn Johnson said.  “A ton of people work there and even more shop there.”

Those close to the levee believed in her fighting spirit. She had been properly maintained by the Faulkner County Levee and Drainage District No. 1. in the years leading up to the flood, according to Baker. Officials from the drainage district told Baker that Lollie was “the best levee in western Arkansas,” Baker said. Their advice to him was simple: worry about something else.

But when so much was at stake, it was difficult not to worry. For six days and six nights, the levee was monitored nonstop as the water slowly eroded the soil. Residents built a backup dam in case of a breach, but when the river crested, Lollie was still standing.

“You build up enough anxiety about this, you do what you can to help with the sandbags and donating time and money to charity, and you’re told it’s not going to be enough in the end,” Johnson said. “Then, just like that, it is.”

She had never been so proud of an inanimate object in her life, she said.

Because of the upkeep by the levee board and the Army Corps of Engineers, the Lollie Levee was able to withstand the rushing river, saving the homes, farms and city behind it, Baker said. She took quite a beating, but in the end, she kept the water out.

“It held at the last three-foot block,” Baker said, holding back tears. “And the only explanation I’ve got is answered prayers and divine intervention.” He described the moment he realized the levee was going to hold as the biggest sense of relief one could have. As the river started to recede, the eroded part of the levee began to sink. Baker was relieved that “it never did cave in while the water was up high.”

For her service to the city of Conway, the Lollie Levee was granted a key to the city. It’s a shining reminder of her strength and willpower, Kelly said.

“We felt it was a good gesture to show our appreciation. Thankfully, she doesn’t have legs and she’s not going to go around the city unlocking every door we’ve got!” Kelly told THV11, an Arkansas news station.

Johnson added, “Lollie Levee being presented with a key to the city was one of the most adorable and quintessentially southern things I have ever seen. Second only to it being referred to as having ‘held on like a hair on a biscuit.’’’

Baker thinks that more levee boards will be created after this disaster so Arkansas will be better prepared if severe flooding happens again soon. He hopes to see less stories like Dardanelle and more like Conway and the Lollie Bottoms.

Levee boards also help secure towns financially. “Since the Faulkner County Levee Board had kept the levee up to national standards, there will be federal money to rebuild it,” said Beckman. According to Baker, 100% of the repairs will be covered.

These days, the Lollie Levee is resting. The Corps of Engineers gave her the equivalent of a nice spa day, which included a temporary patch. She’ll get a full makeover in the form of a permanent patch soon.

Baker is proud of the levee’s accolades, but he is more proud of the fight she put up for her people.

“The fact that she held… that’s what we’re so proud of in the city of Conway,” he said. “It’s a grand ole lady.”

Jordan Elder

Jordan Elder is a recent graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a certificate in leadership and ethics. Her focus is on broadcasting and digital storytelling. Elder was a producer for “Catalyst,” an Arizona PBS series that explores scientific research at ASU, and a production intern for KPNX 12 News for two semesters. She served as a host and contributor to the entertainment news program “Cronkite Cut” for three years. Elder returns to Cronkite School in the fall to complete a master’s degree and report on sustainability issues for Cronkite News. View her portfolio here.

jordanelder.wixsite.com/home

The post Stubborn levee rewarded with key to city in Arkansas appeared first on State of Emergency | News21.