Forest Park train crash, APS threats & GA vote updates

Tanya, thanks so much for joining us. Let's get to that tractor trailer crash there with the train that we've been following all morning. That's right. So big mess, as you can tell from looking at Aiden Brown's video right now, where they continue a cleanup over in this area of Forest Park. It's over off of Main Street. I'm going to do something different today. We're going to just go ahead and see if we can talk to Aiden. He's behind that camera. But Aiden, can you tell us what's going on over there? Yeah, Tonya, I'm here. So yeah, as you can see, the cleanup continues. This is the aftermath after a tractor train crash with a tractor trailer. Forgive me if it's a little loud with all the cleanup happening out here. But yeah, they are currently cleaning up this area. This is right here near downtown Forest Park. I'm along Cedar Avenue and Hale Road. It looks like it's a multi-team effort. Between the trucking companies, the railroad companies, and Forest Park Fire PD, the fire and NPD, to clean this area up and get it cleared so traffic can start flowing through here again. They are asking that if people do come through here, just be cautious, be patient with them as they clean up the area. But that's all going on out here for now. As you can see, it continues as they are rapidly cleaning all of this, looks like some grocery items. That were spilled all across the road, but most of the crash is removed. The trailer was split into two halves, as you can see just behind me here. And yeah, they're getting it done. It looks like they're moving pretty quick from what you had earlier that we saw in one of the earlier shows. It looks like they've actually cleared up quite a bit. So the road continues to be blocked, Aiden, right? Yeah, so most of the roadways that come through this area, like you can see some traffic coming along on the other side of the tracks, but most of the other roadways are blocked off to this particular area where they're cleaning up right now. But I see they're slowly letting traffic flow on one side of the track. Pretty soon they'll have the rest of it all cleaned up and everything should resume as normal. Alright, thank you so much Aiden. We're going to keep you out there a little longer until that all cleans up and then I'm sure we'll move you to some more breaking news. Thanks Aiden. Alright Jasmine, so you can see there the cleanup continues in Forest Park. After a tractor trailer collided with a train there and Aiden is on top of the cleanup process there bringing us a minute by minute of what's happening out there. Let's move on to what's going on in Atlanta because this is a big deal this morning at Atlanta Public Schools. There were threats at three Atlanta elementary schools. They were evacuated due to these threats. According to APS, the threats happened at Morningside, East E Rivers and Springdale Park Elementary School. That's where we sent Kevin Stewart out to, to see what was going on. We have a video there. You see that we sent our photographer, Michael Moore, over to some of the schools as well, and he got some great video. You just saw that with the dogs out there and police checking out each school. So let's listen in to see what was going on out there. We had an interview earlier. It's so disruptive and it wastes so many like taxpayer dollars and stuff. It's just it's ridiculous. But I mean, what if it's actually true? So you just have to take each one seriously, I guess. So Atlanta Public Schools did send us a release earlier, and what it said was that out of an abundance of caution, Atlanta Public Schools has evacuated East Morningside, E-Rivers, and Springdale Park Elementary Schools following threats received against the schools. All students and staff remain safe while Atlanta Public Schools police, in coordination with our public safety partners, investigate the threats and conduct. Conduct. And conduct thorough searches of each school building. I know they had cleared one of them, and they were still searching two others. We'll check back in with Atlanta Public Schools to see if they've made it through the other two. But that's what Kevin's working on. He'll have the full story a little later. We also flew our helicopter over those schools, and we will have updates on what's happening there later. Jasmine? Yes, Tanya, thanks for the updates on these situations here. Glad to know that no one was injured in that train crash with the tractor trailer. And also here in this Atlanta Public Schools issue where they were receiving threats and had to evacuate three of their schools. So hopefully they can clear out the other two schools promptly. But again, glad to know that people are safe. Right, and that everybody can get back to school and have their normal day without dealing with the stress of threats. But let's go ahead and move over to the McKaysville area. That's where Ray Yerena is this morning and Alex Forbes. We're going to be over there again as they continue the cleanup process. Now, an update this morning was they said the water's restored, but it can't be consumed. They did send an important community update on that to people. Ray was out there interviewing people as they continue with the cleanup process. I know it was a virtual day only for school children in Fannin County. Let's listen in to an interview that Ray got this morning with a member of a church in that area. Still no water in the church, no water in a lot of houses, so it's not just on the river that's affected, the whole community is, so yesterday we gave away 700 barbecue sandwiches, so the whole church came out, we smoked and got, you know, fed the community, so we're trying to do what we can, you know, and it's been a great blessing. All right, so that's what Ray's working on and Alex Forbes will be out there as well as they continue the cleanup process and recovery efforts continue over in Fannin County and in the city of McKaysville in particular. Jasmine, I did want to mention, you know, a lot of those businesses are trying to, you know, clean up and get back up on their feet. And I've been following some of them online. I did want to point out I've been following the Rum Cake Lady. She has a Cuban food cafe. I have her Facebook page here pulled up. But she actually has been posting a lot about recovery efforts and what, in particular, her business is going through as they continue to rebuild. after the flood last week. Fortunately for her, she also has a location in the Blue Ridge area, but when I looked at pictures, like, of her business, it was, it was really scary, but she's been thanking volunteers. I'll show you here. This is just outside there, some of the pictures there, but they had pictures from inside, and And, um... It was just, it was a weird, okay, here's some more pictures outside of all the trash. It was like trash everywhere and things piled up. So it's good to look at some of these businesses on Facebook and people whose homes, you know, were damaged when they pop up because you can actually see how they're recovering and what is needed. Thank you. for them to move forward. So they are posting it on their social media. So that's a good way to tell, you know, if somebody wants to help, you know, I know that we've been posting a lot of ways for people to help on our website. There's a lot of GoFundMe pages for for people as well that Joyce has actually brought to my attention, and I think we've put in some of our stories as well, but just being on social media, you can actually see the needs and see the pictures, and you kind of feel connected to people when you actually go to their actual business Facebook pages. So that's something that Ray and Alex are looking into today, and they'll have much more on the recovery efforts in that area. I want to mention one more story that Deidre Dukes is working on. She's talking to the Secretary of State's office about an investigation over in Seminole County. Seminole County elections results change. A memory card, we got this press release actually, I think Friday, but she's working on it today. A memory card with 388 Election Day votes was found in Seminole County after votes were not initially uploaded. The added votes put Republican incumbent Gerald Green ahead of Democrat Kerry James in the House District 154. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is investigating how the votes were missed. The results remain unofficial. Deidre's talking to them about this today. Today is the deadline for the counties to certify election results, so she's going to have much more on that story throughout the day. Jasmine. Yes, Tanya, a lot we're covering and looking into today, this afternoon, a very big story there out of Seminole County and also in McAdenville. Of course, our thoughts and prayers are with the residents there and the businesses, many organizations, the Red Cross, Operation Compassion, working to support people in that area. But it's good, like you said, to check on the Facebook pages or the websites of the businesses out there to see what they need directly. So, Tanya, thanks so much for joining us to talk about these stories. We'll check in with you a little bit later. Thank you.