Crews from the Austin area are helping communities along the Texas coast recover from damage caused by Hurricane Hanna over the weekend. On Friday, Austin Fire Department sent multiple members of the fire department to Mission, Texas, a community outside of McAllen. According to a Facebook post from the fire department, an Urban Search and Rescue Squad and a Boat Squad were both deployed. On Sunday, the Boat Squad assisted the Mission Volunteer Fire Department and over the course of the day, evacuated 105 people and 12 animals. More Austinites are expected to help with recovery in the most impacted areas. On Monday, line workers and support personnel from Austin Energy will be heading to help restore power in South Texas communities.  

Atascocita Fire Department paramedics Adelynn LaRoche, Sal Malinowski and Jessica Stevens have made voluntary deployments in South Texas — an area identified as a coronavirus hot spot — since June 30. The trio was deployed to Harlingen, Texas in Cameron County to assist with an overwhelming number of COVID-19 cases. "I am in EMS to help people when and where they need it — for now, that has brought me to Cameron County," said Stevens, who returned to the Houston area on July 22. Sitting at the tip end of Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border, Cameron County has reached 7,827 positive cases of COVID-19 and 177 deaths as of noon on July 27, according to the Cameron County Public Health website. Neighboring Hidalgo County has 15,153 cases and 456 deaths, according to the Hidalgo County website.  

Arson investigators were called out to an abandoned home that went up in flames overnight. The fire started before 2:30 a.m. Tuesday in the back bedroom of a home in the 1100 block of Menchaca Street, near Zarzamora Street, according to fire officials. When firefighters arrived they found heavy flames coming out of the home but the blaze was quickly knocked down. Officials said arson investigators were called in since the house is abandoned and boarded up. Homeless people have been staying inside the home, officials said. The estimated cost of damage is unknown at this time.  

A small airplane crashed into a tree and then the front yard of a Bear Creek home early Tuesday morning, sending two people to the hospital. Cy-Fair firefighters and deputies with Harris County Constable Precinct 5 responded to the 15700 block of Boulder Creek shortly before 2 a.m. They found a single-engine Piper PA-28 Cherokee sitting in the front yard of the home. The pilot was trapped in the aircraft and in need of medical attention. A fire department official said the pilot and passenger were taken to the hospital and are expected to survive. One of them had very serious injuries, however. Flight records show the plane earlier left an airport in Tyler and was heading to Sugar Land when it rapidly lost altitude over west Harris County. The pilot reported he was at 7,000 feet when the plane lost power, and he put out a mayday call.  

A Great Horned Owl is fighting for its life after a harrowing rescue by San Antonio firefighters. The big bird needed help a few days ago after it got into trouble at the top of a tall tree in the Alamo City. The nighttime hunter ended up trapped, upside down and crying for help. Some neighbors called the city's fire department, which showed up with a ladder truck and brought the bird back to earth. Trained staff from a local raptor rehabilitation group took over from there. The owl is now at Last Chance Forever, a birds of prey conservancy. They are letting the owl rest up and recover before seeing if it will be strong enough to survive surgery to repair its injuries, caused by kite string left hanging in the tree. Last Chance Forever has promised to add updates about the bird's condition on its Facebook page.  

Several firefighters were overcome while battling a fire in New Jersey that spread to several homes. Four homes were burned and two were destroyed when a fire started in a basement on Passaic Street around 2 p.m. At least nine firefighters were hospitalized and needed assistance after suffering from heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation. Another two firefighters suffered injuries from slipping and falling. Several other firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion on the scene but did not need to be transported to the hospital. Officials said the hot, humid weather conditions made fighting the fire very difficult. Firefighters were rotated out every 10 minutes due to the heat. Several other towns responded to assist with the switching out of crews. Firefighters came to the rescue of a woman in a wheelchair from a second-floor window.  

Firefighters in Hingham said they won't comply with an order from the police and fire chiefs to take "thin blue line" flags off firetrucks, and have asked them to reconsider the decision. Fire Chief Steve Murphy and Police Chief Glenn Olsson explained in a letter to personnel that the blue and black flags, which are black-and-white versions of the American flag with a single blue line in the center, will have to be removed from where they've flown atop Hingham fire trucks after a citizen complaint. Murphy and Olsson say the flags are now in violation of a long-standing town policy that forbids displaying any political messaging on town property. The flags were originally purchased to show support to the police department after the 2018 killing of Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna, but have recently "taken a different political meaning," the chiefs said.  

When a large battery used to power a neighborhood in Surprise failed and began smoking last year, firefighters didn't have a response plan for how to deal with the problem, which contributed to an explosion that injured several first responders. That is one of the conclusions of a report released on Monday about the April 2019 explosion at the McMicken Energy Storage facility near Grand Avenue and Deer Valley Road, owned by Arizona Public Service Co. Several other things went wrong and led to the explosion, but the lack of a plan contributed to the injuries because firefighters opened a door on the facility about two hours after arriving on the scene, and two minutes later, the facility exploded. That sent eight firefighters and one police officer to the hospital.  

COVID-19 is continuing to fill U.S. hospital beds. As of July 20, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 was over 58,000, or about as high as it was in April, when hospitals in the New York City area were scouring the world for ventilators. Surges in hospitalization rates are now showing up in every state in the South and Southwest other than New Mexico. At least 1 in every 5,000 residents of those states is in the hospital with a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, and about 1 in every 2,500 residents of Arizona and Florida is in the hospital with COVID-19, according to state and local public health agency data compiled by The COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. New York state and some other states that were hit hard in March and April started to get new infection rates under control in late April. Those states now have COVID-19 hospitalization rates under 5 per 100,000 residents, meaning that fewer than 1 in 20,000 residents is in the hospital with COVID-19.  

For the last 18 years, family members of 9/11 loved ones have descended on Lower Manhattan in a tradition that is as comforting as it is familiar in its ritual. The names of nearly 3,000 victims read aloud, often with personal messages that have changed over the almost two decades that have passed - heartfelt and sad. "My hero, and my light throughout the darkness that this has caused me," are some of the messages heard in prior ceremonies. But this year, those personal messages will be absent -- as those names will not be read live, by family members, but rather played by recording. In a letter obtained by NY1, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum cites an "abundance of caution" to ensure safety for the families given the coronavirus pandemic. Patricia Reilly lost her sister Lorraine Lee in the attacks.