After Texas shooting, schools around US boost security – By Terry Tang, Associated Press
In the aftermath of the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, schools around the U.S. have brought in additional security staff and restricted visitors as they deal with a new rash of copycat threats.
For some families and educators it all has added to uneasiness in the wake of the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Jake Green, 34, of Los Alamos, New Mexico, was jolted when he saw a plainclothes police officer for the first time while walking his 7-year-old daughter into school Friday morning. He grew up in Colorado, not far from where two Columbine High School students shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher in 1999. Green remembers attending memorials and candlelight vigils as a fifth-grader, but he's torn about whether having police at his daughter's school is best.
"In a way, I don't really feel any safer with police around," Green said. "Seeing the police there, it really made it seem like the worst possibility was even more possible today."
In El Paso, Texas, where a gunman killed 23 people in a racist 2019 attack that targeted Hispanics at a Walmart, schools are on edge. The El Paso Independent School District has already encountered some reported threats that turned out to be false. They were either "students joking or overly-sensitive parents," said Gustavo Reveles Acosta, a district spokesperson.
"Our community is still raw from that incident," Acosta said. "It hits us in a pretty emotional way."
The district, which has its own police department, has also stepped up patrolling at all 85 campuses. Officers have been pulled from monitoring traffic or other duties. Schools already have updated camera surveillance systems. Visitors are required to ring a doorbell and show identification before they can enter.
The district is making a point to look out for teachers' and students' mental health. A counseling team has been visiting every school to speak about the shooting in Uvalde. They are also urging people to talk in private about any distress.
Mia Baucom, a 15-year-old student at a Forth Worth, Texas, high school said it was surreal to think the Uvalde killings happened in her home state. It also stirred memories of a lockdown at her school two months ago that was prompted by a shooting.
"I'm a little more stressed out about it because just the fear of what if that happened at my school?" said Baucom, whose last day of school was Thursday. "Let's say we get more police officers. Most likely that's not going to stop people from going crazy and just shooting up schools."
Schools have ramped up police presence in a host of states, including Connecticut, Michigan and New York, after the shooting Tuesday that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
In Buffalo, New York, where a white gunman fatally shot 10 people in a racist attack in a supermarket on May 14, the largest school district announced new security rules effective immediately. Any visitors — parents, siblings, vendors — have to call ahead for approval. No exceptions will be made. They may be subjected to a search by a wand detector. Doors will be locked at all times.
In Jacksonville, Florida, the Duval County Public Schools' chief of school police banned backpacks or large handbags at any school through Friday, the last day of school. Small purses were allowed but could be searched.
A discredited threat against a middle school prompted a Texas school district 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Uvalde to end the school year a week early. The Kingsville Independent School District announced Friday would be the last day of school. But students should not see any penalty for the premature end to the year.
"In light of the tragedy in Uvalde, there has been an enormous amount of stress and trauma. Unfortunately, more stress and trauma are added with 'copy-cat threats' that start circulating such as the one that was sent today for Gillett (Middle School)," Superintendent Dr. Cissy Reynolds-Perez wrote in a statement on the district's website.
It's clear staff and students nationwide are on edge as several reports of firearm sightings on campuses have popped up in the past few days.
Two Seattle-area schools went into lockdown Friday morning and police eventually recovered an airsoft gun. The Everett, Washington, schools then had their lockdowns lifted.
Two people were arrested Thursday after a Denver high school locked down its campus. Police found a paintball gun but no other firearms. Classes were canceled anyway.
Critical fire condition warnings issued across US Southwest – By Paul Davenport, Associated Press
Warnings of critical fire conditions blanketed much of the U.S. Southwest on Saturday, as crews in northern New Mexico worked to stop the growth of the nation's largest active wildfire.
The 7-week-old fire, the largest in New Mexico history, has burned 491 square miles (1,272 square kilometers) of forest in rugged terrain east of Santa Fe since being started in April by two planned burns.
Crews were patrolling partially burned areas and clearing and cutting containment lines, including primary ones near the fire as bulldozers scraped backup lines farther away.
The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings of critical fire conditions for parts of Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Those conditions are combination of strong wind, low relative humidity and dry vegetation.
The return of return of drier and warmer weather with stronger winds posed a threat of increased fire activity over the Memorial Day weekend, prompting officials to urge the public to secure vehicle chains and to be careful with possible fire sources.
"The last thing we need right now is another ignition," said Jayson Coil, an operations section chief.
Forecasts called for wind gusts up to 50 mph (80 kph), with critical fire conditions continuing into Monday, followed by more favorable weather later in the coming week, said Bruno Rodriguez, the fire management team's meteorologist.
The strong winds could fan flames and cause the fire to jump containment lines and race forward, said John Chest, a fire operations manager.
"Imagine traveling in your car and the fire can outpace you. That's the kind of extreme fire behavior that we're talking about," Chester said.
Nearly 3,000 firefighters and other personnel were assigned to the fire, which was contained around 48% of its perimeter.
Initial estimates say the fire has destroyed at least 330 homes but state officials expect the number of homes and other structures that have burned to rise to more than 1,000 as more assessments are done.
Elsewhere, 150 firefighters battled a wind-driven fire that burned 9 square miles (24 square kilometers) of grass, brush and salt cedar about 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) southwest of Parker, Arizona. Winds up to 30 mph forced the California blaze to jump the Colorado River into Arizona on Saturday afternoon.
The fire forced the evacuation of a recreational vehicle park after starting Thursday and was 44% contained, officials said.
The cause of the fire was under investigation.
Students displaced by fire hold prom at governor's mansion – By Esteban Candelaria, Albuquerque Journal
The largest wildfire in New Mexico history wouldn't stand in the way of a normal prom for Mora High School students. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham saw to that.
Students laughed and danced with Lujan Grisham at the Governor's Mansion on Thursday evening – a silver lining for students during a tumultuous end to the school year.
Many students were forced to flee their homes by the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire in recent weeks, and some had only recently returned.
"I'm really excited to be here with my friends, and be able to enjoy this, and to have everyone welcome us," said prom queen Jayme Pacheco, adding that it has been over a month since she'd seen her friends. "They mean a lot."
Some students arrived decked out in suits and gowns while others stuck to their roots showing up in cowboy hats, jeans and boots.
Spanish and country music boomed through speakers as students two-stepped across the governor's back patio. Lujan Grisham said she couldn't throw a party and sit on the sidelines, and jumped in to dance the Cupid Shuffle with students, state Sen. Leo Jaramillo, D-Española, and U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández.
"I'm just elated that we could do this for the kids," said New Mexico Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus. "I've chaperoned a lot of proms – this one's a little different than I've done before."
The idea to have it at the Governor's Mansion was Mora Independent School District Superintendent Marvin MacAuley's. He said he asked Lujan Grisham during a conversation if students could have prom at her place.
MacAuley said she grinned, and told him she'd need to think about it. Her staff told him later that the idea was a go.
Lujan Grisham said a lot of work went into making sure students knew they had a "whole state that cares about their happiness and well-being."
"We have to celebrate each other, and we have to make room even in a tragedy," Lujan Grisham told the Journal. "This is the way we ought to show how resilient we are … these experiences matter."
Middle and high school Principal Lefonso Castillo said this year's seniors have only spent two years in an in-person school setting, in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That's part of why making the end of this year as "normal as possible" was so important, he said.
Seniors have a luxurious week lined up. After Thursday's dance with the governor, 33 students are slated to graduate Friday during a ceremony at the Eldorado Hotel & Spa in Santa Fe. Many are also being put up in hotel rooms funded by members of the Mora community.
Community members also chipped in for prom essentials, including dresses, tuxedos and corsages. The snazzed-up students fit right in with the elegant mansion, which even featured a chocolate fountain for them.
Prom was originally planned for April 30, and staff had already begun decorating for the dance. But about a week before, the evacuation orders came, forcing the district to come up with a new plan.
So far, Castillo knows of one or two of his students who have lost their homes to the fire. Three staff members' homes were also destroyed.
"It's once in a lifetime, for sure" senior Ellianna Martinez said about the dance. Still, she noted the past weeks had held many hardships, and that the fires had "devastated our community."
A day in the life of a Taos hotshot crew – By Elise Kaplan, Albuquerque Journal
After 14 days fighting the fires threatening northern New Mexico, Tyler Freeman went for a run on his day off. In the distance, he could see the plume of smoke from the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire.
"It's like that Sunday night feeling where you're about to go back to work," Freeman said. "It's like that every R&R day."
Freeman, 32, is on the Carson Interagency Hotshot Crew and lives in Taos County — as do about half of the other crew members. That means friends and families have evacuated, and are worried about the smoke. During their three off days, neighbors will stop them to ask what's going to happen – a question that's impossible to answer.
But it also means the firefighters are very familiar with the area. A favorite mountain bike trail is now a contingency line.
Hannah Kligman, the squad boss assistant on the crew, said there's a feeling of pride that comes with working on their "home turf." The 33-year-old Philadelphia native came to Taos more than a decade ago doing field archaeology for the Bureau of Land Management, and then became interested in learning about fire after the Las Conchas blaze in 2011.
It's her eighth year as a hotshot.
"We have the skills to be doing this, to be able to be here and try to protect our home forest. It feels really good," Kligman said. "Especially the hand crew — we're a very small piece in the face of nature, but at the same time, we really do have the skills to help."
A MOSAIC PATTERN
The Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire has surpassed 311,000 acres and is the largest wildfire in state history. It is also the largest fire burning in the country right now.
It's about 46% contained and more than 3,000 personnel are working to control it.
The fire, part of which started as a prescribed burn northwest of Las Vegas in early April, has burned over 700 structures, and led to evacuations of the surrounding towns and communities.
A Journal photographer and reporter spent some time with the Carson Interagency Hotshot Crew as they worked to put out hot spots in a mountainous region west of Chacon, the north edge of the fire.
The site is not far from the Sipapu Ski & Summer Resort, which is now behind road blocks. Firefighters have set up inflatable water tanks along the side of the road that can be used to wet down houses and other buildings if the flames begin to close in. The hotshot crew – some of the most experienced and highly trained of the wildland firefighters – were about half a mile down a steep embankment off the side of a rutted out dirt road accessible by all-terrain vehicles. Other crews were working nearby.
Smoke wafted through the air, and pooled around peaks and valleys on the not-too-distant horizon. Although some parts of the forest are described by the crew as "nuked-out areas" and "a moonscape – where it got really hot and pushed really hard," in others, the only sign of the fire was ashes mixed with dirt on the ground.
This creates what is called a mosaic pattern throughout the forest.
"So, you've got areas that really burn hot and clean everything out, and then areas that are green, where it's going to regrow and be fine," said Renette Saba, a public information officer for the incident management team. "But then, as a firefighter, to hold the line, you want it to be black solid so that you've got safety. And then, if it does start to rip back down, for whatever reason, it won't push over that and burn all that leftover material."
EVERY DAY IS DIFFERENT
It had been two days since a helicopter dropped water on the area – which cooled it down enough so hotshot crews could come in to work. They hike in – carrying such tools as shovels and chainsaws, along with their 45-pound backpacks stuffed with gear, snacks and more – and move methodically to extinguish flames in trees and on the ground.
The speed with which they can work depends on the steepness of the terrain and how hard the ground is as they're digging. The couple-acre hot spot took them all day to get around, Kligman said.
Squatting down to demonstrate, she stuck her hand into a patch of ashy dirt to see if it was still hot. It wasn't, but, if it was, the firefighter would pile cold dirt on top of it rubbing it in to extinguish any chance of it relighting.
Further down the ridge, Freeman and two other crew members called sawyers – because they use chainsaws – had just finished cutting down a tree that had been burning from the inside. The project took about 20 minutes of planning to determine how to bring the tree down safely and then about 30 seconds to actually cut through the trunk.
After the tree fell, a section burst into flames and the sawyers dug a trench around it so it could burn out.
A lot of what they do is just learning from experience, Kligman said.
"Every day is different," she said. "You kind of have a toolbox to work off of and, over the years, you gain different slides of situations. But there is no handbook."
While fire officials focus on the big picture and strategize on where to put crews, and how to gain the upper hand on the blaze, the boots on the ground focus on specific tasks. The hotshots have learned to use all their senses – smelling for smoke and touching the earth searching for warmth – as they look for fuel that could ignite.
"We're really a drop in the bucket in comparison to nature and a (300,000)-acre fire," Kligman said. "Just like working with water, soil, the weather, the fire itself – a lot of times, we will do a lot of burning operations in order to contain fire."
CONSUMED BY WORK
For the hotshot crews, the day starts between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. They get up and break down their camp, packing tents and sleeping bags because they don't know where they're going to sleep the next night. The upper level staff – called overhead – go to a daily briefing and the rest of the crew make sure all their tools and equipment are ready to go. Then they head out to the line, working until about 7 p.m.
No one on the crew has showered since their tour began 11 days ago.
Kligman said most nights they eat dinner around 8 and then get "free time" to do whatever they need to before bed. For her, it's making a cup of herbal tea on a compact portable stove, no matter how hot it is out.
The camps are noisy with generators and sounds from other crews, and lights can make it hard to sleep well.
Even asleep, its hard to escape the work. Kligman said she has a recurring dream where she's digging a line and the rocks keep getting bigger and bigger until they can't move them as the fire burns underneath.
"I've had that dream recur in various ways," she said. "Like we're digging line and it's not working, and I'm all stressed out and then I wake up."
During the fire season – usually from March to September, although, this year, the crews cut their training short to head into the field – life is pretty much consumed by the daily tasks involved in fighting the blaze, leaving little time for anything else.
"It's a very zen state of mind to be able to just wake up, and you know what your chores are and what your duties are within the crew … " Kligman said. "On this fire especially, we haven't had a lot of phone service – you probably won't talk to your loved ones or people at home."
Kligman is dating another one of the hotshots – she said they have a personal rule against talking about the fire on their days off – but many on the crew are single. The lifestyle isn't conducive to having a partner, children, pets, or even a garden.
"I have a cactus," one hotshot joked.
The crew still had a couple of days left in the forest, but Kligman said she's already started dreaming about the first meal she's going to make at home – a kale salad and mashed sweet potatoes. She had even made a grocery list.
After eating a good healthy meal, Kligman, who used to run ultramarathons, said she plans on doing some distance runs and hanging out at her "off-the-grid" cabin.
"Which is also why I enjoy our job – because I like hiking and being outside," she adds. "I knew when I was pretty young, I could never work a desk job."
