Auburn's Duck Derby will look different this year
AUBURN, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Every Memorial Day, thousands of rubber ducks are released into the Owasco River for Auburn's annual Duck Derby — But that won't be the case this year.
'Unfortunately, with the weather and how bad the water is right now, there's just no way we could safely do it,' said Kimberly Ostrowski, president of CNY Tomato Fest and organizer of the Auburn Duck Derby.
The event will instead be a raffle this year.
'The only difference is that we're going to put all of the ticket stubs into just a wheel like at bingo, and we're going to roll them and we're going to pull them that way,' said Ostrowski.
This comes after last year's heavy rains caused the river to rise over the top of the finish line, making it hard for volunteers to catch all the rubber ducks.
'The fence got knocked down and our volunteers were down there as best as they could trying to catch the ducks as fast as they could and a few of them made a grand escape down the Owasco River outlet into Port Byron,' said Ostrowski.
But organizers are making sure that doesn't happen this time.
'We want it to just be as safe as possible for everybody involved,' said Ostrowski.
All of the money raised at this year's event will be given to 10 food pantries in Cayuga County.
The event will be held on Memorial Day, May 26, after the parade.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why is the air quality bad in central Ohio?
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Some residents in central Ohio may notice lower air quality and haze on Wednesday. The reduced air quality is due to smoke from wildfires in Canada. As of 11 a.m. Wednesday, the AQI for Columbus was at 106, which falls into the orange category and is considered unhealthy for sensitive groups. It is recommended that people with heart or lung disease, as well as older adults, children and teens limit time outside, and to choose activities like walking instead of running. A rare COVID-19 strain disappeared overnight. We still don't know which Ohioan had it An AQI between 51-100 (yellow) could pose problems for people who are unusually sensitive to ozone, according to the National Weather Service. An AQI between 100 and 150 (orange) could pose problems for sensitive groups like those with asthma, older adults, children and teens. If the AQI reaches 100-150, even healthy people are encouraged to limit outdoor activities to shorter and less intense activities. Anything over 151 (red, purple and maroon) could create health impacts for the general public. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
FEMA Cuts Hit as 2025 Hurricane Forecast Predicts Brutal Storm Season
As the temperatures rose across Louisiana during Memorial Day weekend, the heat index, a measure of air temperature and humidity, approached triple digits. Bayou State residents seeking relief from the extreme temperatures turned up their fans and air conditioners, pushing an aging electrical grid to the breaking point. And by nightfall, more than 100,000 people had been plunged into darkness after a utility company cut off power for some Louisiana customers to keep a system that served 15 states from shutting down because of the demand. Emergency preparedness advocates say the outage underscored how the threat of being left in the dark is increasingly likely for Black communities across the country this summer because of a confluence of forces, including record heat, a hyperactive hurricane season, and decrepit electrical grids. For Black Americans, researchers and activists say, the consequences of those conditions are magnified by long-standing inequities in housing, infrastructure, and access to resources. The Trump administration's effort to reorganize the nation's emergency response system is also threatening to upend vulnerable communities' ability to prepare for, withstand, and recover from these events, advocates said. With meteorologists tracking warmer-than-average ocean temperatures that could fuel intense storms, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting a summer of record-breaking heat and unusually strong hurricanes. 'The forecast is another very active hurricane season combined with these other climate disasters — and then we have these ongoing policy failures,' said Chrishelle Palay, a hurricane survivor and former director of the Houston Organizing Movement for Equity. 'We get all of them coming towards each other on a collision course where the burden will continue to fall on Black and low-income families.' Palay knows the personal toll of extreme weather events firsthand. In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, she attempted to help her great aunt, who had stage four chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, navigate the complicated application process for emergency federal assistance. The application was denied — even though her aunt's home sustained extensive damage from water and mold. Three months later, her aunt died. 'I'm not a doctor, so we don't know if that contributed to her quick decline, but the fact is, there are a lot more families that will lose loved ones in similar ways,' she said. Hurricane season begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30. Historically, an average season features 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. This year, the federal government predicts 13 to 19 named storms, including six to 10 hurricanes. It expects three to five of those hurricanes to be major hurricanes of category 3, 4 or 5 strength, bringing winds of over 110 mph. At the same time, President Donald Trump is planning to slash emergency assistance grants by $646 million, even as the agency is projected to run out of disaster relief money by this summer for the third consecutive year. 'The total number of storms is not truly what defines a hurricane season. It only takes one landfall to create a devastating season.' said Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist for AccuWeather. 'Thousands of families and small businesses across America are still struggling to recover from weather disasters over the past year.' In response to a series of questions regarding FEMA's plans to address this summer's predicted storms, a spokesperson said in a statement, 'FEMA is shifting from bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens. The old processes are being replaced because they failed Americans in real emergencies for decades.' 'FEMA is fully activated in preparation for Hurricane Season,' the spokesperson added, and the agency is only cutting 'wasteful and ineffective' programs that are 'more concerned with climate change than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.' These cuts, as Capital B has reported, included $1 billion meant to prepare Black and low-income communities for weather disasters. 'By removing these policies, the government is pretty much saying, 'Yeah, we do not care about those people and their vulnerabilities,' said Anthony Rogers-Wright, director of environmental justice at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. 'And that is a profound proclamation.'' As threats from extreme weather intensify, the federal government's capacity to respond to disasters is being systematically taken apart. In addition to the billions of dollars in cuts, the agency has lost approximately 30% of its full-time workforce through layoffs and buyouts, including one-fifth of the officers who manage responses to large-scale disasters. Trump's executive order establishing a review council to 'reimagine' FEMA signals a fundamental restructuring of the nation's emergency response capabilities. With officials openly discussing renaming or eliminating the agency entirely, communities face the prospect of entering an active hurricane season with significantly reduced federal emergency management resources. 'FEMA really hasn't behaved like a good actor for the Black community, but that doesn't mean we haven't depended on it,' said Rogers-Wright. Last month, FEMA quietly ended one of its signature post-disaster programs — a door-to-door canvassing effort in damaged areas to meet survivors. For years, this practice had allowed the federal government to interact with survivors directly and help them register for federal aid. A FEMA worker told a reporter with the technology magazine Wired that this new directive will 'severely hamper our ability to reach vulnerable people.' The assistance, the worker said, 'usually focused on the most impacted and the most vulnerable communities where there may be people who are elderly or with disabilities or lack of transportation and are unable to reach Disaster Recovery Centers.' The directive also said FEMA will push for disaster-stricken areas to 'emphasize assistance' from other partners like nonprofit organizations and state agencies rather than federal aid. The agency wants efforts to now rely on local and state-run recovery centers instead of federally directed initiatives, so the agency will no longer 'need to establish FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers.' Acting FEMA chief David Richardson recently reversed his earlier plan to introduce a new disaster response strategy for the 2025 hurricane season, instead telling staff that the agency will revert to last year's operational procedures. This abrupt change does not change the agency's plan to end its canvassing program and has caused confusion and concern among FEMA employees, especially given the workforce reductions and the cancellation of a larger four-year strategic plan. 'The bottom line is we're not set up for success for whatever comes about this summer, when it comes to this hurricane season and heatwaves, even if it's light,' Palay said. Meteorologists are expressing heightened concern about the upcoming hurricane season, with particular emphasis on the increasing likelihood of storms undergoing dramatic strengthening just before making landfall. According to AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva, ocean temperatures both at the surface and extending hundreds of feet into the depths are above-average, creating ideal conditions for tropical systems to undergo explosive intensification. Recent hurricane seasons have demonstrated that the destructive power of such storms extends far beyond traditional coastal boundaries. 'As we witnessed last year with significant inland flooding from hurricanes Helene and Debby, the impacts of hurricanes can reach far beyond coastal communities,' said acting NOAA Administrator Laura Grimm. Hurricane Beryl, which hit Houston last year, also exemplified this phenomenon, generating more than 60 tornadoes as it carved a destructive path spanning nearly 1,200 miles from the Texas coastline all the way to upstate New York. Similarly, Hurricane Helene showcased the multi-faceted nature of modern hurricane threats. After initially battering Florida with powerful winds and dangerous storm surge, the system continued inland, where it unleashed catastrophic flash flooding and destructive winds across the mountainous terrain of western North Carolina. Over the past five years, water temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico have reached levels that surpass all previous measurements in recorded meteorological history. This excess thermal energy serves as a powerful catalyst that can transform relatively modest tropical storms into formidable hurricane systems. Higher temperatures have become a particular source of concern for emergency management officials and meteorologists alike. When storms strengthen dramatically while approaching the coastline, communities find themselves with dramatically reduced timeframes for implementing safety measures and evacuation procedures. This compressed timeline creates more challenges for emergency response systems, complicating everything from the establishment of emergency shelters to the coordination of traffic along evacuation routes. It brings into context the severity of the quickly changing situation at the federal level. Emergency management officials must now account for scenarios where storms can transform from manageable threats to life-threatening emergencies in a matter of hours, often with minimal advance warning for affected communities. The challenges facing America's electrical infrastructure extend far beyond isolated incidents like Louisiana's Memorial Day blackout. According to the North American Reliability Corporation's latest assessment, several regions across the United States face elevated or high risk for resource adequacy shortfalls over the next decade. Most concerning is the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which has less energy capacity than it had last year despite an anticipated rise in demand. This electrical grid vulnerability comes at a particularly dangerous moment. NOAA's updated summer 2025 forecast predicts that every state will experience warmer-than-normal temperatures, with the highest probability of extreme heat — ranging from 60% to 70% — concentrated across Texas, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, and New Mexico. The combination of record-breaking heat and an increasingly strained power grid creates a recipe for cascading failures that could leave millions without electricity during the most dangerous periods. These converging crises will hit Black Americans hardest. Research consistently shows that Black households face significantly higher energy burdens, spending disproportionately more of their income on electricity bills even after controlling for income levels. In cities like New York, Black residents die from heat stress at double the rate of white residents, despite constituting only a quarter of the population. The legacy of discriminatory housing policies has created urban heat islands in predominantly Black neighborhoods that can be up to 22 degrees hotter than surrounding areas. This drives nighttime temperatures even higher, robbing residents of relief after sunset. In these neighborhoods, air conditioning is often not a given; older housing stock, higher energy costs, and lower average incomes mean that staying cool can be a financial burden or simply out of reach. As energy bills climb in step with the thermometer, the risk of heat-related illness rises, especially for the elderly, children, and those with preexisting health conditions. 'If you shut off people's electricity, it has to be understood, especially for Black people, that is basically akin to a cop kneeling on your neck or shooting you — it is killing us,' said Rogers-Wright. The converging issues highlight the need for Black communities to build neighborhood-level networks, he added. Building real, community-rooted infrastructure where neighbors check on each other, share resources, and proactively plan for crises has become essential, because waiting for outside help can mean the difference between life and death. To protect each other, we really need to center climate as a major issue for every facet of Black life,' he said. 'From connecting it to economics, education, and social justice, emphasizing how to best handle these disasters will be necessary.' The post FEMA Cuts Hit as 2025 Hurricane Forecast Predicts Brutal Storm Season appeared first on Capital B News.
Boston Globe
3 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Search continues for N.Y. woman who went hiking after father's body on Mount Katahdin in Maine
'No one has had a brother like mine,' Tim's brother Joe Keiderling 'He left us far too soon,' he said. 'My heart is broken for his wife and children.' Advertisement Park rangers began searching for the father and daughter Monday morning after discovering that their vehicle was still parked in the day-use parking lot, officials said. The body of Tim Keiderling was located on the Tableland, near the summit of Katahdin, at WMTW-TV reported that Esther Keiderling wrote about the hike with her father on Substack on Saturday. 'I'm a little nervous after everything I've read about the Abol trail but I'm going to do it if weather permits! If you don't see me back on Substack notes again, that's where I am,' she wrote. Advertisement Baxter State Park Director Kevin Adam said the weather at Mount Katahdin on Sunday was cloudy with rain, sleet, and west winds reaching 30 to 40 miles per hour. Similar conditions were reported on Monday, he said. 'I have even seen some pictures with snow,' Adam said in an email to the Globe. 'Temperatures would have been in mid 30's, wind chill about 19. Monday temperatures were up into the 40's.' Baxter State Park Rangers expanded their search Tuesday morning with the assistance of more than 30 game wardens, including the Maine Warden Service Search and Rescue team and its K-9 team. The Maine Forest Service was also searching the area with three helicopters, along with a Blackhawk and a Lakota Helicopter outfitted with an infrared thermal imaging device from the Maine Army National Guard, officials said. Baxter State Park officials closed the Hunt and Abol Trails on Katahdin and asked anyone who has any information that could help their search efforts to contact Maine State Police in Houlton at 207-532-5400. Emily Sweeney can be reached at
