European flights diverted, Trump arch paused, GA floods

Welcome back to Good Day Atlanta as we approach 730. I'm Buck Lanford. And I'm Elyse Eady. It's so good to have you with us on this Friday TGI Friday. Friday! Yay! Thankfully, thankfully. And a big weekend ahead, so there's a lot of things going on. But I'm thinking about those pandas at the zoo. Of course you are. The zoo's going to be packed. Well, I'm thinking about it. I'm going to be inside watching college football on, like, the most beautiful day ever, probably most of the day on Saturday. Maybe I'll go with you and we'll check out the pandas. Maybe so. Pandamonium out there, we're calling it. We're going to check in with Alex for the forecast in just a little bit. Plus, the roads have been busy out there today. Yeah, it's been a mess. It has been. Yeah, so Justina will help us work our way around that. But first, some top stories. A wave of fake bomb threats have forced emergency landings across Europe. In fact, over a dozen flights from major cities like Dublin, Madrid and Milan were diverted or searched. Yesterday, authorities report no hazardous or suspicious materials were found. Investigators are now focusing in on anti-feminist groups behind the threats. A judge has temporarily stopped construction for 14 days on President Trump's proposed monumental arch. The order stops the administration from breaking ground following intense pushback and legal challenges from D.C. and Virginia officials who cited severe traffic disruptions, emergency access risks and unapproved costs. Cleanup begins in McCaysville this morning where flash flooding left the North Georgia community devastated. Governor Kemp has declared a state of emergency and four counties and a curfew have been in place there. For now, more than 80 people had to be rescued after the Toccoa River rose 16 feet in 12 hours. So good news, Mark Teichner is live once again in McCaysville showing us the scene there this morning. Mark. Yeah, and 50 of those folks are river rescues done here in McKaysville as a result of the Toccoa River. You can take a look at it now. What is now way down, unfortunately, that debris field that you see caught up there by the bridge here in town gives you a pretty good understanding of just how much devastation this area took. There are buildings and buildings, businesses and businesses, homes and homes, all that have been impacted by this particular flooding situation. Where we're standing right now is under feet of water just yesterday, and as a result... Of the fact that it came up so quickly, these people weren't able to get out of their homes, which is why they had to bring in those boats to rescue those dozens of folks. And a lot of them seemed basically shell-shocked when they got out of the boat. You could tell that they were simply stunned by what had happened. As a result, some of these businesses aren't sure if they're going to be able to pick up the pieces. A lot of them tell us that some of them didn't have any kind of insurance, flooding insurance. So they're really worried about how they're going to be able to move forward. With this, as you mentioned, the governor has issued a state of emergency for this county, Fannin, as well as some of the other counties up here. But, you know, this is not the first time they've been hit. In fact, this is the third flood just this year alone. And some of those places were just reopening after the one that they took back in August. This community means a lot to me. We experienced a flash flood three months ago and we just got back on our feet and some of our buildings were starting to open back up and people's been actively cleaning up for the past three months and then we get hit again. Got a long road ahead of us. They certainly do. But Hopefully, they'll be able to rebuild. They've done it before. This is a very resilient community. They did have a curfew, as we mentioned. That ended at 6 o'clock this morning. Still under a boil water advisory, though. That's because the water treatment plant in the area is flooded. So they're going to be handing out water later on today to those folks who need it. And we're going to stay on top of the story. We have another report for you coming up at 8 o'clock. But for now, that's the latest from here in McKaysville. I'm Mark Teichner for Good Day Atlanta. All right, Mark, thank you so much for the latest from there.