The post Scenes of chaos as 7.0 earthquake rocks Alaska first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was centered about five miles north of Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city.

Republican Rep. Donald Young said at a press conference Friday evening that an initial assessment found that the earthquake was not deadly. “We’re quite pleased to report that there’s been no deaths at this time that we know of,” he said.

But if the news, from a casualty standpoint, was good, infrastructure was another story. Republican Sen.Lisa Murkowski said there was major concern regarding recovery efforts and safety.

“The impact is very real, the impact is very hard, and it will require apparently a great deal of recovery and effort,”’ she said. “There are homes without power. There is some concern that you may have gas line breaks that could lead to potential further disasters.”

GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan added that the state has already seen major aftershocks, “some above 5.0” magnitude.

“Make no mistake, this was a big one,” he said, citing a serious concern regarding transportation impact. “Right now the highways in and out of Anchorage, with the exception of one going up north, are cut off and that’s a big problem for us.”

Sullivan did add that despite the damage to roads and bridges, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator told state officials that there were “no reports of any major building collapse.”

This photo provided by David Harper shows merchandise that fell off the shelves during an earthquake at a store in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. (AP)

In one update on Friday afternoon, AP said Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll was recounting reports that parts of a scenic highway that heads from Anchorage toward mountains and glaciers have sunken and “completely disappeared.”.

He said officials were evaluating the damage to the Glenn Highway, but some was viewed as so significant that it will probably “take a long time to repair.”

Doll also said damage to bridges has been reported.

An AP reporter working in downtown Anchorage saw cracks in a two-story building after the quake.

People went back inside buildings after the earthquake, but a smaller aftershock a short time later sent them running back into the streets again.

Slaton was alone and home and soaking in the bathtub when the Alaska earthquake struck.

He said the quake created a powerful back-and-forth sloshing in the bathtub and before he knew it, he’d been thrown out of the tub by the force of the waves.

His 120-pound mastiff panicked and tried to run down the stairs, but the house was swaying so much she was thrown off her feet and into a wall and tumbled to the base of the stairs, Slaton added.

A lawyer who spoke to the Associated Press called it the most “violent” earthquake he’s experience in his 20 years in Anchorage.

Hank Graper says he was driving when the quake struck. He first thought his vehicle had a flat tire, then thought it was exploding. He realized it was an earthquake after he saw traffic poles swaying.

Cassie Schirm@cassieschirmtv

KTVA’s newsroom felt the blow of the earthquake this morning. #anchorage #alaska #earthquake #weather

The federal Disaster Relief Fund, which has about $30 billion, should have sufficient resources for the state’s immediate post-quake needs, Fox News has been told. But it will take a while to determine the scope of the damage and how much assistance may be needed later.

Murkowski, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, told Fox the main roadways leading to and from the airport are damaged badly and cannot be repaired until spring. Most goods come into Alaska via Anchorage.

Alaska averages 40,000 earthquakes per year, with more large quakes than the other 49 states combined.

Southern Alaska has a high risk of earthquakes due to tectonic plates sliding past each other under the region. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Pacific plate is sliding northwestward and plunges beneath the North American plate in southern Alaska, the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands.

On March 27, 1964, Alaska was hit by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake, the strongest recorded in U.S. history, centered about 75 miles east of Anchorage. The quake, which lasted about 4½ minutes, and the tsunami it triggered claimed about 130 lives.

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Mr Trump announced a plan to target the abuse of opioids, which kill more than 140 Americans each day.

The president has previously promised to declare a national emergency, which would have triggered federal funding to help states combat the drug scourge.

The move instead redirects grant money to be used in dealing with the crisis.

• Five ways to tackle the US drug epidemic

Mr Trump said on Thursday at the White House: “More people are dying from drug overdoses today than from gun homicides and motor vehicles combined.

“These overdoses are driven by a massive increase in addiction to prescription painkillers, heroin and other opioids.”

He added: “The United States is by far the largest consumer of these drugs using more opioid pills per person than any other country by far in the world.”

Mr Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing his acting health secretary to declare a nationwide public health emergency and ordering all federal agencies to take measures to reduce the number of opioid deaths, according to senior White House officials.

The order will also ease some regulations to allow states more latitude in how they use federal funds to tackle the problem.

But the White House plans to fund the effort through the Public Health Emergency Fund, which reportedly only contains $57,000 (£43,000).

The Trump administration will then work with Congress to approve additional funding in a year-end spending package, senior officials said.

Other elements of the directive include:

• Allow patients further access to “telemedicine” so they can receive prescriptions without seeing a doctor
• Make grants available to those who have had trouble finding work due to addiction
• The Department of Health and Human Services will hire more people to address the crisis, particularly in rural areas
• Allows states to shift federal funds from HIV treatments to opioids, since the two are linked as drug users often share infected needles

Proponents suggest Mr Trump’s announcement is a critical step in raising awareness about the nationwide epidemic, while some critics argue the move does not go far enough.

“The lack of resources is concerning to us since the opioid epidemic presenting lots of challenges for states’ budgets,” Michael Fraser, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told Politico.

“My hope is people will realise with no new money the ball is going to be in Congress’s court,” he added.

Senator Bernie Sanders later tweeted that while Mr Trump was “right that the opioid crisis is a national emergency”, Friday’s announcement was “nothing more than an empty promise”.

“Millions depend on Medicaid [healthcare funding] for opioid treatment. Trump’s solution is to cut Medicaid by $1 trillion. That is a disgrace,” wrote the Vermont senator.

• The 100 words that triggered the opioid crisis
• Morgue services boom in US opioid crisis

Taking the first step

Rajini Vaidyanathan, BBC News, Washington

Addiction to painkillers and heroin has blighted so many communities across the US – both urban and rural.

As I travelled the country reporting on last year’s election, I remember the hairdresser in Arkansas whose ex-husband died from medicines he’d been given for his bad back, the family in New Hampshire who’d lost a teenage daughter to an overdose and heard stories of doctors who’d become hooked on the very pills they’d prescribed.

President Trump has stopped short of declaring this crisis a national emergency, despite earlier indications he would.

Instead his public health emergency is more of a short-term measure which doesn’t allocate as much funding. Recovering addicts and charities I’ve talked to say more investment in round-the-clock rehab and treatment is what is needed to make a difference.

But while today’s announcement is welcome, many will now be looking to Congress to take more action and secure more money to deal with this crisis.

Since 1999, the number of deaths involving opioids have quadrupled, reaching 33,000 deaths in 2015, according to the Presidential Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, citing data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC first declared opioids, a class of pain medications as well as some street drugs, to be an “epidemic” in 2011.

Mr Trump first announced his intention to declare opioid abuse a “national emergency” in August.

“The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I’m saying officially right now: It is an emergency. It’s a national emergency,” he said at the time.

Experts had urged Mr Trump to use his presidential power under the Stafford Act to declare a national emergency, which would have given states access to money from the federal Disaster Relief Fund.

States would have had immediate access to funding, much like they would after a natural disaster.

But senior officials told reporters that declaring that sort of emergency was not a good fit for an ongoing crisis.

The announcement comes after Mr Trump’s pick for drug czar withdrew his nomination following a report that he helped neuter government attempts to tackle the opioid crisis.

• Controversial Trump drug czar pick withdraws

Pennsylvania congressman Tom Marino pushed a bill that reportedly stripped a federal agency of the ability to freeze suspicious painkiller shipments.

Health Secretary Tom Price also resigned last month after it was revealed he was using expensive private planes for official business.

As a candidate, Mr Trump frequently pledged to tackle the drug crisis, and often campaigned in the hardest-hit states.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41756705

The post Trump: Opioid ‘national shame’ a public health emergency first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.