Adrenaline-lovers take on the AtmostFear ride in Wildwood, N.J. to experience the thrill of free fall.

But a Harlem Globetrotter ascended 150-feet to the top of the amusement park ride for another reason.

Female star Sweet J Ekworomadu made history Tuesday afternoon after hitting a trick shot from the top of the ride at Morey’s Piers.

Fans watched in awe as she knocked down the shot with nothing but the basket in sight. Take a look in the video embedded above.

The Globetrotters will be beach side at the Wildwoods Convention Center until Friday.

A man was taken into custody following a barricade situation in Chester County.

Pennsylvania State Police and SWAT officers were called to a home on Hillcrest Avenue in West Grove Wednesday night.

The officers surrounded the home and neighbors were told to stay inside their houses. Shortly before 9 p.m. officials announced the man had been taken into custody.

A neighbor told NBC10 that the man, who has not been identified, called a crisis hotline claiming he had a gun and was going to shoot himself. Neighbors alerted police and responding officers tried to convince the man to come outside.

After a five-hour standoff, officers fired shots into the upper window of the home prompting the man to come outside and surrender to police, according to the neighbor.

No one was injured during the ordeal.

The ex-girlfriend of the man accused of leading police on a wild two-hour chase through Philadelphia and New Jersey is speaking out for the first time, claiming the man stalked her and terrorized her for years.

“Robert Ritter took my dignity and my sanity,” said the woman, who did not want to be identified.

The woman was one of many who watched Monday night as a man, who police identified as Ritter, led officers across the Walt Whitman and Ben Franklin bridges as well as various spots in Philly and South Jersey. He was finally captured near the Philadelphia International Airport after a police vehicle bumped his van -- an action called a "precision immobilization technique (PIT) – causing it to flip over.

The woman told NBC10 Ritter is her ex-boyfriend and she has an order of protection against him. Ritter allegedly violated that domestic violence restraining order last month, a week before he was allegedly caught on surveillance video stealing underwear in Brooklawn, a charge that led to Monday night’s chase.

“He’s a menace to society,” the woman said.

The single mother from Washington Township, New Jersey says Ritter threatened to kill her and burn her house down. She also accused him of harassing her every day at work through vulgar text messages. The woman also claims Ritter was caught on video tampering with her home surveillance cameras.

“He would try to cover them with cups,” she said. “And finally he just cut the wire.”

The woman says she dated Ritter in 2012 but the relationship turned into a nightmare when they broke up after only three weeks. Since then, she says she’s been living in fear of her life and the lives of her two daughters. She’s grateful however for the police officers who arrested him.

“If it wasn’t for them I would still be fearing for my life, locking the doors, hoping I would wake up the next morning,” she said. “For however long he’s going to be locked up, I can live and breathe easy.”
 

Police are investigating a deadly shooting in South Jersey Wednesday night.

The shooting happened at the Arborwood Condos on East Linden Avenue in Lindenwold, New Jersey.

Investigators say an unidentified man was shot and killed.

So far, no arrests have been made.

A motive in the deadly shooting remains under investigation.

Three men have been charged with stealing $30,000 in copper piping from a vacant home in South Jersey.

The investigation began on July 21 when a realtor called the Evesham Township Police Department.

The realtor told police she discovered significant damage inside a home that was for sale in the 200 block of Braddock Mill Road in Evesham Township.

Investigators say the vandals stripped the entire home of its copper piping. It is estimated to be in excess of $30,000 in copper piping theft and damages.

Acting on a tip, investigators obtained surveillance video of three males selling large amounts of copper piping to a scrap yard in Camden County around the time of the theft.

Police arrested 30-year-old James Muir; 35-year-old Christopher Beebe and 24-year-old Steven Kalmey. All three suspects are from Marlton.

One of the suspects lived on the same block as the vacant home that was burglarized.

Police are searching for the man who was caught on tape stealing money from and damaging several vending machines at a college campus in South Jersey.

The crime happened on July 9 at the Mount Laurel campus of the Burlington County College.

Mount Laurel Police say the vandal stole money out of eight vending machines. He also caused damage to the machines, police said.

One of the crimes was caught on surveillance video.

WATCH: Surveillance Video

Anyone with information about the suspect is urged to contact the Mount Laurel Police Department at 856-234-1414.

A 5-year-old girl is recovering from serious injuries after police say a man broke into her North Philadelphia home sometime overnight Monday into Tuesday, abducted her and beat her unconscious in the backyard.

Now, police are trying to figure out who is responsible for the abduction and brutal beating that left the little girl nearly dead in a weeded backyard. During a news conference on Thursday, Special Victims Unit Capt. John Darby asked the public for help in tracking down a suspect.

Vyneeka Hopkins, 29, the little girl's mother, told NBC10 that she woke up about 7 a.m. Tuesday and discovered that Cynia, the younger of her two daughters, was missing. The single mom and her 9-year-old daughter frantically searched the house for the little girl before enlisting the help of neighbors to check the rest of family's block of Hutchinson Street near Lehigh Avenue for Cynia.

"I called neighbors to search my house one more time to make sure I'm not crazy [not being able to find her inside]," Hopkins explained Thursday morning from St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, where her daughter is being treated. "One neighbor was upstairs and looked out the window ... down in the yard that's overgrown with weeds, and was screaming, 'I found her! I found her!'"

Hopkins rushed out the back door and found a devastating sight: Little Cynia, still wearing the same T-shirt she'd worn to bed Tuesday night, was lying unconscious among the weeds, covered in blood.

"I thought she was dead. I was just crying and screaming," Hopkins said.

When Hopkins picked up the little girl, she began to wake up and told her mother -- and later investigators -- that she had awoken early in the morning and stepped out of the bedroom, when she was confronted by a man in the family's hallway. The man grabbed her, Cynia told them, picked her up and took her outside, where he badly beat her and left her to die.

"It's about as bad as it gets," Darby said during a news conference. "We're looking at this as a stranger residential intrusion and child abduction, and an aggravated assault on that child."

The little girl suffered a broken jaw, fractures to her skull and a bruised liver, among other injuries, in the beating, the mother said. In photos provided to NBC10 of the little girl's injuries, her eyes are swollen shut, and cuts and bruises cover her face and shoulder.

The mother said one of Cynia's bruises is in the shape of a man's boot.

"None of [her injuries], thank god, lead to any internal brain damage or bleeding," the mother, who described her little girl as a fighter, said. "Both of her eyes are swollen shut. She can't even open her eyes right now, but she's in good spirits. She has to do a strictly liquid diet for the next six weeks."

Crime-scene investigators who combed the house for clues Tuesday found that a dining-room window had been forced open, and that a screen in a back window also appeared to be broken, Hopkins said. Police have theorized that Cynia interrupted a burglar, who then beat her. She was not sexually assaulted.

The mother said the brother of a neighbor on a nearby block was taken in for questioning when his sister turned him over to police and said she'd recently kicked him out of her house for drug use. Darby said investigators had a person in for questioning but that no one was placed under arrest.

"Whether he did it or someone else did it, someone broke into my house and did this to my children," Hopkins said.

Darby said the little girl described her attacker to investigators as a tall, thin black man with a medium to dark complexion who wore a black T-shirt and tan shorts at the time of the assault.

"We've been very aggressive in our investigation since that point," Darby said. "Because of the seriousness of a single incident, we're talking about a residential intrusion and literally the kidnapping of a 5-year-old to the outside of the property, we're obviously asking the public to assist us. We've been out to look for witnesses and to look for potential video."

He said although the abduction and beating were a lone incident and investigators have no reason to believe there's a pattern developing, neighbors should be vigilant. He said there have been burglaries recently in the general area of North Philadelphia where the abduction took place, but not immediately around the block where it happened. He said investigators were unsure whether the house was targeted or the man broke in at random.

Now, the single mom, who works as a leasing agent, is trying to come up with enough money to move her family out of the rough-and-tumble North Philadelphia neighborhood where this happened. She knows that when little Cynia is released from the hospital, she won't be able to take her back to the house where something so horrific happened to her.

"I don't have the resources to readily up and move, which I'm going to have to, because she's going to be traumatized," Hopkins said. "I don't know what to do."

Darby urged residents in the immediate area to be vigilant and asked that anyone who may have information or recalls seeing anything suspicious to call the Special Victims Unit at 215-685-3251, 3252 or 3253.

A severe water main break in Bucks County has caused the nearby roads to buckle.

The water main broke on County Line Road, just north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Exit 343 just after 11 a.m.

Footage from Skyforce10 showed some spillage onto the roadway, and the roads remained closed as crews assessed the damage.

County Line Road was closed in both directions, and the road has started to buckle. The closure spread from Blair Mill Road and Meetinghouse Road, just east of Route 611.

This is a developing story. Stay tuned for more details.

As the heat wave continues, the threat of severe storms is a possibility Thursday afternoon and evening.

The temperatures will reach into the 90s again Thursday, along with oppressive humidity.

An Excessive Heat Warning is in effect for most the region until 6 p.m. Thursday.

The line of storms is expected to arrive in the western suburbs by about 1 p.m. Thursday. The storms are expected to reach the Philadelphia region by 4 p.m. and then move into parts of South Jersey and Delaware.

The storms could bring localized downpours, lightning and gusty winds.

The system is expected to linger in the region until around 9 p.m.

Once the storms move out, the humidity will begin to drop. Friday will see temperatures in the 90s, but the lower humidity will make it more bearable.

Three people were killed and two were injured, including one critically, in an apparent street racing crash in Northeast Philadelphia.

The crash happened about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday on Sandmeyer Lane near Red Lion Road.

Investigators believe the car was involved in a high-speed street race when the driver clipped a curb on a sharp turn and lost control.

The car then went airborne before slamming into a tree, splitting in half.

One of the occupants was ejected from the car.

Investigators said three people, two females and one male, were killed in the crash. A fourth was rushed to the hospital in extremely critical condition. A fifth person, a 19-year-old male, showed up to Albert Einstein Medical Center hours after the crash. It is believed he was involved in the crash.

One of the victims, according to police, is 17-years-old. All the others are believed to be in their late teens or early 20s.

“You have a situation where you have teenagers high-speed, driving the car, thinking they’re having a good time and it only takes a second to lose control of a vehicle and have a senseless loss of life,” Captain Deshawn Beaufort said.

A second vehicle was not located, although police plan to review surveillance cameras in the area.

The deadly crash remains under investigation.

The Phillies on Wednesday night pulled off a huge trade, sending World Series hero and homegrown ace Cole Hamels to the Texas Rangers for six players. 

Neither team confirmed the deal, but multiple sources did confirm it to CSNPhilly.com. An official announcement is expected on Thursday after some loose ends are tied up.

Reliever Jake Diekman is also on his way to the Rangers.

The Phillies will get five prospects — a catcher, an outfielder and three pitchers — that they hope can help fuel their rebuild. They are also taking on pitcher Matt Harrison, who is owed at least $28 million over the next two seasons.

Hamels declined to speak with reporters after Wednesday night’s 8-2 loss to the Blue Jays. His last official act as a Phillie was a memorable one: He threw a no-hitter Saturday at Wrigley Field, an accomplishment he said ranked just below winning the World Series in 2008. He was the MVP of that World Series and after the parade told an adorning crowd that he wanted to ride down Broad Street “again and again and again.”

The Phillies made the World Series again in 2009, but lost the Yankees. They won the NL East in 2010 and 2011, but have slipped in recent seasons and now reside in baseball’s basement.

Though he was never as vocal as Jonathan Papelbon, who was traded to Washington on Tuesday, Hamels was eager to be dealt to a contender. Though the Rangers are a sub-.500 team, they hope to make a run in the AL West this season and they like the idea that Hamels is signed for three more seasons and believe he can join Yu Darvish in delivering a World Series title before his contract runs out. Darvish is expected back from an elbow injury next season.

With Hamels gone, only Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Carlos Ruiz remain from the World Series-winning team.

“It’s sad when your teammates for a long time have to go away,” Ruiz said in the Phillies' clubhouse late Wednesday night.

The Phillies have tried unsuccessfully to trade Howard for more than a year. Utley’s contract is likely to expire at the end of the season. There’s still a chance he could be traded in the coming weeks. There is not much of a market for Ruiz, but he could be a valuable mentor to one of the prospects the Phillies are getting from Texas.

In addition to the Rangers, the Phillies had talks with the Dodgers and Astros. According to multiple sources, the Phillies liked several of the Astros’ prospects, but Hamels informed the club he would not accept a trade to Houston. The pitcher’s limited no-trade clause allowed him to block a deal to that club. He could not block a trade to Texas.

In addition to Harrison, the Phillies also get catcher Jorge Alfaro, outfielder Nick Williams and pitchers Jake Thompson, Alec Asher and Jerad Eickhoff.

Alfaro, a 22-year-old from Colombia, becomes the Phillies’ top catching prospect. He has a power bat, but needs to cut down on his strikeouts. He was playing at Double A before suffering an ankle injury that required surgery. He is expected to play again this season. There is clearly risk in trading for an injured player, but the Phillies like Alfaro’s upside. He projects as an offensive catcher.

Williams, 21, is another top piece in the deal. The left-handed hitter was the Rangers’ second-round pick in 2012 and was hitting .300 with 13 homers, 45 RBIs and an .837 OPS in 96 games at Double A.

Thompson is a 21-year-old right-hander. He was a second-round pick of the Tigers in 2012. He is 6-6 with a 4.72 ERA in 17 starts at Double A.

In Baseball America's midseason prospect rankings, Thompson, Williams and Alfaro ranked Nos. 3, 4, 5 in the Rangers' system, respectively.

Asher is a 23-year-old right-hander who had been at Triple A. Eickhoff is a 25-year-old right-hander, also at Triple A.

The Phillies are also sending money to Texas. That could be in the form of absorbing some of Harrison’s salary. Hamels, the highest paid athlete in Philadelphia history, is owed about $81 million through the 2018 season. He has an option for $20 million for 2019.

How the finances would wash out was not immediately known.

What we do know is that Cole Hamels, who was drafted and developed by the Phillies and who helped create one of the greatest sporting memories ever in Philadelphia, is headed out of town.

It’s the end of an era.

A suspect sped off from the scene of a car stop, striking a Galloway Township police officer before crashing his vehicle, police said.

While K-9 Sgt. Scott Winneberger was speaking to the driver during a car stop on Wrangleboro Road, he took off, hitting the officer with his vehicle on Wednesday.

After the suspect crashed his vehicle near the scene, he ran from the area and is still on the run.

Investigators later found heroin inside the vehicle.

The driver has been identified by police as 35-year-old James Gallaway. He is known to frequent Galloway Township and Pleasantville.

Warrants for Gallaway have been issued for Aggravated Assault on a Law Enforcement Officer, Assault by Auto, Eluding, Obstruction, Possession of CDS and other vehicle violations.

If you know any information about the whereabouts of Gallaway, you are urged to call at 609-652-3705.

In a letter forwarded to NBC 10 Thursday morning, Renee Chenault-Fattah wrote in reference to the sale of her 1989 Porsche Carrera convertible “both the indictment and media accounts are incorrect.” Chenault-Fattah is not named or charged in the case but is identified as the congressman's wife, "Person E" and an "affiliate of the Fattah enterprise" in the federal indictment filed against her husband, Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa) and four others on charges including racketeering, bribery and wire fraud.

According to the indictment, Chenault-Fattah, her husband, lobbyist Herbert Vederman and Fattah’s Congressional District Director Bonnie Bowser “falsified records, including a bill of sale and paperwork related to the vehicle’s title, in order to document the “sale”…”

Authorities said the scheme had the Fattahs pretending to sell the Porsche to Vederman for $18,000. The indictment states that money was used to help pay closing costs for the Fattahs’ $425,000 vacation home in the Poconos.

The Federal government says the sale was phony and the Fattahs never actually sold the car. According to the indictment, Chenault-Fattah continued to register the car in her name, pay for vehicle service and pay for the insurance.

In her letter, Chenault-Fattah writes, “…we starting (sic) purchasing a home in the Poconos in the winter of 2011. Two weeks before the close, the mortgage said a new law went into effect (this was Jan of 2012) and we were required to put $18,000 in reserve. It could not be a gift or a loan.

Knowing this and not having an extra $18,000, I decided to sell my second car- a Porsche. A family friend agreed to buy it last minute and we sold the car for its blue book value...a bill of sale and transfer of title were conveyed to the friend.”

In the letter, Chenault-Fattah goes on to explain why the car remains at the Fattahs’ Philadelphia home. “…the car stayed at our house (we have 3 garages and the friend lives in a apartment) , for a time I continued with insuring it since it was in our garage and wanted nothing to happen to it,
and I had it towed to be serviced in the spring because I wanted it to be in good shape for the friend since this transaction had happened so hastily in the dead of winter. It has remained undriven in our garage for 3 years now because on advice of counsel.... we were instructed to do nothing with the car.”

She added, “I know this was a legitimate sale but this not likely to go away anytime soon.”

Chenault-Fattah, who isn’t facing any charges, is currently on leave from NBC 10.

A Philadelphia judge on Thursday denied bail for a man accused of stabbing his wife and 1-year-old daughter in a fit of rage at their Philadelphia home last weekend.

Stephen Burton, 42, waived his extradition in Maryland after he was arrested there Sunday night. Police said he fled there after he stabbed his wife, Danecia Burton, and the couple's 1-year-old daughter, Desiree, during a domestic argument very early that morning.

Stephen Burton was brought back to Philadelphia and appeared Thursday morning for an arraignment on charges including attempted murder, aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, reckless endangerment and related offenses. He was held without bail and scheduled to appear for a status hearing Sept. 4.

The stabbing at the family's house at the corner of Dallas Street and Georgian Road in West Oak Lane left Danecia Burton 37, and little Desiree both in critical condition, police said. The mother suffered stab wounds all over her body, and the baby was stabbed in her chest. Police said Stephen Burton also attempted to stab the couple's 4-year-old son, but that the mother was able to intervene and stop him from being stabbed.

A neighbor who came to the aid of the victims in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing described the horrific scene she found inside the house where the violence erupted.

"I heard her screaming, screaming, so it woke me up out of my sleep to the point that I fell off the bed," Donletta Bolds said. "I went over there and I knocked on the door, and I see him through the window standing over her, slicing her up.

"I ran in the house to get my phone. As I was running out [of] the house with my phone, he ran in his car, sped off. I knocked on the door, asked her, 'Is everything OK?' She told me no, and I asked her did she need me to call the cops," Bolds recounted. "She said yes, she let me in, and when she let me in, she was leaning against the wall with her arm sliced up, and all I could do was find some paper towels to stop the bleeding."

Bolds said she was the one who called police to the house about 12:30 a.m. Sunday. She told NBC10 that prior to the stabbing, she heard the couple fighting, and that the fighting escalated so badly that she ran next door to see if everything was OK. She said after she witnessed part of the attack and ran home to get her phone, she saw Stephen Burton, dressed only his underwear, jump into a burgundy vehicle outside the house and take off.

Stephen Burton was caught about 8 p.m. Sunday night in Baltimore, driving on I-95.

A 68-year-old man who worked as an assistant scoutmaster of a New Jersey boy scout troop has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing children, according to the Cape May City Police Department.

Frank L. "Sandy" Thomson, of Cape May City, was an assistant scoutmaster with a Boy Scout Troop in West Cape May at the time of his arrest. Thompson was also serving as the treasurer at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Cape May. 

Thomson is charged with aggravated sexual contact, luring/enticing a child and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. 

On July 16, a tipster called the Cape May Prosecutor's Office to report suspicious activity regarding Thomson and an 11-year-old boy, according to police. The Prosecutor's Office's Special Victims Unit and Cape May City Police then launched an investigation into Thomson. 

Investigators interviewed a number of witnesses and found that Thomson was buying the child expensive gifts and "grooming" him for sexual purposes, police said. The interviews also led investigators to a second boy who was sexually assaulted by Thomson years ago, authorities added.

Thomson is being held in the Cape May County Correctional Center on $175,000 cash bail.

Police are continuing to investigate Thomson, and Cape May Prosecutor Robert L. Taylor urged anyone with information on the case to contact his office at 609-465-1135.

Police on the Main Line arrested a father who they say stuck his newborn daughter under a couch while he slept.

Chadd Cagle was caring for 5-week-old daughter early on July 26 when someone found the daughter sleeping underneath a couch upon which her 35-year-old father slept, said Radnor Township Police.

The person that found the girl could hear muffled crying and thought it was coming from the baby's room but later the person discovered the girl face down, wearing only a diaper under the couch that Cagle had moved, the person told police.

An argument ensued then Cagle took the girl to his parent's house where officers did a welfare check on the girl, said investigators. Being put under the couch left the girl with abrasions on both of her legs, said police.

Investigators later found that the couch only has a Clarence of 4.5 inches from the ground -- too low for the child to move freely -- and red stains on the carpet underneath the couch appeared to be blood, said police in an affidavit of probable cause.

Police said that the child was not capable of placing herself under the couch.

A district judge arraigned Cagle on child endearment charges Thursday and sent him to county jail after he was unable to post 10 percent of $50,000 bail.

Cagle is no stranger to the law having been convicted multiple times for drugs, according to court documents.

Police have arrested a northern New Jersey grandmother who they say acted as the getaway driver for her grandson and his friend after a home robbery.

Shortly after Monday's theft, officers received a tip that led them to a vehicle stopped in the Hibernia section of Rockaway Township.

Police found items reported stolen by the homeowner in the car, which totaled $4,000.

The Daily Record reports 78-year-old Vera Buniak was charged with possession of stolen property. Her grandson, 18-year-old Timothy Buniak, was charged with burglary, theft, possession of stolen property and drug charges.

Police say Vera Buniak was charged "as part of the process" despite potentially not knowing that a crime was being committed.

Vera Buniak's phone was out of order. It is unknown if the three have attorneys.

The number of reported cases of Legionnaires’ disease is on the rise in the United States and researchers say the increase could be partly a result of climate change.

More than three times as many cases of legionellosis, of which Legionnaires’ disease is one form, were reported in 2009 than 2000 — 3,522 up from 1,110, according to a 2011 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New York City, where an outbreak in Legionnaires’ disease in the Bronx has killed two people and sickened 46 since July 10, has seen a similar rise. The incidence of cases increased 230 percent from 2002 to 2009, with the greatest number in high-poverty neighborhoods, according to an October study in the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

The recent outbreak in the Bronx, where residents already have high rates of asthma, is the second in the borough this year. Twelve cases of Legionnaires’ disease were reported in December and January and were traced to an apartment complex cooling tower. On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that two rooftop cooling towers in the area had been found to be contaminated, including one at Lincoln Hospital. Both are now being disinfected, he and the New York City Health Commissioner, Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, said.

"We’re aggressively investigating and testing all possible sources," de Blasio said.

Legionnaires’ disease, identified after 34 deaths among American Legionnaires returning from a 1976 convention in Philadelphia, is a sometimes deadly pneumonia that is spread through the environment, rather than person to person, often in a mist of contaminated water from cooling towers, hot tubs, showers or faucets. It is not contagious.

Dr. David N. Fisman, a professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, said in an email that he doubted the increase was the result solely of improved testing. The rise is linear and across all regions of the United States, he said.

It is difficult to be certain that climate change is a factor but it seems plausible, he said. The bacteria is more infectious in warm temperatures and some studies, including one he and others did in 2005, have shown that wet, humid weather predicts an upsurge in the risk of contracting the disease over the following week or two. That finding was not replicated in Toronto, he said, but there the disease peaks later in October in that area.

“Give that we know climate change is going to make for hotter, stormier summers (and already is doing so) it doesn’t seem like a huge leap to suggest that the ongoing rise in legionellosis in the US could be at least partly due to climate change,” he wrote.

Why humidity would increase the risk of legionellosis is not known. Increased air conditioning use, with the bacteria potentially in the dripping water, could be a factor, or it might be that the true culprit is summertime rainfall, he said.

A commentary in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization on March 27 argued for adding it to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's list of important climate-sensitive health issues.

The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of Aug. 19, 2011, from Dr. Lauri Hicks and others, noted that the incidence rates increased nearly threefold from 2000 to 2009. The totals likely underestimate the actual cases, because the tracking system depended on health-care providers and laboratories to report cases. The rise underscores the need to test adults for Legionnaires' disease and to report cases, they wrote.

The New York study, which reviewed cases through 2011, also found disparities among race and ethnicity, with the highest incidents among non-Hispanic black residents, and greater risk among certain occupations, including janitors and cleaners. 

Legionnaires' disease usually appears two to 10 days after exposure to the bacteria. Symptoms include shortness of breath, high fever, chills and chest pains. People with Legionnaires' disease also experience appetite loss, confusion, fatigue and muscle aches.

Those at highest risk are the elderly, cigarette smokers, people with chronic lung or immune system disease and those receiving immunosuppressive drugs. Most cases can be treated successfully with antibiotics — which is why those who have symptoms should seek immediate medical care.

Dr. Ruth Berkelman, a professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, reported on the increased incidence of legionellosis from 1990 until 2005, particularly in the eastern United States and more recently on the need for national public health authorities to review prevention policies.

“Legionellosis deserves a higher public health priority for research and policy development,” she and her co-authors wrote in the Journal of Public Health Management Practices in September.