Charging Trailer Recharges Connections For Irma Evacuees
September 17, 2017
Gulf Power’s innovation team built a solar-powered charging trailer, “Power to Go,” just in time for the start of hurricane season this year.
Equipped with charging ports for smartphones and tablets, plus multiple television screens, Gulf Power planned to take the trailer to areas hit by major storms so customers could charge up their phones during major power outages. At the same time, customers could catch up on local news and weather and view a power outage map to monitor restoration progress.
When the mega-sized Hurricane Irma rolled over most of the state of Florida, sending evacuees fleeing out of harm’s way to Northwest Florida, Gulf Power saw an unexpected need for the trailer. It was set up at the Pensacola Bay Center so weary evacuees, some who had traveled from Miami, Tampa and points in between, could charge up their phones.
“Some of them left their homes in such a hurry, they forgot their chargers,” said Shaun Gunter, Gulf Power’s Renewable Market specialist, who helped build the charging trailer and manned it at the Bay Center. “People were desperate to access their contacts in their phones, which they couldn’t recall by memory.”
The charging station has been used at community events. But testing it out for Irma helped reveal some ways to improve the free service for Gulf Power customers. “We learned some things like people need to charge a variety of things besides cell phones,” Gunter said. “And we need a wider variety of charging adapters for people with older phones.”
Gunter went above and beyond to help with the unexpected demand for adapters for a variety of devices that evacuees routinely use during their everyday life. He dug into his stash of charging adapters he’s collected over the years and searched for other hard-to-find adapters at a few local electronics vendors.
“I found chargers that would help with blood sugar monitors, portable car GPS units, wireless headphones and older flip-phones,” he said. “It was important because you can’t just go out and buy these chargers at Walmart.”
Gunter was especially touched by an elderly man, Tom, who evacuated alone from Tampa. He had a Jitterbug phone made for senior citizens with a dead battery and was desperate to get it charged up so he could call family.
He said it made his day to get it charged up,” Gunter said. “I just gave him the charging adapter I found for him. He would still need it after we mobilized the trailer to another location.”
Danny and Tracey Ross of Fort Lauderdale were among those who fled their home without a charger. While charging their phones at the Power to Go charging trailer, Danny Ross recounted how they meandered through the state trying to get out of harms’ way and find gas along the way. “We were trying to find a place to stop … the rest areas had a thousand cars,” he said. “We came to Pensacola.”
Tracey Ross said they found the shelter at the Bay Center while hunting for a Starbucks, and when they saw the charging trailer, they were relieved. “We were glued to the televisions catching up on information about the storm and charging our phones,” she said. “If we didn’t have the chargers, we would have had no way to contact our family.”
Demand from the evacuees also underscored how great the demand is for smaller, portable charging stations that could be easily moved around. So Gulf Power collected portable charging stations it uses for special events like the annual Economic Symposium and partnered with the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, a minor league baseball team, to borrow portable charging stations that were installed at the stadium to take to both the Pensacola Bay Center and a shelter in Marianna, on the eastern edge of our service area. On a recent pass through the halls of the Pensacola shelter, it was clear by the number of phones plugged-in the need was great.
“We got involved because we were trying to support evacuees as best as we could and make their stay in Northwest Florida as stress-free as possible,” said Verdell Hawkins, Gulf Power Community Relations director. “The American Red Cross said the basic needs for the shelters were met, but we could provide comfort and recreation.”
In addition to the charging stations, Gulf Power also donated board games and playing cards for the more than 400 evacuees who took refuge at the two shelters to use.
The games were a hit, Hawkins said. On Monday, a mother from Clearwater was keeping her toddler entertained and helping him learn to count with a game called Connect 4, while other families were passing time by huddling in circles playing card games.
Gunter also realized that evacuees needed information from their hometowns. So instead of posting Gulf Power’s outage map on one of the TV monitors, as he would for our customers in the event of a storm, he pulled up outage maps for central and south Florida utilities, such as Tampa Electric and Florida Power & Light. He also helped evacuees access road condition information and live traffic cameras from Florida Department of Transportation so they could make travel plans home.
“I showed them how to sign up to get email and text alerts from their utility, so they could find out when their power is restored,” said Gunter “Many of them didn’t even know they could do that.”
Body Found In Pensacola
September 17, 2017
Pensacola Police are conducting a death investigation after a man’s body was found Saturday afternoon in a wooded lot.
The man, whose name is not yet being released pending family notification, is believed to be a transient. Police were dispatched to the area at the southeast corner of Pace Boulevard and Garden Street around 3:45 p.m. after being notified of the man’s death.
An autopsy will be done to determine cause of death.
Anyone having information on the incident is asked to contact Detectives Andy Burleson or Jeff Brown at the Pensacola Police Department by calling (850) 435- 1900.
Northview Students Address Escambia Educational Association About Space Shuttle Grant
September 17, 2017
Two Northview High School students recently addressed the Escambia County Public Schools Foundation to discuss their experiences with a grant that Northview received last year. The visit was designed to tell prospective donors about how the grants aid the educational process.
The grant received by Northview allowed students the chance to explore the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984.
Northview High School teacher Jim Shugart explains:
“The grant was called, The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. This was chosen to give our students a chance to analyze a catastrophe which happened before they were born. They were able to investigate all aspects of the disaster from watching videos and reading transcripts and testimonies.
“Valen Shelly represented the Mathematics Department, who analyzed the 73-second flight path of the ill-fated Challenger and then critically reviewed all evidence (available on the internet) to find the actual cause of the disaster (we found there were two consecutive failures causing the loss of life and equipment).
“Keaton Brown represented the NJROTC department who actually built model rockets and launched them in order to view and analyze flight path data. Additionally, the NJROTC cadets got hands-on experience with the assembly of the rockets, while some found that a lack of attention to detail would cause bad results.
“Overall, the grant project was a huge success that caused students to come out of their comfort zone and investigate some hard-hitting facts of reality along with the ramifications of not doing the right thing.”"
Pictured: Northview High School teacher Jim Shugart, Keaton Brown and Valen Shelly. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Expansion Of E-Books Could Equate To Student Savings
September 17, 2017
Florida universities are taking the first steps toward expanding the use of electronic textbooks and other material, hoping to bring significant savings to students who spend hundreds of dollars each semester on traditional textbooks.
The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the university system, approved a 2018-19 budget request this week that includes a $656,000 program to encourage the greater use of so-called “eTexts” and other open educational resources in lieu of the standard textbooks.
It may take some time to replicate the experience of the University of Indiana, a leader in the use of eTexts, with IU reporting last spring that its students saved an estimated $3.5 million in the 2016-17 academic year by using eTexts in place of textbooks.
But Joseph Glover, provost at the University of Florida, who is part of a group coordinating innovation and online programs among the universities, said the expanded use of eTexts and other open-source material “is a great opportunity for really substantial savings for our students.”
Glover said the Indiana experience “demonstrates that with a solid program and a sustained effort promoting the adoption, that over the course of a decade, you are going to end up saving the students literally millions of dollars per year.”
In a survey of 22,000 students at Florida’s 12 universities and 28 state colleges, the Florida Virtual Campus reported 53 percent of the students spent more than $300 in the spring 2016 semester on textbooks, with about 18 percent reporting they spent more than $500.
Faced with those costs, students have found other ways to deal with the financial burden, including buying used textbooks and renting textbooks.
And Jennifer Smith, director of the UF Office of Faculty Development and Teaching Excellence, said individual universities have already embarked on pilot programs aimed at cutting textbook costs.
At UF, she said the school negotiated a 43 percent discount off book publishers’ list prices for textbooks used in 79 freshman-level courses last fall. The discount saved the students an estimated $941,000, Smith said.
At Florida State University, an “alternative textbook” program will save students some $41,000 over the course of this academic year, Smith said.
“When we can populate this across the entire (system) and expand these programs, I think we will see significant savings with actually a relatively low outlay of costs,” Smith told the BOG’s Innovation and Online Committee at a meeting in Gainesville Wednesday.
The budget proposal would set aside $656,000 to create a “catalog” where professors and other instructors, as they are developing their courses, will find open-source material as well as eTexts where lower prices have been negotiated with the publishers, Glover said.
He also said a review process will be set up to assure the materials in the catalog are “high quality” and meet the universities’ educational standards.
“This is important because a problem in the past has been that resources available in the system repository have been of a mixed quality, which the faculty found frustrating and which caused them not to use it as much,” Glover said.
Glover said students will have the option of using the eTexts and other material or sticking with their traditional textbooks. But he said one advantage of the electronic material is that a system will be set up where students will pay for the access and have the eTexts available on the first day of their classes.
He also said the universities were looking a providing some type of “financial incentive” for instructors to use the alternative textbooks, but nothing has been finalized.
Ed Morton, a Board of Governors member, said he supported the efforts to decrease textbooks costs for the students.
“The cost of textbooks is a barrier for our students just like room and board,” Morton said.
by The News Service of Florida
ERC And Southwest Alabama Football Scores
September 17, 2017
Here are week 3 scores from ERC and Southwest Alabama youth league football:
ERC Senior scores
Brewton- 47, Flomaton- 0
Jay- 2, Poarch- 0 (forfeit)
Excel- 48, Baker- 0
Straughn- 2, Uriah- 0 (forfeit)
NWE-14, Neal- 7
ERC Junior Scores
Brewton- 40, Flomaton- 0
Poarch- 45, Jay- 0
Baker- 19, Excel- 6
Straughn- 27, Uriah- 6
Neal- 26, NWE- 12
ERC Sophomore Scores
Brewton-38,Flomaton- 0
Jay- 7, Poarch- 0
Baker- 13, Excel- 6
Uriah- 19, Straughn- 18
NWE- 32, Neal- 31 3OT
ERCFreshman Scores
Brewton- 39, Flomaton- 0
Poarch- 25, Jay- 0
Baker- 21, Excel- 13
Straughn- 20, Uriah- 0
Neal- 18, NWE- 0
SW AL Scores
Mighty Mights 4-7 year olds
Century 32, Castleberry 14
Tiny Mites 8-10 year olds
Century 20, Castleberry 0
Pee Wees 11-13 year olds
Castleberry 22, Century 0
Beulah Beltway Project Meeting Rescheduled
September 17, 2017
Due to Hurricane Irma response around the state, the previously scheduled Beulah I-10 Interchange Project update from the Florida Department of Transportation was rescheduled from the Thursday, Sept. 14 Committee of the Whole Meeting to the Thursday, Sept. 21 Agenda Review meeting in the Escambia County Commission Chambers.
At this meeting, FDOT staff will give an update on the Beulah I-10 Interchange Project, including their plans for future development of the interchange project.
Agenda Review begins at 9 a.m. The public is welcome to attend or watch the meeting on MyEscambia.com/ectv, channel 98 for Spectrum, Cox Cable and Mediacom (Pensacola Beach) subscribers and channel 99 for AT&T U-verse subscribers. Meetings are also available for replay on ECTV On Demand.
Following the Sept. 21 meeting, Escambia County will hold an after-hours Beulah Beltway public meeting. Details will be announced as soon as they are available. The meeting will include a formal presentation with updated project costs, timelines and other project details. The public will also have an opportunity to comment and ask questions.
For more information and updates about the Beulah Beltway project
UWF Rolls Past Chowan, 51-23, In Home Opener
September 17, 2017
The University of West Florida football team clicked in all three phases Saturday night, as the Argos defeated Chowan 51-23 in their home opener at Blue Wahoos Stadium.
UWF improved to 2-0 on the season after having an off week due to Hurricane Irma. The Argos finished with 305 yards of total offense, with 133 on the ground and 172 through the air. UWF tied the school record for points in a game and surpassed the 40-point plateau for the sixth time in 13 all-time contests.
UWF also scored touchdowns on offense, defense and special teams in the same game for the first time in program history.
Mike Beaudry passed for 149 yards on 11-of-22 with a career-high three touchdowns. Antoine Griffin had a team-best three receptions for 78 yards, while Ka’Ron Ashley made two spectacular scoring catches in the first half as UWF built a 21-10 halftime advantage.
The Argonauts jumped out to an early 7-0 lead when senior defensive back Josh Marshall corralled his second interception of the year, picking off Hawks quarterback Bryce Witt and taking it 31 yards to the end zone.
It didn’t take long for Chowan to fire back as the Hawks capitalized on a West Florida kick-catch interference on the kickoff, allowing Witt and company to start their next drive inside the Argos 36-yard line. On the fifth play of the drive, Witt would connect with wide receiver Edwin Thomas from eight yards out to tie the game at 7-7.
West Florida responded right back, as Marcus Clayton raced 65 yards on the ensuing kickoff to set up the go-ahead touchdown. On the third play of the drive, Beaudry found Ashley from 18 yards out for his first score of the night.
With just under 10 minutes remaining in the half, Chowan linebacker Antuwan Hicks picked off Beaudry, putting the Hawks in great field position on their own 48-yard line. That set up an eventual 20-yard field goal for Connor Killeen, making it a one possession game.
As they did all night, West Florida answered right back. Forty-one seconds is all the Argos would need, as Beaudry connected with Griffin for a gain of 55 yards on the first play of the drive. That set the stage for another Ashley score, this one from nine yards out.
With under four minutes remaining in the third quarter, sophomore kicker Austin Williams converted on 38-yard field goal to extend the Argonauts lead to 24-10. Chowan would respond with a 6-play 75-yard drive, to pull within seven at 24-17.
But UWF responded with 27 unanswered points to build a 51-17 lead late in the fourth. Beaudry scored from a yard out and he completed a 23-yard strike to Rodney Coates, with Chris Schwarz finishing his night with a 2-yard run and Quadavis Battle scoring when he recovered a blocked punt that Johnathan Coleman took off Killeen’s foot.
Chowan remained winless in three games and finished with 335 yards of total offense. Witt had 242 yards passing and three touchdowns on 21-of-35.
Photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Unfathomable
September 17, 2017
Days after Hurricane Irma slashed a destructive swath through Florida, it’s still unclear exactly how much damage the state and its inhabitants have suffered. And it might be weeks — or even months — before the massive storm’s impact is known.
From the Keys to Naples to Jacksonville, Irma wreaked havoc on homes and businesses, turned off lights and air conditioning for more than half the state and caused severe damage in the agriculture industry.
But the most shocking result of Irma was the deaths of eight elderly nursing home residents — literally across the street from a major hospital — in Hollywood after the nursing facility’s air conditioning stopped working. The tragedy, which drew national attention, created a furor among local and state officials, including Gov. Rick Scott and U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio.
The week brought some other news, but, with more than two-thirds of Florida’s counties qualifying for disaster relief and reeling from Irma, nobody paid much attention.
By week’s end, power was being steadily restored, many streets were cleared of debris, and cleanup was well underway.
Now may not be the time to begin the Monday-morning quarterbacking about how — or if — the state could have done better to prepare for the storm or to cope with its aftermath.
But the heartbreaking deaths of the eight nursing home residents will certainly be at the forefront of the scrutiny.
“We throw our elderly away,” Bendetta Craig, whose 87-year-old mother lived at The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, said. “That’s my mother, somebody’s mother, somebody’s sister, somebody’s father. They’re not dollar signs.”
`INEXCUSABLE’ TRAGEDY
The nursing home deaths left people in Florida and throughout the nation wondering how such an event could happen.
“Every facility that is charged with caring for patients must take every action and precaution to keep their patients safe — especially patients that are in poor health,” Scott tweeted Wednesday, after the news broke about The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills.
Scott’s administration shut down admissions to the Broward County facility on Wednesday, after the seniors died and the remaining residents were evacuated. Scott also ordered the Agency for Health Care Administration on Thursday to oust the facility from the Medicaid program.
“It is clear that this facility cannot be responsible for Florida’s vulnerable patients, and therefore the state will stop them from providing care,” Scott’s office said in a statement announcing the Medicaid decision.
Local officials have launched a criminal investigation into the deaths, and state agencies are also investigating the situation. Nelson, D-Fla., and Rubio, R-Fla., called on federal health officials to get involved.
Nelson described it as an “inexcusable tragedy that frail patients would die of heat exhaustion without it being recognized.”
In a lengthy statement, nursing home administrator Jorge Carballo said the facility did not lose power during Hurricane Irma, but it lost a transformer that powered the air-conditioning system. The statement said the nursing home contacted Florida Power & Light and followed up about when repairs would be made.
“In compliance with state regulations, the center did have a generator on standby in the event it would be needed to power life safety systems,” Carballo said in the statement. “The center also had seven days of food, water, ice and other supplies, including gas for the generator. Additionally, when the transformer powering the A/C went down, staff set up mobile cooling units and fans to cool the facility. Our staff continually checked on our residents’ well-being — our most important concern — to ensure they were hydrated and as comfortable as possible.”
The facility is rated “below average” on a federal scorecard that includes information about issues such as inspections, staffing and quality of care. The federal Medicare.gov website includes a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report that said a health inspection was conducted by the state March 31 and found a series of deficiencies at the facility. While some of the deficiencies appeared likely to affect few residents, the report indicated other more-serious deficiencies were found in areas such as food safety, disposal of garbage and infection-control programs.
The Hollywood tragedy also revealed that dozens of nursing homes were without electricity or had been evacuated because of Irma.
`IT’S GOING TO BE A LONG ROAD’
After Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys and the southwestern portion of the state Sunday, curfews were imposed in many areas, much of the Keys remained closed, and millions of people continued to lack electricity as cleanup work was expected to reach into the billions of dollars.
The state was also coping with intense flooding on both coasts and the interior, where rising rivers left some houses marooned in the middle of marshes.
Later in the week, tempers flared when officials barred Keys evacuees from returning to the lower islands.
“I know for our entire state, but especially the Keys, it’s going to be a long road. There is a lot of damage,” Scott said after viewing the damage from the air Monday. “I know everyone wants to get back to normal. I know everyone wants to get started, but you’ve got to be patient. We’ve got to get the first responders to the Keys. We’ve got to get water going again. We’ve got to get electricity going again. We’ve got to get sewers going again. It’s going to take a lot of time.”
On Tuesday, the governor teamed up with former University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow to thank volunteers and workers at the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee and in hard-hit Lee County.
“In the midst of a really tough time, you know I think so many people that were hurting have something to hold on to because there were so many volunteers … and they knew there were people in it with them,” Tebow said during the Tallahassee stop. “It doesn’t take away their pain, and it doesn’t take away their fear and doubt of the unknown, but it does give them a little comfort to know that there are people battling with them and loving and supporting them.”
President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, joined Scott and his wife, Ann, to tour the damage in Southwest Florida on Thursday.
Trump handed out hoagies to storm-addled survivors in Naples.
Trump praised Scott and thanked first responders, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the military for how they handled the lead-up to the storm and were dealing with recovery efforts.
“And I know you’re also in the process, but to think of the incredible power of that storm. And while people unfortunately passed, it was such a small number that nobody would have — people thought thousands and thousands of people may have their lives ended. And the number is a very small number which is a great tribute to you,” the president said.
`WET FEET’ AND EXTENSIVE DAMAGE
Parts of Florida’s agriculture industry are in “tatters” as rural communities continue to face severe conditions after the storm, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said Thursday.
Putnam said the storm hammered citrus, vegetable and sugarcane growers, though he didn’t put a cost estimate on the damage. And as many farmers and residents of Florida’s rural counties wait for power to be restored, they will soon be inundated with mosquitoes because of water left behind by Irma, he noted.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, the former Georgia governor, will be in Florida on Monday to tour the damage as the state seeks federal aid, Putnam told reporters at the Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee.
Putnam, a Bartow resident who is running for governor next year, called the impacts “extensive” for growers, particularly those in the struggling citrus industry. Even before Irma, the 2016-2017 orange harvest was down 16 percent from the prior year, while the grapefruit harvest dropped 28 percent in the same time.
In Southwest Florida, between 70 and 80 percent of fruit “is on the ground,” and widespread flooding will bring further woes, Putnam said.
“Citrus trees cannot tolerate wet feet. They can’t tolerate wet roots,” he said. “And we will continue to see these numbers of losses grow over time.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: Hurricane Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys and Southwest Florida on Sunday, leaving a trail of destruction through the state and cutting off power to millions of residents and businesses.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Although the details of these reported deaths are still under investigation, this situation is unfathomable,” — Gov. Rick Scott, after news broke of the deaths of residents of The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Broward County.
by The News Service of Florida
Woman Critical After Possibly Jumping From Vehicle In Domestic Dispute
September 16, 2017
A woman was airlifted to a Pensacola hospital in critical condition after reportedly jumping from a moving vehicle in Flomaton Friday afternoon.
Shortly before 5 p.m., Escambia County (FL) EMS responded to the area of Flomaton Small Engines on Highway 31 near Highway 113 after the incident. The woman, believed to be in her 30’s, was transported by ambulance to the Escambia County (FL) EMS Post in Century and transferred to LifeFlight as a “trauma alert”.
The vehicle was reported to be traveling at an estimated 35 mph at the time of the incident.
Flomaton Police Chief Bryan Davis said it appeared the incident may have stemmed from a domestic dispute, but it was not immediately clear what exactly had occurred. The incident remains under investigation by the Flomaton Police Department.
Further details, including the woman’s name, have not yet been released.
NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.
Five Injured In Highway 29 Crash
September 16, 2017
Five people were injured in a two-vehicle crash Friday night near Cantonment.
The accident happened just before 7 p.m. at the intersection of Highway 29 and Old Chemstrand Road. There were seven total people involved the crash — five transported to area hospitals with minor injuries, two that refused treatment.
The accident is under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Barbour, click to enlarge.
