Wahoos Lose To Jackson
August 30, 2015
Pensacola managed three hits Saturday and dropped the second game of the five-game series against Jackson, 4-0, at The Ballpark in Jackson.
After five Blue Wahoos recorded multi-hit games and the club pounded out 11 hits in the opener, the General’s Misael Siverio gave up a season-best one hit in six innings of work and struck out five to improve to 5-11 on the year.
The Pensacola loss and Mississippi victory means the Blue Wahoos lead over the Braves fell to half a game in the South Division with eight to play. Pensacola moved to 35-27 in the second half of the Southern League, while Mississippi improved to 34-27.
The Blue Wahoos are trying to make the postseason for the first time since the team began in 2012. It would be the first time a Cincinnati Reds Double-A affiliate has been in the playoffs since Chattanooga in 2006 — the longest drought of any Southern League affiliate. Chattanooga lost to Huntsville in the first round.
In the eighth inning, Jackson added an insurance run to go up, 4-0, when first baseman John Lara singled to left field to score DH Guillermo Pimental from third.
Generals left fielder Jabari Henry hit a two-run homer, his ninth of the season, to left center field in the fifth inning that put Jackson ahead, 3-0.
Jackson got its first run in the fourth when Lara doubled in shortstop Tyler Smith.
After four bad starts in a row in which he failed to pitch five innings, Pensacola starter Sal Romano had a strong outing, allowing five hits in six innings, walking one and striking out two. Part of the problem was he had walked 10 batters in 12 innings. However, Romano earned the loss against Jackson and is 0-4 since moving up to Double-A Pensacola.
Pensacola right fielder Jesse Winker went 1-4, hitting safely in six straight games. But he got tossed from the game in his last at bat arguing a strike out call. Winker has hit in 20 of his 25 games this month and is batting .368 (32-87) in August and .313 in the second half.
The Blue Wahoos two other hits came when third baseman Mejias-Brean doubled in two at bats and second baseman Ryan Wright, who was 1-4, singled in the ninth inning.
Tropical Storm Erika Has Dissipated
August 29, 2015
As of 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Tropical Storm Erika has dissipated with winds of 35 miles per hour.
However, the National Hurricane Center says people in the Bahamas, eastern and central Cuba and southern Florida should monitor the remnants of Erika. The remnants are expected to move near the coast of eastern and central Cuba today and tonight and into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Sunday.
10th Anniversary: Remembering Katrina
August 29, 2015
On the Monday morning of Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on the Mississippi and Louisiana coastlines with winds topping out at a devastating 155 mph.
Many residents had either evacuated the coastal zone or were hunkered down ahead of the strong Category 5 storm.
Some hurricane-hardened folks, however, stayed in their homes lulled into thinking Katrina would not be that bad as it began weakening – its winds dropping slightly as it approached the coast from 175 mph just 24 hours earlier.
Darrell Herron, a Power System coordinator Sr. and his family, living on an inlet about three miles north of the Biloxi waterfront a decade ago, were among them. He and his wife Lori (pictured before Katrina) had survived a number of hurricanes unscathed through the years including Hurricane Camille’s wrath in 1969, which devastated the Mississippi coast with a 24.6 foot-storm surge and the highest hurricane wind speeds ever recorded, at 190 mph.
As Katrina spun closer, the Herrons, including their 16-year-old son, Darrell Jr., were cooking breakfast and watching storm news on TV and the approaching weather from their waterfront porch. They were feeling confident in the safety of their new home, built two years earlier on a mound of dirt at Camille’s storm surge level and upgraded to exceed hurricane codes.
All along the Mississippi Coast hundreds of people, like the Herron family, would soon be caught off guard by Katrina and find themselves fighting for their lives and realizing that you can never underestimate a hurricane.
“You never know what a storm has in it, until it gets to you,” said Darrell, while sitting in the Pensacola home he moved into a year ago when he transferred from Mississippi Power to Gulf Power.
No two alike
“The property we lived on was the same piece of property my wife’s grandmother and her mother was born on,” he said. “They had known what the water had done since the 1940s. We had built to the Camille storm-surge level. That was the benchmark, the highest water level ever. We didn’t think we’d ever have another Camille.”
They had made all the routine preparations for Katrina, and then some. Windows were covered in plywood. Vehicles moved into the garage or on the highest ground. Extra food and generator fuel to last days and even share with family and neighbors who might become displaced by the hurricane was stockpiled.
“We made coffee, talked and thought we’re just going to ride it out,” Darrell said.
They were not even alarmed by the choppy bay water slowly creeping up to their house as Katrina’s eye approached Pass Christian, Miss., pushing a storm surge inland for miles.
“When the hot tub busted through the French doors, we knew things were getting bad,” Darrell said. “My wife said, ‘It’s time to get into the attic.’ Things were floating around the house. We didn’t want to get hurt.”
Even as they climbed into the dark attic with their Boston terrier, Baby, they were thinking they’d be climbing back out soon and mopping up water and drying out their belongings.
“Storms don’t last long. We’ve been through this before,” said Darrell, recalling their train of thought that morning.
They had no clue they’d feel Katrina’s lashing for nearly 10 hours.
“The wind was getting worse. Friends and family started calling us checking on us and telling us to get out,” Darrell said. “Once there was two feet of water in the house that meant the water was 16 to 17 feet deep in the yard. There was no way we could leave.”
He stopped taking calls about 9:30 a.m. that morning to conserve his cell phone battery. The power was out by this time and the only light shown dimly through the attic stairway opening.
“My wife is crying; my son is upset. They’re scared and shocked,” said Darrell, looking down as if the memory was painful to recall.
Fighting for their lives
Then over the constant roar of Katrina’s winds, they heard something even louder. Suddenly, it seemed like the air around them was sucked out through the roof soffits and insulation swirled around them like snow in a blizzard.
A tornado was pulling the roof apart.
“I hollered, ‘Head for the light!’ We needed to get out of there. The light was the roof coming apart,” Herron said.
In a split second, their security vanished when the roof disappeared and they landed in the deep, choppy, debris-filled water in the middle of the hurricane. Darrell and his son found temporary footing on what would turn out to be a piece of the roof that peeled off.
“My son said, ‘I can’t find Mom.’ We started hollering for her. Then her foot popped through the water, trash and debris. My son just grabbed it and pulled her up.”
The memory of that moment is still hard for Lori to recall.
“When I was under the water, I was face up under something very large,” said Lori, a first-grade teacher at Global Learning Center. “I remember trying to push up and turn over. Nothing worked. I remember thinking I’m 37 years old and not ready to die. I wasn’t through living. I remember being more scared than I have ever been in my life.”
The dazed family went into survival mode. All they could see through the sheeting rain was choppy, wind-blown water in every direction. They treaded in water at least 21 feet deep. Seeing the metal roof from the work shed, they swam toward it. When it quickly slipped away in the water, the family swam to two nearby gum trees on which they clung for hours. Later they discovered one of Lori’s toes was nearly severed off, likely from running across the shed’s metal roof.
They felt lucky they were not killed in the ordeal. Darrell and Lori were in a tree about eight feet away from the tree Darrell Jr. wrapped himself around while Katrina’s deafening winds whipped debris around them.
“When we were sitting in the trees, all kinds of things – two-by-fours, anything floating – got picked up and flung by the wind. To keep from getting beaten to death, I tried to get Lori and Darrell Jr. to stay as close to the water as possible. The wind was blowing so hard, my son’s tank top was ripped off. Nothing was left but the strings around his arms where he was hanging on the tree.”
“At one time I heard my son scream,” Darrell said. “A piece of old, blue house foam about the size of a golf ball hit his back leaving a big whelp.”
As they fought to hang onto the trees, Darrell Jr. kept calling out to his dad, asking if he was all right.
“He kept hollering at me. ‘Are you all right?’ I hollered out, ‘I’m all right, son. Are you?’ He said, ‘I’m all right,’” Darrell said. “That’s when I had realized something was wrong with me.”
About that time, Darrell wiped his face and saw blood covering his hand.
“I looked down and saw blood dripping off the bottom of my shorts,” he said. “I felt around and put my hand on top of my head and felt my scalp rolled back. That’s what my son had been seeing; a big hunk of meat hanging off of my head.”
Even though he does not remember what happened, he suspects he scraped his head running out of the attic.
Worried he might lose too much blood and pass out; Darrell made the difficult decision to try to swim for a boat floating about 50 yards way on the edge of his property. It was a friend’s boat he was storing and had life jackets they could wear to possibly swim to his cabin-cruiser that was battered and damaged but still floating in the bay and tied with one line, about 80 yards away.
He swam through the debris, climbed into the friend’s boat and grabbed life jackets. Jumped back into the choppy water and swam back to his family in the trees.
“I just about had to drag Lori out of the trees because she was so scared,” he said.
Secured in life jackets, the family carefully made their way to a bigger boat where they could take refuge in the cabin, and find dry clothes and other supplies to hold them over until they could be rescued.
Once inside the cabin and as the hurricane continued to batter the area, the family did what they could for their injuries – Darrell’s head gash and a gash on Lori’s leg and her near severed pinky toe.
Waiting to be rescued
Even in the worse of situations, Darrell found a little levity.
“When we were sitting in the boat salon, my wife is laid up on the couch; her foot is bleeding and wrapped in the towel. My son is sitting quietly at the dinette table. Our dog is gone,” Darrell said. “I say to my wife, ‘Babe, we may have chosen poorly. We had a $25,000 boat and $600,000 house. We’re on the boat now.”
Around 3:30 p.m., nearly five hours since they were blown out of their attic, Lori kept saying she heard someone outside of the boat. Darrell assured her no one was there; she was just hearing the wind.
He finally decided to kick open the cabin door and ventured back out into the storm to check. There in the blinding wind and rain, he saw his brothers, Dwain and Carsten, waving and hollering at them from a 15-foot aluminum, bass boat bouncing on the waves.
The brothers had spent hours looking for a boat in which to search for their family.
“They came looking for us, thinking we’d be in the attic,” Darrell said. “They had chain saws and axes. They didn’t anticipate the house would be gone.”
Darrell and his family climbed into the 15-foot boat and were ferried to dry land and quickly taken to Ocean Springs Hospital, navigating around roads blocked by debris and National Guard troops. They were among the first injured to arrive at the hospital around 5 p.m.
Darrell and is son were treated and released. Though Lori initially was released from the Ocean Springs hospital, she ended up hospitalized for two weeks in a Georgia hospital when her wounds became infected.
After sending his family to stay with relatives, Darrell, with the help of his other family members began picking through the remnants of their home and searching debris piles for belongings.
All that remained of the house was part of the fireplace hearth, the slab and a single toilet. He did find his and Lori’s wedding rings and few pots and pans. He was able to retrieve still cold food out of his refrigerator he found stuck in debris yards from his home.
Lori’s greatest regret was not removing family treasures out of the house before the storm.
“Take everything that can be replaced with you, like baby books, pictures, mementos from your children’s childhood, things your parents and grandparents had given you and so on. The list is endless. I will always regret not putting those things in a safe place.”
They were however blessed with finding one precious item, by a stroke of luck, a few days after the storm passed. A neighbor showed up carrying a dog covered in mud that she had found in a debris pile.
“It was Baby,” Darrell said. “She was dazed, traumatized and dehydrated.”
Looking back, Darrell said if he could do anything differently, “Naturally, I would not have wanted my wife and child or dog there.”
He urges others to not underestimate any hurricane, saying, “Evacuate.”
Friday Night Football Finals
August 29, 2015
Here is a look at final scores from Friday night’s high school football games:
FLORIDA
- Crestview 47, Northview 20 [More...]
- Tate 38, Biloxi 7 [More...]
- Flomaton 55, Jay 26 [More...]
- Escambia 16, West Florida 7
- Choctaw 48, Gulf Breeze 32
- Navarre 57, Catholic 14
- Milton 20, Washington 14 OT
- Pine Forest 41, PHS 30
- Pace 49, Fort Walton 28
- Baker 26, Holmes County 14
ALABAMA
- Flomaton 55, Jay 26 [More...]
- W.S. Neal 42. Escambia County (Atmore) 14
- T.R. Miller 17, Tallassee 14
- Autauga Academy 28, Escambia Academy 18
Escambia Man Convicted Of Shooting Jogger In The Face
August 29, 2015
An Escambia County man has been convicted of shooting a jogger in the face last year.
Roosevelt Bonner, Jr., was convicted by an Escambia County Jury of attempted first degree premeditated murder and aggravated battery.
On August 22, 2014 the victim was jogging on Avery Street when he was approached by Bonner, who asked the victim a question. The victim did not understand what Bonner was asking so he kept jogging. The victim is Vietnamese and does not speak English. A few blocks down the road, Bonner approached the victim once again, pointing a gun to his face and firing one shot in the victim’s cheek. Bonner was located by law enforcement the next day at the Kangaroo Express on Mobile Highway. Located in the bathroom trash can was a .32 caliber handgun. DNA testing revealed Bonner’s DNA on the pistol. Ballistic testing matched that firearm to the casing recovered at the scene of the crime. Three days after the shooting, the victim identified Bonner in a photo lineup.
Circuit Judge Ross Goodman scheduled sentencing for October 1. Bonner has four prior felony convictions and was released from prison on April 1, 2012. The State will request that Bonner be sentenced as a prison releasee reoffender. Bonner faces up to life in state prison with a minimum mandatory sentence of 25 years.
Tate Opens Season With New Coach, Big Win Over Biloxi
August 29, 2015
New Tate High School football coach Jay Lindsey opened his career with the Aggies with a big 38-7 win over Biloxi.
The Aggies took the lead at Pete Gindl Stadium in Cantonment with 9:41 on the clock in the first on a 33-yard pass from Sawyer Smith to Reginald Payne. With a good kick from Evan Legassey, the Aggies were up 7-0. The Aggies struck again on a 24-yard run from Jack Henry with 6:47 to go in the first quarter. Then, with 2:46 to go in the first, Tate scored on a 2-yard quarterback keeper from Smith, 21-0. By halftime, the Aggies were up 24-0 with a second quarter 37-yard field goal from Legassey.
With 1:32 to go in the third, Alondo Thompkins added a 58-yard touchdown run.
The Tate Aggies will be at West Florida High next Friday night at 7:00.
Look for an upcoming gallery with more photos on NorthEscambia.com.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Jennifer Repine, click to enlarge.
6A Bulldogs Top The 1A Northview Chiefs
August 29, 2015
The 6A Crestview Bulldogs defeated the 1A Northview Chiefs 47-20 Friday night in Crestview.
Luke Ward added the first points on the night for the Chiefs on a 23-yard touchdown run. He scored again on an 80-yard run and on a 47-yard pass from quarterback Gavin Grant.
The Chiefs will sit out next Friday night as their only open date of the season. On September 11, the Northview Chiefs will host the 6A Gulf Breeze Dolphins at Tommy Weaver Memorial Stadium in Bratt.
Look for an upcoming photo gallery with more pictures.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Gary Amerson, click to enlarge.
Flomaton Tops Jay
August 29, 2015
In their second week of play, the Flomaton Hurricanes spoiled the regular season opener for the Jay Royals 55-26 Friday night in Flomaton.
At the end of the first quarter, the Canes and Royals were tied at 13-13, but the Canes took the lead to never look back.
Flomaton (2-0) will travel to Chatom, AL, next Friday night to take on Washington County, while the Royals will host Resurrection Catholic from Pascagoula, MS.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Michele Gibbs, click to enlarge.
Wahoos Beat Generals
August 29, 2015
Pensacola right-hander Daniel Wright blanked Jackson on one hit through eight innings and the Blue Wahoos stayed on top of the South Division with nine game left in the season.
Wright end up lasting a season-high 8.1 innings and gave up one run on three hits as Pensacola defeated the Generals, 7-1, in the series opener Friday at The Ballpark at Jackson. Wright’s record improved to 10-10 with a 4.50 ERA this year.
Pensacola moved to 35-26 in the second half of the Southern League and remained in sole possession of first place 1.5 games ahead of Mississippi with nine games to play. The Braves also defeated Biloxi, 7-1, to move to 33-27.
Pensacola left fielder Jesse Winker was 2-4 with a double and two RBIs. He has hit in 19 of his 24 games this month. He is hitting .373 (31-83) in August and .316 in the second half.
The Cincinnati Reds top prospect currently holds the Pensacola Triple Crown, leading the team with 13 home runs, 55 RBIs and a .280 batting average.
Pensacola, which smacked 11 hits in the game, had four other players with multi-hit games, including shortstop Alex Blandino (2-5 with one RBI), center fielder Beau Amaral (2-4, two runs scored, one RBI), DH Juan Duran (2-5 with a run scored), and third baseman Seth Mejias-Brean (2-5 with a run scored).
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Looking For A Direction
August 29, 2015
The leaders of Florida spent the week looking for directions, and maps didn’t turn out to be much help.
In the case of the state’s ongoing congressional redistricting saga, lawmakers and a Leon County judge were looking for directions from the Florida Supreme Court — and there was no map to follow, because there is no congressional map at all. There also appears to be no roadmap for how to extract the state from the increasingly intricate web of lawsuits, special sessions and political battles sparked by the anti-gerrymandering “Fair Districts” standards.
Meanwhile, Floridians were keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Erika, though in that case the directions and the map kept changing. At one point, the looming storm was going to plow into the eastern part of the state. Then, it was going to strike just a glancing blow to the east coast. And finally, it looked like it would bear down on the southwestern corner of Florida before moving northward across the state.
By the end of the week, it appeared that the threat to people from Erika was still severe, but less so than it seemed days earlier. But bears might still need an evacuation route, as a controversial hunt for the animals looked more and more ominous. At least, for bears.
WHAT NOW?
The House-Senate standoff on congressional redistricting that ended a special session aimed at resolving the issue showed no signs of dying down by the end of the week, and Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis decided he wasn’t going to try to work through the thicket himself.
Instead, Lewis told the two sides at a hearing, he would ask the Florida Supreme Court what to do about it.
“I just don’t feel that I have any authority to do anything other than to report the situation,” Lewis said.
It was, after all, the Supreme Court that struck down eight of Florida’s 27 congressional districts in July, arguing that they violated the Fair Districts amendments that voters approved in 2010. That led to a special session of the Legislature that collapsed in acrimony between the two chambers, and the unusual position Lewis found himself in.
While they couldn’t agree on the reasons for it, both the House and the Senate support Lewis choosing between competing plans from the Legislature, the voting-rights groups that initially challenged the lines or perhaps a map that Lewis himself would craft. But the voting-rights organization called for the Supreme Court to step in.
Lawyers for the League of Women Voters and Common Cause Florida said the 2016 congressional elections are coming up quickly, and the justices should go ahead and take over the case amid the squabbling.
“Faced with the Legislature’s disregard of its mandate, this court should promptly adopt a remedial plan,” the filing said.
Looking to avoid that, the Senate tried to come up with a compromise this week between its own map and the “base map” drawn by legislative aides and favored by the House.
Senate Reapportionment Chairman Bill Galvano released a new draft of congressional lines that largely abandoned the upper chamber’s earlier drive to consolidate eastern Hillsborough County into one district.
The map would put Sarasota County in one district — another goal of the Senate — by splitting it off from Manatee County, which would be pushed into a district with parts of Hillsborough County. As a result, Hillsborough would comprise a greater share of District 16 than it would under a plan supported by the House, potentially representing at least a partial victory for Sen. Tom Lee, a Brandon Republican who had pushed for the county’s eastern side to be consolidated.
But in the process, a largely rural congressional district in the center of the state currently represented by Republican Congressman Tom Rooney would be “pulled apart at the seams,” Rooney said. Meanwhile, the incumbent’s home town of Okeechobee would shift into a reliably Democratic district that stretches northward to Orange County.
“It is my hope that this map is something that my…fellow legislators, in both chambers, can support as a compromise, and that we can fulfill our obligation to adopt a congressional reapportionment plan,” wrote Galvano, R-Bradenton, in a memo to senators.
On Friday, the House essentially said thanks, but no thanks.
“It is unfortunate that the Senate did not accept the House’s concerns during the special session; if the Senate had offered an amendment like the map filed by Chairman Galvano (Thursday) afternoon, that map would have been given serious consideration,” wrote House Redistricting Chairma Jose Oliva, R-Miami Lakes.
Undeterred, Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, sent a letter to House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, asking for a meeting that would also include Oliva and Galvano. But there were few signs of that, and by the close of business on Friday, the Supreme Court hadn’t broken its silence.
A FAIR FIGHT?
There might be a mismatch this October in the wilds of Florida. After all, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will be asked next week to set a quota of 320 bears for a controversial hunt in October.
But the possibility of a hunt, the first in the state in more than 20 years, has already attracted 1,795 hunters who have purchased permits, according to the commission.
The hunt is intended to help the state achieve a 20 percent reduction in the bear population in each region. The 20 percent figure includes the number of bears that die naturally, are hit and killed by cars and are captured and killed by wildlife officers due to conflicts.
One of the people making the decision will be relatively new to the commission. Gov. Rick Scott named the president of a Key West real-estate development company to the panel, replacing the former chairman who announced last week he is stepping down after 12 years on the board.
The appointment late Friday of Robert Spottswood by Scott came three days after Richard Corbett, whose term on the board was scheduled to expire in January 2018, submitted his resignation to Scott.
Corbett, a Tampa resident who has been on the commission since February 2003 and was named chairman in June 2013, didn’t state a reason for his decision in a letter to Scott, instead praising staff and the governor’s approach to conservation.
“I am confident you will continue this positive trend and select a candidate that will carry forward the energy and enthusiasm for Florida’s fish and wildlife resources, while being mindful of the strong relationship between the stewardship of these resources and their importance to our economy and quality of life in Florida,” wrote Corbett.
Scott expressed confidence in Spottswood, who created Spottswood Companies.
“As a sixth generation Floridian from the Keys, I know Robert cares deeply about our beautiful state and preserving Florida as the fishing capital of the world,” Scott said in the release.
This is the third time that Spottswood has received an appointment from Scott, following a seat on the governor’s Commission on Healthcare and Hospital Funding and a spot on the 3rd District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission.
Spottswood donated $10,000 on Sept. 30, 2013, to “Let’s Get to Work,” a political organization that has played a key role backing Scott.
DODGING A BULLET?
Late this week, Floridians were eying Erika and trying to figure out where she would make landfall and how strong she would be at the time. Forecasts of the state’s first direct hit from a hurricane in a decade appeared to be dying down, with Erika more likely to be a tropical storm or a depression during her time in Florida.
Still, Gov. Rick Scott on Friday declared a state of emergency for the entire state. The executive order pointed to updated forecasts from the National Hurricane Center indicating the storm likely will “travel up the spine of Florida’s peninsula.”
The declaration has a number of effects, such as triggering arrangements in which Florida can seek assistance from other states and the federal government. Also, Scott ordered Adjutant Gen. Michael Calhoun to activate the Florida National Guard for the duration of the emergency.
The governor and other state officials urged Floridians on Thursday to begin preparing for a major storm.
“A lot of times it’s not the storm that causes the problem,” Scott said.”It’s the aftermath because as individuals we didn’t get prepared. So, each of us has to take the responsibility to get prepared.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: The House and Senate standoff over congressional redistricting spilled over into the courts after a special session on the issue collapsed last week.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “The soft scent of mentholated dry mango swirls around the tongue, punctuated by the flavor of overripe peaches. Exhaling Harlequin produces a dense fog of sweet incense, with a soothing, soft and spicy sandalwood scent.”—An explanation of a product from Winter Garden-based Razbuton, which is seeking to become one of the fortunate five granted “dispensing organization” licenses to grow, process and distribute non-euphoric medicinal marijuana authorized by Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature last year. Smoking of the low-THC products is prohibited by the Florida law.