Hurricane Season Begins, New Graphic Introduced For 2015
June 1, 2015
With the new hurricane season today comes a new prototype storm surge watch/warning graphic from NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, intended to highlight areas along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the United States that have a significant risk of life-threatening inundation by storm surge from a tropical cyclone.
The new graphic will introduce the concept of a watch or warning specific to the storm surge hazard. Storm surge is often the greatest threat to life and property from a tropical cyclone, and it can occur at different times and at different locations from a storm’s hazardous winds. In addition, while most coastal residents can remain in their homes and be safe from a tropical cyclone’s winds, evacuations are often needed to keep people safe from storm surge. Having separate warnings for these two hazards should provide emergency managers, the media, and the general public better guidance on the hazards they face when tropical cyclones threaten.
NOAA is predicting a “below average” hurricane season for 2015. Click here for more info in an earlier story.
Mississippi Braves, Blue Wahoos Rained Out
June 1, 2015
Sunday’s doubleheader between the Mississippi Braves and the Pensacola Blue Wahoos has been canceled due to inclement weather. The games will not be made up because the two teams do not meet again during the first half of the season.
Pensacola travels to take on the Mobile BayBears beginning Monday for a five game series. The Blue Wahoos return to play the Jacksonville Suns June 6-10.
Northview High School Class Of 2015 Graduates (With Photo Gallery)
May 31, 2015
Just over 100 members of the Northview High School Class of 2015 graduated Saturday.
‘Have the courage to follow your heart in order to achieve your dreams,” said Valedictorian Kyndall Hall. “The only person that can keep you from achieving your dreams is yourself. Life isn’t about how long you live, but how you live. It is not about what you have, but how you use what you have. I pray that whatever you do with your life, you are successful with it.”
“God has a plan for each of our lives,” she said. “And to find and pursue it will mean success.
School Superintendent Malcolm Thomas praised the Class of 2015 for their numerous academic and athletic accomplishments, and for earning over a half million dollars in scholarship money.
For a complete video of the graduation ceremony, click here.
For a photo gallery, click here. (More individual diploma photos will be published this week.)
A complete list of graduates is below the bottom photo, scroll down.
Pictured top: Northview valedictorian Kyndall Hall delivers a speech to her class. Pictured below: Salutatorian Samantha Sharpless addresses the Class of 2015. Pictured bottom: The NHS Senior Ensemble. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Summa Cum Laude (4.0 GPA and above) are:
Kyndall Lauren Hall -Valedictorian
Samantha Elizabeth Sharpless – Salutatorian
Matthew Ryan Chavers
Mallory Mason Ryan
Tristan Taylor Brown
Julie Beth Hester
Jessica Leigh McCullough
Megan Paige Bryan
Austin Blake Cunningham
Aaron Thomas McDonald
Tristan Hunter Portwood
Kendal Brooke Cobb
Desiree Nicole Elliard
Kristen Renae Byrd
Magna Cum Laude graduates (3.85 or higher) are:
Kelton Joe Wooten
Charmayne Mishanna Fountain
Joshua Joseph Borelli
Kamryn Denise Brock
Hannah Elizabeth Gibson
Cum Laude (3.5 and above) graduates are:
Shania Lynn Ward
Penny Nicole Banda
Adriann Dawn Lee
Jaylen Malik Parker
Morgan Maxine Ward
Rachel Caroline Sepulveda
Rickey Heath Smith
E’layzha Rikiah Bates
Madison Ma’clay McGhee
Holly Merlice Cofield
Alphabetical
Sean Thomas Allister
Brodie Jackson Amos
Autumn Leanna Ates
Mason Dylan Baker
Chandler Lane Boies
Alexander Wesley Bradley
Tydre’ Laquan Bradley
Jessica Faye Brewton
Mark Jordan Brink
AngeliqueTatiana Brown
Ciara Ann Campbell
Jason Wade Cantrell
Lane Jarrett Carnley
Andrew Martin Clemmons
Hope Marie Coggins
Lawrence Eathan Coon
Tiffani Amber Cruce
lyanna Latice Davidson
Allyson Brianne Edwards
Kayla Marie Fears
Ray’shon Donnelle Fletcher
Kaylee Elizabeth Foster
Chasen Lee Freeman
Everette Francis Garvey
Ryder Tristen Gifford
Landon David Godwin
Jonathan Wayne Griffis
Azeen Bisheer Grissett
Austin Taylor Halfacre
Dillon Wade Hall
Courtney Danielle Hallford
Davy Scott Hanks
Elijah Chase Harbison
Ronald Nyshun Harris
Alliyiah Quarille Henderson
Trenton D’Angelo Howard
Hannah Elaine Johnson
Kadarius D’Quan Johnson
John Hunter Johnston
Justin David Kite
Kaitlyn Grace Kline
Nicholas Dewayne Lambert
Angel Nicole Lathan
Keondrae Shamar Lett
Dakota Ray Lowery
Cody Wayne Mathis
Andrea Shiyann Miles
Teamber Marie Moorer
Kayla Michelle Nahkala
Catherine McKenzie Nassar
Kenneth Erving Nelson
Cameron Rasheed Newsome
Jarred Donovan Nixon
Jeniya Charmaine Odom
Jason Kade Parham
Lakelynn Nicole Parker
Breanna Marie Payne
Courtney Paige Peebles
Emily Graye Pippins
Joseph Tanner Plant
Natassja Sam one Scott
Logan Hunter Sherouse
Zachary Samuel Sims
Anissa Shanae Smiley
Paula Lynnette Spicer
Keona Monshea Stanley
Benjamin Michael Stott
Kachanne Elaine Thomas
Cara Renea Thompson
Asja Mo’na Trotter
Brett Clayton Weeks
Erica Megan Wiggins
Kennisia Teresa Ann Williams
Natasia Nicole Williams
Takeya Monique Williams
Tristan Parker Williams
Brandon Michael Wilson
Ashley Suanne Young
First Molino Crawfish Festival Held (With Photo Gallery)
May 31, 2015
The first Molino Crawfish Festival was held Saturday. The family-oriented event included live, music games, bounce houses, and other food items — including burgers, fries and hot dogs and watermelon. And there were plenty of crawfish — over 1,500 pounds of crawfish.
Proceeds benefited the Molino Historical Society and area churches.
Photos by Michael Pevahouse and Ramona Prestion for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Spanish Tall Ship Elcano Open For Tours Today (With Photo Gallery)
May 31, 2015
Large crowds tourned the Spanish tall ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano while it was in port in Pensacola over the weekend.
The Elcano is the official training ship for the Royal Spanish Navy and entrusted with the formation and training of the Spanish Naval Midshipmen. Since 1927 the Elcano has sailed more than a million and a half nautical miles through all the seas of the world. Of the 85 cruises she has completed, 10 of them have been around the world.
Considered to be a “floating embassy,” her presence in foreign countries and ports contributes considerably to the Spanish foreign policy. Elcano Captain Enrique Torres-Piñeyro of El Ferrol, Galicia, Spain and crew will sail into Pensacola Wednesday, May 27, 2015 at 9a.m. to help honor the U.S. citizenship of General Bernardo de Galvez, a Revolutionary War hero who won the Battle of Pensacola 234 years ago in May.
Spanish commander Galvez defeated British troops in the Battle of Pensacola on May 9, 1781, reconquering West Florida for Spain and aiding the 13 American colonies in their quest for independence. Each year, Pensacola, which boasts a large population with connections to Spain, celebrates that victory. In December of 2014, the United States Congress conferred honorary citizenship on Galvez, citing him as a hero of the Revolutionary War.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Ditton Gorme, click to enlarge.
Escambia Commission Reschedules First Meeting Of June
May 31, 2015
The Escambia County Board of County Commissioners first meeting of June has been rescheduled.
The meeting has been moved from Thursday, June 4 to Tuesday, June 2. The Agenda Review meeting will be held at 9 a.m., and the regular BOCC meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the board chamber on the first floor of the Ernie Lee Magaha Government Building in downtown Pensacola.
Complete Video: Northview High School Graduation
May 31, 2015
Northview High School full graduation video is below..
In the event you do not see the video above, it is because your home, work or school firewall is blocking YouTube videos. Video courtesy Escambia County School District.
Crowden Retires From Century Health And Rehab
May 31, 2015
Mary Crowden retired Friday after 19 years of service at the Century Health and Rehabilitation Center. She worked in multiple areas during her tenure. But her best talent, according to coworkers, was taking care of loose ends, always giving 150 percent. Submitted photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Special Session Begins
May 31, 2015
After weeks — and in some ways, months — of discussion, the special legislative session to determine what to do with the budget starts Monday. Which meant everyone spent the last week getting ready for it.
The Senate was gearing up to make a last-ditch pitch for something that uses Medicaid expansion funding to give more people health care but should definitely not be called Medicaid expansion. Environmentalists planned to push once again for more money to buy land after voters passed a constitutional amendment in November aimed at conserving land and water.
But preparations were not limited to the special session. Patients needing non-euphoric medical marijuana could finally start getting ready to enjoy the benefits after a judge cleared the way for regulations governing the new industry to take effect. And it could soon be time to batten down the hatches, with hurricane season starting Monday.
We will leave it to the reader to decide whether the legislative session and hurricane season beginning on the same day is coincidence or omen.
FHIX, TAKE TWO
It’s not quite right to say that the Senate’s proposed Florida Health Insurance Affordability Exchange — or FHIX — has gone over like a lead balloon with Gov. Rick Scott and House Republicans. No one has ever declared “war” on a lead balloon, as House Appropriations Chairman Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes, famously did with regard to FHIX.
But the Senate tried Tuesday to come up with something that everyone might like better. It didn’t work.
Under the new version of the proposal, the Senate would skip an interim period in which the state would put people in Medicaid managed-care plans, a change aimed at addressing House criticism that FHIX is simply an expansion of oft-criticized Medicaid. The interim period was originally designed to provide coverage while the state waited to hear whether the federal government would approve using Medicaid-expansion funding to help lower-income Floridians purchase private health insurance.
The FHIX plan, which includes a work requirement for recipients, would depend on the state getting what is known as a waiver from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The new Senate bill would also require any “significant changes” to the waiver by federal officials to be approved by the Legislature before the plan takes effect.
“There’s no agreement on any of this,” said Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando. “I think what we’re just trying to show here in the Senate is that we’re willing to have an open mind and put forward different ideas and suggestions, and then we’ll see what happens next week.”
Saying there was no agreement was something of an understatement.
“A budget that keeps Florida’s economy growing will cut taxes and give Floridians back more of the money they earn, not inevitably raise taxes in order to implement Obamacare and grow government,” Scott said in a statement issued by his office.
House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, also slammed the proposal. He reiterated a common House talking point: The work requirements that are part of the Senate plan and give it a more conservative sheen are unlikely to be approved by federal officials.
“When you remove the Senate’s ‘conservative guardrails’ that the Obama administration fundamentally opposes, all you are left with is a costly and inefficient entitlement program to serve able-bodied working age adults with no children,” Crisafulli said.
Meanwhile, the Scott administration seemed to offer its own solution to the problem, picking up on space provided by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
In a letter last week saying the state could expect $1 billion in LIP funding, federal officials suggested the state could also use leftover local dollars that have flowed into the LIP program as matching funds to draw down other Medicaid money. Those dollars would not be a part of LIP, but could help close the shortfall.
“Thank you again for all of your assistance and work to keep Florida’s Medicaid program whole,” wrote Justin Senior, the state’s Medicaid director. “Your guidance has been essential to ensuring that there is no major fiscal impact to Florida health-care providers who support the needs of low-income families in our state.”
Gardiner, though, said in a statement issued by his office that that approach would be “shortsighted,” in part because LIP is scheduled to fall again in the 2016-17 budget year. And by the end of the week, the federal government was tamping down expectations for quick approval of that notion.
The House put its own ideas for special session health-care legislation on the table. They were different than what the Senate has in mind.
House Republicans filed six bills Wednesday that delve into hot-button issues such as getting rid of a regulatory process for new or expanded hospitals and allowing advanced-registered nurse practitioners and physician assistants to prescribe controlled substances.
The proposals are not new, with House GOP leaders also pursuing many of the ideas during this spring’s regular legislative session. The bills will again draw heavy lobbying, as they did then.
WE’VE GOT SOME LAND IN THE EVERGLADES TO SELL YOU
Environmentalists, meanwhile, continued to express optimism that they can get money from Florida lawmakers for a reservoir in the Everglades during the upcoming special legislative session, something they couldn’t do during the 60-day regular session.
Along with health care, education funding and tax cuts, how to deal with land and water conservation funding in the wake of the new constitutional amendment approved by voters is likely to be one of the major issues in the special session.
Members of the Everglades Trust, the Everglades Foundation and Florida Audubon said Wednesday they will approach the special session with a goal of securing money to build a 40,000-acre to 60,000-acre reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee. They also will seek written directions from lawmakers that the South Florida Water Management District find the needed acres and establish a timeline to build the reservoir.
“We cannot and we will not give up on the goal of buying land for a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee,” Audubon Executive Director Eric Draper said during a news conference Wednesday.
Environmentalists are seeking to divert polluted water being sent into estuaries east and west of the lake. But the special session comes after the water management district’s Governing Board voted May 14 to terminate an expiring option to purchase 46,800 acres in the Everglades from U.S. Sugar Corp.
Draper said funding efforts during the regular session failed because proponents were focused on completing the U.S. Sugar deal.
“I think with that off the table we have a new situation, and we even have some indications that people from the business side of things, from the sugar farmers, are open to the idea that something more needs to be done in the Everglades Agricultural Area,” Draper said.
The U.S. Sugar land was estimated to cost as much as $500 million, a price tag that far exceeded the proposed spending levels lawmakers put forward in the regular session for land acquisition under the voter-approved initiative known as Amendment 1. That initiative requires the state to set aside increased amounts of money for land and water management and acquisition.
Land buying wasn’t a priority for Republican legislative leaders during the regular session. The House proposed selling $205 million in bonds for the Florida Forever program, with about half of the money going toward water resources, the state’s natural springs, Kissimmee River restoration, and ranchland preservation.
The Senate offered $37 million for land acquisition, which included Kissimmee River restoration and springs preservation.
‘WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO HATCH’
After months and months of regulatory gridlock, patients could have access to long-awaited, non-euphoric pot products by the end of the year. A judge on Wednesday rejected a challenge to a proposed rule setting up the medical marijuana industry in Florida.
Department of Health officials could begin processing applications for the low-THC cannabis within 41 days of Wednesday’s decision by Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins, according to an agency spokeswoman.
Watkins pointedly began his 68-page ruling with an excerpt from “Charlotte’s Web,” by E.B. White.
“Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or hatch,” Watkins quoted from the children’s book.
The name “Charlotte’s Web,” a type of cannabis cultivated in Colorado, has become nearly synonymous with marijuana that is low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and high in cannabadiol, or CBD.
Parents of children with a severe form of epilepsy pushed the Legislature last year to approve the low-THC cannabis, believing it can end or dramatically reduce life-threatening seizures.
But their joy over the passage the law, and Scott’s support of it, ceded to frustration as delays — including Watkins’ November invalidation of health officials’ initial attempt at a rule — kept pot operators from getting started. Regulations for the industry were supposed to go into effect Jan. 1.
On Wednesday, the administrative law judge rejected all of the objections in a challenge filed by Baywood Nurseries, which contended, among other things, that the rule was tilted in favor of large nurseries.
“I am thrilled. I am one happy legislator,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican who was instrumental in the law’s passage last year. “My only hope moving forward is that we don’t see more special-interest litigation when licenses are awarded.”
STORY OF THE WEEK: Senate leaders revised their plan to use Medicaid expansion money to help lower-income Floridians purchase private health insurance, but the measure was quickly rejected by Gov. Rick Scott and House Republican leaders.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “We don’t know whether to laugh, cry, dance, or do back flips. There were times over the past year we truly didn’t believe this day would ever come.” said Ryan Wiggins, spokeswoman for Payton and Holley Moseley, who advocated for the legalization of “Charlotte’s Web” on behalf of their daughter RayAnn, after a ruling allowing the law to go forward.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Byrneville Resident Critically Injured In Dog Attack
May 30, 2015
A Byrneville resident was airlifted to a Pensacola hospital in critical condition Friday night after being bitten by their dog.
The incident happened about 8:45 p.m. on Raines Road. The 50-year old victim was reportedly attacked by their own dog, an English Mastiff, and suffered serious wounds to their arms and abdomen.
Further details have not been released.
An English Mastiff is a very large breed of dog, with mature males weighting between 150 and 240 pounds.