Man Busted After Labor Day Convenience Store Robbery
September 6, 2011
An Atmore man is charged with the Labor Day robbery of a local convenience store.
Atmore Police say Byron Gray, 33, entered the Fast Lane # 2 (formerly Mom & Pops) on South Main Street about 12:40 Monday afternoon armed with weapon. They say he reached over the counter and took an undisclosed amount of cash from the store clerk, who was not injured.
Gray fled the store north on Main Street in a Dodge Intrepid. He wrecked the vehicle in downtown Atmore at Main and Church streets, running up on a sidewalk and hitting a trash can. He fled on foot, but was captured after a short foot pursuit by police.
The cash and a knife were recovered on Gray’s person at the time of the arrest, Atmore Police said. He was booked into the Escambia County Detention Center in Brewton on a charge of first degree robbery.
Cantonment Woman Charged After Hitting School Bus
September 6, 2011
A Cantonment woman was charged with careless driving after rear-ending a loaded school bus this morning.
Cheaki Larkins, 22, was following a Pensacola Christian Academy bus on Chemstrand Road when the bus driven by 46-year old Laurie Vincent of Cantonment stopped to pick up a passenger at Crooked Oak Drive. Larkins failed to stop for the bus and collided with it, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Vincent and the 29 passengers on the bus were not injured, and the bus sustained on minor damage. Larkins and her passenger, 6-year old Robert Brooks were also uninjured.
Larkins was charged with careless driving and no proof of insurance, according to the FHP.
Powered Restored To All Gulf Power Customers
September 6, 2011
According to Gulf Power, power was restored to all customers as of 5 p.m. Tuesday.
About 1,100 Gulf Power customers were still without power at of 7:00 Tuesday morning, mostly in North Escambia.
Gulf Power Company crews worked through the night to restore power to more than 20,000 customers across Northwest Florida after heavy winds from Tropical Storm Lee battered the area all day long.
The utility responded to most of the outages with its own crews over the weekend, but crews from Mississippi Power as well as contractors from Chipley are also helped.
Lights Out For Lee; Little Damage Reported
September 6, 2011
Tropical Storm Lee wasn’t much more than a nuisance in North Escambia, while the southern part of the county did see damage.
Wind And Rain
Most of northern Escambia and Santa Rosa counties received about six inches of rain or less over the Labor Day weekend, causing very few problems. Strong wind gusts were reported Monday afternoon as the center of the remains of Lee moved closer to North Escambia. A wind gust of 48 mph was recorded in Walnut Hill at 12:09 p.m., while a wind gust of 57 mph was recorded in Jay at 12:16 Monday afternoon. The highest official wind gust on Dauphin Island, Alabama, was 55 mph at 7:13 Monday morning.
There were several tornado warnings issued for the area, but no actual twisters spotted.
Local Damage
The only damage reported in North Escambia or northern Santa Rosa County was minor — mostly downed trees, tree limbs and power lines. There were no reports received of structural damage.
Power Outages
Over 10,000 Gulf Power customers in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties lost power at some part of the day Monday as Lee moved through the area At 7 p.m. Monday, 7,000 in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties were still in the dark. By 6 a.m. Tuesday, that number was down to about 1,100 without power, mostly in North Escambia. Gulf Power said all customers were restored by 5 p.m. (Read more…)
Escambia River Electric Cooperative reported power was restored to all of their customers before 10 p.m. Monday.
Escambia County Fire Rescue responded to over a dozen calls of downed power lines, some arcing or sparking, during the day on Monday. There were no injuries reported as a result of the downed power lines.
An unknown number of Escambia River Electric Cooperative customers also lost power during the high winds.
Crews were expected to have the power restored to all customers by this morning.
Escambia And Santa Rosa Damage
On Innerarity Point, an apparent tornado destroyed one home and about a half dozen others were damaged in the early morning hours Sunday. Numerous trees were downed, and a sailboat was flipped upside down. Just minutes earlier, the same apparent tornado damaged about 20 homes in Lillian, Ala.
Two businesses received broken windows on Perdido Key Sunday morning, and a house was damaged by a possible tornado.
Trees and power lines were reported downed across Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. There was no other damage in Santa Rosa County reported to the National Weather Service.
For a photo gallery from Pensacola Beach on Saturday, click here.
Pictured top: Heavy surf Saturday at Pensacola Beach. Pictured inset: A large tree limb downed on Highway 97 in Davisville. NorthEscambia.com file photos, click to enlarge.
District Attorney’s Office Employee Charged With Theft, Forgery
September 6, 2011
A former employee of the Escambia County (Ala.) District Attorney’s Office has been charged with stealing from her employer.
Monica Lynn Watson was indicted on two counts of theft of property, three counts of forgery and one count of using her official position for personal gain.
Watson was accused of mishandling checks in the DA’s Worthless Check Unit for personal gain, then filing motions to dismiss with the court in connection with the bad check cases.
She was released from the Escambia County Detention Center in Brewton on a $100,000 bond.
New Playground For Bradberry Park In Walnut Hill
September 6, 2011
Escambia County Parks and Recreation recently completed installation on a new playground at Bradberry Park in Walnut Hill. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Weekend In Photos
September 6, 2011
From tropical weather to football and much more in between, NorthEscambia.com had the photos from across the area. Click an item below to read the story and see the photo gallery.
Bratt, Molino Park, Jim Allen Open Houses This Week
September 6, 2011
It’s time for parents to meet their child’s teacher in North Escambia, with three schools having open houses on Thursday night.
- Bratt — September 8, 6:30 p.m.
- Jim Allen — September 8, 6-7 p.m.
- Molino Park — September 8, 6:30 p.m.
For more information, contact your child’s school.
ECUA’s Cantonment Wastewater Facility In Operation For A Year
September 6, 2011
The $320 million Emerald Coast Utilities Authority’s Central Water Reclamation Facility in Cantonment has now been in operation for a year.
Six years after Hurricane Ivan’s devastating impact on Northwest Florida and the ECUA’s Main Street Wastewater Treatment Plant in downtown Pensacola, the new CWRF in Cantonment began accepting minimal wastewater flows on August 30, 2010.
A dedication and symbolic turning of a valve took place on December 2, 2010, marking the completion of the largest public works project in the history of Escambia County. The Main Street plant ceased operations on April 28, 2011, marking the day when all of ECUA’s wastewater was processed in Cantonment.
The Cantonment plant sits on 2,000 acres of land adjacent to Ascend Performance Materials (formerly Solutia) on Old Chemstrand Road. A full 15 miles north of the existing Main Street Treatment Plant, the facility is well above the flood plain and is built to resist hurricane-force winds. Redundant power and storage systems help to ensure that the facility can remain operational during conditions that crippled the Main Street plant during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
The plant uses a highly developed biological treatment and disinfection process to clean water and provide up to 17 million gallons a day of reclaimed water to Gulf Power’s Crist Plant and up to six million gallons a day of reclaimed water to International Paper.
The CWRF has been honored as a top three finalist for the 2011 Global Water Reuse Project of the Year by Global Water Intelligence.
Pictured: The Central Water Reclamation Facility in Cantonment. Submitted file photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
DJJ Wants Shorter Jail Time For Juvenile Offenders
September 6, 2011
The Department of Juvenile Justice could likely make procedure changes that would allow it to reduce the average length of time youths are locked up in detention by a week on average and save the state more than $4.6 million and reduce beds by 120, according to a new report by a Senate committee.
The agency could make bigger reductions in the average length of stay if lawmakers were willing to change the law to give the agency the ability to release kids who have completed requirements of their program without first getting approval from a judge, notes the interim report, released Thursday by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
The committee looked at outside reports by Florida TaxWatch the Southern Poverty Law Center, which said earlier this year that Florida keeps juvenile offenders locked up longer than other states with no corresponding benefit – and in fact may actually increase the chances that kids will commit crimes again by keeping them long after they should have been released.
The committee was charged with trying to reconcile the outside recommendations with opinions about their feasibility for implementation inside the agency and found general agreement in DJJ that the length of stay for many juveniles should be reduced.
“The DJJ supports the Florida TaxWatch/(Southern Poverty Law Center) recommendations to modify the length of stay, especially based upon current research indicating that longer stays in juvenile facilities do not appear to reduce offending and for low-risk offenders, institutional placement increases recidivism,” the report said. “In addition, longer lengths of stay produce little or no marginal benefit and there is no marginal gain from residential placement in terms of averting future offending.”
While the DJJ is proposing that lawmakers remove the requirement that a judge sign off on the department’s release of juveniles who have completed their required program, the committee staff didn’t make any recommendations to lawmakers on the question. Interim reports, however, often form the basis for committee legislation.
By The News Service of Florida