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Chattanooga Housing Study 2013

March 6, 2013 By Paige Pertuit Leave a Comment

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (UTC/The Loop) According to Chattanooga Housing Study of 2013 there are three factors that are changing housing needs for citizens of Chattanooga. It includes a combination of the Great Recession, extreme changes in household type over the past few decades and the growing influence the Baby Boomers and Generation Y.

The Great Recession has had a major impact on “the financial capacity of households to obtain affordable housing: nationally family net worth actually declined 40% between 2007 and 2010,” said Regional Planning Agency in their report. Between 2000 and 2010 family incomes increased at only half the rate of housing expenses.

Although Chattanooga’s housing plan puts detached single-family houses as their primary housing choice option, the Baby Boomers and Generation Y represent over 60% of the population presenting a higher demand for apartments and smaller homes.

“It’s kind of hard trying to find affordable rent. With the waiting list being closed it was very hard from a whole bunch of Harriet Tubman, people that were living out there, because we were looking for a very long time,” says Corchea Stamper, a former resident of the closed down Harriet Tubman homes pictured above.

Chattanooga has a decreasing amount of undeveloped subdivision lots, but also has a large number of vacant lots scattered around the City. “However,” said the Housing Study, “many of these lots are located in neighborhoods that will require revitalization intervention activity to make them attractive for redevelopment.”

Although housing affordability has an impact on all income levels, it is more of a struggle among those with lower incomes.

“More than 37,000 households in Chattanooga make less than $35,000 a year,” said Yuen Lee, RPA director of information and research. In attempt to aide these people Chattanooga Housing Authority recently issued 100 housing vouchers to those in need of a home, but there are still about 5,000 on the waiting list.

“Sixty or 70 percent of households that make less than $30,000 are spending more than 30 percent on housing, which is considered, that’s over what’s recommended nationally,” said Chattanooga Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency Executive Director John Bridger.

John Bridger, head of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Authority.

City Council Chair Pam Ladd said, “You’ve got to make sure the housing that we have for low income has all the other elements of success: transportation, grocery stores, schools. It’s got to be a tighter environment.”

In regards to the Chattanooga Housing Study, Councilman Peter Murphy said ”I know that there are great needs out there that can be addressed. This will help us identify those and proceed intelligently.”

WRBC quoted Betsy McCright, Executive Director of the Chattanooga Housing Authority saying “Many, many, many of our residents are working people. They’re serving you in the restaurant you go to, they’re cleaning up when you leave a hotel. They’re good people and they have the same desires as non low income people, to have a place to raise your family, get your kids a good education and just have a home you can be proud of,” said McCright.

Filed Under: Featured, Uncategorized

Charlie Sheen Pays for Injured Teen’s Therapy Dog

February 18, 2013 By Mariah Grimes Leave a Comment

By: Ma riah Grime s

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (UTC/The Loop) — There’s a 15-year-old Florida girl who didn’t really know much about Charlie Sheen before this week — but does now.

The actor wired $10,000 to Teagan Marti and her family on Thursday for a therapy dog to help in her rehabilitation from injuries sustained when she plummeted 100 feet from a Wisconsin amusement park ride in 2010.

Charlie Sheen buys injured girl a puppy

“I think he’s a very kind person for helping me and my family and very generous,” Teagan Marti said by phone Thursday from her home in Parkland, Fla.

Teagan Marti suffered brain, spine, pelvis and internal injuries in July 2010 when nets and air bags that were supposed to catch riders on a free-fall ride were not raised. She had convinced her family to make the trip from Florida to Extreme World in Wisconsin Dells after seeing the amusement park’s Terminal Velocity ride on the Travel Channel.

She was hospitalized in Wisconsin and Florida for three months. She initially had no use of her arms or legs but through physical therapy is able to walk again with a walker.

Teagan Marti’s mother, Julie Marti, said they are financially in trouble from the medical bills and her recent divorce. Their house is being foreclosed upon and insurance isn’t covering physical therapy anymore, she said. She had no idea how they would pay for the English Golden Retriever puppy.

“I’m in such disbelief,” Julie Marti said. “I was crying. … What a guy. What a guy.”

The dog is being trained in Fond du Lac to turn on lights, pick up objects and be the teen’s constant companion.

Lucia Wilgus, of Eau Claire, became friends with the Martis after hearing of the accident and has spearheaded fundraising and helped find the dog and arrange training.

She sent a letter this week to Sheen through Sheen’s godfather, who is a Wilgus family friend and Benedictine brother in the Benet Lake, Wis. She estimated the training and related costs would be around $6,000.

Sheen said he decided to give more for extra costs. The request had a “personal vibe” since it came through his godfather, and “if there’s a need for more I told them to call me,” he said.

“I like to pay it forward,” Sheen said Thursday in a phone interview from Los Angeles. “People come into your orbit for a reason. You don’t always know what that is ahead of time, but if I ignore these requests then I don’t have any opportunity to see where these things lead us, or lead me.”

He said he doesn’t like to publicize most of his donations, but wanted to talk about this one to inspire others to donate.

Teagan Marti gets the dog on her birthday in September but hasn’t made up her mind on a name.

“I think they should name the dog Charlie,” Sheen joked.

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Lost Purple Heart

February 18, 2013 By Amanda Deberry Leave a Comment

By: Sloane DeBerry

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (UTC/theloop) — A Southern California woman who grew up knowing little of her father — a heroic casualty of World War II — is now the proud owner of his long-lost battle medals, including a Silver Star and Purple Heart

Image of Purple Heart

Hyla Merin’s mother never spoke about the Army officer who died before she was born. The scraps of information she gathered from other relatives were hazy: 2nd Lt. Hyman Markel was a rabbi’s son, brilliant at mathematics, the brave winner of battlefield honors who died sometime in 1945.

Aside from wedding photos of Markel in uniform, Merin never glimpsed him.

About four months ago, the manager of a West Hollywood apartment building where Merin’s mother lived in the 1960s found a box containing papers and the Purple Heart while cleaning out some lockers in the laundry room, Merin said.

The manager contacted Purple Hearts Reunited, a nonprofit organization that returns lost or stolen medals to vets or their families.

A search led to Merin.

On Sunday, she received the Purple Heart, along with a Silver Star she never knew her father had won and a half-dozen other medals.

Merin wiped away tears as the Silver Star was pinned to her lapel during a short ceremony attended by friends and family at her home in Westlake Village, a community straddling the Ventura and Los Angeles county lines. The other medals were presented on a plaque.

“It just confirms what a great man he was,” Merin said tearfully. “He gave up his life for our country and our freedom. I’ll put it up in my house as a memorial to him and to those who served.”

Merin’s mother, Celia, married Markel in 1941 when he already was in the military. They met at a Jewish temple in Buffalo, N.Y.

Markel was killed in the last days of World War II in May 1945 in Italy’s Po Valley while fighting German troops as an officer with an infantry unit, said Zachariah Fike, the Vermont Army National Guard captain who founded Purple Hearts Reunited.

“The accounts suggest that he was out on patrol and he got ambushed and he charged ahead and basically took out a machine gun position to save the rest of his guys,” said Fike, whose organization has returned some two dozen medals. “For that, he paid the ultimate sacrifice.”

He was awarded the Purple Heart and Silver Star posthumously, but for some reason the family never was told about the Silver Star and it was never sent to them, Fike said.

Merin’s mother never talked in detail to her daughter about Markel.

“It was a very difficult topic for her. When my father died, she was seven months pregnant with me,” Merin said.

Her mother briefly remarried when Merin was 10 but her stepfather died three years later, Merin said.

Her mother moved into the apartment in 1960 and may have placed the Purple Heart in the locker then, Merin said. Her mother lived there until 1975 before moving away, and Merin’s aunt lived there until 2005. Another aunt lived there until 2009.

They never spoke about what was in the locker, and the family must have missed the box when they took away the aunts’ possessions in 2005 and 2009, Merin said.

Merin said that in addition to the Purple Heart, which Pike kept for framing, the box contained letters and other papers, and her father’s Jewish prayer book.

“I found it very hard to look at. A lot of them were condolence letters,” she said.

Merin’s mother was told about the discovery of the Purple Heart but didn’t live to see it — she died Feb. 1 at age 94.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed to this story.

Filed Under: News and Opinion, Uncategorized

Holding back Students

February 18, 2013 By Kalmon, Tia Marie Leave a Comment

Posted by: Tia Kalmon

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP/The Loop) — Flunked, retained, held back.

Whatever you call it, increasing numbers of states are not promoting students who are struggling to read at the end of third grade.

Thirty-two states have passed legislation designed to improve third-grade literacy, according to the Education Commission of the States. Retention is part of the policies in 14 states, with some offering more leeway than others.

“Passing children up the grade ladder when we know they can’t read is irresponsible — and cruel,” said Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback in announcing in his recent State of the State address that third-graders should demonstrate an ability to read before being promoted. He also proposed a $12 million program for improving third-graders’ reading skills.

Backers say retention policies put pressure on teachers and parents to make sure children succeed.

But opponents say students fare better if they’re promoted and offered extra help. They say holding students back does nothing to address the underlying problems that caused them to struggle and is the single biggest school drop-out predictor. Students who’ve been retained have a two-fold increased risk of dropping out compared to students with similar academic struggles who weren’t retained, said Arthur Reynolds, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Human Capital Research Collaborative, citing studies of students in Chicago and Baltimore.

Retention policies were tried out in large city districts but in recent years have been scaled back or dropped in places like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Los Angeles district spokeswoman Monica Carazo said her school system studied retention and determined that “research did not show it as an effective practice.”

Ending so-called social promotion was one of Jeb Bush’s education reforms when he was governor of Florida, and his nonprofit Foundation for Excellence in Education began touting the reform package after it started in 2008.

“I think reform-minded education chiefs and state legislatures and governors are looking for something to do to help kids be successful and to do that they need policies that aren’t the same old, same old,” said Mary Laura Bragg, the foundation’s director of state policy implementation.

Although the number isn’t tracked nationally, some national representative studies show that about one-fifth of eighth graders have been retained at least once, said Reynolds, who has studied retention. He said there is wide variation among school districts, with some in urban areas reporting retention rates as high as 40 percent.

Because students shift away from learning to read in the early grades to reading to learn in the upper elementary grades, most state-mandated retention policies make third grade the make-or-break year. Such policies also give struggling students another year of instruction before they take a test as fourth-graders used to compare the educational performance of states and nations, called the National Assessment of Education Progress.

“I apologize to the rest of the country,” said Melissa Erickson, of Fund Education Now, a Florida parent advocacy group, of the spread of her state’s reforms. She said Florida’s NAEP scores had risen but noted that the test takers most likely to struggle were now a year older.

“Is the goal to manipulate data so the state looks better or is the goal to help kids?”

In Florida, where the policy is a decade old, reading is generally measured by performance on a state-administered standardized test. Exemptions also are allowed for some students, like those who do well on an alternative test or whose teachers put together a portfolio showing they can read at grade level.

Because struggling Florida students can be held back up to two times, Megan Allen has students as old as 13 in her fifth-grade class in Tampa, Fla. Some of the younger ones still talk about whether or not Santa is real and Disney movies. Among their twice-retained classmates, Allen, the Florida Teacher of the Year in 2010, has confiscated sex notes.

“I think it is defeating for them,” she said of the retained students. “These are students who are already frustrated and instead of having laws that maybe offer them supports and solutions, we have laws that are more focused on the stick than the carrot.”

The fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute studied Florida’s policy and found retained students made larger gains than students who weren’t retained.

But critics like Shane Jimerson, a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, said the study doesn’t monitor the students’ performance long enough. He said researchers have long known that retained students experience an initial academic boost but that the benefits fade.

One of the states where the Bush-backed Foundation for Excellence in Education has been involved in legislation is Colorado, where Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a law in May that mandates extra help for struggling young students and bars those considered far behind on reading from advancing to fourth grade without their superintendent’s permission. One year earlier, Oklahoma passed a law that requires third-grade students to demonstrate proficiency in reading before advancing to fourth grade. Schools in both states are putting programs in place to help struggling students in advance of the retention piece taking effect in the 2013-2014 school year.

In Indiana, this is the first year third-graders had to pass a state test to move onto fourth-grade-level reading instruction. Initially, 16 percent of third-graders failed the test and had a chance to retake it over the summer. The final statewide results haven’t been released, said Stephanie Sample, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Education.

She said some schools are retaining students while others are promoting them to fourth grade and offering them special reading instruction to bring them up to grade level.

“We just want to make sure the kids aren’t passed along before they are ready to succeed,” she said.

The economy could be part of the reason the reform is gaining traction, suggested Reynolds. He said the main cost of retention — another year of education if the student doesn’t drop out — is years away.

“It’s a way to say to the public that we have tough standards in our school,” said Reynolds, who says early childhood programs have better outcomes. “And because states and districts are in a financial crisis in many respects, there is no high priority placed on programs or practices that are going to have a significant cost initially.”

But Bragg, who was tasked with implementing Florida’s policy after its passage, said she knows what she saw happen in her state.

“That hard line in the sand of retention for third-graders moved schools in a way they had not been moved before,” she said. “I don’t understand why it takes the threat of something like that to do what you should be doing all along, but it worked. What I saw was a change in human behavior when a policy is put in place that forced people to do what they are supposed to be doing.”

Filed Under: Featured, Local, National, News and Opinion, Uncategorized

The Cause of the Cruise Ship Disaster

February 18, 2013 By Bass, Brian Minick Leave a Comment

By: Brian Bass,

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A Coast Guard official said Monday that the cause of the engine-room fire on the Carnival cruise ship Triumph was a leak in a fuel oil return line.

Cmdr. Teresa Hatfield gave the description in a conference call with reporters and estimated that the investigation of the disabled ship would take six months.

Hatfield said the Bahamas —where the ship is registered, or flagged — is leading the investigation, with the Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board leading U.S. interests in the probe.

She said investigators have been with the ship since it arrived Thursday in Mobile. Since then, she said, interviews have been conducted with passengers and crew and forensic analysis has been performed on the ship.

She said the crew responded appropriately to the fire. “They did a very good job,” she said.

In an email after Monday’s conference call, Coast Guard spokesman Carlos Diaz described the oil return line that leaked as stretching from the ship’s No. 6 engine to the fuel tank.

The Triumph left Galveston, Texas, on Feb. 7 for a four-day trip to Mexico. The fire paralyzed the ship early Feb. 10, leaving it adrift in the Gulf of Mexico until tugboats towed it to Mobile. Passengers described harsh conditions on board: overflowing toilets, long lines for food, foul odors and tent cities for sleeping on deck.

Hatfield said investigators from the Coast Guard and NTSB would stay with the ship until about the end of the week, then continue work at their respective offices. She said the investigation will look further at the cause of the fire and the crew’s response, as well as why the ship was disabled so long.

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A Vacation Disaster

February 18, 2013 By Emily Brogdon Leave a Comment

By: Emily Brogdon

MOBILE, Ala. (AP/ The Loop) — A cruise ship disabled for five nightmarish days in the Gulf of Mexico finally docked with some 4,200 people aboard late Thursday, passengers raucously cheering the end to an ocean odyssey they say was marked by overflowing toilets, food shortages and foul odors. About four hours later, the last of the passengers had gotten off the ship.

Carnival Triumph being towed in to Alabama.

“Sweet Home Alabama!” read one of the homemade signs passengers affixed alongside the 14-story ship as many celebrated at deck rails lining several levels of the stricken ship Triumph. The ship’s horn loudly blasted several times as four tugboats pulled the crippled ship to shore. Some gave a thumbs-up sign and flashes from cameras and cellphones lit the night.

About an hour after the ship pulled up at 9:15 p.m. Central, a steady stream of passengers began making their way down the gang plank, some in wheelchairs and others pulling carry-on luggage. One man gave the thumbs up.

An ambulance pulled up to a gate at the bottom of the gang plank, began flashing its lights and then pulled away.

By around 1 a.m., Carnival tweeted, “All guests have now disembarked the Carnival Triumph.”

Carnival had said it would take up to five hours for all the 3,000 passengers to be off.

Many boarded buses bound for New Orleans and Texas, while others settled into local hotels in Mobile to get a shower and a hot meal.

As they came ashore, passengers reflected on a cruise they’d rather forget.

For 24-year-old Brittany Ferguson of Texas, not knowing how long passengers had to endure their time aboard was the worst part.

“I’m feeling awesome just to see land and buildings,” said Ferguson, who was in a white robe given to her aboard. “The scariest part was just not knowing when we’d get back”

As the ship pulled up, some aboard shouted, “Hello, Mobile!” Some danced in celebration on one of the balconies. “Happy V-Day” read one of the homemade signs made for the Valentine’s Day arrival and another, more starkly: “The ship’s afloat, so is the sewage.”

A few dozen relatives on the top floor of the parking deck of the terminal were waving lights at the ship as it carefully made its way alongside. Those about were screaming, whistling and taking pictures.

Hundreds gawked from dockside at the arrival at the Alabama cruise terminal in Mobile, the state’s only seaport, as the Triumph docked.

Taxis were lined up waiting for people, and motorists on Interstate 10 stopped to watch the exodus of passengers from the cruise ship.

Some still aboard chanted, “Let me off, let me off!”

It took six grueling hours navigating the 30-odd-mile ship channel to dock, guided by at least four towboats. Nearly 900 feet in length, it was the largest cruise ship ever to dock at Mobile.

In texts and flitting cellphone calls, the ship’s passengers described miserable conditions while at sea, many anxious to walk on solid ground.

Buses started leaving the raucous terminal. Up to 100 have been reserved to carry passengers either on a seven-hour ride to the Texas cities of Galveston or Houston or a two-hour trip to New Orleans. Some also can stay in Mobile. From there, passengers will make their way home with Carnival’s help.

Deborah Knight, 56, decided to stay in Mobile after the arduous journey was over rather than board a bus for a long ride. Her husband Seth drove in from Houston and they checked in at a downtown Mobile hotel.

“I want a hot shower and a daggum Whataburger,” said Knight, who was wearing a bathrobe over her clothes as her bags were unloaded from her husband’s pickup truck.

She said she was afraid to eat the food on board and had gotten sick while on the ship.

Galveston is the home port of the ill-fated ship, which lost power in an engine-room fire Sunday some 150 miles off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. It was the end of a cruise that wasn’t anything like what a brochure might describe.

Carnival CEO Gerry Cahill apologized at a news conference and later on the public address system as people were disembarking.

“I appreciate the patience of our guests and their ability to cope with the situation. And I’d like to reiterate the apology I made earlier. I know the conditions on board were very poor,” he said. “We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case.”

Passenger Ferguson said crew members tried to make the situation bearable.

“They did their best to keep our spirits up,” she said.

Joseph and Cecilia Alvarez of San Antonio said they were on the lowest deck near the back of the ship when the fire broke out and they smelled smoke coming from the vents. She said there was confusion that night about whether to evacuate cabins, with firefighters running through the halls.

He said some passengers passed the time by forming a Bible study group that drew about 45 people.

“It was awesome,” he said. “It lifted up our souls and gave us hope that we would get back.”

While the passengers are headed home, Triumph will head to a Mobile shipyard for assessment, Thornton said.

Earlier Thursday — four days after the 893-foot ship was crippled in the middle of the Gulf— the passengers and crew suffered another setback with towline issues that brought the vessel to a dead stop for about an hour just as it was getting close to port.

As the vessel drew within cellphone range Thursday, passengers vented their anger.

Renee Shanar of Houston was on board with her husband, whom she said has heart trouble. They were told they would be among the first to disembark, she said.

“I don’t believe them; they’ve been lying to us from the beginning,” Shanar said.

Disgusted by the foul air and heat on the lower decks, many passengers hauled mattresses and bed sheets onto the top deck and slept there, even staying put in a soaking rain. As the ship approached the coast, a slew of Carnival workers removed the bedding and took it downstairs.

In a text message, Kalin Hill, of Houston, described deplorable conditions over the past few days.

“The lower floors had it the worst, the floors ‘squish’ when you walk and lots of the lower rooms have flooding from above floors,” Hill wrote. “Half the bachelorette party was on two; the smell down there literally chokes you and hurts your eyes.”

She said “there’s poop and urine all along the floor. The floor is flooded with sewer water … and we had to poop in bags.”

The company disputed the accounts of passengers who described the ship as filthy, saying employees were doing everything to ensure people were comfortable.

Some travel agents said cruise prices and bookings have not been affected by the disabled Carnival ship, but others in the industry say it’s too early to tell.

Thelbert Lanier was waiting at the Mobile port for his wife, who texted him early Thursday.

“Room smells like an outhouse. Cold water only, toilets haven’t work in 3 1/2 days. Happy Valentines Day!!! I love u & wish I was there,” she said in the text message, which was viewed by The Associated Press. “It’s 4:00 am. Can’t sleep … it’s cold & I’m starting to get sick.”

Carnival has canceled a dozen more planned voyages aboard the Triumph and acknowledged the crippled ship had been plagued by other mechanical problems in the weeks before the engine-room blaze. The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation.

Passengers were supposed to get a full refund and discounts on future cruises, and Carnival announced Wednesday they would each get an additional $500 in compensation.

___

Plushnick-Masti reported from Houston. Associated Press writers Bob Johnson in Montgomery, Ala., and Melissa Nelson-Gabriel and Brendan Farrington in Mobile, Ala., contributed to this report.

Filed Under: Featured, Uncategorized

UTC Student Meets His Brother on Facebook

February 12, 2013 By Bass, Brian Minick Leave a Comment

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP/The Loop)- Have you ever received a Facebook message from someone you don’t know? For UTC senior Ryan Van Winkle, during March of 2012, someone from New York kept sending him the message “Hey”.

“For a while I didn’t respond to him,” Van Winkle said, “I do not know anyone farther north than Kentucky so I was sure this kid from New York was just some weirdo.”

But time passed and eventually curiosity got the best of Ryan.

“One night I was sitting with friends in my basement on the computer and the kid messaged me again. One of my friends told me to message him back and see what he wants to get rid of him. So I did. I sent ‘Hey man watsup’.”

Minutes later, Van Winkle received a message that read: ‘I think I’m your brother.’

Van Winkle said, “The entire basement went pretty quiet when we all read that.”

The kid from New York was named Marcus Costello, and after talking that night both Ryan and Marcus figured out have they same father; who neither had seen since they were very young. The mutual grandmother who lives with Marcus in New York knew of Ryan and told Marcus to try to find him on the internet.

Ryan Van Winkle

“We talked consistently for the next few weeks,” Van Winkle said,”It was strange how similar Marcus and I were even though we grew up so differently.”

Marcus Costello (in middle)

Ryan eventually learned of a whole new family he had never met. Marcus then offered Ryan an invitation to their family reunion in South Carolina that summer.

Van Winkle said, “At first I was hesistant because I had no idea who these people were or what they thought of me. There was just a lot of doubt in my mind as to how they would accept me.”

Ryan put his fears aside, however, and made the trip to South Carolina to meet this new family.

“It could not have gone better,” Ryan says, with a smile on his face, “As soon as I walked in I wasn’t a stranger, I was family.”

Ryan has kept in touch with Marcus and has grown a strong relationship with the rest of the family. His new grandmother has become an important part of Ryan’s life and has a finance internship set up for him this summer in Philadelphia.

“It’s really amazing”, Ryan says, “She has the exact career that I want and is going to help put me on the path to my dream job. It is hard to believe this time last year I didn’t know she existed.”

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Future Storms Predicted

February 11, 2013 By Amanda Deberry Leave a Comment

Chattanooga, Tenn (UTC/TheLoop)

MISSISSIPPI (AP) — A tornado tore through Hattiesburg on Sunday as part of a wave of severe storms that downed trees, damaged buildings and injured more than a dozen people.

The twister traveled down one of Hattiesburg’s main streets and mangled homes, commercial buildings and structures on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi. Emergency officials said at least 10 people were injured in surrounding Forrest County and three were hurt to the west in Marion County, but they weren’t aware of any deaths.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said it appears that a single tornado caused the damage in those two counties and Lamar County. Hundreds of homes are damaged in Forrest County, along with a couple dozen in the other two.

Flynn said the sheer scope of the damage was slowing the assessment of damage.

“The problem is, it was so strong that there’s so much debris that there’s a lot of areas they haven’t been able to get to yet,” he said.

On the campus of the university, trees were snapped in half around the heavily damaged Alumni House where part of the roof was ripped away. Windows in a nearby building were blown out, and heavy equipment worked to clear streets nearby in a heavy rain after the worst of the weather had passed.

The university released a statement saying no one was hurt but that it was under a state of emergency, anyone away from campus should stay away until further notice.

East of campus, 47-year-old Cindy Bullock was at home with her husband and dog, a terrier mix named Vinnie, when she heard the tornado coming. They ran to a hallway and covered their heads. It wasn’t long before the windows in the kitchen and bedroom exploded. The storm stripped all the shingles off the roof and left holes in it, while knocking over a large pine tree in the yard.

After dark, the Bullocks were trying to arrange their stuff inside so it wouldn’t get wet from the dripping water.

“I just looked out the window and I heard the rumbling. It sounded like a train. We ran to the hall, and the kitchen windows and the windows in the bedroom exploded. It happened pretty fast,” she said.

There were large trees blocking the road all through her neighborhood, and several of the houses were hit by falling trees. Her friend was staying with them after the friend’s apartment took a direct hit from a falling tree.

Forrest County Sheriff Billy McGee says 10 or 15 people were injured by the tornado that slammed Hattiesburg and other parts of the county — but none of the injuries was serious.

He says, “Most of our injuries have been walking wounded.”

To the west, Marion County emergency director Aaron Greer says three injuries have been reported in the community of Pickwick, about seven miles south of Columbia. He says two people were taken to hospitals, but the third didn’t have the injury examined.

Greer says one mobile home was destroyed, three other structures have major damage and several have minor damage.

Gov. Phil Bryant plans to go to Hattiesburg on Monday to check out damage in the city and at USM, his alma mater, spokesman Mick Bullock said.

On Sunday night, John and Katherine Adams were cleaning up around their one-story white house where the storm punched holes in the roof, busted windows and completely destroyed the back porch. The couple was at home with their 7- and 3-year-old daughters when the tornado passed next to their house.

All through the neighborhood, houses and vehicles were damaged by falling trees.

“We’re safe, and that’s all that matters,” said Katherine Adams, 46.

John Adams, who’s in the building supply business, said he was surprised to see broken boards that appeared to be from new construction in his yard because there are no homes being built nearby. “We’ve got stuff around here; I don’t even know where it came from,” he said.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Southern Storms

February 11, 2013 By Alexandra Richey Leave a Comment

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP/The Loop) -

Jeff Revette ran from his car and lay face-down in the grass next to the red-brick wall of a church as a tornado roared toward him, with debris scattering and electrical transformers exploding. Twenty seconds later, bricks were strewn across a flattened pickup truck a mere 10 feet away amid toppled trees and power lines.

Revette, a 43-year-old National Guard soldier who returned from a deployment to Afghanistan about a year ago, stood up unharmed. A woman who had been driving the smashed pickup and had taken cover near him was pinned by some insulation and other debris, but she was OK after Revette lifted the wreckage off her.

“It’s just amazing,” he said. “God is real. I am one blessed man.”

The powerful twister tore a path across at least three counties, injuring more than 60 people — but residents marveled that no one died. Officials said several circumstances converged to ensure no lives were lost in what should have been a deadly storm: Sirens and TV broadcasts gave people as much as 30 minutes of warning; the University of Southern Mississippi was emptier than usual because of Mardi Gras; and most businesses were either closed or quiet because it was a Sunday.

Forecasters were able to closely track where the storm was headed and had confirmed reports from both people on the ground and from radar, making it easier to give warning, said weather service meteorologist Chad Entremont.

The sheer scope of the damage made it difficult to do a full assessment. Some 50 roads were closed at one point because of felled trees, downed power lines and debris. About 200 homes and mobile homes were damaged or destroyed, with another 100 apartments left uninhabitable. Several thousand remained without power, though the electricity was expected to be restored to most customers later Monday, Gov. Phil Bryant said.

Bryant said the twister carved a path of destruction roughly 75 miles long, though National Weather Service officials have not yet determined the tornado’s exact path or how long it was on the ground. However, early indications show it was an EF3 tornado with wind speeds reaching 145 mph in parts of Hattiesburg, Entremont said.

This twister was part of a storm cell moving faster than usual, meaning it was likely to cover more ground. Many tornadoes travel just a few miles, Entremont said.

While more tornadoes were not in the forecast, heavy rain was expected into Tuesday. And that could make cleanup efforts even more difficult, said National Weather Service meteorologist Brad Bryant in Jackson, Miss.

On Monday, rain seemed to be adding to the misery as people tried to put tarps over leaky roofs and move belongings to dry ground. Chainsaws could be heard around Hattiesburg as people tried to cut up trees that fell onto homes. Crews were removing debris, but flooding and blocked roads hampered their work.

John Cline was among those trying to salvage his already damaged home as he worked to find a way to shut off a broken pipe filling his house with water. A massive pine tree about 4 feet around split his home nearly in two.

Cline had just gotten home from work Sunday when he turned on the news and realized the tornado was headed his way. He said he opened the back door and could hear the roar, so he ran to a closet in the hallway. He said it wasn’t long before the tree came crashing through the ceiling and landed about 3 feet to his right. He struggled to keep the closet door closed because the wind kept pulling it open.

“I was fighting the tornado,” he said.

On the USM campus, trees were snapped in half around the heavily damaged Alumni House, where part of the roof was ripped away. Windows in a nearby building were blown out, and heavy equipment worked to clear streets nearby in a heavy rain after the worst of the weather had passed.

The university was under a state of emergency and told people to stay away from campus until further notice.

Dot Peek had just arrived home about five minutes before the tornado hit and huddled in her bedroom with her son, adult grandson and other relatives. That bedroom was the only room not substantially damaged by falling trees and debris. The rest of the home was a wreck. Peek’s truck was smashed; boards and debris floated in her swimming pool; a tree crushed her pontoon boat.

Peek heeded the warning of sirens, saying “they don’t go off for nothing. But people who don’t pay attention to them are stupid.”

However, when asked if it was the alarms that saved her family, Peek shook her head and replied: “It’s God. My grandson was praying as loud as he could.”

___

McConnaughey reported from New Orleans.

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Campus Weather Comments

February 11, 2013 By Kalmon, Tia Marie Leave a Comment

LONG ISLAND, NY. (AP/The Loop) - On the heels of a massive snowstorm that dumped up to 3 feet of snow across the Northeast, rain was forecast for Monday, which could threaten snow-laden roofs with added weight. The roof of an empty bowling alley on New York’s Long Island already partly collapsed just from heavy snow from the weekend storm, police said.

What to do to stave off a roof collapse:

THE RISK: The snow that accumulated over the weekend will act as a sponge, soaking up extremely heavy rain and threatening roofs with collapse. Roofs that are at most risk of being burdened by wet snow are flat or slightly pitched, said Peter Judge, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

WHAT TO DO: Try to remove weight ahead of Monday’s rain and do so safely, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said. Use roof rakes to safely pull off snow, Judge said. If you have to climb a ladder, first make sure the ladder is placed in a safe area away from ice. Wear boots to avoid slipping.

WHAT TO AVOID: Stay off the roof itself, Judge advised. “We don’t recommend that people, unless they’re young and experienced, to go up on roofs,” he said.

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