The Independent Weekly’s view on the news
An update to yesterday’s post.
Here’s the aerial photo of 700 Durhamites spelling out “Google” at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, sponsored by the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau.
View the full-sized photo at the official Web site.
And if you don’t know what this Google business is all about, check out the Indy’s recent cover story on the Google Fiber project. It could be coming to your town!
This post is written by Lora after working at L’Hopital Community Haitienne on Thursday, March 18.
Besides all the physical damage around us, the psychological damage to the people of Haiti is astronomical. I’ve heard it referred to as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on many occasions, and with my very casual knowledge of psychology, I won’t deny the presence of PTSD here. Today I learned a little bit more about what it means to live in the wake of a devastating earthquake.
• We arrived at L’Hopital Communaute Hatienne today and were led into the main waiting area by our Haitian driver. He seems confident enough, but as soon as we entered the space, he walked into the center area that is open to the sky and some tarps rigged across the opening. Standing under a roof is still a frightening prospect.
• While sitting amidst a pile of suction machines in the hallway at the hospital, we were joined by a curious 16 year old boy. Demitri turned out to be a great help with removing and replacing screws, practicing his English as we did some troubleshooting together on a somewhat hopeless piece of equipment. We learned how to salvage tubing off an abandoned suction unit and learned how to use a continuity tester to verify the integrity of a power cord. While sitting together on the floor at the end of a productive few hours, he started to tell me about the earthquake. Demitri had been at home at the time – changing the channel on the TV. Though his house remained standing, he faced a near death experience in one of the aftershocks while respecting his mother’s request to stay home. Fortunately the eager student is still around to hope his school continues soon. I’d like to think that someday he’ll be working in an engineering or technical field making a difference for someone else. (Perhaps I should just be considering teaching??)
• On the way home, from the hospital, we dropped off another Haitian driver for the night. As we drove along his street, he pointed out his house, his grandfather sitting on the steps, and his tent. Despite the fact that his home survived the earthquake, he remains sleeping in a tent. I’m hoping the massive down pour tonight didn’t wash out everyone’s tents.
• Our team member, Jean, got a call from his sister this week, saying that she was back in Haiti. After watching her house fall down in front of her just as she came home from work, Jean’s sister went to stay with family in Miami. Finally, they’ve returned to the country they love, living with family here whose home survived the earthquake. Like Justin mentioned earlier, the quake is no respecter of persons. Continue reading »
Supporters of Durham's application for Google's high-speed Internet project spell out the company's name. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange
Supporters of Durham’s application for the national Google Fiber project gathered at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park this afternoon to spell out the company’s name on the baseball outfield.
A photographer in a plane was schedule to fly over the field around noon to take a photo of the assembly. According to Sam Poley of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau, more than 700 people turned out for the event. There weren’t quite enough people to spell “We want Google,” he said. Just the word “Google.” The “We want” part will be added as text, said Poley, who is part of a committee working on Durham’s bid for the Google Fiber project. He hopes to release a photo shortly.
Durham is among hundreds of towns and cities nationwide who are vying for Google’s attention and hoping to lure the company to install fiber-optic networks that would allow for Internet connections at extremely high speeds.
See the Indy’s recent cover story and Durham’s Web site for the project for more information.
This post is part of a week-long series from Engineering World Health, a nonprofit headquartered in Durham. A team of three biomedical engineers and technicians from EWH will be in Haiti from March 14 to 21 to assess and repair medical equipment at five clinics in the Port-au-Prince area. Our second post is written by Lora on Monday, March 15 after our first day in the hospital:
Perhaps the biggest misconception about our work here is that we are fixing everything that was damaged in the earthquake. Yes, we were brought here as part of the relief effort. But I hate to break your bubble: Most of this equipment was in very bad shape before the Richter scale read 7-plus.
Overall, we managed to fix seven pieces of equipment in a half day at one hospital. We recorded touching 15 pieces of equipment, some of which could easily be fixed with the correct parts—like a halogen bulb. The pieces that were fixed were addressed largely because of some knowledge beforehand that allowed us to bring the appropriate tools and replacement parts. Unfortunately, the hospital we visited today does not have a trained biomedical staff to do regular equipment maintenance. The designated technician wasn’t around quite enough for us to train him all that effectively. Fortunately, the nurses were well-versed in their equipment and very attentive to details. It’s exciting to see someone bring you something that is an easy fix, repair it and in the process, show them how to prevent or solve that problem in the future.
The trip home from our hospital seemed surreal. We had spent the night in the Dominican Republic the night before, so it was a rush from hotel to airport to hotel to first hospital this morning. When I finally got a chance to take in the scene on the way home, it was as if the news reels were running outside my window. Except they were life-size, complete with the smells and humidity, and the reporter’s narration was satisfyingly absent.
Our third team member, Jean Polycarpe, a biomedical technician in the U.S., grew up in southern Haiti. He has been instrumental on the trip in helping to repair anesthesia machines and other advanced medical equipment. We stopped on a rubble-filled street in front of a two-story house with collapsing balcony and crumbled foundation strewn about. This was his mother’s house, his home during high school and college. Now it was not even remotely liveable, all his belongings having been looted. As he mourned the loss of his personal library, we asked if he would tell his mother about the scene or show her the pictures we’d taken. “No, no… she doesn’t need to know this.”
For more info about EWH, please visit www.ewh.org or email info@ewh.org
After a year of delays because of funding shortfalls, the new pedestrian bridge that’s been sitting on the side of N.C. 147 near the Alston Avenue exit will finally be hoisted into place beginning Wednesday night, according to a news release this morning from the City of Durham. If the weather is bad, the erection of the bridge could be postponed. This photo shows what it will look like once in place.
The $2.2 million bridge will connect neighborhoods around Alston Avenue that have long been separated by the Durham Freeway, and help current and future residents reach public transportation hubs, including a station for the Triangle Transit Authority. The original bridge, which was deteriorating and had limited visibility, was closed in 1995.
Traffic on the Durham Freeway will be re-routed to Briggs and Alston avenues from 11 p.m. Wednesday to 5:30 a.m. Thursday, the release said.
For more information on the project, visit the City of Durham Web site >>
In a follow-up to our cover March 10 cover story, “Gaga for Google’s fiber,” we’d like to update metrics of the involvement of the Triangle’s top three participants.
Durham’s still ahead in Facebook presence, with 2,180 fans on its “Bring Google Fiber to Durham N.C.,” page, while 935 people have signed up for “Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh!”. The western part of the Triangle is not far behind: the Facebook group “Bring Google Fiber to Chapel Hill & Carrboro N.C.” boasts 906 members.
The towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and UNC-Chapel Hill, will hold a public forum at 7 p.m. today at Chapel Hill Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., to receive public comment regarding community interest in the fiber optic trial and how residents would use an ultra-high speed Internet network.
On Thursday, Durhamites hope to make a splash by corralling thousands of locals into the Durham Bulls Athletic Park at 11 a.m. Thursday to spell out “We want Google” on the field, to pose for an aerial photograph. More here >>
This post is part of a week-long series from Engineering World Health, a nonprofit headquartered in Durham. A team of three biomedical engineers and technicians from EWH will be in Haiti from March 14 to 21 to assess and repair medical equipment at five clinics in the Port-au-Prince area. These posts will be written by two of the EWH team members, Lora Perry and Justin Cooper, and will include daily news, photos, and insights from Haiti regarding the state of health care two months after the earthquake. For a brief overview of this project, please see our release on the EWH website. The Indy staff is our neighbor at our downtown Durham office, and I would be remiss if I did not thank them for graciously sharing both this space for us to blog. Thanks for following our story this week!
-Justin
Our first post is written by Lora on Saturday, March 13 in preparation for the trip: Continue reading »
Ahh, the first signs of spring as the snow melts away: Daffodils, crocuses—and trash.
According to a recent survey, Durham has fewer “extremely littered” streets than it used to, but more of its streets are “littered.”
The annual survey, known as the Litter Index (28kb, pdf) [litter-index-2009-graph] is sponsored by Keep Durham Beautiful.
Last month, volunteers surveyed select streets within a one-mile radius of City Hall and gauged the amount and type of trash on them.
The percentage of littered streets rose from roughly 7 percent last year to 20 percent this year. And the percentage of streets that had no litter dipped from 39 percent last year to just one-quarter in 2010.
Dorothea Pierce, executive director of Keep Durham Beautiful, said there could be several reasons for the increase in littered streets, including this year’s wet and windy winter weather.
“Bad weather that moves things around,” Pierce said. “Flooding and wind: Wind is a horrendous litter mover.”
The good news: There were virtually no “extremely littered” streets—the amount of litter that would require a truck to haul it away.
Updated March 14, 12:37 pm:
Pierce added this information in an e-mail to the Indy:
The Litter Index covers all of Durham, all of the City and all of the County – we obviously don’t survey each road but there is a representative sampling from all over and every type of street: industrial, commercial, residential, agricultural, and a circle that includes an area that is centered on the city hall. These roads where chosen at random within those five parameters and we survey the same streets over a minimum of a three year span, so we have continuity. The Litter Index results portray for us a representative sampling of the overall litter picture. This same process is done by over 500 Keep America Beautiful affiliates from all around the country.
Folks, this is even bigger than the “We Want Oprah!” sign that used to occupy the windows of a converted motel on Corcoran Street downtown.
Durham wants Google. Specifically, Durham residents, businesses, elected leaders and creatives are hoping to lure Google Fiber, an project that Google is embarking on to bring broadband fiber and high-speed Internet access to one or more lucky cities in the U.S. Google has opened the application process to the entire country, and like many cities across the country have demonstrated in recent days, Durham wants in.
To demonstrate Durham’s engagement, a committee has organized an effort to spell the words “We want Google” on the field of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park on Thursday, March 18, said Sam Poley, a spokesman on Durham’s application for Google Fiber. An aerial photographer will take photos of the display that day and submit them to Google when the application is due, March 26. Continue reading »
After a meeting of city and county elected officials, it doesn’t appear that the City Council or County Commissioners will be reconsidering the Durham’s 26-page ordinance on signage any time soon. When asked by Durham’s planning department whether it’s time to revisit the ordinance, Durham leaders vehemently answered, “No.”
“I personally am not in favor of opening the sign ordinance,” said City Councilwoman Diane Catotti, at Wednesday’s meeting of Durham’s Joint City-County Planning Committee, for which she is chairwoman. “I think it’s a lot cleaner in terms of litigation to support the sign ordinance in place. I do fear litigation. It’s a lengthy and costly process and I don’t think I have to remind any of you that the city has significant litigation still pending. I’ll just say ‘lacrosse.’”
Catotti commented that sign litigation is a prominent form of action taken against governments, and that Durham itself went through a nearly 10-year battle over a signage lawsuit from the 1980s and 1990s that cost the city nearly $1.5 million. Continue reading »
RSS Feeds
Carrboro
Cary
Chapel Hill
Chatham County
Durham
Durham County
media
North Carolina
Orange County
politics
Raleigh
Wake County
MaxRef by WebFadds.com
