Health
Federal investigators have concluded an aged and severely corroded pipe caused the Aug. 6 Chevron Refinery fire. Investigators and elected officials were quick to blame the oil giant for the explosion, arguing the corporation knew the pipe should have been replaced years ago. The findings, released by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board on Feb. 13, are consistent with months-old reports that blame the incident on high sulfidation corrosion and low silicon content in the 36-year-old steel pipe…
Of all the ideas brought up in the large conference room at Nevin Community Center on Wednesday morning, one rang true for everyone: to help solve the obesity crisis and help Richmond’s families live healthier lives, community programs need to stop duplicating services and start working together. “Doing one thing together would be better than doing 50 things in silos,” said Cheryl Maier, a member of the West County HEAL Collaborative. The meeting was the second of three community forums…
On Saturday, 39 competitors from around the world competed at Richmond’s Ice Chamber to see who could lift cannonball-like weights over their heads the most times in the Bay Area’s first-ever Kettlebell Sport Classic. For 12-year-old Rylee Reeves, lifting a 22-pound weight over her head 94 times with her right arm, and 85 times with her left arm wasn’t a problem. The trick was doing it nonstop for 10 minutes. “It really didn’t get hard until the third minute,” said…
Nine Richmond firefighters trained for a mass casualty drill involving hazardous materials Saturday morning. The two-hour instruction took place at Station 64, parallel to the railroad tracks off Carson Avenue where freight cars often park while transporting high-risk materials. Training began in a classroom where HAZMAT specialists studied a slideshow and discussed how to transport a decontamination trailer to the scene of an accident. The long red trailer with the words “Decontamination Unit” written on its side housed an inflatable…
The East Bay Economic Development Alliance celebrated creativity and innovation at its first annual awards ceremony Thursday. The event, held in Oakland at the Fox Theater, honored East Bay organizations that do work in the fields of clean technology, advanced manufacturing, food, information and communication technology, life sciences, engineering, design and education.
The East Bay Regional Parks Foundation has kicked off its 2013 Trail Challenge program designed to encourage hikers of all ages and skill levels to get out and experience the East Bay’s many hiking trails.
A middle-aged Laotian-American man walked up to the doorstep of a Russian business in a wealthy suburb in New York’s Rockaway Peninsula a few days after Hurricane Sandy made her catastrophic landfall. He rang the doorbell—one of more than a dozen doorbells he had rung that day—and waited. Widespread blackouts triggered by Sandy had left many homes without heating and lights, and the streets were deserted, sparking a spate of burglaries in some parts of this stretch of Long Island,…
Luis Moreno brought his 17-year-old stepdaughter to Doctors Medical Center last Monday after she missed two days of school due to flu symptoms. She is not a Richmond resident—she lives in Pinole—but Doctor’s Medical Center is the closest emergency room. And she is uninsured. Like her, nearly a quarter of the patients Doctors Medical Center sees every day are uninsured and an additional 30 percent are underinsured, meaning that Medicare or MediCal covers a portion—but not all—of their hospital costs,…
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been proud of Richmond Monday. Mother Nature would have been thrilled, too, as more than 400 people strolled several blocks of the Richmond Greenway and watched hundreds of volunteers plant seeds of hope and food. Under a warm winter sun folks young and old congregated near the community garden portion of the trail and celebrated the city’s 6th Annual Martin Luther King National Day of Service event. Organized by Urban Tilth, the gathering…