Vaccine freezer, Christmas cheer, Iditarod trail switch: News from around our 50 states
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December 23, 2020, 9:03 PM·43 min read
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Alabama
Opelika: At East Alabama Medical Center, located about 60 miles northeast of Montgomery, nurses and doctors who have spent months caring for the ill, are doing what they can to get through the holiday season, which many fear will only spread the disease and add to the U.S. death toll that has surpassed 300,000. That means staff members can hang decorations on patients’ doors in the ICU but cannot attend after-work Christmas parties. A cheerful Santa doll stands atop the desk at a nursing station, but big gatherings with relatives are out. A nurse for five years, Nurse Carla Fallin said Christmas just doesn’t feel right this year. She and her husband did not take their two young sons to local Christmas events that drew hundreds of people, many without masks. The decorations in the ICU help lighten the mental load a lit
Power out at Oregon prison amid COVID-19 outbreak
December 23, 2020 GMT
UMATILLA, Ore. (AP) One of Oregon’s largest prisons experiencing another COVID-19 outbreak has been grappling with a major power outage for the last week.
The outage at the Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla began on Dec. 16 and has affected six housing units and about 600 inmates, or a third of the prison’s total population, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. Staff and outside contractors have been on site trying to determine the cause and how best to resolve it, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections.
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Prisons officials don’t yet have a firm timeframe for when power will be restored.
Power out for over a week at Oregon prison amid COVID-19 outbreak bendbulletin.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bendbulletin.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
UMATILLA â A power outage at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla has left the east side of the prison largely in darkness since Wednesday, Dec. 16, and has affected the institutionâs physical plant, security, food and housing units with no clear end in sight, according to public information officers at TRCI and the Oregon Department of Corrections.
The power outage was the result of two wires shorting and exploding in a conduit underground after 20 years of degradation, prison officials said. The explosion affected other wires and has left an area that holds over 600 inmates in the dark.
Prison officials say there is no clear timeline for when the power will be back up and running, but that staff have been working around the clock to fix it along with the help of outside contractors.
HERMISTON â A fundraiser conducted by inmates at Two Rivers Correctional Institution has gathered approximately $15,000 for Hermiston nonprofits, including Agape House, a nonprofit food bank, and Marthaâs House, a transitional family shelter.
The effort comes from a group of over a dozen adults in custody, or AICs, who call themselves the âParadigm Shift Club.â
The groupâs mission statement is âshifting societyâs view of AICs, shifting how AICs look at staff, the way staff look at AICs and trying to get everybody to work together for common causes,â according to James Cambell, a recreation specialist for Two Rivers Correctional Institution.