Georgia News Briefly

Columbus woman’s death heat-related

COLUMBUS (TNS) — A 54-year-old Columbus woman who was stricken by the heat Tuesday is the city’s first heat-related death of the summer, an official with the Muscogee County Coroner’s Office said Wednesday.

Security staff found Barbara Sternberg inside her hot car in the parking lot at Midtown Medical Center, the old Doctors Hospital parking lot, Chief Deputy Coroner Freeman Worley said. She was pronounced dead at 7:40 p.m. at the scene.

No autopsy is planned in the death with evidence of the heat. Worley said the outside temperature was 90 degrees and inside the car was even hotter with windows closed and no air circulating.

Worley said it appears that Sternberg was overcome by heat after entering the vehicle. The vehicle wasn’t running and keys were in her pocket.

With high temperatures soaring in the 90s during the day, Worley said it only takes a few minutes for someone to get overcome by heat.

“Everybody needs to be careful,” he said.

Woman angry over damage by SWAT

ATLANTA (TNS) — A DeKalb County woman is angry after a SWAT team shot tear gas into her apartment Tuesday night, shattered the sliding glass door and left the unit in disarray.

Officers thought a man wanted in connection with an armed robbery was in the woman’s unit at the Avondale Forest apartment off Mountain Drive, according to Channel 2 Action News.

“They couldn’t find him and destroyed my apartment,” resident Terri Miller told the television station. Children were inside the apartment at the time. No one was injured.

The suspect in the Avondale Forest SWAT standoff is wanted for armed robbery and is a person of interest in other violent crimes.

Airlines to refund fees on delayed bags

ATLANTA (TNS) — A new measure signed into law this month will require airlines to refund baggage fees when bags are delayed.

With the new law, “passengers won’t have to spend a ton of time tracking down a refund when the airline doesn’t deliver,” according to U.S. Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, during remarks on the Senate floor this month.

The measure in a Federal Aviation Administration re-authorization extension bill signed into law this month directs the U.S. Transportation Secretary to issue regulations on the matter within a year.

The new regulations would require an airline to “promptly provide to a passenger an automated refund for any ancillary fees paid by the passenger for checked baggage” if the bag is not delivered within 12 hours of arrival of a domestic flight, or within 15 hours of arrival of an international flight. The passenger would need to notify the airline of the lost or delayed baggage to get the refund.

Police officer appeals firing over flag

ROSWELL (TNS) — The Confederate battle flag has long been a divisive emblem.

But a Roswell police sergeant says she didn’t know that.

And because she didn’t know that and flew the flag in her front yard for more than a year, she says, she was fired. Silvia Cotriss, a 20-year veteran of the department told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that she is appealing her July 14 firing by the Roswell Police Department. She was terminated after a complaint from a passerby who told the Roswell police chief that he’d seen the battle flag flying in her yard and her marked police vehicle parked in the driveway.

Cotriss doesn’t deny she had the flag in her yard, but disputes the accusation that her city issued vehicle was in the driveway.

“If I knew it offended someone, my friends, my family, I wouldn’t do it,” Cotriss told the AJC. “We take an oath to help and protect people, so we can’t have a private life that’s really bad.”

Cotriss was fired for conduct unbecoming an officer. The Roswell police chief has declined to comment on the case after the AJC obtained the investigation report.

Raw sewage leads to traffic fatality

MACON (TNS) — A misshap with an 18-wheeler hauling raw sewage led to a fatal accident Wednesday morning in Twiggs County near the Houston County line.

An 80-year-old East Dublin man died of blunt force trauma near the railroad tracks on Ga. 96 near Knowles Landing, not far from the Cochran Short Route, also known as U.S. 129, Houston County Fire Chief Jimmy Williams said.

Twiggs County Coroner Harold Reece Jr. identified the victim as Hubert Lewis McGahee Sr., who was headed toward Houston County when the accident happened before 8 a.m. Wednesday.

When the tractor trailer loaded with sewage crossed the rough railroad crossing, it lost its load, Reece said.

Two vehicles collided head-on when one of them hydroplaned in the sewage spill.

The Georgia Search and Rescue truck out of Houston County responded to help Twiggs County rescuers extricate McGahee, along with a Houston County fire engine and rescue unit, Williams said.

No one else was taken to the hospital, Williams said.

The GSP’s Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team cordoned off the road during its investigation.

Plant Vogtle passes 6K workers

AUGUSTA (TNS) — One of America’s largest construction projects — the addition of two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle — is expected to get even larger this year.

Plant Vogtle co-owner Georgia Power said in a project update this week that total employment at the unit 3 and 4 construction site near Waynesboro has surpassed 6,000 workers.

A Georgia Power spokesman said Tuesday the workforce will get even larger as contractors push ahead to complete the reactors by June 2019 and June 2020.

“We are at a very busy time at the Vogtle site, and we expect that number to continue to grow throughout this year,” spokesman Jacob Hawkins said. “There are more workers being hired every week.”

He said most of the people being hired are skilled tradespeople, such as welders, carpenters, pipe fitters and electricians.

Employment had fluctuated around 5,000 prior to this spring, Hawkins said.

Last month officials with Southern Co. — parent company of Georgia Power and Southern Nuclear Operating Co., the plant’s operator — told the Georgia Public Service Commission that work at the site would be accelerating but remain on budget.

Though more than one-third complete, the new Vogtle units are three years behind schedule and more than $1 billion over budget. The Vogtle construction, along with two new reactors being built at SCANA Corp.’s V.C. Summer plant in South Carolina, are the country’s first new nuclear reactors in 30 years.