South Carolina Mold News

A Rowan County middle school is in its third week of remote learning while crews work to clean mold found in the HVAC system.

Channel 9′s Hannah Goetz has been following every development at West Rowan Middle School.

A spokesperson for Rowan-Salisbury Schools said they are making progress on the cleanup. Crews are working 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week on repairs and mitigation to get students back in the school, the district said.

“As cleaning progresses, we are receiving promising reports from initial testing, and we will provide a firm timeline for reentry to families on Friday,” the spokesperson said.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: West Rowan Middle extends remote learning to Sept. 9 after mold discovered at school, officials say

Channel 9 learned last month that the school would have to throw out every ceiling tile in the building. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said ceiling tiles that remain wet for extended periods can harbor mold.

“I know that we are currently having our contractors working 84 hours a week,” said Anthony Vann, chief operations officer for the district.

Goetz saw workers in masks and jumpsuits sweeping outside the school and long vents running inside during the first week of cleaning in late August.

“And this is what they do. They, they clean facilities,” Vann said.

School officials won’t name the company doing the work, but there were DUCTZ vans in the parking lot. The company’s website said it specializes in HVAC restoration, air duct cleaning and indoor air quality.

Timeline

This all started on Aug. 3, when school officials said some suspicious growth was reported inside the building and that it was cleaned.

Then on Aug. 17, there were more reports of growth. That was tested and results on Monday showed two types of mold.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Mother says daughter’s asthma worsened after mold discovered in school

Those results led to the deep cleaning currently going on, but some parents are asking how it got this far.

Story continues

“They knew something was happening. Why wasn’t it investigated before the school actually opened? Why couldn’t they delay school starting by two weeks and extend it by two weeks at the end?” said Amber Huneycutt.

With the return date now extended to Sept. 9, some parents are once again worried about remote learning setbacks.

On Sept. 6, the district told Channel 9 it will provide a firm timeline to families on Friday.

Remote learning concerns

Huneycutt said her heart goes out to all the families struggling during the unexpected stretch of remote learning.

“What about all these other children? What about the ones that don’t have internet or the ones that get lost in the translation of where are they? Are they being abused? Things like that?” she said.

Huneycutt said her two children were excited for school to start, but now said she’s worried that they will fall behind. She said her son did during remote learning due to COVID-19.

“It was awful. He was a sixth grader reading at a second grade level. He dropped to a kindergarten level because he just was not engaged,” she said.

ALSO READ: Viral TikTok shows mold in Myrtle Beach resort room

She said her son’s teachers are helping him make big strides in the classroom, but with that not being an option currently and both parents working, his little sister is doing her best to help out.

“I have to sit next to him and make sure he’s doing his work and I have to tell him, ‘You need to get on your school work,’” Honeycutt said. “It’s hard because you don’t have teachers sitting next to you to ask, ‘Hey, I need help.’”

School officials said there are other remote learning issues that it is also working to remedy.

Free lunches can be picked up at West Rowan Elementary School between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. each weekday. And breakfasts will be provided with lunches on Mondays through Thursdays.

The school’s website lists virtual office hours, along with when and where students can access hot spots if they don’t have Wi-Fi at home.

The school will be evaluated again on Sept. 6 to determine if it’s safe for students to return.

For more information on free lunches being offered during remote learning, click here.

(WATCH BELOW: West Rowan Middle extends remote learning to Sept. 9 after mold discovered at school, officials say)

Mikhail Gorbachev’s grave in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery lies next to that of his wife, Raisa, with whom he shared the world stage in a visibly close and loving marriage that was unprecedented for a Soviet leader.

“They were a true pair. She was a part of him, almost always at his side,” then Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany said at Raisa’s funeral in 1999, where Gorbachev wept openly. “Much of what he achieved is simply unimaginable without his wife.”

Also Read: Russians arrive in numbers for Gorbachev’s funeral, Putin missing | In Pics

Gorbachev’s very public devotion to his family broke the stuffy mold of previous Soviet leaders, just as his openness to political reform did.

“He loved a woman more than his work. I think he wouldn’t have been able to embrace her if his hands were stained with blood,” wrote Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, editor of Russia’s leading independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Co-owned by Gorbachev, it was forced to shut under official pressure after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We should always remember,” Muratov continued, “he loved a woman more than his work, he placed human rights above the state and he valued peaceful skies more than personal power.”

Gorbachev’s open attachment to his family also stands in stark contrast to the secrecy that surrounds the private life of Russia’s current leader, President Vladimir Putin.

For her part, Raisa Gorbacheva cut a bold figure for Soviet first ladies — more visible, with a direct way of speaking, a polished manner and fashionable clothes. A sociologist by training, she had met Mikhail at a Moscow university where they both studied.

“One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life,” Gorbachev told Vogue magazine in 2013. Raisa accompanied him on his travels, and they discussed policy and politics together.

Her confident demeanor and prominent public role didn’t sit well with many Russians, who had also soured on Gorbachev and blamed his policies for the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union. The couple won sympathy, however, in 1999, when it was revealed that Raisa was dying of leukemia. Her husband spoke daily with television reporters, and the sometimes lofty-sounding politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional, grieving family man.

For more than two decades after she was gone, Gorbachev kept Raisa’s memory alive and embraced his status as a lonely widower.

He released a CD of seven romantic songs, “Songs for Raisa,” in 2009 on which he sang along with well-known Russian musician and guitarist Andrei Makarevich. Sales went to the charities Raisa had founded. A few years later, he published a book dedicated to her, “Alone with Myself.”

Their marriage even became the subject of a popular play in Moscow in 2021, “Gorbachev.” Its point was one noteworthy for Russia: that the country’s leader was a human being who prioritized family, friends and personal obligations. One scene recounted a key moment in Gorbachev’s career when he returned to Moscow after the failed communist coup against him in 1991. Raisa had had a stroke, and instead of immediately stepping back onto the political stage, he went to the hospital to be with her.

“I was not married to the country — Russia or the Soviet Union,” Gorbachev wrote in his memoirs. “I was married to my wife, and that night I went with her to the hospital.”

At the Moscow cemetery, a life-size statue of Raisa has stood for many years now over the grave intended for them both.

The Gorbachevs had a daughter, Irina, two granddaughters and a great-granddaughter. Despite his attachment to family, Gorbachev lived out his life in Russia while they live in Germany.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a businessman in the early post-Soviet days who now lives in exile in London, tweeted this week that one of Gorbachev’s great strengths was his ability to wash away “awe of the person on the throne,” and that his attention to family was part of that.

“With this he changed my life. And also by his attitude toward Raisa Maximovna — a second important lesson,” Khodorkovsky said, using Gorbacheva’s patronymic. “He went to her. Rest in peace.”

Mikhail Gorbachev was laid to rest Saturday in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife, Raisa, with whom he shared the world stage in a visibly close and loving marriage that was unprecedented for a Soviet leader.

“They were a true pair. She was a part of him, almost always at his side,” then Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany said at Raisa’s funeral in 1999, where Gorbachev wept openly. “Much of what he achieved is simply unimaginable without his wife.”

Gorbachev’s very public devotion to his family broke the stuffy mold of previous Soviet leaders, just as his openness to political reform did.

“He loved a woman more than his work. I think he wouldn’t have been able to embrace her if his hands were stained with blood,” wrote Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, editor of Russia’s leading independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Co-owned by Gorbachev, it was forced to shut under official pressure after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We should always remember,” Muratov continued, “he loved a woman more than his work, he placed human rights above the state and he valued peaceful skies more than personal power.”

Gorbachev’s open attachment to his family also stands in stark contrast to the secrecy that surrounds the private life of Russia’s current leader, President Vladimir Putin.

For her part, Raisa Gorbacheva cut a bold figure for Soviet first ladies — more visible, with a direct way of speaking, a polished manner and fashionable clothes. A sociologist by training, she had met Mikhail at a Moscow university where they both studied.

“One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life,” Gorbachev told Vogue magazine in 2013. Raisa accompanied him on his travels, and they discussed policy and politics together.

Her confident demeanor and prominent public role didn’t sit well with many Russians, who had also soured on Gorbachev and blamed his policies for the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union. The couple won sympathy, however, in 1999, when it was revealed that Raisa was dying of leukemia. Her husband spoke daily with television reporters, and the sometimes lofty-sounding politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional, grieving family man.

For more than two decades after she was gone, Gorbachev kept Raisa’s memory alive and embraced his status as a lonely widower.

He released a CD of seven romantic songs, “Songs for Raisa,” in 2009 on which he sang along with well-known Russian musician and guitarist Andrei Makarevich. Sales went to the charities Raisa had founded. A few years later, he published a book dedicated to her, “Alone with Myself.”

Their marriage even became the subject of a popular play in Moscow in 2021, “Gorbachev.” Its point was one noteworthy for Russia: that the country’s leader was a human being who prioritized family, friends and personal obligations. One scene recounted a key moment in Gorbachev’s career when he returned to Moscow after the failed communist coup against him in 1991. Raisa had had a stroke, and instead of immediately stepping back onto the political stage, he went to the hospital to be with her.

“I was not married to the country — Russia or the Soviet Union,” Gorbachev wrote in his memoirs. “I was married to my wife, and that night I went with her to the hospital.”

At the Moscow cemetery, a life-size statue of Raisa has stood for many years now over the grave intended for them both.

The Gorbachevs had a daughter, Irina, two granddaughters and a great-granddaughter. Despite his attachment to family, Gorbachev lived out his life in Russia while they live in Germany.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a businessman in the early post-Soviet days who now lives in exile in London, tweeted this week that one of Gorbachev’s great strengths was his ability to wash away “awe of the person on the throne,” and that his attention to family was part of that.

“With this he changed my life. And also by his attitude toward Raisa Maximovna — a second important lesson,” Khodorkovsky said, using Gorbacheva’s patronymic. “He went to her. Rest in peace.”

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

When Mikhail Gorbachev is buried Saturday at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery, he will once again be next to his wife, Raisa, with whom he shared the world stage in a visibly close and loving marriage that was unprecedented for a Soviet leader.

“They were a true pair. She was a part of him, almost always at his side,” then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany said at Raisa’s funeral in 1999, where Gorbachev wept openly. “Much of what he achieved is simply unimaginable without his wife.”

Gorbachev’s very public devotion to his family broke the stuffy mold of previous Soviet leaders, just as his openness to political reform did.

“He loved a woman more than his work. I think he wouldn’t have been able to embrace her if his hands were stained with blood,” wrote Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, editor of Russia’s leading independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Co-owned by Gorbachev, it was forced to shut under official pressure after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We should always remember,” Muratov continued, “he loved a woman more than his work, he placed human rights above the state and he valued peaceful skies more than personal power.”

Gorbachev’s open attachment to his family also stands in stark contrast to the secrecy that surrounds the private life of Russia’s current leader, President Vladimir Putin.

For her part, Raisa Gorbacheva cut a bold figure for Soviet first ladies — more visible, with a direct way of speaking, a polished manner and fashionable clothes. A sociologist by training, she had met Mikhail at a Moscow university where they both studied.

“One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life,” Gorbachev told Vogue magazine in 2013. Raisa accompanied him on his travels, and they discussed policy and politics together.

Her confident demeanor and prominent public role didn’t sit well with many Russians, who had also soured on Gorbachev and blamed his policies for the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union. The couple won sympathy, however, in 1999, when it was revealed that Raisa was dying of leukemia. Her husband spoke daily with television reporters, and the sometimes lofty-sounding politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional, grieving family man.

For more than two decades after she was gone, Gorbachev kept Raisa’s memory alive and embraced his status as a lonely widower.

He released a CD of seven romantic songs, “Songs for Raisa,” in 2009 on which he sang along with well-known Russian musician and guitarist Andrei Makarevich. Sales went to the charities Raisa had founded. A few years later, he published a book dedicated to her, “Alone with Myself.”

Their marriage even became the subject of a popular play in Moscow in 2021, “Gorbachev.” Its point was one noteworthy for Russia: that the country’s leader was a human being who prioritized family, friends and personal obligations. One scene recounted a key moment in Gorbachev’s career when he returned to Moscow after the failed communist coup against him in 1991. Raisa had had a stroke, and instead of immediately stepping back onto the political stage, he went to the hospital to be with her.

“I was not married to the country — Russia or the Soviet Union,” Gorbachev wrote in his memoirs. “I was married to my wife, and that night I went with her to the hospital.”

At the Moscow cemetery, a life-size statue of Raisa has stood for many years now over the grave intended for them both.

The Gorbachevs had a daughter, Irina, two granddaughters and a great-granddaughter. Despite his attachment to family, Gorbachev lived out his life in Russia while they live in Germany.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a businessman in the early post-Soviet days who now lives in exile in London, tweeted this week that one of Gorbachev’s great strengths was his ability to wash away “awe of the person on the throne,” and that his attention to family was part of that.

“With this he changed my life. And also by his attitude toward Raisa Maximovna — a second important lesson,” Khodorkovsky said, using Gorbacheva’s patronymic. “He went to her. Rest in peace.”

By JULIA RUBIN – Associated Press

Miami Herald | Entertainment

This article was posted online by Miami Herald | Entertainment. Spot On Florida collects excepts of news articles from this source and add these in the ‘Florida Entertainment’-category.

The mold infestation at Fort Bragg’s Smoke Bomb Hill barracks that is expected to displace roughly 1,200 soldiers is a hardly unique phenomenon for military installations.

Marines based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and Okinawa, Japan; airmen at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas; and midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, are just some of the many service members who have had to live with disgusting mold outbreaks. (Privatized housing can be even worse.)

The increasing reports of mold in military living quarters stem from a series of longstanding issues that have compounded over time, said Katherine Kuzminski, director of the military, veterans, and society program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C.

“It’s the result of basing decisions made decades ago, placing military installations at locations with land that was affordable for the federal government, which we’re now seeing are more susceptible to changes in the climate,” Kuzminski told Task & Purpose. “But it also reflects a lack of investment in updated HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air conditioning] systems and broader living quarter conditions. Given the services’ emphasis on ‘people first,’ regular maintenance and updates to living quarters are a necessary investment in the health and wellbeing of service members—particularly those in lower paygrades.”

Representatives from the Department of the Air Force and Marine Corps said that providing healthy, safe, and well-maintained living quarters for their service members is a top priority and any airmen, Space Force Guardians, or Marines who encounter mold are encouraged to report their issues to facility managers. The Navy did not respond to questions on the matter by deadline.

Subscribe to Task & Purpose Today. Get the latest military news, entertainment, and gear in your inbox daily.

In addition to the longstanding issues that can create mold problems, the effect of climate change could exacerbate the chances that a building could become infested with mold, defense officials told Task & Purpose. That’s why the Defense Department has implement plans to protect on-base housing from extreme weather and climate change. The military is committed to providing high quality housing to U.S. troops and their families as well as modern and safe living quarters for unaccompanied junior enlisted service members.

At Fort Bragg, the barracks with mold problems are more than 50 years old and their heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems do not meet today’s standards, said Sgt. Maj. Alex Licea, a spokesman for Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne Corps.

“Despite continuous repairs, the changes to air flow from these old systems created higher than normal moisture and quality of life concerns,” Licea told Task & Purpose. “We have reached a point that these HVAC repairs are now more expensive than investing in the construction of new barracks for our soldiers.”

Going forward, the Army plans to use a new system to inspect barracks that will look at heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems separately from the buildings, Aaron Brown, director of Fort Bragg’s Directorate of Public Works, told reporters on Friday.

Army officials have said they hope to get all the roughly 1,200 affected soldiers into new living quarters by the end of September, but mold has been found in other buildings at Fort Bragg. As of Friday, Army officials had 21 work requests to deal with mold issues, of which just two were in the Smoke Bomb Hill barracks, Col. John Wilcox, Fort Bragg’s garrison commander, said during a conference call with reporters on Friday.

The living conditions at the Smoke Bomb Hill barracks – including a hole in one room’s wall and exposed pipes – were first revealed by Military.com reporter Steve Beynon, who accompanied Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston during an inspection of the barracks in July.

Grinston’s visit came in response to a complaint that Army Secretary Christine Wormuth had received about Smoke Bomb Hill. About 50 rooms within the 12 barracks were reportedly found to be infested with mold.

“We knew that there was mold in there, but we would go in and clean it up, but it was a case-by-case basis, and when we actually looked holistic at the whole barracks complex, it just currently was not working,” Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Tickner, deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Installation Management Command, said on Friday’s conference call.

It is not clear why officials at Fort Bragg apparently did not know the full extent of the Smoke Bomb Hill barracks’ mold issues before Grinston’s inspection.

Noncommissioned officers were aware of mold issues in a lot of Smoke Bomb Barracks’ rooms, and they made sure that any work orders for mold were completed, Command Sgt. Maj. T.J. Holland, 18th Airborne Corps’ senior enlisted advisor, said during Friday’s conference call.

“Leaders were present,” Holland said. “Leaders were doing things, and leaders were the ones who sounded off loud and hard with their soldiers communicating that: ‘Hey, what we’re doing isn’t enough anymore and we have to get after it; we’ve got to do better for our soldiers.’ And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

Neither Holland nor any of the other Army officials who took part in the conference call mentioned how Grinston’s inspection of the Smoke Bomb Hill barracks influenced their decision to move soldiers to new living quarters.

Mold is not a new problem for troops living on base. But the climate is changing and extremely strong storms are becoming more common: Marine Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, is threatened by rising sea levels and it had to be evacuated due to hurricanes in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. The combined effects of more heat and moisture in the air and the military’s aging infrastructure likely means that troops will be bleaching mold off their walls much more often in the future.

UPDATE: This story was update on Aug. 29 with comments from defense officials.

The latest on Task & Purpose

Want to write for Task & Purpose? Click here. Or check out the latest stories on our homepage. 

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Mold, aging ventilation and outdated buildings have forced the military to find new housing for more than 1,000 soldiers living at Fort Bragg.

>> Read more trending news

An inspection in early August revealed mold covering rooms from floor to ceiling, severe water leaks, asbestos, poor ventilation and no air conditioning, WRAL reported.

Officials told The Fayetteville Observer that it had relocated 100 soldiers and approved 55 certificates to allow soldiers to find private housing on or off the post. The same officials said another 380 certificates are in the process of being approved.

While more than 1,000 soldiers will be moving out of the barracks in the coming weeks, other soldiers told CBS News that mold is growing in their barracks as well, describing it as “black specks all across the furniture and across the walls.”

Gen. Edward Daly, head of Army Materiel Command, told Military.com that the military will change the way inspections are done going forward. While soldiers had been tasked with the inspections, the military now plans to hire civilian contractors for the task.

Fort Bragg told CBS News that the Army plans to demolish and rebuild 12 of the barracks at Fort Bragg that were found to be substandard, and renovate five others.

In a statement to CBS News, a Fort Bragg spokesperson said: “Our enduring obligation at Fort Bragg and as Army leaders is to take care of our people — our soldiers and their families. Their health and welfare is of the utmost importance to our Army readiness.”

©2022 Cox Media Group