Here’s what’s in the news, according to the teevee box:
Waynesville man dies
An employee of Allison Outdoor Advertising fell from a billboard Monday afternoon and was impaled on a plastic stake used to mark underground cables, reported Heather Graf. The death has shaken co-workers “to the core,” WLOSers said.
Twenty-five-year-old Kevin Newcomb and his partner were just 10 feet up in the air on a billboard along U.S. 64 in Cherokee County on a routine job, Heather said. She quoted a company official who described the accident, and she talked to a witness who said he saw the fallen man pulling himself off the stake.
Heather said OSHA would investigate, but she never mentioned or explained the obvious – what are the safety regulations for people up on billboards? Aren’t they required to strap themselves in or have safety ropes or something? C’mon, Heather.
More on the missing hiker
Anybody who has been watching the cable news knows that Georgia police found the body of Meredith Emerson in the woods in north Georgia on Monday, but the story continues. Terrie Foster said an autopsy showed that the 20-something woman died from a blow to the head and that she was decapitated. A 61-year-old man named Gary Hilton has been arrested and charged in the case.
Foster said she talked to the son of Irene and John Bryant, who went missing in Pisgah National Forest back in October. Police found the body of Irene Bryant, but her husband remains missing. Cops think the suspect in the Georgia case may be a suspect in the Bryant case, but so far it’s just a hunch.
In other news…
An oil barrel at a mobile home in Madison County blew up and the trailer burned up. Nobody was injured… A big rig wrecked on I-40 in the Pigeon River Gorge in Haywood County. The truck was carrying frozen chicken and beef and one lane of the highway was closed all day… A resident of the Redwood Forest subdivision says traffic circles aren’t slowing down motorists that use a road to cut through between Tunnel Road and Swannanoa River Road.
More money for deputies
Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan wants county commissioners to give him nearly $1 million more in taxpayer money so he can hire 10 new deputies and equip them. He says there’s been a 15 percent increase in call volume and he needs the deputies to keep us all safe. He’ll bring his request to commissioners on Jan. 22.
In still other news..
Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue visited MANNA Food Bank to tell us that we should all volunteer… The recent rain and snow still hasn’t been enough to lift mandatory water restrictions in Woodfin… And John Le profiled an 86-year-old McDowell County barber named Gene Smith who is retiring on Feb. 7.
Smith’s Barber Shop is an institution in Marion, people told Le. People who line up to get their hair cut at Smith’s. You could get the “best flat top in the country” there, people said. And in his day, Smith could cut 80 to 100 head of hair, somebody said. Wow.