HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-01-19, Page 10PAGE 10. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012.
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alarms go off on board informing
crew of the change according to
Costa Crociere chairman and CEO
Pier Luigi Foschi.
Laurie said that when the ship ran
aground she and Alan were watching
a magic show.
“All of a sudden the lights flashed
and the boat tipped like it was
turning, but it didn’t return to level,”
she said in an interview with CNN.
“Then we heard a scraping noise to
the left of the ship and my husband
said ‘we’re sliding off our seats...something’s wrong.”Laurie said that the magician thendisappeared from the stage and sheconsidered that the funniest part.
The couple succesfully reached
their cabin and got their coats and
life jackets before heading for the
lifeboats.
Upon reaching their designated
lifeboat area, the Willits were told to
go upstairs but Alan refused, stating
something was wrong.
“I said ‘No this isn’t right.’ and I
came out and I argued [with the
crew],” he said.
Alan told the crew that, once the
boat was stabilized, he would go to
the fifth floor and eventually he and
his wife were in a boat being
lowered down.
The Willits were some of the first
to be taken to dry land, more than an
hour after the first alarms had gone
off, where they watched the boat
slowly tilt until it was nearly lying
on its side in the water.
Schettino is currently being held
by Italian authorities for suspected
manslaughter charges. Police are
reportedly investigating Schettino
for leaving the ship before it had
been fully evacuated, a grievous
breach of the Italian navigation code
that could result in a decade or more
of imprisonment.
Ophelie Gondelle and David Du
Pays, a French couple, told The
Associated Press they had saw the
captain wrapped in a blanket aboard
a lifeboat before the passengers and
crew had been evacuated.
Schettino refuted both claims
against him in an interview with
Mediaset Television, part of the
largest commercial broadcasting
company in Italy, saying that he was
on the ship until he had done
everything he could to insure thesafety of everyone on board and thatfaulty navigation charts not showingthe rocks caused the crash.“We were the last ones to leave the
ship,” he told the television station.
The captain says he did everything
he could to save lives before leaving
the ship.
Passengers who were evacuated
reported that they had never been
involved in a lifeboat drill on the
ship. The drill that would have
shown them how to evacuate via the
boats was scheduled for Saturday
morning, a full week after the ship
set sail on Jan. 7.
Reports from several passengers
via several different news media
indicate that the crew were
unprepared for the crash and that.
Alan and Laurie, when interviewed
by CBC News’ The National on Jan.
15 said that things were confusing.
“There was messages coming over
the P.A. system in four or five
different languages. You had to wait
to hear your own message,” Alan
said.
“[The announcements said there
were] technical difficulties,
generator problems, we have it
under control,” Laurie said. “Which
was so wrong.”
She also said that the
announcements were hard to hear,
regardless of their language.
“We had very sketchy
information,” she told CNN. “We
couldn’t really hear because of the
chaos and talking.”
Alan said there was no panic but
that things were crowded.
“Obviously there was
incompetence for us to hit rocks in
the first place,” Alan said. “The
rocks were on the chart, they were in
the wrong water, someone was
incompetent and put our lives indanger.”Laurie also said that she had beenable to get a Facebook message toJory using a stranger’s phone from
the ship indicating that the ship had
hit rocks.
The National also reported that
there was a delay of approximately
15 minutes between the first alarm
going off for the ship’s list and the
alarm being sounded to abandon
ship.
Several news agencies are
reporting that this delay caused
many of the lifeboats to be unusable
due to the listing of the ship by the
time the abandon ship
announcement was made.
Foschi stated that while Costa
Crociere distances itself from the
actions of Schettino they are
standing behind him and providing
him with support.
Work at the crash site has been
difficult due to worsening weather
and the shifting of the boat which is
causing concerns for not only
possible rescue missions but also
environmental concerns.
The ship has 500,000 gallons of
fuel on board in 17 separate tanks
according to Foschi.
ANSA, a news wire in Italy,
reports that Italian Environment
Minister Corrado Clini considers the
potential environmental
repercussions a definite cause for
concern.
“The environmental risk for the
island of Giglio is extremely high,”
Clini said according to ANSA. “The
goal is to avoid that the fuel leaks
from the ship. We are working on
this. The intervention is urgent.”
Rescue operations are once again
underway after the ship shifted
centimetres on Sunday.
Couple was among the first to shore after ship crash
Shipwrecked
Alan and Laurie Willits of RR1 Wingham had a brush with
disaster as the Italian boat they were on, the Costa
Concordia, ran aground off the coast of Giglio Island after
what is suspected to be operator error that caused the ship
to ground itself on rocks and reef, and despite requests of
the crew on the ship to return to other decks Alan and
Laurie got on a lifeboat with other passengers and made
their way to shore. Others weren’t so lucky as there are six
people confirmed dead in the accident and 15 still being
searched for. (Photo submitted)
A sea of shoes
Even a rich socialite would be jealous of the number of shoes that were delivered to Grey
Central Public School on Thursday, Jan. 12. The snowshoes came as a result of a Trillium
Grant that funded $8,700 worth of snowshoes. The grant was applied for with the support of
the Brussels Optimist Club. Shown are, back row, from left, Dwain Forrest of Timber’s
Outfitters of Seaforth who ordered and delivered the shoes, Principal Jim Binn, teacher
Kimberly Hammermueler and Chair of the Environmental Learning Committee Susan
Alexander. Front row are, from left: Nicole Gulutzen, Aldia Swart, Alison Terpstra, Tiffany
Deitner and Johanna Blake. (Denny Scott photo)
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view as Ashfield-Colborne-
Wawanosh’s Reeve Ben Van
Diepenbeek.
“While we are on opposite sides,
we do agree that the county needs to
redo the composition bylaw and to
have it ready the year before the
next municipal election,” he said.
“That is the crux. We tried to do this
three years ago and we had eight of
the nine heads of council agreeing
with it. When we went forward with
it, the deputies and third
representatives from municipality
voted it down maintaining the
current structure.”
Vincent also stated that the current
Municipal Act changes how issues
like this need to be dealt with and
that Justice Gorman never once
acknowledged that in the legal
preceedings following the
composition.
Councillor James Campbell
moved that council support the
appeal with up to $2,000. Council
passed the motion with Bailey
dissenting.
North Huron was 152 short of the
necessary 4,001 voters needed
during the last municipal election to
maintain their second chair resulting
in Deputy-Reeve David Riach being
removed from Huron County
Council.
Both sides agree council
makeup needs to change
County wants to look at policies through rural lens
The Huron County Planning
Department brought forth a formula
for rural proofing provincial
regulations at the Jan. 11 Committee
of the Whole meeting.
Late last year Central Huron
Mayor Jim Ginn raised idea of
implementing the concept of rural
proofing, a way to look at all policies
through a rural lens before
implementation, in Ontario.
Ginn said the practice has been put
in place in England where all
policies must be evaluated by a
series of questions designed to
determine how the policy will affect
the rural areas of the country.
After Ginn brought the idea
forward, the planning department
staff was directed to investigate a
reasonable way the practice could be
designed and recommended for
implementation to the provincial
government.
Head of the Huron County
Planning Department Scott Tousaw
said he compiled a report with the
help of the Huron County Health
Unit’s Janice Dunbar and Paul
Nichol from the Huron Business
Development Corporation.
“This is a process for senior
government to evaluate proposed
policies,” Tousaw told council. “It
would be a series of questions asking
how a policy would work in a rural
area.”
Tousaw said he found several
excellent reference documents on
the subject, but at the same time, he
also found that there were many in
England who were not in favour of
the practice, saying it
wasn’t serving its purpose in its
current form.
In fact, Tousaw said, the program
is currently at risk of being cancelled
in England.
Ginn thanked Tousaw and his
team for the report, saying that he
would like Huron County to bring it
forward to senior levels of
government at the Western Wardens
Caucus and the annual Rural Ontario
Municipal Association
(ROMA) conference this February
in Toronto.
Tousaw said that at higher levels
of government, it has traditionally
been the Ontario Ministry of
Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
(OMAFRA) that has attempted to
provide the rural lens that Ginn
spoke of late last year.
OMAFRA provided that function
in an unofficial capacity, however,
saying that Ontario didn’t have an
official procedure for providing a
rural viewpoint to potential policy
changes.
Ginn said a policy like rural
proofing is essential when Huron
County and similar rural areas are
coming out on the short end of many
policy decisions. Examples Ginn
listed were the Provincial Policy
Statement, rural woodlots, tornado
damage in Goderich, rural school
closings and rural barn parties, to
name just a few.
The motion to bring the report to
the two aforementioned groups was
carried by council.
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen