Daybreak Friday 5/8/20

GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!

It's so hard to track all the movement up there! There's a cold front, and then there's a much colder air mass descending from the north, and then there's a low pressure system moving in from the Ohio Valley.... It'll be sunny and dry, though gusty, this morning into this afternoon, temps crawling into the low 50s. Then at some point late the clouds start piling in, and with them a chance of rain, and then tonight, most likely, snow. It shouldn't amount to too much here, but still, it's white. In May.Or as the Weather Service puts it: "Who's psyched for some snow in May?" That's the cheery heading on this snow total map (mostly 1-2 inches) from the Burlington office. Meanwhile, here's the more cut-and-dried NH/ME version (less than an inch around here).While we wait, let's look at some fog. Or, actually, the landscape through fog. Photographer Jim Block was out around Lyme the other morning. “The enchanting fog lasted less than an hour," he writes. "It was light enough to see through, not the dark moody gloom that sometimes obscures almost everything. I worked quickly, striving to capture as many scenes as I could while the amazing light lasted.”So...

Today's data geek fix: CNN's got an interesting graphic on known case rates. It depends, of course, on how well states (and territories) are carrying out testing, but if you scroll down to the third graphic, you can get a sense of how quickly cases are growing. In NH, they're doubling every three weeks. In VT, every three months. In MN and NE, every week. (Thanks, DM!)Oh, wait, one more... NPR reports on a new Harvard Global Health Institute projection projection, released yesterday, suggesting that the US as a whole needs to be doing 900,000 coronavirus tests a day, a major jump from an earlier goal of 500-600K because the outbreak is worse than expected. The institute looks at two measures to determine if a state's testing is adequate: how much is needed to test infected people and close contacts, and the ratio of tests that come back positive. VT and NH fall short on the first goal, but meet the second. Details and caveats at the link."I have gotten a start on my yearly herb garden, including a basil plant I will manage eventually to kill and then replace, and replace again." Susan Apel has already stopped by the Crossroads Farm Stand in Norwich, which opened for the season yesterday. There are changes—for one thing, customers now stand outside—but as she says, those are just "one more example of the innovation that keeps me from ever-weeping into my hankie." The greenhouse is still filled with color, Susan writes, and "the welcome is friendly and heartfelt—even through the masks."  And just up the road, the Norwich Farmers Market opens tomorrow, and it, too, has innovated. The link takes you to a list of vendors from whom you can pre-order. The market's been reconfigured (map with vendors' stalls here), and there are other changes: white lines on the grass to help you stay six feet away from vendors; a request to wear face coverings; and trying to minimize payment interactions by using a check or carrying small bills so the vendor doesn't have to make change.Dartmouth to begin mandatory screening of on-campus employees Monday. This is to meet guidelines set out by NH's reopening task force, and applies not only to all faculty and staff coming to campus, but to all visitors, including people making deliveries. They'll have to answer five questions and confirm they don't have a fever, either via a new website for college employees or at temperature-checking stations the college is setting up. "Be careful." Yesterday's mail brought that admonition from Chuck Sherman on the Seven Days story about mobility rates, which depends on cellphone data. "Descartes Labs states: 'Small sample sizes in rural counties may overstate changes in mobility.' Vermont has lousy cell service. Cell phones don’t work in Strafford at all, perhaps never will until SpaceX launches a few thousand more low-flying satellites....The state’s new map of WiFi hot spots is like a map of phone booths. Phone booths are back. Remember them? Maybe the mobility data for VT shows people traveling to use phone booths."

Judge gives Springfield Hospital okay to apply for PPP loan.

The hospital, which is in bankruptcy, had applied for about $3 million through the federal Paycheck Protection Program, but was told the SBA is denying loans to bankrupt institutions. The hospital filed suit, and a US bankruptcy court judge earlier this week granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting any lender from denying it a loan because of its bankruptcy status. 

Green Mountain National Forest restricts camping at some sites

. While the Whites reopen some trailheads, the GMNF is restricting overnight camping, including at Chittenden Brook Campground, Moosalamoo Campground, Silver Lake Campground, and a bunch of shelters (and/or privies) along the AT and Long Trail. Hit "See More Information" at the link for a full list.

VPR interviews NHPR.

Or, more precisely, VPR's Henry Epp talked yesterday to NHPR's Jason Moon. Epp is checking in on the states that border Vermont, as well as Quebec, to see how they're handling the pandemic. Moon points out that although there are specific restrictions for different NH industries as they reopen, "it's going to be a real question as to whether or not any of this is going to be enforceable." And that while some business owners have been pushing hard to reopen, others are far more cautious. And

here's Epp's interview with CBC reporter Ben Shingler

about Quebec—and Montreal in particular.

Tupelo Music Hall goes for the drive-in model.

Talk about innovating in a time of need. Drive-in theaters in NH can start operating May 11, so the Derry music venue is switching things up. Bands will play on a riser at the front entrance. Patrons will buy tix in advance, then drive over and park in a spot safely distanced from others. They can either listen to the concert on the radio or sit in a chair on the driver's side only. "You don’t leave the spot. There’s no walking around. Your spot is your home," explains owner Scott Hayward.

“The biggest threat of all is the growth of government. You don't want too much oversight."

That's not a business owner griping about overreach by the state. That's Taylor Caswell, NH's commissioner of business and economic affairs, speaking at a webinar on reopening the state's economy, a process he'll be helping to lead. “We don’t want 50 pages of guidance.” But that approach got some pushback from Ed Butler, a state rep and inn owner who was also on the webinar and said he wouldn’t mind some details “to create basic guidelines to help us as a business understand how to safely proceed.”

VTDigger looking into how essential workers are being treated.

Reporter Erin Petenko and a colleague are trawling for input from hourly and essential workers on working conditions and whether they're being treated well during the pandemic. In a Reddit thread, Petenko links to

a form for people to share their experiences

,

while one respondent suggests they look into UPS and FedEx warehouses, writing,

"

It is physically impossible for these companies to keep up with the increased package volume and maintain social distancing at the workstations."

VT buys milk for food bank before it's dumped; trails already seeing summertime volume.

In a twin item, the AP reports that a $60K grant from the VT Community Foundation is letting the state buy milk that would otherwise have been dumped at Dairy Farmers of America farms, which will instead send it to Green Mountain Creamery and HP Hood to process into yogurt and 2% milk for the Vermont Foodbank. At the same link, AP also reports that the Green Mountain Club says it's seeing usage that matches summer levels on trails that are still oversaturated from snowmelt and vulnerable to damage from overuse.

Vote-by-mail at issue in VT.

At a press conference on Monday, Gov. Phil Scott said he has unspecified "concerns" about whether the state should move to universal mail-in balloting for the November elections. This put him at loggerheads with Secy of State Jim Condos, who wants it. Now the state Democratic Party has launched a set of digital ads urging voters to demand the ballots. “The safety and security of voters should not be a partisan issue," a spokesperson says in a press release, "yet Vermont’s Republican governor is resisting a plan to expand the state’s Vote-By-Mail program.” 

Some VT teachers teach from their cars.

By federal standards, nearly 70,000 homes in Vermont don't have broadband access, and that includes those of some schoolteachers... who have to drive to where they can get wifi, and then teach class from there. The pandemic has laid bare the cost of the state's inconsistent broadband coverage to both students and teachers, writes

VTDigger

's Lola Duffort. Her article includes a handy interactive map showing how many households lack access in each district: 779 in Orange East, 215 in Rivendell, 542 in White River Valley, 90 in Norwich, 43 in Hartford.

Two Upper Valley projects get EPA brownfield-cleanup grants. Bethel's getting $500K (through the Green Mtn Economic Development Corp) to clean up the old Valley Motor Sales site on Pleasant Street, which is contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and PCBs co-mingled with petroleum. The Southern Windsor County Regional Planning Commission has landed $300K to assess sites and develop cleanup plans at various properties in Springfield and Windsor, including asbestos remediation at the former Park St School in Springfield and a former dry cleaner's in Windsor.Dartmouth's Neukom Institute announces literary award prizes for playwriting. The awards program began in 2017 to support creative works around speculative fiction, and this year the first-place prize for playwriting is going to Deborah Yarchun for Drive, about truckers who lose their jobs to self-driving vehicles. For the first time, the institute is also awarding a second-place prize, to Elizabeth Keel for Override, her play about touch, simulated and real. Both plays will get a virtual reading this summer at VoxFest, and Yarchun will work with Northern Stage to develop her play further.Three-year-old helps rescue neighbor. This happened over in Hampton, NH on Wednesday: A woman and her son were out for a walk and the young boy, Eyas, decided to put their elderly neighbor's newspaper on her porch. When he did, he noticed multiple papers piled up and told his mom. She tried knocking, and then calling, but got no answer, so called the police. Who found the woman trapped in the basement, where she'd been for three days. Despite this, the police report, she was in good spirits. "Anyone wanting to ski in the East in April in the days before snowmaking probably had to make the hike into Tuckerman Ravine." That's Jeff Leich, executive director of the New England Ski Museum and a veteran Tuckerman's skier, who has a history of skiing the ravine in Backcountry mag. The first giant slalom race in the country was held there in 1937, introducing a format that helped cut the casualty rate on narrower trails.How not to get bit by ticks. NHPR's Taylor Quimby, who hosts the "Patient Zero" podcast, has been talking to the experts and is up with some seasonal advice. Light-colored pants tucked into socks. Skin-based repellants or permethrin, which goes in your clothes—though regardless, sticking clothes in a dryer at high heat when you come in is a good idea. And, of course, regular tick checks... including, you'll be pleased to know, your navel. Okay, so it's a bear clear on the other side of the country. But it's a bear lolling in a tub (at the Oregon Zoo), and it's pretty darn captivating. Though the user who says "I've watched this 800 times" is maybe going a little overboard. A dozen should cut it. 

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Staying Connected

We're going to go out with

two

pieces of music this week. Or actually, the same piece of music two very different ways. The first is the original "Uptown Funk," the mega-hit song by Mark Ronson and performed by Bruno Mars, only the jaw-droppingly clever video that goes along with it

(Thanks, DM!)

Then there's the version that the compelling Ayoub Sisters, the Glasgow-born daughters of Egyptian-immigrant parents,

and yes, that's Ronson who wanders in about midway through. 

Have a fine, warm weekend. See you Monday.

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