Sunday, July 12, 2015

Sunday Globe Special: Sandblasted Beach

A Jade Helm drill on a Rhode Island Beach?

Oh, I know it's not supposed to begin until July 15th (officially), I think it already began across this country back in May if not before. Been extended to November, too.

Anyway, you be the judge:

"Woman hospitalized, R.I. beach evacuated after explosion" by Jennifer Smith Globe Correspondent  July 11, 2015

A bustling beach in Narragansett, R.I., was evacuated Saturday after an apparent explosion sent a woman to the hospital and closed the area to the public.

The cause of the reported blast remains under active investigation, but Rhode Island officials do not believe it to be a bomb or a terrorist attack.

Yeah, police simply received a "report of an explosion and the state bomb squad was deployed shortly afterward," and “there was some ground disturbance, fissures created from an eruption from the ground.”

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Heavy machinery was brought in to remove the wet sand surrounding the blast location, which will be analyzed off-site, according to Larry Mouradjian, associate director of natural resources at the state Department of Environmental Management.

It could be a “possible natural event,” Mouradjian said after leaving the scene. To his knowledge, officials are not actively seeking a suspect, he said.

????????????? 

Or it's an exercise and this is the ridiculous cover story excuse.

Mouradjian said he had never seen a similar incident at this or any other beach. He called the incident “very disturbing.”

And yet the beach is expected to reopen Sunday, and officials believe there are no further issues or threats(????).

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There were "no other injuries were reported," huh?

Related: Walk on the Beach

Also seeRhode Island’s Gina Raimondo takes on a ‘winner take all’ world

Related:

PawSox owners begin summer tour of R.I. to tout stadium plan

And the pitch is called a....

Slinking Back to Rhode Island

"Fan hit by ball at Fenway is out of hospital" by Laura Crimaldi and Peter Abraham Globe Staff  July 11, 2015

Stephanie Wapenski estimates she has been to Fenway Park at least 150 times. Last year, she got engaged there while thousands of people watched a video board as her boyfriend, a Yankees fan, proposed.

Friday night, Wapenski was back in the spotlight at Fenway, but for a very different reason.

She was struck between the eyebrows by a foul ball off the bat of New York Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius during the fifth inning. Wapenski, 36, said she saw the ball heading toward her seat along the third base line, but did not have time to act.

“It was like it knew who I was and had a vendetta,” she said Saturday while on the way back to her home in Branford, Conn. “It came right for me.” 

It's an inanimate object. It doesn't have intent.

Her injury came five weeks after a fan was seriously injured at Fenway Park by a shattered baseball bat.

After the ball hit her, Wapenski said, she saw blood on her clothes and heard her fiancé, Matt Fraenza, ask for help. A fan, who identified himself as an emergency medical technician, told her to apply pressure to the wound, she said.

“I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I didn’t yell. I just . . . knew that I needed to stop the bleeding,” she said.

Wapenski’s father, Stephen, 69, was watching the game at home in Florida and saw the commotion in the area where his daughter was seated. His son later told him Wapenski had been hit.

“I had the worse feeling. I had chills,” he said. “I felt so helpless because I’m down here in Florida. She’s 36, but she’s still my baby girl.”

Fans quickly came to Wapenski’s aid.

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Her wound, Wapenski said, is “like a third eye.” She said she and Fraenza got the tickets to the game through “dumb luck,” and were enjoying a date night while her brother watched their baby daughter, Delaney.

Red Sox principal owner John W. Henry also owns The Boston Globe.

Wapenski’s injury was the second such incident at Fenway Park this season. During a June 5 game against the Oakland Athletics, Tonya Carpenter, 44, of Paxton, was struck in the face by a piece of broken bat while sitting behind the plate, just to the left of protective netting.

She was hospitalized for eight days while being treated for life-threatening injuries.... 

Was her own fault, though.

Marc Keller, 45, of Kingfield, Maine, said the amount of netting at Fenway is “effective,” and there is no need to add more.

“When you go to a baseball game, there’s always a chance of a foul ball,” he said, adding, “You just have to pay attention.”

Lynn Byrnes, 54, of Dover, Del., said the limited amount of netting adds to the feeling of nostalgia at Fenway.

Just don't wave one of those, you know, flags.

“It actually says on the ticket, watch at your own risk,” she said as her husband pointed to the fine print on her stub. “If you get hit by a bat or ball, that’s your fault.”

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Yeah, lightning never strikes twice so I wouldn't worry about the beach?

NDUs:

"Investigators still probing mysterious occurrence at R.I. beach" by Jan Ransom Globe Staff  July 13, 2015

Something mysterious happened at a packed beach in Narragansett, R.I., Saturday that caused the ground to shake, produced a loud “boom,” and sent a woman to the hospital in what was widely called an explosion.

But authorities said Sunday the investigation does not suggest there was an explosion at Salty Brine State Beach, and they are considering whether the cause could be a natural phenomenon.

“We’re still looking into it,” said Lieutenant Colonel Todd Catlow of the Rhode Island State Police Sunday. “There’s no evidence of an incendiary device, there’s no residue, and there was no smoke.”

Investigators are eyeing the possibility that the blast was caused by a “geological movement.”

It's some kind of movement right in your face, readers.

“We’re looking at everything we can,” Catlow said. “It’s not a normal investigation.”

No, I should say not. This laughable cover story is the best they could do (and not the first one)? 

My "conspiracy theory" is looking more plausible all the time.

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and the state fire marshal’s office determined the beach was safe to open to the public Sunday, said Rayna Maguire, assistant to the director of the Department of Environmental Management .

Wayne Stepalavich, who was at the beach with his family, was about 100 feet away from the mysterious blast, he wrote on Twitter. Stepalavich did not immediately return calls for comment Sunday.

“Woman was seen ‘flying,’ ” he tweeted. “It was loud and shook the ground.”

“[It] was very surreal,” he continued. “There was not a lot of panic, just confusion. Everyone was calling 911.”

A woman was blown over by the blast, authorities said, and she was transported to South County Hospital.

Crisis actors?

Larry Mouradjian, associate director of natural resources at the state Department of Environmental Management, said Saturday the blast, which occurred below the high-tide line on the shore, created fissures in the ground.

As authorities continue to investigate the puzzling occurrence, Daniel Sheehy, president of Aquabio, Inc., an environmental consulting services firm in Arlington, speculated that decomposed seaweed could be to blame. “When seaweed decomposes, methane and nitrogen are released,” Sheehy said. “Hydrogen sulfide has a rotten egg smell. At elevated concentration, it’s toxic and also flammable.”

Sheehy said that if the seaweed is buried, it might cause methane to build up. Some beaches bury seaweed to get rid of it, he said. 

Then beaches would be blowing up everywhere for no reason, right?

John E. Ebel, senior research scientist at the Weston Observatory and professor of geophysics at Boston College, said the explosion has him stumped.

A mix of oil and natural gas could cause an explosion, but conditions are not right for that to happen in Rhode Island.

The state does not have the geological environment that would produce ice known as methane hydrates or heated rocks like the kind found around active volcanoes, both of which could cause a blast like the one on Salty Brine Beach, he said.

“I cannot come up with any good natural explanation,” Ebel said. “I’m thinking through all of the lectures, the talks. . . . All of the natural explanations that I could think of in other parts of the world don’t apply to Rhode Island.” 

I can.

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They did discover a body though. Been a rash of drownings lately(?).