About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (April 14, 2020)
Police, first responders hold public safety parades in Hall neighborhoods. ufe,4a TUESDAY, APRIL 14,2020 | GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA | gainesvilletimes.com Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce to hold online networking sessions. INSIDE, 6A Honestly Local Hall to get temporary medical unit Facility expected to be operational in Gainesville by May 5 Associated Press The state has purchased four temporary medical units to expand bed capacity, and Gainesville will have one of them operational May 5, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday. Other units will be in Rome, Albany and Macon. The announcement was made during a press briefing April 13 at Liberty Plaza in Atlanta. More information was to be made available later from the Gov ernor’s Office. The number of confirmed cases of the new coronavirus crossed 13,000 Monday in Georgia, while the number of deaths from COVID- 19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, rose to at least 464. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities continue to be hotspots for infections in the state. The South Central Health District said Sunday that 16 people have tested positive for the virus at an unnamed long-term care facil ity in Wilcox County, northeast of Albany. The state Department of Public Health last week confirmed infections in 80 long-term care facilities statewide, with at least 81 deaths resulting. Kemp said Monday afternoon that lags in testing capabilities “continue to frustrate” officials as the state works to increase hospital bed capacity ahead of a projected peak in infections. “We have got to have enough hospital beds when we reach our peak, we’ve got to do more testing and we’ve got to continue to focus on our long-term care facilities,” Kemp said. Wilcox County is one of a num ber of counties statewide that has recently seen jackrabbit growth in the number of confirmed infec tions, along with Muscogee County, which includes Columbus, and Richmond County, which includes Augusta. It’s unclear whether that growth represents spread of the ■ Please see UNIT, 3A Storms move across state Photos by SCOTT ROGERS I The Times A house on River Run Circle has major damage from a fallen tree due to storms that hit overnight April 12-13. Downed trees damage homes; 7 people displaced in Hall BY NICK WATSON nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com Tiffany Terveen had dreams all night of trees falling. She made her 11-year-old daughter sleep downstairs out of fear of a tree crashing through the upstairs room. As Terveen was getting ready Monday morning for her day, it finally happened but in the next-door neighbor’s yard. “I hit the ground and took cover because I thought there was a tree falling on my house,” said Terveen of Cameron Circle in Gainesville. The tree fell around 8 a.m. Monday, April 13, in a spot similar to where one fell from a storm a few years ago. Five adults and seven children were displaced from two homes off of River Run Circle in northeast Hall County after several trees fell as strong storms moved through the area overnight. No one was injured, Hall County Emer gency Management reported in the early Overnight storms damaged property on Cameron Circle in Hall County. morning hours Monday. The American Red Cross was con tacted to help with lodging. Hall County Fire Services Division Chief Zach Brackett said there were five homes countywide struck by trees. Hall County residents with damage can report it to the county online. No one particular area was hit hard, Brackett said, as incidents were scattered around the county. The system moved across the South overnight, with a tornado spotted north of Meridian near the Alabama state line and several tornadoes striking Mississippi. Around 750,000 people were without power early Monday in a 10-state swath ranging from Texas to Georgia up to West Virginia, according to poweroutages.us. In Hall County, a few thousand were with out power in the early hours, and 35 Geor gia Power customers were still affected at 5 p.m. Monday. Jackson EMC reported a handful of customers without power, and Sawnee EMC reported no Hall County outages at 5 p.m. News outlets reported downed trees, flooded streets and other damage in Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, but the National Weather Service hadn’t immediately confirmed additional tor nado touchdowns. The Associated Press contributed to this report. School year end not early but altered BY NATHAN BERG nberg@gainesvilletimes.com Gainesville City School System students, parents and faculty now have a bit more clar ity on how the remainder of the school year will go. In a statement released on Monday after noon by Gainesville City Schools superinten dent Jeremy Williams, the system laid out a plan for how assignments and grades will be handled as the year draws to a close. All school assignments will be completed and submitted by May 1 for students to receive credit. The remaining days of the school year following May 1 will focus on the individual needs of students, including offer ing recovery and remediation, as well as sorting out missing assignments from earlier in the year. School will still run through the scheduled last day of class on May 20. Seniors will be notified of their gradua tion status no later than May 12. The school system is still weighing all available options regarding a graduation ceremony, but final plans will be announced no later than April 24. All report cards will be mailed by “the beginning of June.” Kindergarten through eighth grade students will receive grades of either “Pass” or “Fail” for each course completed, except for middle school stu dents enrolled in high school classes. All par ticipants in high school courses will receive numeric grades for each high school class completed. Gainesville City Schools are also not expecting to host summer school classes this summer, “although some instruction may be provided for small groups of students in an online format.” The school system is still working out the best option for students to reclaim personal items left in school buildings, as well as to return school-owned devices distributed to students without the proper access to requi site technology for online learning. Gainesville City Schools will provide more information on these issues no later than April 24. Inside ■ Hall school board moves ESPLOST vote to June 9,3A ■ Hall County Library System offering free online tutoring resource, test prep, 3A IRS has begun issuing $1,200 economic stimulus checks BY JEFF GILL jgill@gainesvilletimes.com Bank accounts could start get ting bigger this week, as the IRS begins issuing economic stimulus checks. Those who make less than $75,000 a year will receive direct payments of $1,200 per individ ual, or $2,400 for a joint return, plus $500 per dependent. This will phase out for incomes above $75,000, or $150,000 for joint filings. Checks will go straight to bank accounts for those with direct deposit information on file with the IRS. The agency is set to roll out an online tool, Get My Payment, on Friday, April 17, that will allow those without bank information on file with the IRS to also get their money through direct deposit, according to a news release. Get My Payment also will allow users to check the status of their payment, including when it is scheduled to be deposited or mailed to them. Those who don’t provide bank information will automatically get a paper check, with reports sug gesting that checks will be mailed in waves throughout the summer. A document from the House Ways and Means Committee in Congress says the IRS will make about 60 million payments to Americans through direct deposit in mid-April, likely starting this week. The IRS has direct deposit infor mation for these individuals from their 2018 or 2019 tax returns. Then, starting the week of May 4, the IRS will begin issuing paper checks to individuals, says the memo obtained by the Associated Press on Thursday. The paper checks will be issued at a rate of about 5 million per week, which means it could take up to 20 weeks to get all the checks out. That time line would delay some checks until the week of Aug. 17. According to the IRS, those who don’t normally file taxes can still get a stimulus payment by filling out information online. This group includes people with too little income to file — single filers who made under $12,200 and married couples making less than $24,400 in 2019. Automatic payments will also go out soon for those receiving Social Security retirement or disability benefits and Railroad Retirement benefits. Those who have been claimed on someone else’s return aren’t eli gible for a stimulus payment. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
