About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (July 15, 2020)
Retired college football coach with )■ national championship ring now f calls Gainesville his home, sports, ib LIFE, 2B Don’t miss your last chance of the season to pick flowers at Jaemor Farms. Midweek Edition - JULY 15-16,2020 | $1.00 | GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA | gainesvilletimes.com Honestly Local NGMC limits visitors, preps for surge Hospital putting tents up again, opening mobile unit as virus numbers rise BY MEGAN REED mreed@gainesvilletimes.com Northeast Georgia Medical Center has updated its visitation policies and is prepar ing for additional COVID-19 patients. Beginning Wednesday, July 15, no visi tors will be allowed at Northeast Georgia Physicians Group facilities, The Heart Cen ter, the intensive care unit, medical surgi cal rooms or the emergency department. Pediatric patients can be with one parent or guardian at a time, and for labor and delivery and mother and baby rooms, one support person can be there for the length of the stay. For surgeries and procedures, one visitor is allowed in the waiting room. For the neonatal intensive care unit, two designated band holders can visit as guide lines state. Waiting rooms are closed, except for visi tors of surgery or procedures patients. Full guidelines are available on the hos pital website. “All facilities will remain open as usual to provide care for patients, and we are not cancelling any surgeries, procedures or appointments at this time,” Michael Covert, chief operating officer for Northeast Geor gia Health System, said in a statement. Covert said the health system’s emer gency departments have been occasionally reaching capacity, so emergency medical tents that had been installed outside the Gainesville and Braselton hospitals are being rebuilt. “In order to provide emergency care and keep our wait times as short as possible, we Inside Church suspends in-person services due to virus cases, 4A are taking advantage of the opportunity to use the tents as an expansion of our existing emergency care space,” he said. Covert said the new mobile medical unit outside NGMC Gainesville’s North Tower will be operational soon. The unit was pro vided by the state. “The new unit has 20 traditional hospital beds - not ICU beds - and will be used to care for patients confirmed to have COVID- 19. We are finishing some final items in the new space and plan to begin caring for patients in the unit sometime within the next week,” Covert said Tuesday. Northeast Georgia Medical Center Nurse Manager Leah Wallace visits the hospital’s COVID-19 Mobile Unit Thursday, March 19. The hospital is erecting its mobile units again in case of a surge in coronavirus patients. Times file photo Ga. 53 bridge set for replacement SCOn ROGERS I The Times The Highway 53 westbound bridge on Friday, July 10. Project part of effort to rebuild Lanier’s original structures BY JEFF GILL jgill@gainesvilletimes.com One of Lake Lanier’s oldest bridges is on the brink of being replaced. Work is gearing up to build a new, two-lane westbound Dawsonville High- way/Ga. 53 bridge over the Chatta hoochee River in West Hall, replacing the 64-year-old structure there now. Barges and cranes are scheduled to be mobilized on the lake Friday, July 17, as workers begin foundation work, said Katie Strickland, Georgia Department of Transportation district spokeswoman. Friday’s work will require a minor shift in traffic on the eastbound Ga. 53 bridge, which is a separate two-lane structure. The new bridge will be built between the two existing bridges, with the old bridge torn down after the new bridge is completed and open to traffic. The $20 million project is projected to be finished by July 2022. A temporary barrier wall could be put in place in late July or early August, requiring a lane shift on the eastbound bridge, Strickland said. Work on the new bridge’s beams and the driving surface could start in March or April 2021, she said. Until next spring, “the majority of the work will be on the lake between the existing two bridges,” Strickland said. “So, there will be minimal activity affecting traffic other than the traffic shift on the eastbound bridge.” The bridge’s replacement is part of an ongoing DOT effort to replace struc tures that date to Lake Lanier’s creation in the 1950s. The westbound bridge — also known as the Jerry Jackson Bridge — under went extensive work in 2016, as the DOT repaired the driving surface, repainted the structure and installed bridge joints. Authorities recover body from Lanier BY NICK WATSDN nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com Authorities recovered the body of a Stone Mountain man Tuesday, July 14, after days of searching on Lake Lanier. Department of Natural Resources spokes man Mark McKinnon said the body of Bentley Nwgbara, 28, resurfaced within the search area after 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. Authorities said Nwgbara jumped into the waters of Lake Lanier near Harbor’s Landing Saturday, July 11, and did not resurface. Divers were in the lake searching for the man around 4 p.m. Saturday. ■ Please see LANIER, 4A Board approves location of new middle school BY NATHAN BERG AND MEGAN REED nberg@gainesvilletimes.com mreed@gainesvilletimes.com The Gainesville Planning and Appeals Board voted unanimously Inside Gainesville Schools to mandate masks inside, 5A Tuesday evening in favor of annexation and rezoning for a property that will house a new middle school for the Gaines ville City School System. The result is a positive move forward for the new school, which GCSS superintendent Jeremy Williams said he is hop ing will be open for the start of the 2022-2023 school year. The Gainesville City Council will have the final vote at a later meeting. “For us, this is just another step in the process of hoping to break ground later this calendar year,” Williams said. The approval for annexation and rezoning ■ Please see SCHOOL, 4A DEATHS 6A Stanley Bennett, Sr., 88 Cristina de Bonilla, 74 Celia Bridgemohan, 50 Terry Brookshire, 59 Donald Burruss, 71 Lucille Clark, 87 Linda Cole, 72 Catherine Collins, 88 Unzell Craven, 93 Paulette Feagins, 76 Michael Foster, 63 Roy Graves Beatrice Jarrard, 88 Dorothy Loggins, 91 Tamika Manes, 44 Jessie Margavich, 88 Ruth McAllister, 81 Frances McGuire, 80 Evelyn Nichols, 92 Tony Phyfe, 62 Robert Phillips Jr., 56 David Reesman, 94 Timothy Rider, 48 Austin Sanford, 22 Richard SefzikSr., 81 Diane Smits, 75 James Stanley, 70 Margaret Taylor, 98 Nora Thomas, 92 Melford Weeks, 89 Kathleen Whitmire, 90 Troas Williams Jr., 52 0 *40901 06835 8 Your source of spine expertise Your source of relief. Whatever your back issues are, they deserve expert care, Our team of board-certified spinal specialists starts by understanding your pain and any limitations, then performs a thorough evaluation to get the most accurate diagnosis. 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