Let your voice be heard by voting on WHQR’s top ten stories of 2011!
The WHQR News Team has recapped several major stories for the year, and now, it’s your turn to let us know what events you think were most important and have had the biggest impact on our community.
Then, tune in the week of December 26-30 when WHQR will be airing its 2011 Top Ten Countdown.
Here are the stories to choose from:
Mother Nature
- In late August, Hurricane Irene made landfall as a Category 1 storm near Cape Lookout, devastating a long swath of communities along the East Coast. In North Carolina, seven people died from the storm. More than 80 shelters opened in 28 counties, housing a peak of nearly 8,000 people. Across the state, there were more than 660,000 power outages. As of December 1, more than $67 million had been approved in federal disaster assistance grants for North Carolina homeowners, renters, and small businesses.
- Statewide, storms kicked up 28 tornadoes in April and took 24 lives, the most since 1984 when 42 people died from tornados. Along with the human toll, thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed.
- Dozens of firefighters battled a blaze that scorched more than 30,000 acres of the Holly Shelter Game Land in Pender County this summer. The fire began in June from a lightning strike and was mostly contained when Hurricane Irene finally washed out the last smoldering ember. Cost estimates for containing the fire top $3.5 million.
Municipal Elections
- This year’s municipal election season was plagued with corruption investigations by the SBI in Oak Island and Carolina Beach. In Oak Island, mayoral incumbent Betty Wallace defeated Bob Seidel by nearly 50 percentage points. In Carolina Beach, former mayor Ray Rothrock beat opponents Pat Efird and Dan Wilcox. In Wilmington, incumbent Bill Saffo will continue serving in the mayor’s post. On the northern edge of New Hanover County, voters in Castle Hayne took a firm stance against incorporation with 75 percent opposing the measure.
PPD Sale
- PPD, one of the largest employers in Wilmington with more than 1,500 workers at its downtown headquarters, was acquired this month for $3.9 billion by the Carlyle Group and Hellman and Friedman, making it a private company.
Titan's Draft Air Permit
- North Carolina Division of Air Quality officials held public hearings in Wilmington this fall to collect feedbackon its draft air permit for Titan America. This year, community advocates continued fighting against the proposed Castle Hayne cement plant, which was first announced three years ago.
Brian Berger
- At a press conference in September, four members of the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners urged their fifth member, Brian Berger, to resign. Berger refused to leave his post. The board said that Berger’s run ins with the law and continued personal issues were distracting and harmful to the county’s reputation. Making public pleas for a commissioner’s resignation was an unprecedented move for the county board.
Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage
- North Carolina voters will decide in May on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state. The Senate voted in September in favor of putting the question on the statewide primary ballot. North Carolina is the only state in the Southeast without this kind of prohibition in its constitution.
Camp Lejeune Water Study
- The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry sent out hundreds of thousand of surveys this year for a massive study on possible health effects of the exposure to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. Chemicals such as benzene, trichloroethylene and other toxics leaked into groundwater at Lejeune, contaminating the drinking water supply for decades. Survey results are expected in 2014.
Monkey Junction Annexation Battle
- Nearly 75 percent of property owners in Monkey Junction spoke loud and clear this fall: they don’t want to be annexed. Based on new legislation passed in June, unincorporated areas can block a neighboring city’s annexation advances if 60 percent of their property owners dissent. Now, the City of Wilmington, and a handful of other cities, has filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s new annexation legislation.
NC Budget and Unemployment
- For the first time in state history, the governor vetoed the legislature’s $19.7 billion budget penned by Republicans this summer. The state legislature overturned Perdue’s measure. As state lawmakers went back and forth over what programs and services to cut and what to preserve, county and city governments made the same tough choices on the local level. unemployed residents across the state searched for work. The unemployment rate in North Carolina was 10.4 percent in October this year, up from 9.9 percent in the same month of 2010.
State Redistricting
- State legislators held forums across the state earlier this year and approved redrawn district maps in July for North Carolina Senate, House, and Congressional districts. The maps are approved for ten years and are redrawn after census results are released. The 2010 census shows that North Carolina grew by nearly 1.5 million people since 2000.
What do you think has been the most important WHQR News story of 2011? Please VOTE ONLINE and join us as we countdown the top ten on the air, December 26 through 30.
