The company voluntarily recalled products like flavored Children’s Tylenol, Tylenol Infants’ Drops, and Children’s and Infants’ Motrin are believed to “contain a higher concentration of active ingredients” and may also “contain tiny particles.”

A press release from the Fort Washington, Pennsylvania company said no illnesses or negative side effects have been reported, and even the likelihood of complications is “remote,” although consumers who have bought the medicines should discontinue use of the products.

A complete list of the recalled medications can be found at the McNeil recall website, or consumers may contact the company at 1-888-222-6036.

Rehearsals are Fridays at 4:30 p.m. at the Westmorland Community Presbyterian Church Social Hall (just opposite Westmorland Union Elementary School).  Registration is FREE and always ongoing just prior to each rehearsal. This ensemble also performs musicals, thus, children/youth who love acting will be thrilled!

Contact:- hopealda@gmail.com (760)337-8785

Imperial County Arson/Bomb Squad member Eddie Estrada, in the bomb suit, speaks with California Highway Patrol and county fire officials prior to exploding a package believed to contain a bomb in the 600 building, or the college center, at Imperial Valley College on April 15, 2010. The bomb threat was received shortly before noon, causing the evacuation of the campus and cancellation of classes for the rest of the day. --Photo by David Armenta

victims.

College spokesman Bill Gay said the threat was phoned in to IVC around 11:50 a.m. and that IVC personnel immediately called 911.  Within 25 minutes the entire campus was evacuated and hazardous materials teams and bomb-sniffing dogs were sweeping buildings for explosive materials.

“The caller implied that there was something in the quad area,” Gay said about the bomb threat phone call.  He said the Imperial County Hazardous Device Response Team swept the area and found one suspicious package in the 600 building, or the college center where students gather for meals and class breaks.  “It might have been a brick in the package,” Gay said, “but there was no bomb inside.”

Nevertheless, the bomb squad exploded the package in the college center with what one student described as a “neon-bright” wire and “projectile.”  Authorities said a second package found in room 409– where biology and anatomy classes are taught– was a crayon box thought to have an explosive tucked inside of it.

Afternoon and evening classes for Thursday were cancelled while authorities continued to sweep the buildings for additional suspicious packages.

The bomb scare did not quash plans for an American Red Cross disaster shelter to be established on Friday at the IVC gymnasium.  Gay said the IVC gym is an alternative shelter for folks whose mobile homes in the Desert Trails RV Park and Golf Course in El Centro were knocked off their foundations.

The El Centro City Manager’s office detailed the costs of earthquake repair since Sunday’s 7.2-magnitude temblor struck Baja California with historical force just 40 miles south of El Centro:

• $107,000 for immediate aftermath repairs to street lighting, water mains, traffic signals, fire hydrants, fallen signs, water meters
• $250,000 for sidewalk repair throughout the city
• $300,000 for repairs to the community center
• $1 million for repairs to support beams in the El Centro Public Library building
• $7.8 million for residential and commercial
• $10.7 million for repair of the city’s water treatment plant

The city surveyed residential and commercial concerns within the city to assess the damages due to Sunday’s earthquake.

The church spire at the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints in El Centro is removed Friday, April 9, 2010. The tower, standing at 8th and Ross for 47 years, suffered a dangerous crack following the Easter Sunday 7.2 quake.

suffered defeat in the 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Easter Sunday. The Mormon tower came down on Friday, and the El Centro water tower two blocks away on 8th Street will be gone by the evening of Thursday, April 15, according to the city manager’s office.

The 30-foot church spire that has been a beacon to neighbors of and church-goers to the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints at 8th and Ross for 47 years was taken down Friday morning because of a crack just below the roofline that formed following Sunday’s quake.

A backhoe equipped with what workers called a “breaker” pounded through the center of the tower, while welders broke through reinforcing rebar for nearly a half-hour before the spire was loosened enough to be safely pulled off.

A church elder, David DeSpain, standing by watching the demolition said, “We’ll rebuild the tower, just not as tall.”

Meanwhile, there are no plans to replace the nearly 100-year-old water tower at 8th and Vine, according to city officials. The tank at the top of the 150-foot tower has been empty for more than 10 years, and it has just remained a token landmark structure in the city.

It wasn’t until Wednesday that city water officials discovered that the base of the water tower was unsound, causing the

The El Centro water tower at 8th and Vine looks like it has for the last nearly 100 years on Friday, April 9, 2010. But damages to the bolts in the base of the tower following the April 4 earthquake will be bringing the tower down.

evacuation of dozens of tenants of the Villa Apartments on Wensley Ave. situated closest to the tower.

El Centro Police Sgt. Jerry Novak, who led the evacuation of some of the apartments on Wednesday, likened the damage to water tower bolts to “pulling a Tootsie roll apart.”

Novak, who was interviewed Wednesday night, said he was told that the bolts at the base of the tower were stretched to their limit during the earthquake. “As I put it, like a tootsie roll, you pull it hard enough and it’ll eventually get thinner and pull apart,” Novak said.

The city manager’s office said on Friday that it has contracted with Iseler Demolition out of Romeo, Michigan for the dismantling of the water tower starting on Wednesday, April 14 and finishing the next day. Iseler’s website describes the company as specializing in the demolition of water towers.

“At this time, the exact date for students to return to school has not been determined,” reads a press release issued by

Mangled metal shows through fallen ceiling tiles at Calexico’s Cesar Chavez Elementary School on April 8, 2010. This school reportedly had minor damage and is expected to reopen April 19. –Photo by Alejandrina Rangel

Estrada on Thursday. “But it is definite that there is no school the week of April 12.”

Estrada said an automated phone system will call students’ homes to alert them to the reopening of their respective schools.  On Tuesday, April 13, at 9 a.m. the district will hold a staff-only meeting at Calexico High School’s Varner Gymnasium where administrators and teachers will be given a site-by-site update on their schools.

Jefferson Elementary School suffered the most damage during the 7.2 earthquake on April 4, followed by sections of Calexico High and De Anza Junior High.

Parents of district school children are being asked to use the information phone line for school updates at 760.768.3888.

The nearly 100-year-old El Centro water tower at 8th and Wensley is rumored to be targeted for demolishment following the Easter Sunday earthquake of 7.2 magnitude.

according to unconfirmed reports by neighbors and police who blame the major 7.2 magnitude Easter Sunday earthquake on the hastily scheduled demolition of the nearly 100-year-old water tower.

On Wednesday evening, tenants of the apartment complex sitting within a 150-foot radius of the old water tower, were asked to vacate their homes while city and state authorities determined how to deal with the obsolete and empty water tower whose structural integrity suddenly became a ‘risk’ to city dwellers.

Official word on demolition and/or replacement of the old water tank was not forthcoming, although notices to tenants pasted to the doors of a few residences of the El Centro apartments on Wensley just west of 8^th Street explained that they were “in danger of injury or death” due to the integrity of the water tower hovering above them, and they were being ordered to vacate their apartments by both the city of El Centro and California’s CAL-FEMA emergency assisistance organization.

Most people within the 150-radius of the tower appeared to have evacuated their apartments, although no authorities were present at the site to confirm that late Wednesday night.

Pet owners are advised to confine their animals during continual aftershocks from the Easter Sunday temblor. Diamond, a Weimaraner owned by Nanette Conway in El Centro, started howling when the first jolt of the earthquake struck at 3:40 p.m. on Sunday, April 4.

“Diamond started howling when it first hit,” Conway said. “And the other dogs and the cats were running willy-nilly all over the back lawn. That scene is something I will never forget.”

Conway is among hundreds, if not thousands of valley pet owners who might be wondering if their dogs, cats and other household pets truly detected the impending shaker.

“Many experts say animals might know that maybe something is going to happen before an earthquake hits,” said Stephen Bowen, a long-time El Centro veterinarian. “They call it ‘pre-quake attitude.’  They might whine, pace and cry before an earthquake.”

While the effects of an earthquake—even a 7.2 magnitude quake—can be traumatic to pets, Bowen said it still isn’t as bad as the trauma of fireworks. “I see more animals on any Fourth of July than I have after this earthquake,” said Bowen, who has been in practice at Valley Veterinary Clinic for more than 30 years.

In this quake-prone region, Bowen said, he is always treating animals for nervous behaviors and conditions that could be associated with quakes, even little ones most humans don’t feel. But unless something “falls on the animal,” Bowen said it’s unlikely he will treat a number of animals for quake-related problems.

The El Centro Animal Clinic, however, reported at least one confirmed quake-related pet death. “We’ve had a couple of animals pass away because of it,” said Tifani Juarez, who works at the El Centro Animal Clinic. “One of them is definitely related to the quake,” she said, but she declined to say how the two dogs died because she said she did not want the owners reading about it in media reports.

“We have been treating what we call ‘earthquake stress,’” Juarez said. “They’re anxious, they might be panting hard, they pace back and forth.”

With hundreds of significant aftershocks almost constantly rocking the Imperial Valley after Sunday’s historical tremor, pet owners might need to take measures to ensure the safety—and the sanity—of their pets.

“I would simply tell pet owners the best thing they can do for their pet is to confine it so it doesn’t run around, or so nothing can fall on it,” Bowen said.

Temporary Housing for Pets Offered by County
The Imperial County Animal Control shelter is taking pets whose owners have been forced out of their homes due to the quake and are staying at the county-designated shelter at the Kennedy Middle School gym in El Centro at 900 N. 6th Street.  “We don’t want pet owners to feel like they need to stay behind with their pets in possibly dangerous conditions,” said Maria Carrillo, the county emergency services spokeswoman.  “We want them to know that their pets will be well-taken care of while they are in alternative housing.”

Carrillo said most people at the Kennedy Middle School shelter–who receive food, bedding and shower facilities–are those whose homes in mobile home parks have suffered shifting in Sunday’s quake or its aftershocks. Their pets, she said, are welcome at the Imperial County Animal Control shelter at 1329 S. Sperber Rd. in El Centro.

The 7.2 Sierra El Mayor earthquake on Easter Sunday caused 2.5 meters of lateral slip in the ground. The rupture pictured here in the Pescadores fault 30 miles south of Calexico is estimated to be eight to 16 inches. --Photo Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey

does not include the hundreds of lesser-magnitude tremors recorded.

Aftershocks from an earthquake the size of Sunday’s can last for years, Page said. “In Indonesia last night, the magnitude 7.7 is very likely an aftershock of the earthquake that caused the tsunami in that region in 2004,” she said. The magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck the north coast of Sumatra in December 2004, causing a tsunami that killed nearly 228,000 people.

For valley residents it might feel like the larger tremors following Sunday’s quake keep coming every 10 minutes, and looking at the complete list of quakes confirms constant movement of the ground in the Imperial and Mexicali valleys.

“Every day that passes, the aftershock activity decreases on average. Therefore, we are safer with each passing day, provided that a particularly large aftershock does not occur,” Page said. “Eventually, the activity decreases where you might feel a big aftershock once a week, then maybe once a month.”

A team of seismologists from USGS, CalTech University, San Diego State University and Mexico’s Centro de Investigacion Cientifica y de Educacion Superior went into Baja on Monday, Page said, to determine exactly where Sunday’s 7.2 Sierra El Mayor earthquake originated. “We were kind of surprised because it started on the small Pescadores fault and then propagated, or mostly ruptured on the Borrego fault,” she said.

The seismology team on Monday measured 2.5 meters of “slip,” which, in this case, was the earth getting torn in a lateral motion by about eight feet.

Several roads were closed throughout Imperial County following the earthquake. Imperial County Fire Chief/Emergency Services Coordinator Tony Rouhotas announced at a news conference on Monday that ground shifts caused the closures. The county is still reporting closures of the following:

• Drew Rd. from Evan Hewes Hwy. to Sunbeam Lake; from Kramar Rd. to Diehl Rd, including the New River bridge
• Lyons Rd. from Austin Rd. to Brockman Rd., including the New River bridge
• Brockman Rd. from McCabe Rd. to Schaniel Rd, including the New River bridge
• Austin Rd. from McCabe Rd. to Ross Rd.
• Worthington Rd. from Forrester Rd. to Huff Rd., including the New River bridge
• Boley Road from Huff Rd. to Hetzel Rd.
• Jeffery Rd. from Hardy Rd. to Evan Hewes Hwy
• Hetzel Rd. from Westmorland Rd. to Huff Rd., including the Salt Creek Canal bridge

View a gallery of Mexicali earthquake photos here.

Peinado released this document Wednesday morning with departmental information. Executive offices remain closed

The El Centro Fire Department's Steve Wilson coordinates emergency services by phone on Monday, April 5, following the 7.2 earthquake that shook the desert valleys on Easter Sunday. County officials urge the public to use the emergency hotline for assistance: 1-760-482-4968.

until further notice, and the Board of Supervisors meeting for Tuesday, April 13 will be moved to the El Centro City Council Chambers at 1275 Main Street in El Centro.

All public health services, including food stamp distribution, are relocated with limited operation, according to the status report.

Tax collector offering tax reassessments

One of the few county offices that have reopened is the tax assessor’s office at 940 Main St. in El Centro.

The assessor’s office is also offering reduced or refunded taxes to property owners who have suffered more than $10,000 in damages due to the earthquake and aftershocks. The information sheet and application for tax reassessment can be accessed here. The tax office requires applicants to have proof of property damage through an insurance adjuster.

The earthquake that violently shook the Imperial, Yuma and Mexicali valleys at 3:40 p.m. on Easter Sunday knocked out electrical, water, cell phone, and Internet services around the region, with most services restored by 5:30 that afternoon. The county’s Office of Emergency Services has been working round the clock to assess damages and to assist residents who suffered serious damage to their homes and businesses.

Peinado said the county urges residents to use the emergency hotline at (760) 482-4968 for information on service and road closures, as well as safety information about the quake and its subsequent aftershocks.

The TC Worthy Cash and Carry store on Second Street in Calexico was hit hard by the April 4, 2010 earthquake, measuring 7.2 just 20 miles south of Mexicali. Imperial County authorities say the quake created a "20- by 40-foot gap" in the building's roof. --Photo by Stacy Garcia

At a press conference Monday morning at the Imperial County Office of Emergency Services, emergency  coordinator and county fire chief, Tony Rouhotas, said, “As of this morning the governor has been briefed and the emergency proclamation is being drafted as we speak.”  But, it wasn’t until more than six hours later, after 4 p.m. Monday, that the governor’s proclamation was officially issued by his press officer, Jeff Macedo, giving the county access to state services in the effort to restore public utilities and other services.

Human damage was minimal in the Imperial Valley following the earthquake.  One El Centro resident was hospitalized in serious condition after the violent quake hit at 3:40 p.m. Sunday just south of Mexicali, although Rouhotas would not confirm if the victim was a female, male, child or adult, or how the person was injured.

Damage to businesses in the southern neighborhoods of El Centro and in downtown Calexico was significant, but county officials were unable, or unwilling, to estimate financial losses.

Several blocks of downtown Calexico on Second Street were cordoned off a second day on Monday to vehicular traffic as merchants cleaned up broken glass, ceiling debris, damaged merchandise and dealt with insurance adjusters.

A collapsed roof at the TC Worthy Cash & Carry store at 145 E. Second Street in Calexico was one of the main problems associated with the quake in Calexico.  The “20- by 40-foot”gap in the TC Worthy building’s roof, according to county authorities, contributed to the continued closure of downtown Calexico streets.

The official Proclamation of Existence of Local Emergency issued by El Centro authorities warns service providers and retailers against jacking up prices following the 7.2 earthquake

City Manager Ruben Duran said the proclamation is meant to protect people who are victims of disaster from a small minority of retailers and service providers who charge disaster victims prices that are sometimes hundreds of times above the norm.  He said maybe two percent of the local business community is inclined to jack up prices against those who are desperate for goods and services.

“When we had the San Diego fires a couple years ago,” Duran said, “we had truckers stuck in Ocotillo.  There was one business there selling them sodas for $4 a can.” In Julian, he said, refugees from the fires looking for rooms at one motel were charged $100 to $150 a night when the normal room rate was only $40.

Duran signed the “Proclamation of Existence of Local Emergency” as Director of Emergency Services for El Centro, along with City Clerk Diane Caldwell.  It says that for 30 days following the destructive earthquake “it is unlawful for a person, contractor, business, or other entity to sell or offer to sell any consumer food items or goods or services used for emergency clean up, emergency supplies, medical supplies, home heating oil, building materials, housing, transportation, freight and storage services, or gasoline or other motor fuels for a price of more than ten percent (10%) above the price charged.”

Penalties for violating the anti-gouging law comprise misdemeanor crimes that can carry fines up to $1,000 and six months in jail.  Duran said if a consumer believes they have been victimized by a price-gouger, they should report it to the Imperial County District Attorney.

“Most of our businesses cut their prices for fire victims a couple years ago,” Duran said.  “They were great.  It’s that two percent that’s irritating to us.”

No major injuries were reported on the U.S. side of the border, although LaCronica.com, an online Mexicali news website, was reporting two people were killed as a result of the quake and that the Baja governor was asking the U.S. for assistance in the aftermath.

Imperial County’s Emergency Operations Center reported no major injuries within the county, although county spokeswoman, Maria Carillo, issued a statement that county offices will be closed on Monday in order to assess damages before county employees return to work on Tuesday.  County authorities will hold a situation press conference on Monday morning.

The border crossing in Calexico was shut down immediately following the quake due to power outages and damage to the port of entry building.  “The port (building) has major cracks in the plaster falling from the walls and ceilings,” said Victor Brabble, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in El Centro.  All vehicle traffic through the port is being diverted to the cargo port just east of Calexico, and Brabble was unable to say when regular port traffic would resume.

Just a block away from the port, border agents were stationed at intersections on Second and First Streets for about four blocks east and west, directing both pedestrians and car traffic away from the more damaged areas of the downtown area.  Brabble said federal agents were assisting Calexico police in an effort to prevent possible looting of property, although no personnel was taken off their regular patrols of the border for the earthquake duty.

Broken glass, and crumbled stucco and bricks had fallen onto the sidewalks of downtown Calexico in front of several businesses. Border patrol agents guided pedestrians away from more vulnerable areas, one of them pointing at the landmark Sam Ellis Department Store’s façade, which was cracked in half.

Calexico residents returning from Mexicali during the earthquake were shaken by its effects.  “The power lines, which are everywhere in Mexicali, they were crashing against the buildings and falling all over the place.  Windows were breaking everywhere,” said Alejandra Gastelum, who was returning to the U.S. from a visit with her grandmother in the Rio Culiacan district of Mexicali, about five miles south of the border.

More than a dozen aftershocks measuring between 3.0 and 5.4 magnitude in the region throughout Sunday night and into Monday morning were reported by the U.S. Geological Survey.  Sunday’s earthquake is the worst recorded locally since 1892 when a 7.8 temblor struck the valley, according to the USGS Earthquake Data Center.

The tie between sports and patriotism is customary and appropriate, and the pageantry of athletic competition is integral to its experience, cherished both by athletes and audience. There is an obvious analogy between good sportsmanship and good citizenship, and we applaud their celebration. National anthems are played and national flags are displayed, both gestures, when done properly, being important reminders of patriotic themes for all participants. We encourage such reflection at every opportunity, and athletic competition provides an obvious one.

Still, athletic competition is uniquely about the athletes; the talents they possess, the sportsmanship they demonstrate, and the many hours and personal sacrifices dedicated to their development. As a result, national interests are, and always have been appropriately made subordinate to personal and team accomplishments. In ancient Greece, a truce existed between all participating city-states three months before and after ancient Olympic games suspending jingoistic matters, in part to celebrate its participants and facilitate their safety. Similarly, both our collegiate and professional sports’ ranks are blessed with foreign nationals, representing the most talented and dedicated men and women in their athletic disciplines. In our view, we must take care, while celebrating their accomplishments, to remain sensitive to their right to remain dedicated to their own, home countries, rather than insist that they pay homage to ours.

We have separately concluded that flag designs are inappropriate for printing, embroidering or otherwise displaying on clothing as a general matter. (See No Flags on Clothing, Please.) We have also broadly construed Section 8(j) of the Flag Code which provides that “a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations.” (See Flag Patches on Uniforms (Non-Athletic).) At issue here, however, Section 8(j) begins in the negative: “No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.”

Having begun by waning philosophically, we view this rule as appropriately and categorically prohibiting use of the image of the flag on athletic uniforms.

To be clear, in our research toward that conclusion, we have considered the position that insists on a “strict construction” of this prohibition, to the effect that it should be read merely to preclude a literal “flag” itself comprising part of the uniform. This view holds that reference to “part of the flag” would only prohibit, say, lowering an actual flag and sewing all or some of its parts into the uniform. We believe this interpretation incorrect.

First, such an interpretation would presuppose that the term “flag,” as used in the Flag Code, is similarly narrow and only to be applied literally, to actual “flags,” and all other representations of the flag of the United States Flag are excluded from its coverage, as a result. This is not accurate. For instance, in its prohibition of the use of flags for advertising purposes, Section 3 defines its use of the term to include “any flag, standard, colors, ensign, or any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, or any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America or a picture or a representation of either…by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, colors, standard, or ensign of the United States of America.” The Flag Code’s context clearly applies to flags regardless of their composition. (See Section 6(c), speaking of “all weather” materials.) To the same effect, “[t]he flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.” Section 8(d). “It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.” Section 8(i). As to this latter authority, if a flag of the United States of America is capable of being “printed or otherwise impressed,” it seems clear that the term “flag” as used in the Flag Code speaks to its likeness and representation, as well as to literal flags themselves.

Second, after its preclusion of athletic-uniform use, Section 8(j) then permits limited use of a “flag patch” (by military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations), suggesting that it interprets its own preclusion of “part of the flag” in athletic uniforms to otherwise include the use of the flag patch, for athletic uniforms are not of part of those latter, permitted uses. Very few, if any athletic teams could be or should be “patriotic organizations.” None that we are aware of require an oath to our country as a prerequisite to participation (naturalized United States citizens take an oath to our country, but citizens by birth do not), nor should they, as many sports permit us to enjoy the skills and celebrate the achievements of foreign athletes, and to us it would seem invariably inappropriate to compel their allegiance to the United States solely in order to enjoy the benefits, to them and to us, of their participation in athletic pursuits within our borders.

Finally, we anticipate that our conclusion might be challenged anecdotally, in that the image of the flag has been occasionally found on athletic uniforms (for instance, occasional Major League Baseball uniforms, the United States Olympic Team, among others). We empathize with those gestures, but empathy does not make that display and use proper when, as we have concluded, it is not. We have no quarrel with this statute, premised upon our considered thoughts, and whether it is a rule deserving of reconsideration or clarity is a question for our elected, legislative representatives. To be sure, if the Flag Code is to be overridden by the initiative of private interests (no matter how patriotic their motives may be), then it undermines the very purpose of its existence, and too, the respect for the very emblem it exists to assure.

Question: This year, I’ve noticed that the helmets worn by players in the National Football League (NFL) bear a sticker likeness of the United States Flag. Is this display proper?

Answer: No, it is not. We have interpreted Section 8(j) as prohibiting display or use of the United States flag, or even its image, on athletic uniforms. Moreover, apart from our interpretation of Section 8(j), we have other concerns. Certainly, in that the helmet of a football uniform is, by its nature, intended for protecting a player from the sport’s invariable contact with other participants as well as the ground itself, it is clear that a flag’s image in that location cannot be afforded the respect the Flag Code requires at Section 8 (i.e., “the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing,” at Section 8; “the flag should never touch anything beneath it; such as the ground,” at Section 8(b)). More difficult, we believe that its presence on the helmets of participants who are not citizens of this country puts them in an untenable position relative to the dedication they have to their own homeland, and hence, cheapens the display of that emblem by those who truly do so by virtue of their United States citizenship.

The MH-65C Dolphin, a U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter, was used in joint operations El Centro Border Patrol agents January 15-22, 2010.

The training operation hauled in 21 illegal aliens, two alien smugglers and their two vehicles, as well as personal-use amounts of marijuana, drug paraphernalia and $6,800 cash, according to Border Patrol spokesman Victor Brabble.

The joint effort offered reciprocal training to both groups, Brabble explained.  El Centro border agents were able to train on technologies used by the Coast Guard while military personnel observed local border operations.  Training for local agents included use of the MH-65C Dolphin helicopter used in search and rescue by the USCG and outfitted with night vision radar and navigational technologies, and a hoist able to lift 600 pounds.

Coast Guard Lt. Marc Jones, who has been in search and rescue for both the U.S. Army and the Coast Guard from Oregon to the Caribbean, says this is the first time he’s served in a desert region.

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Marc Jones, a helicopter pilot for the USCG out of Los Angeles, explains the joint training operation with El Centro border agents at the NAF from January 15-22, 2010.

He piloted the helicopter during local training the last week and acted as an observer.

“This aircraft,” Jones said, referring to the Dolphin chopper, “is quite capable of flying in almost any and every type of weather. Our only restrictions, of course, would be thunderstorms.”

The one week selected for the dual-agency training happened to result in the heaviest downpours in years in the Imperial Valley and thunderstorm threats that even included tornado watches on Thursday.

Brabble said the joint effort is under review for consideration of possible future operations.

Editors note:  A previous ivnews.INFO article erroneously reported that a Coast Guard search and rescue “post” operating in conjunction with the local Border Patrol might be established at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro.  Such an event has “not been discussed or considered,” Brabble said.

Building 2700 stands out in a gray, rainy day following its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, January 22, 2010. Several leaks were found in the building following one of the decade's worst torrential downpours. --Photo by Josh Schiebelhut

Despite a few minor kinks in its armor, the new $32 million science building at Imperial Valley College was christened in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday following one of the valley’s worst downpours of the last 35 years.

Rumors were as abundant as the rain among IVC students prior to the ribbon-cutting that the new 2700 building was “leaking like a sieve,” and that its electrical room was flooded with a foot of rainwater, among other apparently nefarious remarks about the soundness of the 70,000 square foot building.

The rumors are not true, say college administrators and builders, who were surprised to hear about them.

“I wanted to stop any bad rumors that are going around,” said John Lau, IVC’s head of business services. “None of these leaks affected the ribbon-cutting ceremony.”

But there were confirmed leaks and damage in the new building, although architect Brent Goodwin indicated no surprise. “There are just some issues the

The new science building at Imperial Valley College couldn't withstand some minor leaking problems following one of the worst downpours of the century. Here, about four feet of carpeting in the new building's main lecture hall is drenched by rainwater. --Photo by Josh Schiebelhut

architects of a building won’t know about until it’s all actually built,” he said.

Leaks in the “cadaver” room and writing department, contractors say, were caused by poorly sealed roof-top air conditioning units, and ground seepage spreading into the carpeting about four feet out from a wall in the main lecture hall may have been caused by insufficient sealant in an adjacent ground-level storage room.

Repairs on the roof-top leaks in the cadaver and writing areas are expected to be completed within the week, according to Lau, and the college is not financially responsible for them. The lecture hall’s seepage will take longer if it’s determined underground repair is necessary.

Goodwin, the architect for the project contractor, Nielsen Construction, said on any project there is a “punch list” that planners give to building tenants in order to troubleshoot problems following completion of a project. “The leaks,” said Goodwin, “were not part of the builder’s punch list. We didn’t predict that we would be hit by these torrential rains.”

The new science building is intended to replace several science labs dating back to IVC’s early 1960s beginnings. It will house science, math and English classes.