Despite a Free Smoke Alarm Program, D.C. Residents Are Still Dying In House Fires
August 19, 2021
An excerpt: The beeping started around 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 25.
Tucked into an upstairs bedroom, Stanley and Louise Butler were fast asleep. Their 11-year-old grandson, Sekai, was sleeping just down the hall.
When those three exaggerated beeps echoed throughout the house, a high-pitched cacophony was able to rouse the deepest of sleepers.
“I could hear my husband saying, ‘There’s smoke, there’s smoke, I can’t breathe,’” says retired teacher Louise Butler, 67. “We all met in the hallway and we linked arms and we came down the stairs. The smoke was just billowing up at us. Once we got to the door, we were able to unlock it and go out, but it was frightening. It was horrific.”
Following the route Sekai had mapped for his Boy Scout first responder badge, the three escaped the house, led by retired Reverend Stanley Butler, 64. The fire started with a space heater in the sunroom of their brick colonial on Alabama Avenue SE, but it didn’t stay there. Thick smoke quickly spread to every room in the house.
Read more at Washington City Paper’s website, here.
Recent work for 1A:
The problem with solar energy isn’t investment. It’s location.
Deciding where to build a solar array is complicated. Is the ground flat? How close are the nearest power lines? Do local laws even allow for solar? What happens when that perfect plot of land is in the path of a homeowner’s view or it’s on prime farmland?
The solar industry is booming as declining costs pair with increased incentives to decarbonize our energy grid. Funding from the Inflation Reduction Act alone is expected to increase solar projects by 40 percent in the next five years, according to the Solar Energies Industry Association.
But in many places, those projects rely on community buy-in to succeed.
Some solar projects have recently been derailed or delayed because of worries over treasured landscapeand local ecology, potential impacts to housing values and even misinformation campaigns.
One nonprofit on Mount Desert Island, Maine, wants communities to prepare for the solar boom long before they’re approached by developers.
Read my full report. It aired on 1A Sept 30, 2022.
‘It’s So Hard To Get Help:’ An Undocumented Immigrant And A COVID-19 Diagnosis
December 22, 2020
An excerpt: Esperanza spent most of November in her room alone. A frontline worker at a restaurant in Pueblo, Colorado, she was diagnosed with COVID-19 and needed to isolate herself, away from her children and her husband.
She is one of 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Undocumented immigrants have been hit hard by an economic recession, already-precarious job security and the health risks of COVID-19. Living without documentation, and often without health insurance, has contributed to higher death rates among immigrant communities.
For a while, Esperanza thought she might become a grim statistic.
Read more about Esperanza’s experience here.
These DACA Recipients Can’t Vote, But They Want To Make Sure You Do
October 15, 2020
An excerpt: Gloria Gonzalez is finally old enough to vote in the presidential election this year. Now 21, the Houstonian has imagined the moment she could cast her ballot and help shape the country where she grew up.
But she can’t.
Gonzalez is one of nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants in the U.S. who are shielded from deportation as part of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Experts Warn Voters Should ‘Be Patient’, Expect Slow Election Results This November
July 31, 2020
An excerpt: Americans knew Donald Trump would be the next president just an hour and a half after the last polls closed on Election Day 2016. This year, such quick results are far less likely.
Experts warn the influx of mail-in and absentee ballots around the country, due to voting changes by states in response to the coronavirus pandemic, might mean it’s days (or weeks) before Americans know who can claim victory this November.
Did This Colorado County Find The Healthcare Solution?
An excerpt: Nearly every election cycle, we hear political candidates promise to reduce healthcare costs. They have yet to find a lasting solution, but one Colorado mountain community may have found the answer.
1A Across America producer Amanda Williams went there to find out how.
One rural Colorado community was so frustrated with high health insurance costs and government inaction that a few years ago, they took matters into its own hands.
And it worked.
The Power Of The Latino Vote
April 25, 2019
I try to also fold narrative writing into my work as a radio producer, sometimes doing longer features on 1A conversations I’ve produced, which is what I did here with a live conversation in Houston. My write-up includes my interviews with the panelists in addition to things they said on stage to 1A’s host at the time, Joshua Johnson.
From my newspaper days:
The Parkway Series*
The Daily Press
Newport News, VA – October 2016
An excerpt: Bill Thomas stood at a pull-off on the Colonial Parkway one sunny morning in September and quietly let his eyes gaze up and down the picturesque, tree-lined road.
For the moment, the only sound was of the occasional vehicle approaching, passing by and then disappearing around one of the roadway’s curves.
This is where his sister’s dead body was found 30 years ago. The pull-off was grassy back then, but it has since been paved. It has taken him three decades to come and stand at this spot.
*The Parkway Series came in 2nd for a 2016 Virginia Press Association Multimedia Features Award.
Part one: “Three Years. Eight Deaths. No Answers.”
Part two: Lost in the Rain
Part three: Two Families Live with the Unknown
Part four: Investigators Still Haunted by Unsolved Colonial Parkway Murders
Part five: Parkway Murders Provide Fodder for Novelists, Bloggers and Would-be Detectives
More reporting:
As the Virginia Gazette’s education reporter, I covered school redistricting and the search for a new superintendent, and I also reported on local politics and a few court cases, including one involving a school board member.
From College:
Tanzania’s Challenge in Preventing Deforestation
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
April 16, 2016
An excerpt: Elizabeth Joseph wakes early each morning to prepare for a busy day ahead—cooking, cleaning, farming, and caring for children and livestock are all in a day’s work.
So is theft.
Read more at the Pulitzer Center.
Compilation of Work for the Flat Hat
Read all of my work for William and Mary’s student-run newspaper, The Flat Hat. I held various roles including Chief Staff Writer, News Editor, and Chief Copy Editor.