Widespread rain hit the area late Monday night, with the heaviest rainfall coming after midnight. A second burst of heavy rain will follow into Tuesday morning's commute that led to a Flash Flood Watch for much of the Philadelphia region.
NBC10 issued a First Alert from 3 a.m. until 9 a.m. for Tuesday across the viewing area, except for Lehigh and Berks counties. That's due to a Flash Flood threat, NBC10 First Alert Weather chief meteorologist Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz explained.
It's not just Tuesday morning, the rest of the summer could really be a headache for commuters who ride SEPTA's Regional Rails.
Might be a good time to check out that Uber discount.
SEPTA and Uber have a pilot program going where riders automatically get 40-percent off if you get picked up or dropped off at select Regional Rail stations.
There are two important things to know: the discount is good on fares up to $10. And because it's a pilot program, there are 11 stations where you can get the discount. They are among the busiest stations with highest ridership, according to SEPTA's website.
Here's the list with addresses:
Glenside: 49 W. Glenside Avenue, Glenside PA 19038
Jenkintown: 2 Greenwood Avenue, Jenkintown PA 19046
Elkins Park: 7876 Spring Avenue, Elkins Park PA 19027
Melrose Park: 900 Valley Road, Melrose Park, PA 19027
Warminster: 100 Station Drive, Warminster, PA 18974
Doylestown: 130 S. Clinton Avenue, Doylestown, PA 18901
Lansdale: 80 W. Main Street, Lansdale, PA 19446
Woodbourne: 903 Woodbourne Road, Langhorne, PA 19047
Swarthmore: Park Avenue & Chester Road (Route 320), Swarthmore, PA 19081
Wayne: 145 N. Wayne Avenue, Wayne, PA 19087
Exton: 445 Walkertown Road (Off PA Route 100), Exton, PA 19341
The discount gets automatically applied to your Uber fare if you get picked up or dropped off in the parking lot of any of those 11 stations.
Amid a haze of grief after her son's murder last year, Marcia DeOliveira-Longinetti faced an endless list of tasks 2014 helping the police access Kevin's phone and email, canceling his subscriptions, credit cards and bank accounts, and arranging his burial in New Jersey.
And then there were his college loans.
When DeOliveira-Longinetti called about his federal loans, an administrator offered condolences and assured her the remaining balance would be written off.
But she got a far different response from a New Jersey state agency that had also lent her son money.
"Please accept our condolences on your loss," said a letter from the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority to DeOliveira-Longinetti, who had co-signed the loans. "After careful consideration of the information you provided, the Authority has determined that your request does not meet the threshold for loan forgiveness. Monthly bill statements will continue to be sent to you."
DeOliveira-Longinetti was shocked and confused. After all, the agency features a photo of Governor Chris Christie on its website, and boasts in its brochures that its "singular focus has always been to benefit the students we serve."
But her experience with the authority, which runs by far the largest state-based student loan program in the country, is hardly an isolated one, an investigation by ProPublica, in collaboration with the New York Times, found.
New Jersey's loans, which currently total $1.9 billion, are unlike those of any other government lending program for students in the country. They come with extraordinarily stringent rules that can easily lead to financial ruin. Repayments cannot be adjusted based on income, and borrowers who are unemployed or facing other financial hardships are given few breaks.
New Jersey's loans also carry higher interest rates than similar federal programs. Most significantly, the loans come with a cudgel that even the most predatory for-profit players cannot wield: the power of the state.
New Jersey can garnish wages, rescind state income tax refunds, revoke professional licenses, even take away lottery winnings 2014 all without having to get court approval.
"It's state-sanctioned loan sharking," said Daniel Frischberg, a bankruptcy lawyer. "The New Jersey program is set up so that you fail."
The authority has become even more aggressive in recent years. Interviews with dozens of borrowers, who were among the tens of thousands who have turned to the program, show how the loans have unraveled lives.
The program's regulations have destroyed families' credit and forced them to forfeit their salaries. One college graduate declared bankruptcy at age 26 after struggling to repay his debt. The agency filed four simultaneous lawsuits against a 31-year-old paralegal after she fell behind on her payments.
Another borrower, Chris Gonzalez, couldn't keep up with his loans after he got non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and was laid off by Goldman Sachs. While the federal government allowed him to suspend his payments because of hardship, New Jersey sued him, seeking nearly $266,000 in payments, and seized a state tax refund he was owed.
One reason for the aggressive tactics is that the state depends on Wall Street investors to finance student loans through tax-exempt bonds and needs to satisfy those investors by keeping losses to a minimum.
Loan revenues also cover about half of the agency's administrative budget.
In 2010, the agency filed fewer than 100 suits against borrowers and their families. Last year, it filed over 1,600 suits. (Some could result from federal loans handled by New Jersey, though such loans make up just 4 percent of the agency's portfolio.)
The cases are handled by debt collectors, who can tack on another 30 percent in fees on top of the outstanding debt.
Marcia Karrow, the authority's chief of staff, said, "the vast majority of these borrowers are happy with the program." She added that New Jersey's loans had "some of the lowest default rates" in the country. But when asked to produce the annual default rates, the agency sent ProPublica and the Times data only for students with strong credit scores, making it impossible to calculate the overall rate. (Read their responses to our questions.)
A spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie said the governor does not control the authority and declined to respond to questions about the loan program. But Christie appointed its executive director, Gabrielle Charette; he also has the power to appoint at least 12 of the agency's 18 board members and can veto any action taken by the board.
Besides administering the loan program, the authority provides financial aid counseling, conducting hundreds of financial aid nights at New Jersey high schools, where it offers advice about paying for college, including pitching its own loans.
DeOliveira-Longinetti, who emigrated from Brazil and had long worked as a nanny while raising her son as a single mother, always knew that paying for college would be a challenge. Even after marrying her husband when Kevin was in middle school, she knew that their combined income would not be enough to cover the costs. But a friend told her about New Jersey's program. That, along with a combination of scholarships, grants, and other loans, allowed Kevin to enroll at the University of Vermont.
Since her son's murder, DeOliveira-Longinetti has made 18 payments to New Jersey. At $180 per month, she has about 92 to go.
"We're not going to be poor because of this," she said. "But every time I have to pay this thing, I think in my head, this is so unfair."
For decades, states served as middlemen for federal student loans. Most of the loans were made by banks and were handled and backed by regional and state-based agencies as well as by the federal government. The arrangement was unwieldy, expensive and marked by scandal.
After Pennsylvania's student loan agency lost a public records lawsuit in 2007, documents revealed that the agency had spent nearly $1 million on things like fly-fishing, facials and falconry lessons.
That same year, New Jersey's agency was caught in what amounted to a kickback scheme. The state attorney general found that the agency had improperly pushed one company's loans in exchange for annual payments of $2.2 million. A subsequent investigation by the state's inspector general found that the agency was in "disarray."
In 2010, Congress and the Obama administration decided to effectively eliminate the role of state agencies by having only the federal government lend directly to students.
Some states, like California, decided to downsize and transferred their federal loan portfolios. Others, such as Pennsylvania, won contracts from the federal government to service debt from the federal loan program.
But New Jersey chose a different path. In the years leading up to the end of the federal program, New Jersey sharply expanded its loan program, slowly replacing the federal loans it once handled with state loans. From 2005 to 2010, loans from the agency nearly tripled, to $343 million per year. Since then, the agency has reduced its loans by half, but its outstanding portfolio has remained roughly the same, about $2 billion.
Karrow said the growth of New Jersey's program was simply a result of both the growing number of students and the rising cost of tuition. But in fact, college enrollment and tuition have not grown as rapidly as the program's size.
Lawsuits on the Rise for the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority
20082009201020112012201320142015
Source: New Jersey Courts Automated Case Management System (ACMS) and Archive Case Management Information System (AMIS)
While other states have similar programs, New Jersey's stands apart, both for its size and onerous terms.
Massachusetts, running the next-largest program with $1.3 billion in outstanding loans, automatically cancels debt if a borrower dies or becomes disabled, something many other states also do. The program of the third-largest state lender, Texas, is half the size of New Jersey's. And Texas offers a flat interest rate, a modest 4.5 percent, while New Jersey's rates can reach nearly 8 percent. Some other state loan programs also have more flexible repayment options 2014 Rhode Island, for example, offers income-based repayment.
New Jersey, meanwhile, encourages students to buy life insurance in case they die to help co-signers repay. As an agency pamphlet cautions, "Are you prepared for the unthinkable?"
The agency, Karrow said, treats each instance of a deceased borrower case by case and tries to be compassionate, but, she added, "we must also meet our fiduciary duty to our bondholders."
When consumer lawyers protested the program's onerous conditions at a 2014 agency meeting, the agency, according to minutes from the meeting, said that giving borrowers a break would make the bonds sold to finance loans "less attractive to the ratings agencies and investors."
Indeed, in a recent bond assessment, the credit rating agency Moody's cited the authority's "administrative wage garnishing, which it uses aggressively" for "significantly higher collections" compared with other programs.
A New Jersey rule adopted in 1998 allows the agency to give borrowers in default a second chance by allowing them to become current on their account through on-time payments. But the agency has never granted a reprieve and instead cuts off contact with borrowers, leaving them at the mercy of collection firms.
Karrow said federal regulations prohibited the agency from offering such relief, but student loan experts disputed that assertion.
"There is nothing in the federal law or regulations that prohibits them from offering private loan rehabilitation," said Mark Kantrowitz, a financial-aid expert.
The combination of a lack of flexibility, an unwillingness to discharge loans and the state's power to seize wages has resulted in even "more intractable problems for our clients than predatory mortgages, deceptive car loans or illegal internet payday lending," said David McMillin, a lawyer with Legal Services of New Jersey, a nonprofit organization that provides free legal assistance to low-income state residents. "Many borrowers and co-signers find themselves facing a lifetime of debt problems."
Given the lack of options, some New Jersey borrowers have resorted to declaring bankruptcy, even though, as is true of all student loans, their debt is rarely canceled. Declaring bankruptcy also makes it virtually impossible to secure a mortgage, lease a car or even use credit cards for years. But for New Jersey borrowers, such an extreme step at least offers a way to gain manageable monthly payment terms.
As a co-signer, Tracey Timony struggled to help pay off her daughter's $140,000 in loans. Though the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority can seize wages or tax returns without court approval, it must secure a judgment to dip into borrowers' bank accounts or place liens on their property. Instead of garnishing Timony's wages, New Jersey sued her after her daughter defaulted.
"The agency is looking to put as much pressure on the borrower and be as aggressive as possible, and the way that you do that is you go after everybody that is liable," said Jennifer Weil, a New Jersey student debt lawyer. "In case the garnishment doesn't work, a judgment will help put pressure on the parents."
Timony declared bankruptcy and got monthly debt payments that will rise no higher than about $1,000 a month, far less than what the agency had demanded.
"I never thought that sending my daughter to college would ruin our lives," Timony said.
Few have felt the weight of the agency's powers more than Gonzalez, the college graduate who was sued after receiving a diagnosis of cancer and losing his job.
He had borrowed the maximum he could in federal loans 2014 a total of about $30,000 for five years 2014 and paid for most of his tuition with loans from New Jersey.
"I felt so comfortable because it was the State of New Jersey," he said. "It's the state, my government, trying to help me out and achieve my American dream. It turns out they were the worst ones."
Over five years, he took out over $180,000 in state loans. Unlike most other states, New Jersey does not impose a strict cap on loans to discourage overborrowing. One family, according to a recent state audit of the agency, took out over $800,000 in loans, more than five times the value of their home.
Gonzalez's loans had a relatively high interest rate 2014 on average about 7.5 percent. At the time it seemed like a good investment. He graduated with an engineering degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida and landed a job on Wall Street working as a programmer for Goldman Sachs.
But a few months after he started, unusual rashes began to appear on his legs and underarms. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and started radiation therapy.
After three years of cancer treatments, Gonzalez was also laid off.
He needed to take care of his student loans. The federal government and his private lenders all deferred his debt for at least six months.
Gonzalez expected New Jersey to do the same, but the agency refused, requiring him to pay at least $500 a month. With unemployment checks as his only income and burdened by continuing health expenses, it was too much for him.
He made no payments while the agency reviewed his case. In June 2014, Gonzalez moved to Florida to lower his cost of living. His health slowly improved and he started his own company, developing technology for small businesses. In his first year, he made just $26,000, but he started to pay back his federal and private bank loans.
On May 8, 2015, after months of hearing nothing, he received an email from New Jersey: His deferral request had been denied and his loan was being sent to a collection agency.
"Unfortunately, because of how the loan originated, the Authority is not in a position to offer forbearance or relief," Robert Laird, a program officer at the loan agency, said in the email.
Terrified by what a default would mean for his credit rating, Gonzalez told the agency that he would stop paying for health insurance and use the money 2014 $200 per month 2014 to repay the loans.
The agency rejected the offer. "In the event that your doctor declares you total and permanently disabled, please keep me posted," Laird told Gonzalez in an email.
One day in April, a stranger rang Gonzalez's doorbell.
"Chris Gonzalez?" he asked. Gonzalez nodded. "You've been served with a lawsuit from the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority."
The suit demanded over $260,000 2014 about $188,000 for the original loans, nearly $34,000 in interest, and $44,000 to cover the fees of a collection agency's lawyer.
Even if his business improves, Gonzalez has no idea how he will afford his ballooning payments.
"I don't have money," he said. "I am spending it all on my debt."
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Here are the 10 things you need to know to start your day from your friends at NBC10.
TODAY'S TOP STORY
SEPTA: Find Another Way to Work Tuesday: The transit agency serving Philadelphia and its suburbs urged commuters around the region on Monday to consider subway and other transit options now that a third of its regional rail cars have been sidelined by a structural problem.The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority took all 120 Silverliner V cars out of service Friday night after finding a fractured beam on one car and fatigue cracks on almost all the other cars.Ron Hopkins, SEPTA assistant general manager for operations, said trains will run on a Saturday schedule until further notice with additional rush-hour service. But he said with 13,000 fewer seats, service on lines will be reduced by 30 to 50 percent. Regional rail usually transports about 65,000 riders each way per day. With the reduction in seats, the trains will probably only be able to carry 35,000 to 40,000 people, Hopkins said.
Heavy rain is expected through much of Tuesday morning. Flooding could be a concern in South Jersey. The rain is expected to move out by about 9 a.m. Tuesday. By the afternoon temperatures could heat up to about 90 degrees. High Temp: 90 degrees Get your full NBC10 First Alert forecast here.
WHAT YOU MISSED YESTERDAY
NASA Spacecraft Arrives at Jupiter: Braving intense radiation, a NASA spacecraft reached Jupiter on Monday after a five-year voyage to begin exploring the king of the planets. Ground controllers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory erupted in applause when the solar-powered Juno spacecraft beamed home news that it was circling Jupiter's poles. The arrival at Jupiter was dramatic. As Juno approached its target, it fired its rocket engine to slow itself down and gently slipped into orbit. Because of the communication time lag between Jupiter and Earth, Juno was on autopilot when it executed the daring move. The spacecraft's camera and other instruments were switched off for arrival, so there won't be any pictures at the moment it reaches its destination. Hours before the encounter, NASA released a series of images taken last week during the approach, showing Jupiter glowing yellow in the distance, circled by its four inner moons.
Body of American Student Found in Rome: The body of an American college student who vanished just hours after arriving in the Italian capital was found Monday, three days after he disappeared. Beau Solomon, a 19-year-old visiting student from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, arrived in Italy on Thursday to study at John Cabot University. He was reported missing the following morning by his roommate, according to the small liberal arts college based in Rome. His body was found Monday in the Tiber River, according to a statement from the school. Police in Rome had reported earlier that they had found a body in the Tiber River, and on Monday evening said that the body was identified as Solomon. A statement released by the department said the student's death was under investigation. University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said the school had been told by officials in Rome that Solomon's death was being investigated as a crime. Blank said the university's remaining students in Rome were accounted for, and there was no apparent threat to any of the school's students abroad.
Troubles with NJ Student Loans: Amid a haze of grief after her son's murder last year, Marcia DeOliveira-Longinetti faced an endless list of tasks 2014 helping the police access Kevin's phone and email, canceling his subscriptions, credit cards and bank accounts, and arranging his burial in New Jersey. And then there were his college loans. When DeOliveira-Longinetti called about his federal loans, an administrator offered condolences and assured her the remaining balance would be written off. But she got a far different response from a New Jersey state agency that had also lent her son money. "Please accept our condolences on your loss," said a letter from the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority to DeOliveira-Longinetti, who had co-signed the loans. "After careful consideration of the information you provided, the Authority has determined that your request does not meet the threshold for loan forgiveness. Monthly bill statements will continue to be sent to you.” DeOliveira-Longinetti’s experience with the authority, which runs by far the largest state-based student loan program in the country, is hardly an isolated one, an investigation by ProPublica, in collaboration with the New York Times, found. New Jersey's loans, which currently total $1.9 billion, are unlike those of any other government lending program for students in the country. They come with extraordinarily stringent rules that can easily lead to financial ruin. Repayments cannot be adjusted based on income, and borrowers who are unemployed or facing other financial hardships are given few breaks. New Jersey's loans also carry higher interest rates than similar federal programs. Most significantly, the loans come with a cudgel that even the most predatory for-profit players cannot wield: the power of the state.
@joshuaxluke snapped this cool photo of Philadelphia door.
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TODAY'S VIRAL VIDEO
Have you ever wanted to play Super Mario in real life? Watch the full video here.
A LITTLE SWEETENER
Uber Discount from Some SEPTA Stations: It's not just Tuesday morning, the rest of the summer could really be a headache for commuters who ride SEPTA's Regional Rails. Might be a good time to check out that Uber discount. SEPTA and Uber have a pilot program going where riders automatically get 10-percent off if you get picked up or dropped off at select Regional Rail stations. There are two important things to know: the discount is good on fares up to $10. And because it's a pilot program, there are 11 stations where you can get the discount. They are among the busiest stations with highest ridership, according to SEPTA's website. Read more here.
That's what you need to know. We've got more stories worthy of your time in the Breakfast Buzz section. Click here to check them out.
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The wet weather caused Camden's Waterfront Freedom Festival to push their fireworks display up while other towns in the Philadelphia postponed fireworks to a later date.
Philadelphia Police found a man shot in the head lying on a Nicetown street.
The man was rushed early Tuesday from the 1900 block of Rowan Street, near Germantown Avenue, to Temple University Hospital where he died a short time later.
Two women, including a University of Delaware student, say they fought off a man trying to kidnap them from behind in separate incidents just hours apart in Newark, Delaware.
A UD student reported being attacked from behind while unloading items from her car at Colonial Gardens along E Main Street around 11:20 p.m. Sunday, Newark Police said.
The attacker approached the woman as she was leaving her building and tried to cover the 28-year-old's mouth with a chemical-soaked rag, police said. She fought back and he fled.
Then, about four hours later at Main Towers – just a one minute walk down Main Street – a man grabbed a 61-year-old woman as she was getting out of her car and put his hand over her mouth and neck, police said.
The 4th of July festivities in Philadelphia included a reading of the Declaration of Independence and an opportunity to honor those who fought for our freedom.
He wasn't going to get jammed up on the first day of what SEPTA expects to be a long summer for its riders. The transit agency took one third of its train car fleet offline this past weekend for a structural problem. It won't be until late summer at the earliest that those train cars are back in service. Officials warned of standing-room only rides -- and recommended alternative commutes if possible through at least the end of August.
"I hope it works out for everyone," said Lee, who works for a health care technology company called IntegriChain.
"I haven't had anything like this he," he said. "It's a longer commute. (But) I like the train. Get to sit down, open the computer."
Compared to his days a few years ago riding NJ Transit into New York City, however, he said SEPTA requires a bit more patience.
"That was more like clockwork," he said of NJ Transit. "This is a bit more of a soft schedule."
By Somerton Station, which is about a third of the ride into Center City along the West Trenton Line, the train was packed.
A rider smiled at the conductor and said, "Here we go. Are you ready?"
"I had my coffee this morning. I'm ready," the veteran conductor said.
By the Forest Hills Station -- not even halfway into the journey to 30th Street Station -- SEPTA made the decision to go express and bypass a slew of Montgomery County stations including Philmont, Bethayres, Meadowbrook, Rydal, Noble, Elkins Park, Melrose Park and the busy Jenkintown stop.
In Jenkintown, where commuters watched seemingly every other train ride past their platform inbound for Center City, a senior operations planner, Tom Philip, acted as guide.
"It's a tough time, but we'll get through it," said Philip, who normally works out of SEPTA headquarters at 1234 Market St. "We're still in the middle of the rush."
And it's only day one. Philip and other officials are manning many of the stations for the rest of the week, trying to alleviate anxiety for the first few rush hours.
Inbound Doylestown, Norristown & Airport trains also skipped stops from Montgomery County stations to Temple University or Center City due to overcrowding.
By 8:35, the last train to pass without stopping was gone. In the next 15 minutes, three trains stopped at Jenkintown to pick up passengers.
The time for standing -- or getting bypassed altogether -- was over.
Jean Taylor, of Elkins Park, ironically missed a couple opportunities to get on a train when shortly after 8:30 two trains came within minutes of each other and stopped for passengers at Jenkintown.
"I was in my car and missed the first one, so I thought there wouldn't be another one since it's running on a Saturday schedule," Taylor, who commutes daily into Center City, said as she waited on the platform shortly before 9 a.m. "I tried to get over here in time, but I didn't make it."
Taylor said she considered going to Fern Rock Transportation Center and catching the Market-Frankford elevated line, but chose Jenkintown instead. Her other options were Elkins Park and Melrose Park, but both stops are serviced by fewer trains than Jenkintown.
"I guess I didn't have it too bad," she said, as she boarded a 9:03 train with ample seating.
The annual ringing of the Liberty Bell in Old City Philadelphia and becoming United States citizens on board Battleship New Jersey in Camden made Independence Day meaningful.
Jeffrey Boone can still hear the children's cries.
Two years ago, in the wee hours after the Fourth of July, Boone stepped onto his front stoop in Southwest Philadelphia to take a break from playing video games. What he was met with outside on his narrow block of Gesner Street will haunt him forever: the glow of the rowhouses a few homes up from his burning, the flames spreading fast and furiously in the summer wind.
"It was incredibly fast. Like a flame-thrower," Boone, now 29, recalled this week in front of the home on the block he shares with his sister. "That went up in two to three minutes. Half the block was already gone."
In the heart-pounding moments that followed, as the blaze swallowed up eight houses on the block's south side and melted the fronts of those to the north, Boone would try frantically to help. He dialed 9-1-1, ran to the fire station around the corner, at 65th and Woodland, and raced up and down the block, pounding on neighbors' doors as heat from the flames licked at his arms, leaving them red and raw for weeks afterward.
In one of the homes, infant Taj Jacque, his big brother, 4-year-old Patrick Sanyeah Jr., and twins Maria and Marialla Bowah, both 4, slept as the fire erupted. As other neighbors jumped from windows to escape, the four children became trapped in the rowhouse, the flames too high and too hot to allow anyone to reach them on the home's second floor, despite desperate attempts.
The children died on that hellish night two years ago. But even though time has moved on, for Boone, the fire might as well have been yesterday.
"At the end of the day, in the back of my mind, I still hear those kids," Boone said. Devastated and haunted by the apocalyptic scene that unfolded on his block that night, Boone left Philadelphia for New York days later. He stayed there until last January, when he finally moved back home.
But when he arrived, an unwelcome sight: Several of the homes still destroyed, their windows shielded shoddily by makeshift boards and their awnings singed black as coal. The soot is burned so deeply into the steps of the homes' porches that it's a permanent part of the block now, just as much as the memories that still dog its residents and the children's families. The smell of burned wood and smoke still lingers in the summer air near the houses still in ruins.
"I find myself constantly looking down the block," Boone said on Sunday. The house where he lives, closer to 66th Street, sustained extensive damage in the fire, but his sister, Kimberly Walker, who owns it, had it fixed. "When my sister was graduating [from graduate school], I came back. I didn't even want to get out of the car."
Boone wasn't on the block in the early afternoon hours on Monday when Patrick Sanyeah, little Taj and Patrick Jr.'s father, arrived on Gesner Street, flanked by a dozen relatives and friends, to light candles for the young lives lost. The babies' families come back each year to visit the site and pray.
"It's horrible. It's real horrible," Sanyeah, 30, said as he approached the porches of the burned homes with a plastic bag full of candles. Women and men followed him with bunches of colorful balloons that they tied onto the black wrought-iron railings of the houses.
"Two years ago, I was struggling, crying, and I'm still hurt," Sanyeah said. "That's why we're here today, to show some love."
Sanyeah, whose dark eyes do little to hide his pain, cried out as he reached the porch steps.
"Rest in peace, Taj. Rest in peace, Patrick," he said, naming his sons who died there before naming Maria and Marialla, the twins who also lost their lives.
Sanyeah stayed stone-faced as he methodically lit candle after candle in glass flutes, placing them on the steps of the porch of the home where his sons died. He joined hands with his relatives and friends and led a prayer, asking now for what the kids needed badly on that fateful night two years ago:
"Lord, watch over them," he prayed, "and watch over their parents ... give us strength."
Though the residents of Gesner Street desperately want to see the destroyed houses fixed, Sanyeah said it pains him to watch the block changing slowly as each year passes, moving him further from the last time he played with Patrick or held Taj in his arms.
"We still care, and we still want to know the answer: Who set this fire?" Sanyeah said. "It really hurts. No answers, no nothing, and they started rebuilding them now."
To this day, Sanyeah and most of the neighbors say they believe that the fire was sparked by a lit firework someone tossed onto a porch that ignited a couch. But fire officials in the weeks after the blaze said that it burned so hot and so quickly that their probe was inconclusive. They said they couldn't determine a certain cause and closed the investigation.
But on Gesner Street, it's still not over.
Grace Young, who's lived across the street from the houses that burned for 18 years now, is still on edge. She couldn't bear the sight of fire on the block even on Monday as Sanyeah and others placed memorial candles in front of the homes. Like Sanyeah, she and others who live on the block have no real answers.
"After [last July], they worked for two or three months" on the houses, Young said. "And I don't know what happened. They just stopped altogether."
Warnings from the city Department of Licenses and Inspections and building permits are plastered onto the flimsy boards covering the doors of some of the houses. But those were there last summer, too, and not much progress has been made. Carlton Williams, L&I's commissioner at the time, told NBC10 last summer that none of the houses were deemed an immediate danger, so the city didn't step in to take them down or have them repaired.
Just one more house has been renovated since last year, and some debris and trash still left from the fires last year is gone now. But five other houses still stand, blackened, gutted on the inside and hazardous, providing a needless reminder to anyone who passes by of the tragedy that devastated Gesner Street.
"Something should've been done by now," said Tyrone Watson, the block captain, who lives just around the corner on 65th Street. He said he hasn't heard much news in the way of repairs on the houses.
Boone and others planned to have a cookout on the block for the Fourth of July, but he said the heartbreak lingers, making it difficult to move on. The pain nags as the dark houses loom, a stretch of horror on an otherwise quiet and tight-knit city street.
"Every Fourth of July, I light my own little candle and say my piece," Boone said. "We try to deal with it, but it's hard. I try to cope, but I see the block how it was. I still see the twins coming out and dancing. It hurts."
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Keith Jones and the NBC10 News Team test out Amazon Echo by asking Alexa about today's headlines. You can do the same without even needing to leave bed.
Dew points should stay fairly high, around 70 degrees, which makes the air more humid. So expect a hot, humid rest of the week with afternoon storms starting Thursday.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia released a new set of pastoral guidelines clarifying the implementation of Pope Francis' recent document on church's teachings about family.
In the 256-page document "The Joy of Love," the pope introduced a more lenient approach to how the church embraces divorced Catholics. Instead of issuing hard rules to the reception of Communion, he called for pastors to engage those who otherwise may feel the church no loner welcomes them because of divorce. The document, however, makes no change in church doctrine.
Guidelines from Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles Chaput, which took effect July 1, say that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, unmarried couples living together and same-sex couples are welcome in the church, but should "refrain from sexual intimacy" in order to receive Communion.
"This is a hard teaching for many," the document states. "But anything less misleads people about the nature of the Eucharist and the Church."
The guidelines, which emphasize the importance of upholding Catholic teachings about traditional marriage, are meant for priests, deacons and others working in the fields of marriage or human sexuality.
Since a Catholic divorce is only recognized if grounds are found for nullification, separated couples whose marriages are found valid are unable to marry again within the church.
"Undertaking to live as brother and sister is necessary for the divorced and civilly-remarried to receive reconciliation in the Sacrament of Penance, which could then open the way to the Eucharist," the document states.
According to Catholic author and speaker Rose Sweet, these Catholic teachings do not renounce sex as if it were evil. She said practicing Catholics opt for celibate lifestyles for many reasons and added that "church teachings maintain that sex is very good," but only belongs within a committed marriage that allows for a family to thrive.
"In this case the remarried couple understands and agrees that their prior marriage must be publicly held valid until proved otherwise," Sweet told NBC. "This is a great respect for marriage as something both private and public. Despite their affections for one another, they know that living as 'brother and sister' --which is different from ‘renouncing’ sex-- will keep them in full communion with what we believe God intends."
Chaput extends this call for celibacy to unmarried couples living together. The guidelines say that a pastor should encourage the couple to separate if they are unwilling to commit to marriage.
However, if a couple does plan to marry, the guidelines encourage continued abstinence until marriage, because "this fasting from physical intimacy is a strong element of spiritual preparation for an enduring life together."
This encouragement of celibacy is also emphasized for same-sex couples, who are barred from holding positions of responsibility within a parish and can't carry out any liturgical ministry or function.
Day one of SEPTA's slowdown and socially savvy SEPTA riders found some fun among the frustration. And in true Philly fashion...hashtags that caught on early: #SEPTApocalypse and #SEPTAgeddon.
Hundreds of SEPTA Regional Rail commuters got an early start on their evening rides from Center City stations Tuesday and transit officials planned to use partitions at downtown stations to handle peak travel on the first day of the system's much-shrunken fleet.
The yellow chain-linked partitions, which longtime SEPTA rail riders will remember from a labor strike in 2009, will help officials control how many commuters get on at the city's outbound 30th Street, Suburban, and Jefferson East stations, the transit agency's General Manager Jeff Knueppel said.
SEPTA management has just begun digging into what led to crippling defects in the Regional Rail system's newest 120 train cars, called Silverliner Vs. All 120 have been taken out of service, which led to long waits at numerous stations during the morning commute and several instances of full trains forced to bypass some stations.
Knueppel described the defect as "a fatigue crack" in massive steel beams on the underbelly of the train cars.
The manufacturer of the cars, South Korea-based Hyundai Rotem, has flown in numerous engineers to begin examining the cracks with SEPTA officials and devising a plan to fix the cars. A SEPTA spokesman said earlier Tuesday that the structures with the crack are part of the cars' suspension systems and are under warranty.The first of the cracks, which have been found in 115 of the 120 cars, was uncovered by an attentive SEPTA conductor Friday. He noticed the Silverliner V leaning to one side. An inspection by mechanics revealed the crack.
Knueppel confirmed the agency has discussed borrowing train cars from NJ Transit, but that no agreement is yet in place. He said officials are also already discussing with other railroad systems that operate in the region about space to begin repairs of the $274 million worth of out-of-commission cars. Hyundai Rotem does have a manufacturing plant in South Philadelphia.
Photo Credit: NBC10 Brian X. McCrone This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.
SEPTA officials announced Tuesday afternoon that all passengers who purchased a Regional Rail TrailPass for the month of July or the weekly TrailPass beginning Monday, July 4 can receive a refund for their purchase.
The transit agency's announcement came the same day the region's commuters returned to work following the July 4th holiday weekend. To obtain the refund, customers must mail their passes to SEPTA at the below address:
SEPTA P. O. Box 58609 Philadelphia, Pa 19102-8849
The sender must note "Silverliner V Pass Refund" on the envelope, which needs to be post-marked no later than July 7 to be eligible, according to the transit agency. SEPTA will then send a check to the address the customer provides.
