The Philadelphia Water Department is requesting a rate hike of nearly 12 percent — or about $8 on the average bill.
But the request comes as the NBC10 Investigators have found evidence that many customers are already having trouble paying their current water bills. For some of the most delinquent accounts, water service is shut-off altogether.
One such customer is Jimmy Withers of West Philadelphia. His home has been without running water for almost seven years, after he fell behind on his utility bills. Although he restored other utility services, he’s never been able to restore his water service because his home’s title is in the name of a deceased friend.
To drink and bathe, he buys big jugs of bottled water — at many times the cost of tap water.
He says it feels like living in “the Third World.”
RATE HIKE REQUEST
The cost of water service may soon go higher. The Water Department says it needs the rate increase because of declining water use and increasing costs, related to aging infrastructure and increased regulation.
The department has been holding public hearings about its request.
DELINQUENT ACCOUNTS
The NBC10 Investigators confirmed that many customers can’t pay their current bills. Four out of every 10 water department accounts are already delinquent. That’s more than 227,000 customers.
Law students and faculty working at Drexel University’s Community Lawyering Clinic worry that too many of those delinquent accounts become long-term “shut-offs,” like Withers.
“It’s astonishing that we live in Philadelphia, one of the major cities in the wealthiest country, the United States of America, and there’s a sizable number of people who don’t have running water in their homes,” said Rachel Lopez, a Drexel University Assistant Professor of Law and leader of the Community Lawyering Clinic.
WATER AFFORDABILITY PROGRAMS
Lopez’s team believes that cumbersome documentation requirements for one of the main water affordability programs are part of the problem.
The Water Revenue Assistance Program — or WRAP — can require applicants to show evidence of all household expenses. The program is specifically aimed at delinquent customers, who make no more than 2.5 times the poverty level.
But the city gave the NBC10 Investigators numbers showing that WRAP was helping fewer than 7,000 people, as of February.
Sam Scavuzzo, a law student at Drexel’s Community Lawyering Clinic, believes the program should be assistant many more people.
“They think that these are deadbeats — and what they are is people who just want to pay to get access to their water. And for some reason, bureaucratically, the Water Department hasn’t moved on that position,” said Scavuzzo.
WRAP OVERHAUL
The NBC10 Investigators took those concerns to Philadelphia’s Revenue Department — which runs the water affordability programs but is separate from the Water Department itself, which requested the rate hike.
Asked whether WRAP is helping enough people, Deputy Revenue Commissioner Michelle Bethel said there's "always a need to further reach out to people."
Bethel admits WRAP’s enrollment process has confused some customers and needs revision. She and her team are now overhauling WRAP. But the specific changes, and exactly how they’ll impact customers, is still not clear.
So what are those change going to look like?
“Well, that hasn’t been determined just yet. That is still being worked on,” replied Bethel.
One decision has been made: WRAP income requirements won’t change. So, WRAP applications may be streamlined, but about the same number of people will likely be eligible.
And even if all goes according to plan, the city says those revisions to WRAP wouldn’t be complete for about two years, until sometime in 2018. That is a year after the second phase of the water rate hike would take effect, if it is approved this summer.
A shooting victim ran onto a SEPTA bus for help after being hit in the leg by gunfire along a Germantown street Friday afternoon, police said.
The shooting happened at Wister Street and Nedro Avenue around 4:15 p.m., SEPTA police said.
The male victim was hit once in the leg and ran over to a SEPTA Route L bus asking for help, officials said.
The victim was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. His condition was not immediately known.
The shooter fled the scene. No word on a description.
A one-car crash in South Philadelphia left two people dead and two others injured early Friday morning.
Police said the car, a black 2005 Mazda 6 that was carrying four people, crashed into a PECO Energy building on Christopher Columbus Boulevard near Oregon Avenue shortly after 2:30 a.m.
Ben Jimmy, a 23-year-old from Upper Darby, and a woman in her 20s were killed in the car's back seat, authorities said.
Two others — the 23-year-old woman who was driving and another woman in her 20s who was the front passenger — were taken to area hospitals to be treated for injuries. They are expected to survive.
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Tim McKibbon, an Uber driver, said the car sped by him and hit a concrete median in the boulevard's southbound lanes. Freight train tracks also sit in the median.
"I left the light and she cut me off," McKibbon said. "The car almost went head on until it hit the building. It kind of flipped over and landed where it was at."
A dashboard camera in McKibbon's car captured the crash. Sparks fly from the undercarriage of the black Mazda as it scrapes over the median before turning nearly 90 degrees and slamming into the PECO building. The car came to rest facing the other direction.
PECO said the car's impact damaged an office in the building, which also houses a substation. No one inside the building was hurt.
Police were investigating to determine if that was indeed the case and said that preliminary information they have determined so far indicated that the driver did not have a valid license.
The southbound lanes of Columbus Boulevard were reopened to traffic shortly after 6 a.m. Police are still investigating the deadly crash.
Fitness trackers are helpful for monitoring exercise activity, but the data could also be used to make important emergency medical decisions. It helped a set of South Jersey doctors do just that.
A 42-year-old New Jersey man wound up in Our Lady of Lourdes emergency room recently with an irregularly fast heartbeat, called atrial fibrillation, after having a seizure. Atrial fibrillation's can be chronic, but they can also be triggered by seizures and the doctors treating the man were unsure when it started.
During his work-up, doctors noticed he was wearing a fitness tracker, a Fitbit Charge HR, and they asked to see if the device recorded a change in his heartbeat. Looking at the data on the man's smartphone, doctors confirmed that the atrial fibrillation began with the seizure.
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The information helped the physicians decide to perform electrical cardioversion on the man's heart — that's when an electrical current is used to reset a person's heart to a normal rhythm.
Without the data from the man's Fitbit, electro cardioversion would have been very risky with the possibility of death, if the man's heart stopped.
The man's doctors believe this is the first time that information from an activity tracker was used to make a medical decision beyond monitoring a person's weight. They published the man's case in the April issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
It’s not too late to still see snow! A wintry mix is expected to move in Saturday morning bringing rain and snow through the area.
It’s a clipper that’ll be approaching the area, with mostly wet snow around 7-8 a.m. Computer models have been pretty consistent over the past several days showing this feature, with temperatures remaining slightly above freezing through most of the day as any snow falls.
If it moves in early enough, we could see some snow try to stick to pavement farther N&W of Phliadelphia, in the Lehigh Valley or Poconos since temperatures at that time would be around freezing.
Snow will mainly be melting through the rest of the day though on paved surfaces, with mostly grassy accumulation.
Best chance for snow will be N&W of Philadelphia, and this will be wet snow or a rain/snow mix at times. Philadelphia area could see a fluctuation of rain and snow through the day, and NJ and DE may see mainly rain with a period of rain/snow toward the end.
This looks to last through mid-day and even into the afternoon. It’ll be a windy and cold day as the rain/snow moves through. Highs will be around the upper 30s to low 40s, and winds could be gusting near 30 mph from the N/NE. It’ll finally move out for the evening but then temperatures drop off causing a FREEZE through most of the area (for sensitive vegetation).
Snow totals (for areas that see mainly snow and not much mixing) will be around 1-2” on grassy surfaces. This will mainly be N&W of Philadelphia. Precipitation from Saturday will be freezing overnight into early Sunday as temperatures drop into the 20s. Through Sunday afternoon, drier air moves in but it’ll stay breezy with highs in the upper 40s, but sunny!
PHILLIES HOME OPENER
We finally start warming up for opening day on Monday! Highs will be around 60, mix of sun and clouds, and there’s a chance we could see a passing shower. It would be ahead of our next cold front set to move through on Tuesday, which will be the day we see the most rain.
A Delaware man was arrested after allegedly leading police on a chase that injured two officers.
On Friday around 6:40 p.m. officers were patrolling in Edgemoor, Delaware when they spotted a black Lincoln Navigator traveling on Salisbury Drive near the intersection of N. Stuyvesant Drive. The officers checked the vehicle’s registration and determined it had been stolen out of Wilmington.
Officers stopped the vehicle in the unit block of Stuyvestant Drive. As they approached, the driver inside the Navigator, later identified as 24-year-old Calvin Warren of Smyrna, allegedly backed up and struck a patrol vehicle.
Warren then allegedly drove forward across two lawns and continued eastbound on S. Stuyvesant Drive. Another officer spotted the vehicle as it crossed over Salisbury Drive and a pursuit ensued.
After driving near the Chemours-Edgemoor Plant, Warren allegedly made a U-Turn and struck a civilian vehicle. He then drove back towards approaching officers at a high speed and struck another police vehicle head-on, causing major damage, investigators said. Warren then crashed into another police vehicle and the chase ended, according to officials.
Warren was taken into custody and transported to Wilmington Hospital where he was treated for minor injuries. Two officers also suffered non-life-threatening injuries during the chase and crashes. They were both treated at the hospital and later released.
Warren is charged with assault, reckless endangerment, receiving stolen property, resisting arrest, vehicle assault and other related offenses. He was arraigned and committed to the Howard Young Correctional Institution in lieu of $28,900 cash bail.
A Delaware man died two days after he was involved in a minor car accident, according to investigators.
Police say Richard Carmean, 55, of Magnolia, was driving a 2009 Kia Sorrento in the left lane on northbound State Route 1 in Rehoboth Beach around 2:30 p.m. back on April 2. At the same time an 18-year-old man was driving a 2005 Ford F-150 in the center lane of northbound State Route 1.
Suddenly the 18-year-old swerved his vehicle into the left lane to avoid striking another vehicle that had just entered into his path after exiting the parking lot of a K-Mart store, officials said. The front of the F-150 then struck the left side of Carmean’s Sorrento. After the collision, both drivers pulled their vehicles over. When State Police responded to the scene, Carmean, his passenger and the 18-year-old told them they were uninjured and refused medical treatment. Police also didn’t observe major damage on either vehicle.
Carmean and the 18-year-old exchanged information and then left, police said.
After returning to his home, Carmean began to feel discomfort. He was taken to Kent General Hospital where he died on April 4. Officials determined he died from injuries he sustained during the April 2 accident.
The Delaware State Police Collision Reconstruction Unit is investigating the crash and asking any witnesses to come forward. If you have any information, please call Master Corporal Jay Burns at 302-703-3266. You can also call Delaware Crime Stoppers at 1-800-TIP-3333.
Two women are recovering after they were both stabbed inside a Philadelphia home Saturday night.
The double stabbing occurred inside a home on the 5900 block of W. Champlost Avenue at 7:34 p.m. Police say a 31-year-old woman was stabbed in the right knee, right forearm and left thigh and was also maced. A 27-year-old woman was also stabbed several times in the left shoulder.
Both women were taken to Einstein Hospital and appeared to be in stable condition, police said.
No arrests have been made and a weapon has not been recovered.
A driver died after crashing into the Schuylkill River early Saturday morning.
Police say a 25-year-old man was driving a 2012 Grey Volkswagen Jetta westbound towards Kelly Drive around 2:50 a.m. As he was driving, the man was unable to make a left turn onto Kelly Drive and lost control of his vehicle.
The Jetta struck the wall at the edges of the Schuylkill River and then went airborne. The vehicle flipped midair before falling into the water about 40 feet away from the wall.
A Marine Unit responded to the scene and pulled the vehicle out of the water. The man was pronounced dead by a medic at 3:57 a.m. Officials have not yet released his identity pending the notification of his family.
An off-duty SWAT officer thwarted a robbery in Philadelphia Saturday afternoon, shooting and killing an armed suspect, according to investigators.
Police say a man in his mid to late 20s was robbing an elderly man on the 5700 block of Park Avenue around 2:30 p.m. A Philadelphia SWAT officer, who was off-duty at the time, witnessed the robbery and told the suspect to stop and raise his hands, according to officials.
The suspect, who was armed with a weapon, allegedly pointed his gun at the officer, police say. The officer then opened fire, striking the suspect at least once. The suspect ran off and then fell to the ground in a nearby parking lot, dropping his gun, police said. As the off-duty officer approached him, the suspect allegedly reached for his gun. The officer then fired again, striking the suspect.
Police say the suspect then ran to Broad and Chew streets where he once again collapsed to the ground. More officers responded to the scene and took the suspect to Einstein Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
Police say the elderly man was also injured during the initial robbery. He was taken to the hospital where he received several stitches.
No police officers were injured during the incident.
Police say they recovered the suspect's weapon. They continue to investigate.
