PALM COAST
Observer YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
VOLUME 11, NO. 15
FREE • THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020
Restaurants adjust seating and procedures
A new life
In Flagler Beach, reopening restaurants take advantage of decks for outdoor seating.
Flagler Beach’s Haley Watson Stephens is a national surfing champ, a Miss Flagler County beauty queen, and now, as a new mom, she’s sharing her story about overcoming the baby blues.
JONATHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR
Local restaurants are hoping for good weather and customers’ patience as they optimize outdoor seating and encourage customers to comply with social distancing directives while reopening under Phase 1 of the state’s reopening plan. “We’ve seen a lot of excitement and eagerness from our guests and our local community, just wanting to get out of the house, come out and support their local businesses,” said Scott Fox, coowner of Tortuga’s Florida Kitchen and Bar in Flagler Beach. Fox noted that COVID-19 is just the latest crisis in the last four years or so for Flagler Beach businesses — following Hurricanes Matthew, Irma and Dorian, plus A1A reconstruction that’s diverted traffic from shops and restaurants. SEE RESTAURANTS PAGE 5
INSIDE BUDGET IMPACTS
As Palm Coast prepared for COVID budget impact, City Council considers MedNex, Public Works projects PAGE 2
TOWN CENTER
Development continues in the heart of the city. PAGE 4
NURSING HOMES
Flagler’s nursing homes accept offer to have all residents and employees tested for COVID-19 PAGE 5
TWO CANDIDATES Two former teachers file to run for separate School Board positions PAGE 6
INDEX
Briefs............. PAGE 2, 6, 8 Business.............. PAGE 10 Real Estate...........PAGE 12 Your Town............. PAGE 11
3,200 ear savers PAGE 9
Haley Watson Stephens, with her 15-month-old son, Mason
Courtesy photo
I
t was about 4 a.m., and Haley Watson was walking up to the emergency entrance at Halifax Health to have her first baby, when her water broke. “It was like in the movies — whoosh!” she recalled. “It was like a waterfall.” Her fiance was parking their car, so, with soaked shoes, she walked up to the desk by herself. It was a humbling moment for Watson, a former Miss Flagler County beauty queen, a national surfing champion, the founder of the MayDay Memorial Surf Classic that in 2020 raised a record $10,000 to benefit the Halifax Health Foundation. According to one friend, Carla Cline, Watson has become a “pillar of the community.” Watson didn’t feel that way on that night in 2019. The hospital was ghostly silent. She was all alone, without any bags, and a woman at the desk asked her, “Is it time?” Watson said, “Yeah,” and she burst into tears. Her journey to become a mom was beginning — right now. As for many first-time mothers, the journey would be full of surprises, including a bout with the baby blues. She shared her story with the Palm Coast Observer in hopes that other new mothers would feel less alone — and get the help they need.
Dollie Sue and Haley Watson in 2004, at the Miss Junior Flagler County pageant.
DELIVERY AT HALIFAX
That night at Halifax, on Jan. 20, 2019, she was surprised to learn that her name was already in the hospital records — Haley Watson — because of the last time she had been there as a “patient”: for her own birth 26 years earlier. It was surreal to walk into Halifax Health for the first time since then, because this was where her own mother, Dollie Sue Watson, had worked as a nurse until dying of heart disease in 2006. She was 48 years old; Haley was 14 at the time. Now, Watson was about to become a mother herself — without her own mother by her side. In the delivery room, her fiance, Nic, joined her, as did Nic’s SEE HALEY PAGE 3
MAYDAY: $10,000 FOR HEALTHY HEARTS Although it had to happen through virtual donations with no actual surfing, the 10th-annual MayDay Memorial Surf Classic, organized by Haley Watson Stephens in honor of her mother, Dollie Sue Watson, raised a record $10,000 this year, bringing the total to $28,350. Proceeds are delivered each year to the Halifax Health Foundation to benefit the Center for Cardiology. Dollie Sue Watson died in December 2006, at age 48, of heart disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in both
men and women, according to the Mayo Clinic, and “women are more likely than men to have heart attack symptoms unrelated to chest pain, such as: Neck, jaw, shoulder, upper back or abdominal discomfort; shortness of breath; pain in one or both arms; nausea or vomiting; sweating; lightheadedness or dizziness; unusual fatigue; and indigestion.” The Mayo Clinic reports: “Women tend to have symptoms more often when resting, or even when asleep, than they do in men. Emotional stress can play a role in triggering heart attack symptoms in women. SEE HEART PAGE 3