Glendale’s Community Newspaper
www.glendalestar.com
Vol. 77 No. 29
INSIDE
This Week
Valley’s Nicholas Balboa recalls condo collapse BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI Glendale Star Executive Editor
Health & Wellness Guide
NEWS...............8 Walmart gives back to local nonprofits
Nicholas Balboa shrugs off any suggestion that he’s brave. The former Glendale resident was walking his dog in Surfside, Florida, outside of Miami, when Champlain Towers South collapsed a block away from him. He felt the ground shake and went to investigate. It was then he heard the cries of a teenage boy and other victims buried in the rubble. “It was something I wasn’t expecting,” Balboa said. “In that moment, you see it and it doesn’t register that a building just fell. It’s an inanimate object, but there people inside. I was still processing. I began to take photos, and I got closer to the building. As I got closer, I could hear people yelling and screaming in the debris.”
Glendale Star Staff Writer
Home and landscape show blooming with ideas
OPINION..................... 10 FEATURES.................. 12 RELIGION ................... 14 CLASSIFIEDS ............. 17
Balboa responded to the 15-year-old boy, Jonah Handler, who raised his hand through the rubble. Balboa told Jonah he would find first responders. “He said, ‘Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me,’” Balboa recalled. “I grabbed my flashlight and flashed it toward the first responders to get their attention. “A police officer came over to me and told me to get back. I told him there was somebody here. I led the police officer to him and then the officer called over firefighters and they began their extraction.” Jonah’s 54-year-old mother, Stacie
SEE CONDO PAGE 3
Champlain Towers South is believed to have collapsed due to long-term degradation of reinforced concrete support structures in the underground parking garage. (Photo by Nicholas Balboa)
ADOT preparing motorists for a helluva ride BY PAUL MARYNIAK
FEATURES .... 13
July 15, 2021
Starting next week, billboards, social media, television and print media will carry messages urging thousands of Valley motorists, including those in the West Valley, to prepare for four years of disruptions in their driving routines. It’s not exactly Armageddon that the Arizona Department of Transportation will be heralding, but it certainly won’t be a walk in the park either, especially for car and truck traffic on I-10. West Valley motorists who need to get to the other side of the county or Phoe-
nix Sky Harbor International Airport can expect significant increases in traffic as motorists try to evade the inevitable tie-ups that will be caused by the I-10 Broadway Curve Improvement Project. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it,” said ADOT spokeswoman Kim Noetzel, who, as an Ahwatukee resident, is bracing for the project. “It’s going to be impactful.” SEE ADOT PAGE 4
This photo of a highway in the vicinity of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, illustrates how I-10 will look once the two collector-distributor lanes on either side of I-10 are completed. (Photo courtesy of ADOT)
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