for Tuesday May 31st

This is the generator building. The generators are for the new expansion building under construction. At this elevation the generators are below flood plain. The Japanese engineers relearned a lesson recently about having generators below a possible high water line. I brought this situation at the neighborhood meeting to Jeremy Schrimsher, VP, on the 24th of May. I asked what the flood plan was for the hospital in case of a levee break. No answer was given.

Wheel chaired smoker by our home, smoking away.

for Friday May 27th

This construction area on H St. was brought up at the meeting with Mercy last Tuesday. This morning, there was a crew cleaning and screening it off. Thanks Mercy.

for Thursday May 26th

Our home and bedrooms are a very short distance from this wake up call. This is an unacceptable way to live.

for Wednesday May 25th

The quarterly Mercy neighborhood meeting was held last night. Here are a summary of my notes:

1.) The new Spanos building will be finished June 2012 and occupied by Oct. 2013. The rest of the work will take an additional year (tearing down the older building) by Oct. 2014. Three and a half years to go.

2.) Shelly said she would look at the signage problems. See Mercy Blog dated April 25th and 27th.

3.) Mercy has no plans to follow the EIR with regards to trucking routing. The trucks will be unloading on J Street 'till the end of time- 'till I am old (er) and gray (er). How did the city let this happen? See blog dated: March 4th.

4.) A smoking area was discussed at the Mercy Guild building. See Mercy Blog dated: April 6th

More on smoking later.

5.) The oxygen delivery problem was discussed. See Blog dated May 24th.

6.) Hospital flooding was discussed should a levee break. Mercy has no plans for dealing with this other than "we" talked to the Corps of Engineer and "we" will be ok. (Water will fill the basements and be 4 ft deep in the parking lot.) See Blog Apr 12th, May 6th, May 9th, May 13th. Also, flooding will disable Mercy generators- even the new one on 39th St.

for Tuesday May24th

Scary, isn't it? The yellow sign means liquid oxygen. It is being delivered to the hospital storage tank.
Above shows the oxygen truck. Below is the loading dock. In spite of all the trucks shown yesterday at the same time. It was not very busy here. Why not?

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Off the internet these are the health hazards of liquid oxygen.

This picture shows the truck going the wrong way. It also shows how close the asphalt paving is to the gas. See above.

This picture shows the truck parked in the red, no parking zone.

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Why do we care, Joanie and I, about this? Just the neighbors live next to the hospital every day, all year long. We feel Mercy is very lax sometimes, and cares very little about being a good neighbor and a safe neighbor.

for Monday May 23rd

The week starts. After not seeing too many trucks last week, they were out in force this morning. Our bedroom window is right behind the green trees. The trucks and carts and lift gates are noisy and can be clearly heard from inside our home.
The shredded truck (white truck) is back too. I have seen it in back of Mercy in two different locations doing its grinding. Both spot were empty this morning. Why is it back on the street again?
Two of the drivers having a heated discussion. I could hear the words. I imagine it was about who parks where.

This the traffic diverter. (The small island on the right). Mercy said "After all we did for Jim and Joan". She is right it does help us with traffic. But it cost a lot for us in attorney's fees to get it down. Mercy needs this traffic help many more times a day than we do.

The U.S. Food Service truck.

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Tomorrow night there is a neighborhood meeting at 5:30 at Mercy's basement meeting room. It usually ends at 6:30pm promptly.

for Friday May 20th

This morning's (Friday) wake up call was from Foster Farms, Shown using the sidewalk for freight handling.

Their chosen path for deliveries is right along our property line.

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Last evening was the Mayor's open office for our area. We made our wants know to our councilman, the mayor, and a Captain in the police. The whole event was well run. I not sure the powers that be could deal with so many people. It reminded me of sitting in a pew and waiting for previous petitioners to finish.

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I learned I need to be clear what I want from the city and Mercy. I live in a residential zone. I want the freight operation to go in the back where it belongs. If it is in the front on J St, the EIR and codes should be strictly enforced.

for Thursday May 19th

This is our Thursday morning wake up call from Mercy's vendor, U.S. food Service. The unloading is clearly illegal, as he is in the red zone. We can clearly hear the activity from inside our home.

Tonight, I will meet with the Mayor and Councilman to give them copies of todays pictures. and asking them to take action to direct Mercy to live up to the letter and spirit of the EIR and City Ordinances.

I will keep you posted on the outcome.

for Tuesday May 17th

The blurred man in the middle in Denny Powell, the president of Mercy Hospitals. He is serving a free breakfast to Mercy employees this morning. A laudable management thing to do. I would encourage him to meet with the neighborhood, now that the hospital expansion project is maybe half way through. Serve us a free breakfast and hear first hand any compliments and concerns we might have.

For Friday May 13th

What does this pile of rock have to due with Mercy General Hospital? A lot. The pile is pitifully small. A skip loader and a small fleet of trucks would eat it very quickly in a flood fight. Even though there are two piles of rock available, a levee break could swallow this pile shortly. Note on the blog of May the 9th how big breaks can be.

The rock pile, held in reserve. It is near 20th and C st.

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An other unthinkable way to fight floods is to deliberately cut levees to save other levees. Flooding of Mercy General could be saved/slowe, but at a huge price.

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The Shredder truck was back yesterday, making all it's noise. Mercy had found another spot for it these last months. Why is it back on the street?

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Tomorrow, Saturday 8 am till noon (?) there is a big emergency exercise at Mercy General. It involves many agencies.

I would like to see a flood exercise meeting. A big flood emergency can be predicted. It depends on where the levee breaks and the height of water there. From that how long for the flood water to fill the basin. We were involved in a flood fight at Manteca with the San Joaquin River. It took 10 hours to fill the basin. Our levee held, but it took thousands of ton of rock haul in, and in a few short hours.

Is Mercy unprepared? Will it be like the hospitals in New Orleans?

For Thursday May 12th

Smokers by our house. The man has a regular hospital grown on. He is getting a sun tan on the upper part of his back.
It is left to us to keep smokers away from our house. Why doesn't Mercy Security do it? We have seen them just walk by smokers on our property as they make their round between hospital buildings. Maybe because some of them smoke themselves. See above.

for Wednesday May 11th

This truck made its delivery on Saturday last.

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Here he is back again on a Monday morning for our wake up call. Illegally parked and unloading.

for Tuesday May 10th

Besides our noisy regular from Food Service, on 41st Street the Alhambra truck came to visit.

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Here he is parked on 41st St. in the pedestrian walkway. The truck is driverless.

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Here is the truck's backside identification.

Mercy has chosen to not build the required truck unloading spaces on site. The neighborhood is left to bear the brunt of their un-neighborily behavior.

for Monday May 9th

What do all these levee break pictures have to do with Mercy Hospital.

Levees can and do break. It hubris to think they won't or can't. The man above without a jacket is my father. We were in the construction business together.

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The Sacramento River by the Sacramento International Airport. As good luck would have it, there was a large pile of base rock at an airport construction site. The only other quick source of fill is to dig it out of the ground and it can be pretty wet. Google says there would be 8 ft. of water over the runways.
If there is deep water nearby water equipment can effect a repair.
Water out of control is a powerful thing. It has a mind of own.

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Getting back to Mercy Hospital. Are they prepared? Are the generators high enough? What is prevent the mechanical equipment from getting flooded? Levees are like a chain. The weakest link will be the failure point.

for Friday May 6th

Two large Mercy generators. In a levee break they would get wet. The depth would depend on where the levee actually broke. I wonder what lessons the hospitals in New Orleans learned about flooding. What lesson did the Japanese learned about protecting their generators at the recent atomic generating plant disaster?

Sacramento got by this winter with weather that let the snow melt come down slowly.

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Our leaders and planners have been slow to fix this problem. The hospital could and should protect itself from flooding. Do they have a flood plan to protect themselves?

for Wednesday May 4th

6:37 am. The Crystal man is ahead of the loading hours. He is in the red zone and past the white markers into the traveling lane also. Mercy has many "Violations are subject to citations". Parking in the red zone is almost a daily occurrence for the last 2+years. How many citations have been given out? 100? 10? or none?

for Tuesday May 3rd

The money man got the word where to park.

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The chip man got the message about parking in the street.

The soft drink man did too. He is unloading off Spine St.

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Alas the fisherman didn't get the word. And he is in the red zone with his tail partly blocking the entrance.

for Monday May 2nd

A friend gave me this card. Maybe she meant my Mercy General Blog should cover more ground.

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Gas carrying trucks are parked in Red Fire Lanes. White truck on 2nd level. They are using residential streets, posted: "No Trucks" to reach their "No Parking Fire Lane" at the hospital.

Some of the Companies: Airgas--Northern Calif, and Kinde North American Inc.

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Here is where the gas trucks Park. Zoom in and you will see tire marked red paint.