Latest news with #Emerick
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Somerset County residents reeling as floodwaters recede; officials document damage to provide aid
MEYERSDALE, Pa. – MS Shock Therapy owner Mark Smith's career has been defined by speed and precision. Even after retiring from stock car racing, Smith built a reputation for using high-tech gear to fine-tune cars for success on the track. But none of that mattered in a race against time and floodwaters Tuesday, he said. 'The water came in so fast. There was nothing we could do,' Smith said. Fueled by a full day of intense rain, the rapidly rising Casselman River filled Smith's Mount Davis Road auto shop and nearby homes in the Meyersdale area. PHOTO GALLERY | Meyersdale Flooding Floodwaters carried a wave of debris down the river, docking much of it against bridges and railroad trestles. Across Boynton, Garrett and Brothersvalley Township, there were reports of roads, bridges and homes battered by the storm. Somerset County officials and Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency staff toured hard-hit areas Wednesday, going from property to property to document damage – a key step in coordinating a response effort, county Emergency Management Director Joel Landis said. Disaster services teams from the American Red Cross were handing out cleanup kits while surveying the damage. They found Stephen Emerick standing in mud-spattered fishing waders. At midday Wednesday, he was still using a motorized pump to pull water from his home – but it wasn't erasing the grim reality that his first floor was 'basically destroyed' by the flooding. Meyersdale Flooding Stephen Emerick (left) inspects the exterior of his home after Tuesday's flooding on Mount Davis Road in Meyersdale on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. In his 18 years living on low-lying Mount Davis Road, Emerick said he's dealt with minor flooding six times. But he said he's never seen waters rise as quickly as they did Tuesday. 'Usually, we have time to react, time to get everything out of the way,' Emerick said, standing in a kitchen marred with mud. 'Not this time.' Emerick's family tried anyway, he said. They stacked their living room coffee table, chairs and electronics on their couch to protect them from the rising waters. In many cases, it wasn't enough, he said. In some areas, the mucky high-water mark reached two feet on his walls. Meyersdale Flooding An area resident walks across a train bridge over Casselman River where debris is trapped after Tuesday's flooding near Mount Davis Road in Meyersdale on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. At Smith's shop, the water rose nearly four feet. It climbed over his metal tool cabinets, soaking paperwork and binders in sludge. Smith, a former Jennerstown Speedway champion, said he was able to remove his customers' vehicles from the shop, but many of his most prized pieces of equipment were destroyed. That includes NASCAR-style computerized race track simulator equipment that he used to calibrate high-performance shocks for customers from as far away as Oregon, he said. A $30,000 race car engine was submerged in floodwater – and so were his laptop computers, even though they were waist-high on his desk. VIDEO: Flooding impacts Meyersdale, southern Somerset County 'It's just devastating,' Smith said, reflecting on decades of work. 'Everything feels so bleak right now.' State and county emergency management officials were urging community members to complete damage assessment documents called 'disaster intake forms' to notify agencies about issues created by the flooding. Meyersdale Flooding Mount Davis Road residents gather outside their home as a sump pump works to drain water from the basement after Tuesday's flooding in Meyersdale on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. Landis said the goal was two-fold Wednesday. First, officials were attempting to find anyone with urgent issues and unmet needs – for shelter, electricity, or food and water – to connect them with agencies that can help. The other goal was for Somerset County to build a case for crucial outside disaster assistance, Landis said. For example, one set of ultra-low-interest loans become available to flood-hit homes and businesses if 25 properties in Somerset County have documented first-floor flood damage, he said. Other funding programs can also be unlocked to support flooded areas – both residential and municipal properties – to repair damaged bridges, roads and other infrastructure if certain damage thresholds are met, Landis said. Meyersdale Flooding Bob Gordon, employee at MS Shock Therapy, carries supplies along Mount Davis Road after Tuesday's flooding in Meyersdale on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. 'We need to show these agencies Somerset County needs these funds. If you are having problems, please call us,' Landis said. Disaster intake forms are accessible online at Landis said. He said people with urgent needs for food and shelter can contact the Emergency Management office at 814-445-1515 if they haven't already heard back from a local response agency. He said assessment forms are being reviewed as quickly as possible, but filings from southern Somerset County, including the Meyersdale and Garrett areas, were already piling up. But some property owners, including Emerick, said that will only address half the issue. Meyersdale Flooding Stephen Emerick stands in his kitchen and describes the storm that caused Tuesday's flooding in Meyersdale on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. He gestured toward his back yard, which was still knee-deep in floodwater Wednesday, toward a nearby flood channel – and wondered if his first floor might have been spared if additional steps had been taken years ago to address his neighborhood's flooding woes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers installed a flood protection system on one side of the Casselman River, but there's nothing to prevent rising waters from spilling onto Mount Davis Road, Emerick said. Smith vented that the channel is overdue for dredging. 'I just don't understand it,' Emerick added. 'Is it going to take someone losing a life to get someone to do something about this?'
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cosmic Robotics' robots could speed up solar panel deployments
The U.S. has been building so many solar farms that companies can't find enough people to install the panels. By 2033, the number of solar installers is expected to increase by 48%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even if those labor force growth projections pan out, the industry is still likely to face a shortage of experts with the right skills. Making the work grueling — and unappealing — is the fact that a significant fraction of solar farms are in deserts. "It's terrible work in remote places," James Emerick, co-founder and CEO of Cosmic Robotics, told TechCrunch. To give people a hand, Cosmic has developed a robotic assistant that does the heavy lifting on solar job sites. Utility-scale solar panels can be enormous, weighing up to 90 pounds. Workers are required to hoist them onto racks several feet off the ground for hours a day. Such exertion in extreme environments can quickly exhaust a worker, or worse. Those conditions are partly why Emerick and his colleagues started Cosmic. The startup's robots shoulder some of the job's physical burden, allowing people to focus on tasks that require more dexterity and intelligence. Cosmic recently raised a $4 million pre-seed round, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The round was led by Giant Ventures with participation from HCVC, MaC Ventures, and several angel investors, including Azeem Azhar, Aarthi Ramamurthy, and Nate Williams. The startup's robot is currently an eight-wheeled vehicle topped with a robotic arm and a slab of metal containing batteries and computer chips. It tows a small trailer laden with solar panels, and it charges at the construction site depot when the day is over. The arm is equipped with suction cups to lift the solar panels and cameras to sense the environment, while high-accuracy GPS helps the vehicle ensure it's on the right track. "We see this as a force amplifier, not taking jobs," Emerick said. "There's a certain physicality to it, and so bringing new tools actually opens the aperture for more people to actually be able to do this work." Cosmic's robot can place a panel within a few millimeters of where it needs to be. Workers spot the robot, ensuring everything looks right before fastening the panel to the rack. The goal is not just to lighten the load, but to speed things along, too. Emerick said that Cosmic's robot could allow a standard crew to be split in two, doubling the amount of solar panels that can be installed in one day. Currently, Cosmic's robot, called Cosmic-1A, can install one panel every 30 to 40 seconds, which is about as quick as the fastest human installers. But the robot doesn't tire as easily, allowing it to continue at that pace for longer. Workers still get to take their usual breaks, but there isn't as much downtime from exhaustion. By the end of the year, Cosmic plans to use its new funding to manufacture a few robots and have them operating in production environments, Emerick said. The mechanical pair of helping hands is likely to be welcomed by data center developers, who have been rushing to secure electricity supplies in the face of skyrocketing demand. Solar has been a winner in the race to power data centers because it's already low-cost and quick to deploy. Adding automation to solar construction sites would give solar yet another boost. "There's something new announced every day with data centers and energy generation," Emerick said. "Speed of deployment is all that really matters. You just can't build these things fast enough, can't bring compute online fast enough. There's a reason that data centers are measured in megawatts and not FLOPS or something, because that's the critical piece." Sign in to access your portfolio
BBC News
30-03-2025
- General
- BBC News
Melsonby Hoard: Iron Age 'bling' shows wealth of northern tribes
A hoard of Iron Age "bling" unearthed in North Yorkshire was a "garish" display of wealth from tribes more powerful than previously thought, an archaeologist has Adam Parker from the Yorkshire Museum said the ornate decorations on artefacts found in the Melsonby Hoard, including Mediterranean coral, suggested international said the hoard, which was discovered in a field outside Melsonby by metal detectorist Peter Heads, showed the people who buried it "had a lot more clout than we thought they did"."It just bumps up the power and prestige of these tribal groups in North Yorkshire and it makes them even more glamorous," he said. Speaking about some of the artefacts uncovered, Dr Parker said: "These are really fancy Iron Age chariots."These are absolute bling - they are garish."It's a show and display of wealth."Historians believe the Melsonby Hoard to be one of the largest and most important Iron Age finds in the UK, which could lead to a "major re-evaluation" of the wealth and status of the elite living in northern Britain at the Emerick from English Heritage said the hoard "isn't just nationally important - it's internationally important".The metal detectorist who discovered the hoard declined to be interviewed, a spokesperson for Durham University told the BBC. What is the Melsonby Hoard? The Melsonby Hoard, which was excavated with the help of Durham University, includes more than 800 items believed to have been buried about 2,000 years the hoard are the partial remains of more than seven wagons and chariots, along with two cauldrons or vessels, horse harnesses, bridle bits and ceremonial Parker said the "fancy horse harnesses" found in the hoard would have been "really bright and brassy with blue glass beads and coral" and they were "meant to be garish" as a display of wealth."We are blown away with the amount of coral in this hoard," he Parker explained that the burial of these valuable items, many of which had been broken or burnt beforehand, was "like an act of worship to somebody quite powerful like a deity". Mr Emerick said one of the two cauldrons discovered, which is decorated in both Mediterranean and Iron Age styles, was thought to be a wine mixer."We have some material from other chariot burials but nothing of the quality we have got here," he said.A selection of horse-related objects from the hoard went on display at the Yorkshire Museum in York on 25 March and will remain there for 10 weeks. Tribal queen 'staved off Roman invasion' The site where the Melsonby Hoard was discovered is close to what was the largest Iron Age hill fort in the north of England, at fort, located near Richmond, was then the royal capital of Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes Stanwick Hoard, uncovered there in 1845 and comprising 140 metal artefacts including a bronze horse head mask, could be related to the Melsonby Hoard, Mr Emerick Brigantes, meaning hill people, was a name given by the Romans to those who occupied much of what would become northern who ruled from around AD 43, was the first documented queen to reign in part of the British Isles, English Heritage and her husband Venutius formed an alliance with the Romans, thereby staving off an invasion during the early years of the Roman divorced, however, and Venutius, who had anti-Roman supporters, capitalised on Roman instability in AD 69 to become king. The Roman invasion of the north then began. What is the Melsonby Hoard worth? The hoard, which is legally categorised as treasure, has been valued at £254, will be sold and the proceeds will be split between the landowner and the metal detectorist who unearthed Yorkshire Museum has first refusal on the hoard and has launched a Parker said the team had around three months in which to raise the £500,000 required for the purchase and to cover the cost of conservation work. What other Iron Age sites have been found in Yorkshire? A number of Iron Age sites have been discovered in the European Iron Age began around 800 BC and ran until the Roman conquest, which was the year AD 43 in people lived on farms or in small villages in homes called roundhouses, but others stayed in larger settlements such as the hill fort in craftsmen used advanced techniques to make highly decorated metal objects like the chariots found in Melsonby. Another Iron Age site involving a chariot and horse burials was discovered on a housing development around Pocklington in 2014. Archaeologists also discovered around 75 graves, including the remains of a "young warrior", as well as swords, spears and shields.A large chariot burial site was found in Wetwang in the Wolds of East Yorkshire, with a number of excavations carried out there between the 1960s and Age settlements were also discovered in Aldborough, near Boroughbridge and in Foston, near York, which was partially excavated in the 1980s. Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
