unnatural disasters | vegas seven magazine | nov. 19-25, 2015
DESCRIPTION
How the MGM fire and other calamities shaped Las Vegas. Plus: A reporter’s recollection of the Pepcon explosions, Dispensaries open their doors, Carbone dazzles and Mob protégé Bernie Sindler tells all.TRANSCRIPT
CENTERBARR E D E S I G N E D . R E D E F I N E D .
T H E A L L N E W
H A R D R O C K H O T E L . C O M
A true rock legend.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21CATCH THE ACTION AT AN EXCLUSIVE CLOSED CIRCUIT VIEWING. TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE AT ANY MGM RESORTS TICKET OFFICE OR TICKETMASTER OUTLET.
Mandalay Bay Ticket Offi ce 702.632.7580 mandalaybay.com | 800.745.3000 Ticketmaster.com
BOUT CARD SUBJECT TO CHANGE
PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE OBSERVER MEDIA GROUP
Vegas Seven, 702-798-7000, 302 East Carson Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89101
Vegas Seven is distributed each Thursday throughout Southern Nevada
c 2015 Vegas Seven, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without the permission of Vegas Seven, LLC is prohibited.
LETTERS AND STORY IDEAS [email protected]
ADVERTISING [email protected]
DISTRIBUTION [email protected]
P UBL ISHERMichael Skenandore
EDI T ORI A LEDITORIAL DIRECTOR Nicole Ely
MANAGING EDITOR Genevie Durano
SENIOR EDITORS Paul Szydelko, Xania Woodman
SENIOR EDITOR, A&E Geoff Carter
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Camille Cannon
SENIOR WRITER Lissa Townsend Rodgers
STAFF WRITER Emmily Bristol
CALENDAR COORDINATOR Ian Caramanzana
SENIOR CON T RIBU T ING EDI T ORMelinda Sheckells (style)
CON T RIBU T ING EDI T ORSMichael Green (politics), Al Mancini (dining),
David G. Schwartz (gaming/hospitality)
A R TCREATIVE DIRECTOR Ryan Olbrysh
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Cierra Pedro
STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Anthony Mair, Krystal Ramirez
V EGASSE V EN.COMTECHNICAL DIRECTOR Herbert Akinyele
ENGAGEMENT EDITOR Zoneil Maharaj
SENIOR WRITER, RUNREBS.COM Mike Grimala
ASSISTANT WEB PRODUCER Amber Sampson
PRODUC T ION / DIS T RIBU T IONDIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION/DISTRIBUTION Marc Barrington
ADVERTISING MANAGER Jimmy Bearse
DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR Jasen Ono
S A L ESBUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Christy Corda
DIGITAL SALES MANAGER Nicole Scherer
ACCOUNT MANAGER Brittany Quintana
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Robyn Weiss
IN T ERNS
Kayla Dean, Troy Fosgate, Tia Keys, Sierra Lomprey,
Jonmaesha Shadrick, Mitchell Weiss
Ryan T. Doherty | Justin Weniger
PRESIDENT Michael Skenandore
VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING AND EVENTS Keith White
DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS Michael Uriarte
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Sherwin Yumul
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Sim Salzman
CONTROLLER Jane Weigel
LAS VEGAS’ WEEKLY CITY MAGAZINE | FOUNDED FEBRUARY 2010
PH
OT
O C
OU
RT
ES
Y U
NLV
SP
EC
IAL
CO
LL
EC
TIO
NS
BURNING LESSONSHow the MGM fre changed the casino and hotel industry for good By L I S S A T O W N S E N D R O D G E R S
The MGM fire, Nov. 21, 1980.
PH
OT
OS
CO
UR
TE
SY
DO
E
22
No
vem
ber
19
–25,
20
15 |
Veg
asS
even
.co
m
➜ from the miss atomic bomb faux-beauty pageants of the 1950s to the state-issued Nevada Test Site historic preservation license plate, Las Vegas’ history seems to wink approvingly at all things atomic. Bars, drinks, tat-too parlors and even museums are dedicated to our storied relationship with the bomb. But fip that coin and there’s the equally storied controversy of Nevada’s modern-day status as the nation’s nuclear dump.
While funding for Yucca Mountain was cut off in 2010, the site is still being considered as the sole repository for high-level nuclear waste despite op-position from Senator Harry Reid and the State of Nevada. And sites all over the country are already storing—and transporting—radioactive waste from military weapons and nuclear reac-tors. Whether by truck, train or wa-ter, radioactive waste passes through almost every state in the country, and some of it is ending up in commercial and government sites in Nevada.
With thousands of tons of waste moving around, it’s not a question of if there will be accidents, but when. Ac-cident statistics for radioactive waste shipments are diffcult to collect, since
they are reported by several differ-ent agencies depending on the type of waste (low-level, transuranic or spent fuel) and where it originated (private or public facilities). However, in a 2014 Department of Energy report for fscal year 2013, there were two incidents—a package “shift” on a truck from Los Ala-mos National Laboratory and a package breach in a shipment from Arizona.
Just last month, low-level radioac-tive waste burned in a trench at US Ecology, a commercial disposal site about 115 miles north of Las Vegas. The waste was put in the trench sometime in a 30-year-period before 1992. Emer-gency responders closed more than 140 miles of U.S. 95, and the Nye County School District evacuated two schools close to Beatty because of the fre.
In 2001, a train carrying spent nu-clear fuel caught fre after it derailed in a Baltimore rail tunnel. More than 300,000 people in the area were ex-posed to radiation from the contain-ers, which are built to withstand 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes. The tank car spilled 28,600 gallons of liquid tripro-pylene, which burned for several days.
According to congressional testi-mony by Dr. Marvin Resnikoff in 2002,
fame temperatures exceeded 1,500 degrees. The incident has been used as a case study to illustrate how danger-ous transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain could be. In his testimony, Dr. Resnikoff stated that the proposed Yuc-ca Mountain spent fuel canisters, which would contain radionuclides that are about 240 times the levels in the Hiro-shima bomb, “are not designed to with-stand every credible accident.”
“A real danger with these sites is that they’re just parking lot dumps,” says Diane D’Arrigo, radioactive waste proj-ect director with the Nuclear Informa-tion & Resource Service, a watchdog organization.
NIRS has been a particularly outspo-ken opponent of Yucca Mountain. Ac-cording to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry has generat-ed more than 74,000 metric tons of spent fuel waste. Last year, the DOE began looking for trains that can haul reactor waste, even though Yucca Mountain has not been cleared to accept such waste.
Despite decades long controversy over Yucca Mountain, both the govern-ment and private industry have been diligently working on expanding the types of radioactive waste stored in Ne-vada. The Nuclear Regulatory Commis-sion released a report in August explor-ing potential groundwater contamina-tion from burying high-level nuclear waste at the site, which is located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, in May, the DOE an-nounced that Nevada would start get-ting shipments of potent uranium waste from a federal laboratory in Tennessee, which has been seen by many as another step forward in the
opening of Yucca Mountain.“This is a new scheme, a plan, that
would put exponentially more [nuclear waste] on our roads, trains and water-ways,” D’Arrigo says.
This is in addition to low-level ra-dioactive waste from nuclear weapons and other government sites that has been shipped and stored at the Nevada National Security Site (formerly called the Nevada Test Site) since 1961. The NNSS facility, also known as Area 5, has received 27 million cubic feet of radio-active waste since 1961, says spokes-man Darwin Morgan.
The NNSS receives 5 percent of the government’s radioactive waste, which are delivered by trucks that travel pub-lic highways. Once on site, the storage casks are stacked in trenches that are buried in 8 feet of dirt when they are full. The DOE site also handles radioac-tive waste from military weapons, in-cluding nuclear bombs.
“The vast majority of what we do is focused on national security,” Mor-gan says. “We make sure the [nuclear bomb] stockpile is safe and secure.”
The NNSS is not the only DOE site that monitors and secures the mili-tary’s nuclear arsenal. It is possible to be sitting in traffc on a highway next to a truck carrying nuclear weapons in states all across the country.
For now, spent nuclear waste from reactors is transported rarely and is of-ten stored onsite, but that could change if plans for Yucca Mountain move for-ward. With the wide variety of radioac-tive waste already traveling on public roads and by rail through Nevada, our best and perhaps only defense against a disaster is continued vigilance.
H I G H W AY T O H E L LWhen it comes to radioactive waste shipments, are accidents inevitable? By E M M I L Y B R I S T O L
Clockwise from this photo: DOE personnel walk through the U1a complex, 960 feet
underground, at NNSS. DOE workers practice radiation contamination drill. DOE
technicians at NNSS testing facility.
25
No
vem
ber
19
–25,
20
15 |
Veg
asS
even
.co
m
PH
OT
O B
Y Q
UIN
N T
UC
KE
R/I
G:
@Q
UA
SA
RM
ED
IA
Disco NapsDon’t sleep on this EDM-fueled feminist movement
By Kat Boehrer
Ladies use the Nap Girlpose to show their support
for gender equality in the dance-music scene.
Your city after dark and photos from the week's hottest parties
NIGHTLIFE
➜ WAKE UP! Nap Girls Int’l is a nonproft collective of nearly 150 women—including myself, the group's philanthropy manager—who are promoting gender equality in the dance-music industry. Only a year since its West Coast inception, the Nap Girls movement has impacted the music industry all the way up to its leaders, including Skrillex and Justin Martin, who have both demonstrated support for the group. The group has become more public in recent months by way of a feature on Skrillex’s Nest HQ website, a Nap Girls charity bash in Los Angeles with an all-female DJ lineup, and through phi-lanthropy events, such as a canned food drive in collaboration with L.A.’s Space Yacht. Liz Garard, who founded the group along with music profes-sionals Abi Getto and Christina Boemio, shares the nap-time story.
26
No
vem
ber
19
–25,
20
15 |
Veg
asS
even
.co
m
PH
OT
OS
CO
UR
TE
SY
IN
STA
GR
AM
#N
AP
GIR
LS
NIGHTLIFE
What are the origins of the Nap Girl
movement?
It all started with my working all day and taking a “disco nap” before going to Avalon [Nightclub in Hollywood]. I was sending Snapchats doing the nap pose. Abi, Boemio and I were like, “We’re the Nap Girls,” taking naps before going to Avalon or Sound or whatever. I started sending Snapchats to other girls, like, “Hey join my girl gang.” My friend at Warner [Music Group] also gave me the book Riot Grrrl. That was about a move-ment for punk-rock feminists, [and I thought] Nap Girls could be a move-ment for dance music females.
How did it evolve?
It evolved very organically. By pro-tecting the group and by not telling people what it was, we were able to induct members who we thought were a good ft or that had genuine interest in fguring out what Nap Girls was about. Within the last three months, I think, have been the biggest devel-opments: We were able to form the internal structure. The frst year was basically growing the group internally
and now we’re at the point where we have this beautiful foundation set up. Now, whoever wants to take initiative and be a leader in the group has that foundation to do so.
From what industries do the Nap Girls hail?
Nap Girls is a 360-degree model of the music industry. It’s comprised of press, publicists, artists (DJs, produc-ers, singer/songwriters), publications, marketing and social media manag-ers, talent management, journalists …
Any notable members?
It’s kinda hard to say because [Aus-tralian DJ] Alison Wonderland is a notable member, but so is Priscilla [Pa-checo, a legal assistant], an incredibly notable member, because she threw a wonderful Nap Girls party.
What was the purpose of that party?
First and foremost, it was a showcase of our group and the talent that is within our group. It was also a com-ing-out party. We kept it private for so long that it was important to have the Nest HQ feature and that we really go
public with what we were doing, to get our names and faces out there.
What is the group’s collective mission?
It’s to create a culture for women working in the industry where they can support and help one another. And to create an alliance—a sister-hood—which is also an alliance with the brotherhood. So kind of like a hu-man alliance. That’s the goal—achiev-ing a human-to-human alliance. When we work positively with one another, we can achieve so much more. We have so many like-minded individuals joining forces to create impact, which is so much more pow-erful than one person isolating him or herself with a negative attitude trying to achieve something.
What’s it like on the inside?
We have so many opportunities and ways to get involved in the group that girls really step up to bat to do things they’re passionate about. [Music-publishing professional] Gali Firstenberg is doing human resources. There are a lot of different
opportunities to get involved in ways that speak to the members.
Is this movement a response to the
male-dominated music industry?
People are like, “Why aren’t there more female DJs?” There are only so many times you can hear that ques-tion. You get to a point where you need to do something about it. We need to take initiative.
How can people—female or male—
get involved?
Apply [via the “Napplication” at NapGirls.com in January]. Get to know the other Nap Girls, reach out to them [online or in person], and get to know the members. That’s really the best way to get involved. Like us on Facebook, follow on Twitter—all that good stuff. Do the pose, tell your friends. But also start to question how things go on in your workspace. The best way to support Nap Girls is to open yourself up to equality and what it means to be a feminist. Because it doesn’t mean being “anti-man,” it means fghting for equality.
The #NapGirls of Instagram are
everywhere!
F R I N O V 2 0
N I C K Y R O M E R O
S A T N O V 2 1
N E R V O
T U E N O V 2 4
T H E C H A I N S M O K E R S
F R I N O V 2 7
C H U C K I E
S A T N O V 2 8
B O R G E O U S
T U E D E C 0 1
B O R G E O U S
T I C K E T S & V I P R E S E R V A T I O N S | O M N I A N I G H T C L U B . C O M | 7 0 2 . 7 8 5 . 6 2 0 0 |
PARTIES
See more photos from this gallery at SPYONvegas.com
34
No
vem
ber
19
–25,
20
15 |
Veg
asS
even
.co
m
PH
OT
OS
BY
TO
BY
AC
UN
A,
JO
E F
UR
Y A
ND
TH
OM
AS
TR
AN
DRAISThe Cromwell
[ UPCOMING ]
Nov. 19 Justin Credible spins
Nov. 20 Fabolous birthday celebration
Nov. 21 Trey Songz birthday celebration
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
See more photos from this gallery at SPYONvegas.com
38
No
vem
ber
19
–25,
20
15 |
Veg
asS
even
.co
m
PH
OT
OS
BY
TO
NY
TR
AN
HYDEBellagio
[ UPCOMING ]
Nov. 20 DJ Konflikt spins
Nov. 21 DJ Spider spins
Nov. 24 Lost Angels Industry Party with Joe Maz
NIGHTLIFE
44
No
vem
ber
19
–25,
20
15 |
Veg
asS
even
.co
m
HACK:
BRINE IT
Rick Giffen (Top of the World in the Stratosphere)
“Unless you’re buying a kosher
bird that’s been pre-salted, or
you have one of those injected
birds with a lot of saline solution
in them, I recommend a brine [to
keep the turkey moist],” Giffen
says. For a 15-to-20-pound bird,
Giffen recommends, “take a
gallon-and-a-half of water, a cup-
and-a-half of kosher salt, a cup-
and-a-half of raw sugar, brown
sugar or honey, two limes, two
oranges and three or four lemons
cut into wedges, peppercorn, bay
leaves and garlic,” and bring it to
a boil with any other herbs you
like. Allow the mixture to sim-
mer for 45 minutes or so. When
it cools, soak the bird (innards
removed) in the solution and re-
frigerate for 14 to 24 hours before
beginning your preparation.
HACK: TIME IT
JUST RIGHT
Matt Silverman (Hexx in Paris Las Vegas)
“You can brine [your turkey],”
Silverman says, “but if you don’t
cook it to the right temperature it
doesn’t matter, because it’s just
going to be dry. You’re gonna
roast out all that moisture that
you were able to put in there.”
Temperature should be taken
right between the thigh and the
leg, without touching a bone, and
the optimal temperature is 165
degrees. But Silverman reminds
us that turkeys continue to cook
even after they’ve been taken out
of the oven. “An average turkey
is going to [cook an additional]
five to 10 degrees just by let-
ting it sit on the stove for 20
minutes.” So you may want to
remove it from the oven before
it hits 165, and re-check just
before serving.
HACK: DISGUISE
THE GREENS
Mary Sue Milliken (Border Grill in Mandalay Bay and in the Forum Shops at Caesars)
Getting your guests to eat their
greens amid all the starches and
meat can be difficult. But Milliken
has a Brussels sprouts recipe
that grew out of a challenge she
and her business partner Susan
Feniger set for each other “to get
people to eat the kind of vegetables
they normally think they hate.”
Shred the sprout really thin on a
mandolin, up to two days before
the holiday as long as you keep
them refrigerated. “Then, when
you’re putting everything on the
table, get a really wide skillet. I like
to put half butter and half olive oil
in there,” Milliken says. “And once
it’s nice and hot, put in the shred-
ded Brussels sprouts, salt, pepper
and a dash of lime.” They’ll cook in
just five to 10 minutes.
HACK: SAVOR
THE BITS
Kim Canteenwalla (Andiron Steak & Sea, Honey Salt, Made L.V.)
When it comes to gravy,
Canteenwalla says it’s about more
than just drippings and cornstarch.
“I start with the neck as part of the
stock,” he says. “I use the wings,
the tips and the [other] pieces that
I’m not going to use. And I let that
cook down slowly with carrots,
celery and onion. Then I take the
neck out, take the meat out, and
shred all of that. Then I make my
gravy and fold that back into the
gravy. The neck is pretty good
meat.” Canteenwalla also uses
the turkey liver, combined with
chicken livers, although he admits
his wife isn’t a fan. “I sweat it off,
chop it up coarsely, add herbs into
it—parsley, sage, rosemary and
thyme—hit it with a little Cognac
and fold that back into the stuffing.”
HACK: PUT AN
EGG IN IT
Michael Mina (Michael Mina in Bellagio, Bardot in Aria, StripSteak in Mandalay Bay)
For many people, leftovers are the
best part of Thanksgiving. But if
you enjoy a good stuffing sand-
wich after the feast, Mina says
you have to think ahead. “Be sure
to use an egg while mixing your
stuffing. It acts as a binder, holding
the stuffing together as it’s cook-
ing. Otherwise your stuffing will
be all over the place.” For bread,
Mina says you can use any kind,
brushed with butter, but, he adds,
“I recommend using a rich bread
full of flavor, such as brioche.”
Place the composed sandwich in
a sauté pan and cover it with a pa-
nini press (or if you don’t have one,
another smaller pan), and cook for
two-and-a-half minutes on each
side, till the bread is golden brown
and the stuffing is warm.
Turkey TechProfessional chefs help you hack your Thanksgiving Day dinner By Al Mancini
DINING
➜ NOW YOU’VE DONE IT. Sometime over the past 51 weeks you put your foot in your mouth and volunteered to cook Thanksgiving dinner. And now, the chickens (or shall we say, the turkeys) are coming home to roost. While I can’t promise you the feast for which your in-laws/grandmother/favorite cousin are famous, I’ve rounded up some quick pieces of advice from fve top Las Vegas chefs that should at least put you in the running.
50
No
vem
ber
19
–25,
20
15 |
Veg
asS
even
.co
m
ILLU
ST
RA
TIO
N B
Y K
RY
STA
L R
AM
IRE
Z;
ICE
RIN
K B
Y E
RIK
KA
BIK
A&E
[ COOL EVENT ]
The Cosmopolitan Glides Into Winter➜ The Cosmopolitan and Scott Hamilton CARES Foundation observe Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month with Ice Out Cancer Over Vegas at 7 p.m. on November 20, an evening of world-class fgure skating at Boulevard Pool's ice-skating rink.
Ice Out will feature performances by Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton, British champion Steven Cousins, U.S. cham-pion Kimmie Meissner and many more. It’s an opportunity for fans to get autographs from the stars, and even skate with them. Participants can also make freside s’mores, enjoy a va-riety of culinary tastes and experience a sprinkling of snow.
Figure skating champions Tai Babilonia and Randy Gard-ner will co-host the event, which will include a silent auc-tion. General admission tickets are $30; VIP tickets are $75. If you can’t make it to that night of ice skating, the Cosmopoli-tan’s Vice on Ice industry skate night returns on Wednesday, December 2, with headliners DJ Vice and DJ Technicolor. Partcipants will be encouraged to show off their glides from 8 p.m. to midnight. –Tia Keys
[ MUSIC ]
Have Faith! Morrissey Won't Cancel His Show➜ Yes, he’s canceled his last three
shows here. Yes, we just opened a
White Castle. But we're certain that
Morrissey’s next scheduled Las
Vegas show—January 2 at the Joint
at the Hard Rock Hotel—will finally
bring the Moz back to town. In fact,
we’ve got five solid reasons why he’ll
actually come this time, based on
precedent and well-established facts:
He loves performing. In an
interview with Mexico City-based
alternative radio station Reactor
105.7, he says that doctors have
suggested he retire from performing,
but he doesn’t think he could even if
he wanted to: “I have been cautioned
to [retire], but it’s difficult for me
because it’s very ingrained in me."
He was really sick for a bit, but
now he’s better. Morrissey canceled
his November 23, 2012, performance
at the Cosmopolitan because his
mother was hospitalized and he went
home to take care of her. The show
was rescheduled for February 9,
2013, but Morrissey had to cancel
when he discovered he had a bleed-
ing ulcer and Barrett’s Esophagus,
a condition that sometimes leads to
esophageal cancer. Soon after that
Las Vegas show was rescheduled for
April 30, 2013, it was canceled a third
and final time because of anemia re-
sulting from that bleeding ulcer, plus
a case of double pneumonia.
But Morrissey loves Las Vegas.
Since the breakup of the Smiths
in 1987, Morrissey has performed
in Las Vegas a dozen times. At the
start of his Oye Esteban tour in 1999,
guitarist Alain Whyte suffered a back
injury, resulting in the cancellation
of the Las Vegas show; undaunted,
Morrissey scheduled two December
1999 shows at Mandalay Bay’s House
of Blues to make up for it. Playing
multiple shows in Las Vegas during
one tour is not uncommon for Moz;
he also performed multiple House of
Blues shows on his 2002 tour, and
visited twice on a 2007 tour.
He loves his Latino fans. Mor-
rissey adores all of his fans, but in
recent years, he’s developed a strong
relationship with his Latino fan base.
What better place, outside of Los An-
geles, to visit with his favorite kind
of people? According to the U.S. Cen-
sus Bureau, Clark County has one of
the largest Hispanic populations in
the country: Some 30 percent of our
population is of Hispanic descent.
He recorded a cover of Lou Reed’s
“Satellite Of Love” at a show at the
Cosmopolitan and released it as a
single in 2014. How many Ameri-
can cities can boast that Moz gifted
them with a live single, recorded in a
venue in their hometown?
For the most part, however, we
think he’ll play Las Vegas because
it’s what he does. During a 2007
interview with Morrissey fanzine
True To You, the man emphatically
said that he’s meant to be onstage: “I
think it’s the only time in my life that
I feel right about myself. Otherwise,
I don’t have any function at all as a
human being ... which is unfortunate!
I’m not sure if I even exist off stage.”
Welcome back to Las Vegas, Moz.
You belong here. –Krystal Ramirez
The Cosmopolitan has some nice ice.
M A R K E T P L A C E
M A R K E T P L A C E
M A R K E T P L A C E
62
No
vem
ber
19
–25,
20
15 |
Veg
asS
even
.co
m
You’ve reported on traffic since
1988 and full-time with Channel
3 since 1995. What drew you to
transportation?
I was a junior assistant news guy for a local radio station, and they decided to do traffc reports, got a helicopter and assigned me to it. From there I found an interest in it and got more into the transporta-tion aspects. Sometime in the ’90s, in addition to being a reporter, I became a journal-ist—which I don’t necessarily consider the same thing. Pointing out where accidents are is important and what the TV station wants to do, but it’s not the same thing as researching and inter-viewing and writing. That’s something that developed on the job here.
How has spending tens of
thousands of hours in a helicopter
over traffic affected your views
as a motorist?
It’s easy for people to be angry and frustrated because we all drag in traffc, and people will say, “What idiot designed this?” But while there are mistakes out there, most people don’t appreciate the challenges that engineers and traffc planners face. …
Many things could be done [to improve traffc], but the money’s not there to do them. The current traditional system of fuel taxes is broken. As cars are getting more fuel-effcient and we’re going to electric cars, that’s putting fewer dollars in per-mile trav-eled every year. There needs to be a new model.
Can drones be a useful tool
for covering traffic?
Drones are a horrible idea as anyone who fies would tell you. It’s not a matter of if there will be a drone versus aircraft accident, it’s when. We’ll see if laws are revised whenever that happens. I hate drones.
How did Video Vault come about?
Our tapes go back to 1980 (with flm back to 1975), and they rarely get used. I would go through them and once in a while use something for background for a story. People liked seeing this old stuff, and then eventually, I don’t even know that it was my idea, we decided to put a name on it and make it a regular seg-ment. It gathered steam.
Some individual stories
provide context and back-ground [to current events]. For example, a young woman, Debra Anderson, was killed while crossing Maryland Park-way in 1980. She was blind, and she and her seeing-eye dog were hit [by an impaired, speeding driver]. To this day it affects people who remember her, and it felt good to keep her memory alive. It led to changes on Maryland Parkway [at Harmon Avenue], which ended up saving lives.
What’s your favorite Video Vault?
I was fast-forwarding through this video from 1981 and stumbled across footage of a plane on a golf course. I looked at it, and I realized that’s the scene in Casino. At the time we interviewed a boy who was playing tennis out there, and luckily they mention the boy’s name on the tape. I was able to track him down, and he was former Assemblyman David Goldwater! So we were able to use both 10-year-old David Goldwater and 40-something David Goldwater, put the two together, along with the real video from the actual incident and the movie footage. That was fun!
You’ve covered local disasters
such as the MGM Grand fire and
the Pepcon explosions in Video
Vault, but have there been other
incidents that are overlooked?
In 1964, a F-105 took off from Nellis Air Force Base, heading south and over North Las Ve-gas and lost power. The jet was going down toward Lincoln Elementary School, and every-one generally agrees that pilot Raynor Hebert stayed with the aircraft and rode it down so that he’d steer away from the school. [He avoided the school but] crashed into a neighbor-hood and destroyed several houses. Hebert was killed as were several people on the ground. If you can imagine that in 1964 when it was a much smaller city, that was the biggest tragedy that people had seen up until that point.
You got a helicopter pilot’s
license in 1991, but haven’t
flown yourself since the mid-
’90s. Ever feel like taking the
controls again?
No. It was quite fun [to get a license], and I’m glad I learned how to fy, but if I never fy another day in a helicopter, it’s fne. I’ve got my helicopter thrills. … Maybe it would surprise me to say that 20 years ago, [when] what it was all about for me was the helicopter. Nowadays it’s much more interesting for me to research and write than it is to fy a helicopter.
You’ve hiked Mount Kilimanjaro
up to Gilman’s Point (more than
18,000 feet elevation). Anything
else on your bucket list?
I’ve been to Kilimanjaro twice, and for different rea-sons I didn’t get to the sum-mit. I’m considering going back a third time, but’s that’s a lot of time and money. I would also like to climb Mount Fuji. I hope to make a serious stab at that next summer. … [Closer to home] I also love Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It’s just stun-ningly beautiful. You really feel like you’ve gotten away from society completely out there. It’s a paradise down there, and you see the world a mile above you; it’s one of my favorite places on earth. For personal achievement, climb-ing Mount Whitney—I’ve been there six times and gotten to the top three. It’s challeng-ing, it’s quite beautiful and it’s also the highest point in the contiguous 48. And I’m not climbing Denali [in Alaska]; that’s out of my league, so I’ll have to settle for Whitney.
SE
VE
N Q
UE
ST
IO
NS
PH
OT
O B
Y K
RY
STA
L R
AM
IRE
Z
Tom HawleyKSNV Channel 3’s longtime transportation and history buff on drones,
a plane crash that shook the Valley and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro
By Paul Szydelko