News
- Single Truck may have been responsible for I-5 Tunnel Crash: The Los Angeles Times reports today that a single truck carrying coffee beans may have lost control after exiting the southbound truck bypass tunnel, crashed into a guardrail, and scattered debris -including its engine- over southbound and northbound lanes. Most drivers and truckers avoided the disabled truck, which was on fire, but minutes later, "the sudden slowing triggered a pileup in the 550-foot tunnel just to the north of the original crash." Times story. Meanwhile, the Fresno Bee reports that two of the victims, a 38 year old man and a six year old boy, may have been a father/son duo hauling cantaloupes from Tulare, California.
- More debate coverage: The Signal has a pair of excellent articles covering the Monday night debates for positions on the Hart Board and the Newhall Water Board. Castaic High was a major topic of conversation in the former, while rates were a contentious issue in the latter. Rachel Neville, one of three running for the water board seat, was a no-show at the debate. Water board debate, Hart board
- Lawsuit over sexual assault at Junior High: Parents of a 14 year old girl are suing the Hart District for $25,000 in damages following an incident last year where a 48 year old Rio Norte Junior High teacher named Scott Bell allegedly hugged and touched the student. The student apparently had a crush on the teacher, and parents found inappropriate emails between the teacher and the student, but no criminal charges were filed. Sharon Cotal takes you through the convoluted story
- Does Buck even have an iPod? More colleges are taking notice of Representative McKeon's proposal to punish universities that don't actively monitor their students internet habits. McKeon's proposal would force universities to monitor and ban certain types of internet traffic such as "peer to peer" file-sharing services, but universities say they shouldn't be watchdogs for the recording and movie industries. The Arizona State Devil student newspaper has the story and for more on how well Congress seems to understand the internet, click here
- More on senior housing rents: The city's planning commission took up the topic of affordable senior housing on Tuesday night. Katie Geyer filed this report.
- SCV Barbie Collection: I missed SCVLife blogger's post last week which included the complete collection of Santa Clarita barbies. You can view Lancaster Barbie, Stevenson Ranch Barbie, and much more here. These barbies appeared earlier in the year and we noted it here on SCVTalk, but SCVLife has put them all in one place.
- New columnists coming to Signal: Don't miss Signal Publisher Jay Harn's comment in yesterday's Daily Brief in which he says the Signal will add "several new local columnists" to the paper soon. "We believe these new local voices will bring a refreshing perspective to our opinion pages and our community," Harn says.
- Santa Clarita and national/international news: As you probably realize, there's no end to my fascination with the internet, news, and Santa Clarita (yes I'm crazy). The weekend accident on Interstate 5 brought national and international media attention to our community, so I wanted to find out just how big this story was from an internet perspective.
Google offers an interesting service called "Google Trends." The system tracks search terms queried on Google.com and can even compare different search terms over a given period of time. The term "Santa Clarita" never ranks high in this index, except when a story of national significance occurs. For example, the 2004-2005 rainy season and massive 2003 fires made national news, and Google Trends reflects that. I imagine if the database went back far enough, the standoff and shooting of Deputy Jake Kuredjian in August 2001 in Stevenson Ranch would figure prominently as well.
Beginning Saturday, searches for "Santa Clarita," "Newhall," and "I 5" spiked dramatically as news of the massive accident spread. Search volume for those terms reached its peak on Sunday as commuters, officials, and the media pondered what was sure to be a terrible commute on Monday morning. But, CalTrans and transportation officials were able to open all lanes by Sunday evening, and searches for those terms predictably fell off after that:
Image not recoveredgoogletrends.jpgWhat's interesting about the graph above is that I figured Interstate 5 and Newhall (part of Newhall Pass) would have been queried in Google more than Santa Clarita. After all, most Angelenos and I dare-say Californians know about the Newhall Pass, but as many of us know, we still have to explain to people where Santa Clarita is. But the search volume doesn't reflect that. In a related query, the more generic term "la traffic," probably related to the disaster on I-5, ranked 91 out of 100 for all search terms on Google on Saturday. Blogs figured prominently in searches about the accident as well. Technorati.com is considered by many to be the best blog search engine on the internet. This chart from Technorati tracks how many times the term "Santa Clarita" appeared in blog posts over the last 180 days. You'll notice spikes in July, August, and September, which probably follows the McClellan story as it made its way from tiny KHTS to the New York Times. But "Santa Clarita" appeared in more blogs this weekend than all other times in the last six months, likely because of the accident.Image not recoveredtehnorati.jpg
Comments (2)