STORIES FROM THE PAST
30 years ago
A campus-wide test has turned up trace levels of asbestos an amount below Cal-OSHA’s level of standards, at varying locations at Imperial Valley College and has forced college officials to post warning signs at the asbestos sites for insurance liability purposes.
The tests, conducted last December by EMS Laboratories of Hawthorne, reveal minute amounts of asbestos in the air, ceiling and insulation at different locations and in varying amounts.
The college’s insurance company threatened to cancel its policy with the school if the signs were not posted. “Unless I put up those signs, they would no longer cover me for danger of suits resulting from asbestos,” said Bill Thornburg, vice president of Business Services.
The signs even had to be approved by the insurance company before being hung.
20 years ago
SEELEY — A Centinela State Prison inmate-worker assigned to the firehouse outside the prison fence escaped late Thursday by driving away in a fire department truck.
The escapee was identified as Tyrone Hebrard, 27, who was serving time for vehicle theft, prison spokeswoman Tina Hornbeak said.
The search for Hebrard began at 10:25 p.m., Hornbeak said. At that time a correctional officer at the prison’s main gate, which is outside the fence, reported as he opened the gate to allow a prison employee to drive out a man in a prison pickup drove out as well.
It was soon discovered Hebrard and the pickup were missing from the firehouse, where he lived with other inmates assigned there.