Home Care In Durham, NC

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- State and local crews spent Thursday preparing roads across central North Carolina ahead of the first winter storm of the season.

Chopper 11 was over NCDOT trucks today as they spread brine on roads and major highways. Eyewitness News also captured video of brine trucks in Roxboro.

Kim Deaner from NCDOT says they spent extra time pretreating Person County.

"Anything that's elevated, and all bridges getting brined today," she said. "As it stands, Person County seems to be the hotspot. So those crews, they knew they were going to be the hotspot, so they were out yesterday brining. They took care of their primary roads."

Over in Durham, Environmental and Street Services crews filled trucks with brine.

Environmental and Street Services Assistant Director Phillip Powell says they're focusing on major roads used by emergency vehicles.

"We will focus on large roads such as Duke Street, Roxborough Road, and roads that have four to five lanes," he said.

Kenneth Walker used to drive one of the brine and plow trucks for about five years for the City of Durham before being promoted to a maintenance operations supervisor.

He says getting behind the wheel of one of these trucks can be overwhelming at first.

"If there's a street you passed already, you can always come back and see the progress you made," he said. "It's just a different experience sitting up there. It's like a bigger car, if you can say that."

He says the city will have 24 trucks and four brine trucks running nonstop until the storm is done Friday.

Some Durham crews will be in as early as 3 a.m. Friday.

"In the morning, we might be applying more salt and sand solution to kind of give traction for the commute going to work," said Walker.

Still, officials say they do not expect this storm to pack a strong punch.

"It doesn't appear that this storm is going to do anything major. As long as that remains the case, then brining should take care of any problem we run into," said Deaner. "But if it does, and the storm moves south a little bit then we will just respond accordingly."

State and local officials have a warning for drivers before roads begin to get icy.

"Stay at home if they can," said Powell. "If they have to be out, make sure that they have a correct braking distance between the vehicle in front of them in order not to have an accident."

City of Raleigh and Wake County officials both say they are not doing any major preparations Thursday, but are on standby if conditions worsen Friday.

Durham Public Schools has announced tomorrow will be a remote-learning day for students.

WCPSS say they have not yet made a decision about school tomorrow.

For nearly a decade, "Stranger Things" creators and Durham natives Matt and Ross Duffer were never strangers to using their North Carolina influences to help create the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana.

For nearly a decade, "Stranger Things" creators and Durham natives Matt and Ross Duffer were never strangers to using their North Carolina influences to help create the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana.

In the show’s final season, which premiered its first four episodes on Nov. 26 on Netflix, some Triangle residents might have noticed a familiar face.

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Hope Hynes Love, a theatre teacher and artistic director at East Chapel Hill High School, plays "Miss Harris," a teacher of Holly Wheeler, the youngest sibling of Nancy and Mike Wheeler on the show.

Before she started teaching at East Chapel Hill High School, Love was the high school drama teacher at Charles E. Jordan High School in Durham. The same high school that the show's creators, the Duffer brothers, attended in the early 2000s.

Just like how her character cares for her students on screen, Love had a big impact on her students off-screen. In an Instagram post, Ross Duffer wrote, “High school was rough for me and my brother. But Hope saw something in us we didn’t see in ourselves – and she helped give us the confidence to not only survive those four years, but to move to LA and chase our dreams.”

“I think it’s a job as an arts teacher to teach them to see something in themselves, and all of my students to see their voice and to see the tiny spark in them,” Love said when asked about her influence on the Duffer Brothers.

As Love continued to watch the brothers’ careers develop over the years, she stayed in contact with them.

“I've been in touch with the Duffers since they graduated, like text once every six or seven months,” Love said. “When [Stranger Things] season four came out, I was like, 'This is great, you’re amazing, I hope you’re enjoying all your flowers.'”

'You might want to audition me'

Love meant so much to the Duffer brothers that they thought they had a cameo for her in season four, but it didn’t work out. Fast forward to season five and they reached out again.

“In 2023, they reached out and they were like, ‘Hey, we don’t know if you have the time or you’re interested, we know you're really busy, but we think we might have something for you in five.’ ‘Are you interested and could you make that work?’” Love said.

But Love had her doubts; she hadn’t acted on screen since she was in graduate school.

“I said, 'You might want to audition me,'” Love said. “I’m happy to give it a try, as long as you’ll fire me if I’m bad.”

The process moved fast for Love. To prepare for her new acting role, Love reached out to the local film community for help.

“They were like, ‘OK,’ and then boom, here’s our casting director. Reach out to her,” she said. “I reached out to many of the people who knew what they were doing and said I have a thing, and I need to get up to speed.”

“I love first day of school energy and they [the Duffer brothers] know I love first day of school energy.” Love said. “So, to put me on a bus full of like 25, 12-year-olds that I have to get to know, in a half an hour like, this is my jam.”

Love said that sort of environment put her at ease for the rest of her time on set.

Keeping an Upside Down-sized secret

After she finished filming, Love returned home to her family and work life, where she had to keep the reason why she left a secret. Love came up with many creative excuses for what she was doing, from filming a Colgate commercial to interviewing for an upcoming Duffer brothers documentary.

After "Stranger Things" season five premiered and Ross Duffer posted his Instagram post about her, Love’s life was as hectic as the Upside Down, but she described her experience with the Duffer brothers as a full-circle moment.

“I've said it to them, but what a blast to collaborate again and have it flipped around,” she said. “It takes a certain amount of trust that actor, director thing, and they trusted me like that [I trusted them] when they were my students.”

“I think that that's pretty powerful, and I'm really grateful for that and proud of them for that. Like that’s all you want,” Love said.

Duffer brothers' teacher joins list of NC homages found in hit Netflix series

The Duffer brothers used many features from their hometown, along with Montauk and other eerie towns the two watched in horror films growing up, to create the fictional town of Hawkins, including restaurants, street names, and landmarks.

The eerie crossroads of Kerley and Cornwallis Roads in Durham, a heavily-wooded intersection near Duke Forest, the same spot known in the show as "Mirkwood," where Will Byers is first chased by the demogorgon before he's kidnapped and taken to the Upside Down.

Loch Nora is a wealthy community in Hawkins where Lucas, Dustin, Mike and Will go trick-or-treating to get the "full-size candy bars" before Will has another vision of the Mind Flayer, the show's main antagonist of season 2.

In Durham, not far from Cornwallis and Kerley is a neighborhood known as Lochn'ora, which is also a large neighborhood with beautiful homes. If you need more evidence, the curved brick sign and lettering at the entrance to the neighborhood on the show closely matches the real-life front sign.

Jordan Lake and the Eno River

Also in season 2, Will creates a series of drawings that later combine into a map revealing secret underground tunnels around Hawkins. Bob Newby, Joyce Byers's love interest in season 2, eventually makes the discovery.

If you pay attention during the discovery in episode 5 of season 2, Newby lists off two bodies of water that every Triangle resident found familiar: The Eno River and "Lake Jordan"

Other key Durham references

Plenty of other references in Durham have popped up in the show's nearly decade-long run, including an overt reference to the Bull City in season 4.

As Joyce Byers and her conspiracy theorist friend Murray Bowman try calling Russia to confirm if Jim Hopper is alive, Murray tells Joyce, "You are now calling from Durham, North Carolina" when hiding their actual location. A little map of Durham is then shown on the screen.

Other Durham roads and parks are mentioned as references in the show –– such as Forest Hills Park, Mt. Sinai Road, Randolph Road and others.

WRAL News has a full list of all the major Durham and NC references that have been made in the show. Tap here to find out more.

If you have any other locations that have been reference in the show, which will premiere its 2-hour series finale on New Year's Eve, you can send them in on WRAL's ReportIt page.

When you slurp an oyster out of its shell or taste a delicately fried shrimp, the vast and endless sea doesn’t really feel all that far away.

So even Hillsborough Road in Durham will soon seem dockside, as an old school burger joint is transformed into the city’s newest seafood shack.

Jean’s By The Sea is opening early next year in the former Wimpy’s Grill space in Durham, offering indoor seating for the first time in decades.

Owned by Kate Elia, Jean’s is inspired by North Carolina’s great coastal seafood tradition, of beachside shacks and fried shrimp and fish served with a seabreeze.

“Some of my favorite places are the seafood shacks we have in North Carolina,” Elia said. “There’s a really strong fondness with El’s and Big Oak drive-ins. I thought we could offer that very familiar food, the fried fish baskets and sandwiches, plus ceviche tostadas and raw oysters that go a little beyond the shack.”

A new shack

With an opening slated for early 2026, Jean’s will be a casual counter-service restaurant with about 30 seats inside, a mix of booths and stools, and room for another 100 on an expansive outdoor patio filled with picnic tables.

Wimpy’s Grill closed in 2019 after 32 years in business, serving up popular biscuits and burgers and attracting TV attention from the likes of “Man v. Food.” Wimpy’s was followed by similar concepts Blake’s Grill and Durham Filling Station, but Jean’s will finally take the cozy A-frame building in a new direction.

“I was looking for a place that could provide a more community environment, not a restaurant in a strip mall or parking lot,” Elia said. “Finding this building was the perfect combination of a sprawling outdoor area in a neighborhood. And it’s in a building that has this great tradition, that brings an X factor.”

In building Jean’s, Elia and her family cleared out overgrown wisteria and poison ivy and largely gutted the kitchen, expanding the building from 650 to 800 square feet, with a 350-square-foot dining room.

Decades in food

Jean’s By The Sea will be the first restaurant of her own, but Elia has spent her career in many corners of food and wine, working summer harvest in California wine country, learning winemaking, importing bottles, being a cheesemonger in New York, even wine journalism.

“The through-line for 20 plus years has been food and wine,” Elia said.

Jean’s is named after Elia’s mom who was herself named after her aunt.

“We really loved it as a name, it felt really comforting,” Elia said.

What’s on the menu

Jean’s will be open for lunch and dinner, serving North Carolina oysters and classics like peel-and-eat shrimp. While the heart of Jean’s may be oysters, the soul will be sandwiches and Calabash-style fry baskets. Jean’s also plans a riff on the Filet-O-Fish with hoop cheese.

Given the giant patio, Jean’s aims to be family friendly and the kid’s menu will hold some fun surprises, Elia said. There aren’t specifics yet, but there could even be a kid-friendly snack tower--maybe.

On the drinks side, look for simple, crispy beers, including two on draft, small family-grown wines and a cocktail menu heavy on tequila and mezcal.

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- It's the second day of Onyx Williams stealing all of our hearts. Wednesday was a typical day at home as he played with his toys and learned.

The four-year-old is battling high-grade glioma, which is a rare and aggressive cancerous brain tumor. The story has garnered a lot of attention on social media and beyond.

"I feel really good. I feel poured into. We've been getting a plethora of invites and opportunities," said Raheem Williams.

"I received a message from a boy in Africa. He just wanted to be like I love your music. I see what's going on with your son. We're praying for you."

Williams said he's going to have to create a schedule before his son starts radiation on November 18.

"Awww! That was my reaction," said Caitlin Gooch, a Wendell resident.

Gooch has built a following on social media as the Black Cowgirl, educating people about being an equestrian while promoting literacy. She gifted Onyx with a coloring book and a trip to her ranch.

"Whenever it fits their schedule, he's welcome to come home and ride horses with us. He's welcome to join our summer camps," she said.

Onyx's story even caught the eye of the North Carolina Central University Men's Basketball Head Coach, Levelle Moton.

"It made me go home and hug my children a little tighter," said coach Moton.

Moton's team plays the Tar Heels this Friday, and he wants to offer Onyx an opportunity to make his coaching debut.

"I want him to come ride along and take the bus trip with us. He can have the pregame meal and be my honorary assistant coach," Moton said. "He can even draw some plays on the board if he wants to."

As more people continue to answer Williams' call to create experiences for his son, who has a terminal brain cancer, he's taking in these precious moments with Onyx.

He doesn't quite understand the magnitude of the response his story has gotten, but he wanted to share words of appreciation.

"Thank you, everybody."

Some people across the Triangle spotted aurora displays in the sky Tuesday night, Nov. 11.

Those northern lights could appear again.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center is expecting severe geomagnetic storm conditions Wednesday, Nov. 12. Those geomagnetic storms can make northern lights more visible and disrupt electrical grids and GPS communications.

Two coronal mass ejections, which are large explosions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun, reached Earth on Tuesday, and the aurora was visible over much of the U.S.

Another coronal mass ejection is expected to reach Earth around midday Wednesday, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.

When coronal mass ejections disrupt the Earth’s magnetosphere, which is the area around the planet controlled by its magnetic field, it causes a geomagnetic storm. The particles ejected from the sun interact with gases such as oxygen and nitrogen and cause the colors known as northern lights or aurora.

The aurora expected Wednesday could become visible over much of the northern half of the U.S., even as far south as Alabama and northern California, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.

Stronger geomagnetic activity makes auroras more intense and more visible farther south in the Northern Hemisphere, The News & Observer previously reported. Under the right conditions, a person can view an aurora that as far as 600 miles away, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.

How to see the northern lights

The Space Weather Prediction Center offers several tips for viewing the aurora:

If you were lucky enough to catch the auroras, you witnessed the stunning power of a geomagnetic storm. But did you know these events can also create havoc in our daily lives? Meteorologist @JimCantore explains the science behind them: pic.twitter.com/NWewep7d6z

— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) November 12, 2025

Sometimes, a camera lens is better at capturing the aurora than the naked eye. Using a smartphone, set the camera to night mode. Another option is to manually adjust the exposure settings, and hold the camera still.