Home Care In Ellendale, DE

It comes as no surprise that traffic along Route 16 is increasing, but what is shocking is the amount of development proposed along the corridor in Ellendale and Milton.

If all proposed housing projects come to fruition, the population of Ellendale will increase from its current 500 to more than 5,500 over the next five to 10 years with more than 1,800 residential units in the planning stages. Ellendale currently has just over 200 dwelling units in town limits.

And in Milton, two proposed projects with more than 2,000 residential units would more than double the current population of 3,428. Milton currently has 1,314 dwelling units.

During a Jan. 9 Delaware Department of Transportation Coastal Corridors Study Committee meeting at Mariner Middle School in Milton, committee members and the public were informed about proposed development along the Route 16 corridor and what its impact will be on the roadway.

State transportation officials have launched the Coastal Corridors Study to compile data and gather input from officials and the public on two of the major east-west roads in Sussex County, Route 16 and Route 404/9, and the local roads connecting to them. Committee members include town officials, emergency services personnel, business people, school officials and other stakeholders.

The two roads are the main east-west routes for travel to the beach resort areas in and around Lewes, Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach.

The goals of the study are to identify short-, medium- and long-term traffic solutions for the east-west corridors between Route 113 and Route 1, and to educate and inform local stakeholders on traffic issues and seek feedback and preferences on proposed solutions.

Whitman, Requardt and Associates consultant Steve Harr said road improvement projects could range from big-picture expensive ones such as a grade-separated interchange to smaller projects such as adding turn lanes and four-way stop intersections.

To enhance safe travel and improve traffic flow, DelDOT officials have proposed two major projects, including a grade-separated interchange at the Route 113-Route 16 intersection in Ellendale and a roundabout at the Route 16-Route 30 intersection near Milton, with preliminary engineering underway and construction proposed in 2025. There is no timeline yet for the Route 113 interchange project.

Harr said the average daily traffic along Route 16 varies between 5,000 and 8,000 vehicles, with an increase to more than 10,000 vehicles per day during the summer season. He said it's estimated those traffic counts will increase to 15,000 vehicles per day by 2050.

Harr said 60% of all Route 16 traffic is pass-through, with 30% turning off Route 30 heading to Route 9 and the Long Neck area. The other 10% turns off on other side roads and into the Town of Milton.

WRA consultant Leah Kacanda said the corridor can't remain as it is and handle the proposed growth. “Safety and capacity are our goals here. Whereas the Five Points Working Group is dealing with existing issues, we are ahead of the game a little bit,” she said.

The consultants were asked about widening Route 16 to four lanes. Harr said typically the traffic count for four-lane roads is 20,000 vehicles per day. “Here, 15,000 is the worst-case scenario, so we are near the borderline. Four lanes are not needed, but we will study all options, and with so much development planned, it might add up to tell a different story,” he said.

Jennifer Cinelli-Miller, DelDOT's planner for Sussex County, said this year begins another cycle in DelDOT's capital transportation program. Proposed projects throughout the state are ranked and placed in order in the CTP. “And every two years, they move up the line,” she said.

All seeking annexation or already annexed into Ellendale:

• The Enclave at Starwood, 192 acres along Route 113, with 697 housing units and 367,350 square feet of commercial space. Status: Through state's Preliminary Land Use Service process.

• Newdale Acres, 141 acres in south Ellendale, with 296 units. Status: Annexation is approved and construction scheduled to begin soon.

• Garey Farm, North Old State Road, with 491 units, including 119 single-family homes, 264 multifamily units and 108 duplexes/townhomes. Status: Through the PLUS process and under Sussex County review.

• Ingram Village, north of Route 16, ongoing construction with a total of 373 housing units.

• Milton Village, 138 acres at the Route 16-Route 30 intersection, with 696 residential units, a 35,000-square-foot assisted-living facility, an 80,000-square-foot medical office building and a 210,000-square-foot shopping center. Status: Phase 1, including 269 apartments, has been approved by Sussex County.

• The Granary at Draper Farm, 452 acres off Sand Hill Road and Route 30, with 1,350 residential units, including 875 single-family homes, 475 multifamily units and a 60,000-square-foot shopping center built over 20 years. Status: Master plan approved by Milton Town Council.

• Not mentioned during the meeting is another project that is underway on a 26-acre parcel at the Route 16-Country Road intersection in town limits. The subdivision called Cypress Grove will have 240 units – 144 multifamily units and 96 townhomes – in 14 apartment-style buildings.

For more information or to make comments, go to deldot.gov/projects/Studies.

By Andrew Sharp

Welcome back to the beach” is the message written large on a billboard for drivers heading east into the town of Ellendale, accompanied by the image of a real estate agent with arms outstretched.

Ellendale is about as much “the beach” as Milford or Georgetown, which is to say it is not. But it is within shouting distance, and the town is beginning to see the same booming growth as other Sussex towns closer to the water’s edge.

The town has long been a quiet community of a few hundred residents surrounded by farmland, one of those little Sussex towns where you definitely don’t want to exceed the speed limit.

But it’s undergoing a transformation. Developers have had their eyes on the Ellendale area for more than a decade, but the proposed projects are beginning to become reality.

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Positive high-level results from a late-stage study of a drug for those with a rare hereditary nerve disease are expected to lead AstraZeneca to apply for regulatory approval.

The NEURO-TTRansform Phase III trial in patients with hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloid polyneuropathy (ATTRv-PN) showed AstraZeneca and Ionis’ eplontersen significantly improved patient-reported quality of life versus an external placebo group.

Ionis is a biotech company based in Carlsbad, north of San Diego, CA. AstraZeneca, based in the United Kingdom, employed 1,500 in Delaware at last report.

ATTRv-PN is a debilitating disease that leads to nerve damage and, without treatment, is generally fatal within a decade^. Eplontersen is a medicine designed to reduce the production of TTR protein at its source to treat both hereditary and non-hereditary forms of ATTR^.

Teresa Coelho, M.D., a neurologist and neurophysiologist at Hospital Santo António, Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto, Portugal and an investigator for the trial, said: “These encouraging data reinforce the safety profile of eplontersen and demonstrate clear evidence of its potential to provide much needed therapeutic benefit to patients living with hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloid polyneuropathy.”

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Mene Pangalos, executive vice president, BioPharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca, said: “Amyloid transthyretin polyneuropathy is a rare and fatal disease that can affect up to 40,000 people worldwide. These promising results show eplontersen has the potential to be a new and much-needed treatment where limited options exist and significant unmet medical need remains.”

Based on the 35-week interim trial results, the companies will seek regulatory approval for eplontersen and plan to file a new drug application with the US Food and Drug Administration in 2022.

As part of a global development and commercialization agreement with Ionis, eplontersen will be jointly developed and commercialized by both companies in the US and will be developed and commercialized in the rest of the world by AstraZeneca (with the exception of Latin America).

Eplontersen was granted Orphan Drug Designation in the US and is also currently being evaluated for amyloid transthyretin cardiomyopathy, condition that leads to progressive heart failure and death within four years from diagnosis.

SUSSEX COUNTY, Del. - Photos sent in by viewers shows what appears to be tornado damage in Ellendale.

Photos sent to WBOC by a viewer show street signs and poles knocked down next to Ellendale's welcome sign.

Other images appear to show damage done to buildings in the community. Fences were tattered next to roads, while lights flash as emergency services get to work helping neighbors.

SALISBURY, MD — While Thanksgiving has come and gone, Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, is here. People across the country flocked to stores in search of the best deals, and Delmarva was no exception.

At The Centre at Salisbury, customers filled the mall, eager to take advantage of the deals and get a head start on their holiday shopping. With discounts of 30%, 50% off, buy one-get-one free, plenty of shoppers came to snag items at lower prices.

Some shoppers, like Shelby Dechert, appreciated the crowded atmosphere, reminiscent of busier times at the mall.

"I feel like it’s giving an older vibe. I feel like the mall used to be a lot busier, but with online shopping and stuff you don’t see people in here as much. It’s kind of nostalgic, like older times," she said.

Even though the era of midnight madness may be in the rearview mirror, employees working on Black Friday reported that the crowds were still flowing in.

"Much bigger crowd, it started off there wasn’t many people in here, but now later in the day everyone's starting to get in here," noted an employee Mauriah Stanley

The sentiment among workers was clear: more customers mean a successful day.

"Come on out! Support! Spend money! It’s the holidays!" said employee Keisha Gattis

Black Friday kept the annual Thanksgiving weekend tradition alive in Salisbury.

For decades, many residents in Ellendale, Delaware, have put up with smelly, discolored water from their wells.

The town does not have a public water system, so residents must take their chances with the dirty water — which some say smells like rotten eggs — or spend their money on bottled water.

On Saturday, they will have a chance to change that as they vote on whether to create a public water system for their town.

“If you can imagine going without drinkable water at your house, when you get in the shower, you can barely stand to bathe in it because it smells, or it doesn’t get clean because it’s so full of iron, your clothes look dingy, you have to buy bottled water — and a lot of these people are low and moderate income, they can’t afford to waste money on bottled water,” said Jean Holloway of the Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, a regional nonprofit that has supported Ellendale residents.

“It’s an environmental justice issue, it’s an issue of fairness. Decent, clean water should be a basic human right,” she said. “Decent water is very available if you have the money — if you don’t have the money, it’s problematic.”

The well water has tested positive for high levels of nitrates and iron, said Hans Medlarz, Sussex County engineer. There’s discoloration and also a possible bacterial contamination in some of the shallow wells in town.

“The safety risk associated with nitrates are oxygen transfer interference,” he said. “And if you have bacteria, you can have intestinal problems, so these are immediate concerns and long-term concerns.”

For about 20 years, civic leader Harold Truxon has been pushing for clean water for Ellendale residents.

“In certain areas, the water is brown, and they can’t even wash their clothes or children,” said his son, Fentress Truxon. “Just stop and think for a minute — if you didn’t have any clean water to use, and you had to make extra provisions to pick up and retrieve water for bathing, cooking, drinking, and you had to do that every day.

“There’s some extra cost and stress on your family, the toll it takes upon you trying to climb this economic ladder,” he said. “Those of use who are blessed can turn a faucet on, you can use your toilet and flush it.”

Truxon said his father shifted the focus to county government when efforts to encourage the city to install a public water system failed.

Sussex County proposes to purchase water from Artesian Water and then supply residents, who would pay about $430 a year, or $6 per 1,000 gallons consumed. That’s a bit lower than the water bills of other Sussex County residents, said Medlarz.

But state code requires a referendum on the matter, and about 200 residents are expected to vote on it Saturday.

In November, an area wide referendum failed 120-107. Those against public water say they don’t want another bill to pay, despite the advocacy work of Truxon and others.

“We’ve done videos, we’re talking to people — telling them about mortality rates, telling them about the high cancer rate and what’s causing it,” Truxon said. “But you still have some that — no matter what you tell them — don’t want to spend another penny. That’s just the way it is.”

Holloway said residents are actually paying more for bottled water than they would for tap water.

“If they’re buying bottled water, they’re paying anything from 10 to 1,000 times as much as they would for tap water,” she said. “I think if they realized how much money they save by not buying bottled water, they would certainly take advantage of the wells once it’s proven to be safe.”

Those in favor of a public water system hope this referendum focused on a smaller area will succeed.

Terrence Neal, an Ellendale resident whose well water is cleaned through a filter, is appalled by the rust-colored, sometimes cloudy water of some neighbors.

“I would like to see those neighbors who aren’t affected by the bad drinking water or unsafe water look out for their neighbors,” he said. “In this case, we should be there for one another. If one has good water, we should all have it.”

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By Craig Horleman, Delaware State News

ELLENDALE, Del.- The Southern Grill in Ellendale is getting the “Restaurant: Impossible” treatment.

The longtime Food Network show, in which chef Robert Irvine helps out eateries in just two days with only $10,000, will be in town Aug. 28 and 29.

The show’s production company is seeking volunteers to help in the renovation and they are also looking for hungry diners to help the celebrate the grand opening.

Volunteers may be any licensed or certified individuals in painting, crafting, constructing, remodeling, cleaning, decorating etc. (depending on your skill set).

Producers say they are always looking for skilled contractors, electricians, plumbers, upholsters’ and painters to help out and donate their time but they welcome all skill sets and skill levels always.

The volunteer schedule is as follows:

Shift No. 1 – Wednesday, Aug. 28: Noon to 7 p.m.;

Shift No. 2 – Wednesday, Aug. 28: 7 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Shift No. 3 – Thursday, Aug. 29: 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

• Meals will be provided to all volunteers.

• You must be 18 years or older to volunteer.

• All volunteers must sign an appearance release and volunteer agreement on site.

• Please wear sneakers or boots and work clothing with no logos.

If interested, email [email protected] by Aug. 23 at 3 p.m. with your preferred day(s), full name, email address, cell number and skill set/ related profession (ex: plumber or painter). Please use the following subject line: 1603 DE Volunteer

Anyone who replies to volunteer is guaranteed a spot. Confirmation emails will be sent the day before each day you intend on volunteering.

You can also be one of the first patrons to see the newly renovated space. If you are interested in making a reservation at Southern Grill for their grand re-opening, email the “Restaurant: Impossible’ production at [email protected] by Aug. 23 at 3 p.m.. Please use the following in your subject line: 1603 DE RESERVATIONS.

The hproduction is not covering the cost of your meal – you will be responsible for paying your own bill. This event is first come, first serve by email and they cannot guarantee everyone who responds will get a table. If you are selected, you will receive a confirmation email close to the date of the dinner. No guests under 8 years old are permitted.

Please include your contact information (full name, email address, cell number) your party size (number of people at your table) and the names of the people in your party.

There is no word on when the episode will air.