Chattanooga Is Home

I have been posting about the upcoming playground build in St. Elmo and they are still in need of volunteers, especially on Saturday and Sunday.

This evening my husband, son, and I took a walk over to the green space to see the “before” and take a few more pictures (I have a set on flickr that we keep adding pictures to as we get them).

The space where the playground will be built is only a small part of the entire green space on St. Elmo Avenue. The land is where the old St. Elmo Recreation Center was located. The playground will be built on about 1/3 of the land. The rest of the space will be a passive park with a walking path, benches, and from what I can recall, a pavilion for picnics and gatherings.

Right now, the non-playground space has the walking path and overgrown grass. Upon further inspection we saw a few areas of concern. They are not part of the actual playground space, but since they are located in the park where the playground will be, it did raise questions in my mind. And since the playground opens March 26th, I wonder if they can be fixed before the children start making it a part of their daily routines.

First of all, along St. Elmo Avenue, there is this cement footer where an old fence used to be. There are wires and old posts sticking out of the footer, acting as a safety hazard. If someone were to fall on this footer, they could be seriously cut. There is a similar concrete footing at the top of the hill at the back of the park, near the Alabama Avenue entrance, that has the same posts.

Toward the back of the park, at the base of the incline that goes up to Alabama Avenue, there is a wall of hay blocking a drain that is missing the cover. You might think it is an entrance to Middle Earth, but really, it is just drainage.

Before the recreation center was demolished, this drain used to have a cover. Now it has welcoming hay, waiting for a child to to climb on it. Then this child could fall a dangerous distance and get seriously hurt. Not to mention that hole is big enough for kids to crawl and get stuck. I don’t think the city of Chattanooga wants to be part of national news when a toddler gets stuck in there and the media circus arrives to see the child be rescued.

Another hazard that seems rather mysterious is this pipe sticking about a foot and half above the ground. I noticed a spigot buried in the grass, but it doesn’t seem to have a real purpose other than waiting for someone to trip over it. That seems like a pretty sad existence.

When this playground is complete, the neighborhood is going to flock there as an outlet for their kids. It isn’t going to matter that only the playground is complete, people will be using the rest of the park as well. And having these kinds of hazards in the area just isn’t safe. The city needs to fix them and fix them soon.

Tomorrow I plan on calling 311 and voicing my concern for these hazards nestled our city park. If you live in Chattanooga and are as concerned as I am, I encourage you to do the same.

I am looking forward to making trips to the playground as a family. The playground committee is doing a great job of gathering volunteers and keeping everything organized. And remember, if you are in the area, you need to sign up! This playground isn’t going to build itself.

[tags]Chattanooga, Chattanooga playground, St. Elmo, St. Elmo playground, playground safety[/tags]