Orthodontist in Pineville NC

A Mega Millions ticket sold at a 7-Eleven in Pineville matched all five white balls to score a $1 million prize, lottery officials said.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A lucky Mega Millions ticket sold in the Charlotte area is worth $1 million, North Carolina lottery officials announced Wednesday.

The ticket, which was sold at the 7-Eleven on South Polk Street in Pineville, matched all five white balls in Tuesday night's drawing, scoring its owner a $1 million prize. It was one of seven tickets winning at least $1 million nationwide. Tickets worth $1 million were sold in Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin and California. One person in Texas scored an even bigger prize, selecting the Megaplier to win $4 million. The odds of matching all five white balls are 1 in 12.6 million.

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No one claimed the grand prize, which has now grown to an estimated $1.25 billion. The jackpot is the sixth-largest in U.S. lottery history and the fourth-largest in Mega Millions history. Mega Millions hasn't seen a grand prize winner since April 18, when a 71-year-old from New York won the largest jackpot in the game's history. Johnnie Taylor won $476 million but opted for the cash option, taking home more than $157 million after taxes.

RELATED: Winning the lottery is a longshot but you can (slightly) increase your chances

Four other Mega Millions players in North Carolina matched four white balls and the Megaball to win $10,000. Those tickets were sold in Greensboro, Newport, Raleigh and Sanford, according to the North Carolina Education Lottery.

Once again we see that even if you don’t win the jackpot, great prizes can still be won playing Mega Millions,” Mark Michalko, executive director of the N.C. Education Lottery, said. “Make sure to always check your tickets carefully after each drawing since there are nine different ways to win.”

The next Mega Millions drawing for the $1.25 billion jackpot will be on Friday, Aug. 4.

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Playing the lottery is a form of gambling. If you are concerned about your gambling or worried about a friend, you can call the NC Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-877-718-5543. You can also contact the National Helpline at 1-800-522-4700.

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Patients in the area were moved and all elective surgeries scheduled for Thursday are canceled, Atrium Health said.

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PINEVILLE, N.C. — Multiple surgeries were canceled and patients were relocated due to a plumbing leak at Atrium Health Pineville early Thursday, Atrium Health announced.

Atrium Health said the leak happened on the fourth floor of the hospital. Patients in the affected area were moved to different parts of the hospital as a precaution and all elective surgeries on Thursday have been canceled. Some patients were moved to different Atrium Health facilities, the company said.

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"We have taken great care to ensure that all patients were moved to areas where they can continue to receive the same level of medical care and treatment," Atrium Health said in a statement.

Atrium Health said maintenance crews quickly identified and fixed the leak with efforts focused on restoring hospital operations. Additional precautions were taken to avoid placing any patients in the areas impacted by the leak.

Later in the day Thursday, Atrium Health shared patients were being relocated back to rooms, and that surgeries scheduled for Friday will continue.

"It was a long day for our teammates, but we want to thank them for the work they did today to ensure our patients were comfortable and received the level of medical care and treatment as would normally be expected. We apologize to our patients and their guests who were inconvenienced by this matter as we worked to return to business as usual," the hospital said in a statement.

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Pineville Communications said the third and fourth floors of Atrium Health Pineville took on water.

PINEVILLE, N.C. (WBTV) - “The water, the flood, it was chaos. It was crazy, it was so much.”

Derick Calwell was at Atrium Hospital in Pineville early Thursday morning when the water came rushing in after a pipe burst.

“Pipes bust, elevators full of water. It was crazy,” he said.

Calwell added he was at the hospital with his girlfriend who was going through dialysis early Thursday morning when floor after floor became impacted.

“It was on the first floor to every floor. We were on the fifth floor and there was water up there,” he explained.

Crews responded to Atrium Health Pineville after a pipe burst at the hospital overnight, flooding a floor, officials confirmed. The situation unfolded around 1:30 a.m., and firefighters could be seen going inside with water suction equipment.

Atrium officials said some patients had to be moved, which radio communication between firefighters and dispatchers previously indicated.

“Patients were moved to other parts of the hospital and some patients on lower floors were also relocated as a precaution,” an Atrium spokesperson said. “We have taken great care to ensure that all patients were moved to areas where they can continue to receive the same level of medical care and treatment.”

The spokesperson added that “a few” patients in critical care were moved to other Atrium Health facilities, and said that all elective surgeries scheduled at the hospital on Thursday have been canceled.

By 5 p.m. Thursday, Atrium Health Pineville officials said staff had begun moving affected patients back to rooms. Surgeries on Friday, Feb. 23, will continue as scheduled.

Pineville Communications said the flooding impacted mainly the fourth floor but there was also some water on the third floor.

Radio traffic between dispatchers and firefighters captured sounds of the incident as it happened.

“Pineville Fire responding for a water problem,” a dispatcher said. “A pipe burst at CMC Pineville Hospital...we got a call from the hospital. They advised that a pipe burst on the fourth floor. It’s flooding the hospital and there are electrical hazards present.”

“They’re already moving patients,” a firefighter said over the radio. “We got about an inch of water on this fourth floor...I think we’re going to quickly lose the third floor.”

Atrium has been contacted for more on the extent of damage and information on any patients moved.

Related: Atrium Health, CMS partnering for initiative to train students in healthcare

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Residents of a neighborhood near the North Carolina state line say they have serious concerns about the town of Pineville’s plan to build an electric substation nearby that they only heard about through a news release.

Pineville is working to buy about an acre at the intersection of Miller Road and Greenway Drive for a new electric substation to accommodate growth in the area and “serve as a back-up source to an existing substation,” the town said in a Dec. 5 news release. The town picked the site because it was the “most economical and least obtrusive to the community,” and the substation would be enclosed by a brick wall with plants around the outside, according to the news release.

That statement was the first time Gui Batista, who lives in the nearby McCullough neighborhood, heard about the plan.

“This was sprung on us,” he said.

In the days since, the McCullough community organized a petition that now has hundreds of signatures calling on the town to find a new site for the project and started reaching out to local officials for answers.

Residents say they’re concerned the project would drag down property values and negatively impact health, safety and local businesses, “altering the character of our community irreversibly.”

“Our peaceful residential area could be transformed into an industrial zone overnight, disrupting our lives and altering the character of our community irreversibly,” states the petition, which had 628 signatures as of Thursday afternoon.

David Lucore, Pineville’s electric services manager and a systems manager for ElectriCities of North Carolina, told the Charlotte Observer the town looked at eight different sites for the project over the last 12 to 18 months.

Of those eight sites, two were “closer to a commercial area than a residential (area)” while the other six “were fairly close” to residential areas, Lucore said.

Pineville picked the McCullough neighborhood “for public necessity and convenience to serve new electric loads in the southern area of town near the state line,” the town said in its statement announcing the site.

The site is near residential areas and Miller’s Flea Market.

“This location was not determined without an extensive investigation into all possible sites,” the town said in its news release.

I-Chin Lin said she and other neighbors were surprised to hear about the plan and didn’t understand why a news release was the town’s first notice to nearby residents.

“We never heard of it … so we are wondering how come suddenly they are telling us about this?” she said. “From the press release, it’s like this is the best decision that they can make. This is the best option for them. But we were never told, and we were never asked about our opinion.”

Pineville Electric, which provides electric services in the town, is a public provider that’s part of ElectriCities of North Carolina, Inc., which provides services to member organizations. Public power providers differ from utility companies such as Duke Energy because they are part of local governments and often part of membership organizations such as ElectriCities.

Lin said she’s concerned the substation could cause her property value to drop. Homes in the neighborhood “tend to range from around $390,000 to about $765,000,” according to Charlotte-based Terra Vista Realty. Some residents are also concerned about the potential health impacts of the substation, she added.

Those concerns were echoed in the petition started by residents, which claims the project “jeopardizes our neighborhood’s property value and potentially our health due to potential electromagnetic field exposure.”

Experts say there’s not a clear-cut connection between exposure to electromagnetic fields and health issues.

“The possible link between electromagnetic fields and cancer has been a subject of controversy for several decades,” the American Cancer Society says, because “it’s not clear exactly how electromagnetic fields, a form of low-energy, non-ionizing radiation, could increase cancer risk.”

The Environmental Protection Agency notes that, while the World Health Organization “classifies extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans,” “scientific studies have not consistently shown whether exposure to any source of EMF increases cancer risk.”

Resident Katie DeFrancisci said the health concerns are top of mind for her and many others with families in the area.

“That’s the most scary thing for all of us, especially because this is a newer neighborhood and everyone has young kids,” she said.

Lucore said he wasn’t aware of any studies “that show any adverse effects from EMF or anything else from an electrical substation” and that high-voltage transmission lines already in the area “provide them a lot more EMF exposure than a substation.”

Batista, whose home would be among the closest in the neighborhood to the substation, says he has another safety concern: the possibility of an attack on the substation after an incident in North Carolina that drew nationwide attention.

In December 2022, about 45,000 homes and businesses in Moore County lost power for days after an attack on an electrical substation. Following that incident, state legislators increased the punishment for intentionally damaging or attempting to damage energy facilities, making such attacks a high-grade felony and allowing people who are injured or whose property is damaged by a utility attack to sue for monetary damages.

“Having something in our backyard that someone might try to fire a gunshot at, and that being a couple 100 feet from my backyard, where my 3-year-old twins and my 7-year-old play, is certainly something I’m concerned about,” Batista said.

DeFrancisci said she and other residents are also concerned the substation could jeopardize a long-standing local business, Miller’s Flea Market, by forcing the family that owns it to sell their land.

In their petition, residents said Pineville’s proposal “disrespects the legacy of the Miller family.”

“We understand that substations are necessary for power distribution but we believe there must be alternative locations that would not negatively impact residential areas or infringe upon local landmarks like Miller’s Flea Market,” the petition states.

A call from an Observer reporter to the flea market went unanswered, and the business did not immediately respond to a direct message on its social media.

Lucore, Pineville’s electric services manager, said the owner of the land in question “did not want to negotiate” initially but that “attorneys got involved on both sides” and the two have been negotiating for about four months. The town is not considering using eminent domain to get the land, he said.

Pineville’s town council needs to approve the substation site and buy the land before employees can obtain permits, get civil and environmental inspections and start construction work, Lucore said.

“The actual raising of anything out of the ground would probably be six months from the time the parcel is purchased or acquired,” he said, adding that construction could take two years.

The Pineville Town Council will hold a public hearing on Jan. 4 about the project.

Lin said she and her neighbors plan to be there to raise concerns.

“We believe there are more options,” she said. “It’s just that they think that this is the cheapest option for them.”

DeFrancisci said she and others plan on “contacting everybody we can” to share their concerns.

“They just need to find a different spot so it’s not so close to people’s homes with children. It’s just not safe,” she said.

Batista said he hopes Pineville leaders will pay attention to their own constituents and McCollough residents like him who, by a matter of a few hundred feet, live in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

“I understand that something needs to be done and that a substation needs to be stood up given the growth in the Charlotte area and Pineville specifically,” he said. “But I do wish that they had given a little more attention to the residences. I can’t help but feel that, you know, we kind of got the short end of the stick.”

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This story was originally published December 8, 2023, 10:48 AM.

Mary Ramsey is the local government accountability reporter for The Charlotte Observer. A native of the Carolinas, she studied journalism at the University of South Carolina and has also worked in Phoenix, Arizona and Louisville, Kentucky.

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PINEVILLE, N.C. — People along the North and South Carolina state lines are sounding the alarm after hearing about what they are calling an "ugly proposal". Pineville town leaders will soon hear about a plan to build a large electrical substation near the Miller Flea Market.

On any given weekend, Miller's Flea Market in Fort Mill, South Carolina - just steps away from the state line - is packed. Residents nearby told WCNC Charlotte there were over a thousand people there on Saturday.

Rebecca Rowe is a resident of the McCullough neighborhood and has driven by this site every day for a while. But the new plan in that spot had her saying they crossed the line.

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"Very, very concerning to myself," she said.

Electricities North Carolina proposed building an acre-large electrical substation on the parking lot next to the flea market. David Lucore with the company said there were a few reasons why they picked that spot.

"The overall town of Pineville’s electric system sits at capacity where it is right now," Lucore said. "It needs to be as close to the Duke [Energy] transmission site as possible, needs to be on a flat area, out of a flood plain, and it’s got to be affordable and big enough.”

Some other neighbors told WCNC Charlotte it would be an eyesore and decrease property value. Rowe also said something else weighed on her.

“The size of this and the health concerns it brings with it," Rowe said.

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She mentioned the exposure to an EMF, or electromagnetic field.

"There are no documented studies that I’m aware of, of the health effects of having a substation near a neighborhood," Lucore said.

The medical community has competing theories. The National Cancer Institute and World Health Organization said studies of animals have not provided any indications that EMFs are associated with cancer. But UNC Environmental Health and Safety said it remains a possibility.