Don't be alarmed - it's only an exercise ...Deer Park!

Residents of Deer Park may see more emergency response personnel and vehicles than normal next week, but it’s only a drill hosted by Deer Park’s Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) to test and practice the coordination and response needed to mitigate large-scale incidents. The drill is scheduled from 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 7 through 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9.
The full-scale exercise will simulate a hypothetical oil spill from a ruptured pipeline.

In the drill scenario, oil will flow through the streets of Deer Park and into the Houston Ship Channel. The drill will test the ability of multiple agencies and organizations to stop and clean up the spill. No actual oil will be spilled during the drill, but emergency responders will be on-scene and drill activities may be visible to passing motorists and community residents.

“Drills and exercises are important tools to test the ability of the city and industry to work together,” said Deer Park City Manager and LEPC Chairman Jay Stokes. “Drills allow us to evaluate our emergency response plans, personnel, and equipment, and be better prepared to respond to any real incident in the future.”

The city of Deer Park will activate its Emergency Operations Center to test communications and coordination between emergency responders on-scene and city management in the EOC. “We must be able to react quickly and communicate effectively with one another,” said Sam Pipkin, emergency management coordinator for the city of Deer Park. “We will also establish a Joint Information Center to simulate communications with our community residents, neighboring cities, and local news media.”

More than 100 responders from several different organizations plan to participate in the 3-day exercise, including Deer Park Emergency Management, Deer Park Volunteer Fire Department, Deer Park Police Department, Harris County, Texas General Land Office, U.S. Coast Guard, Channel Industries Mutual Aid and area industry representatives.

Deer Park LEPC is composed of community, government and industry representatives who develop an Emergency Response Plan in case of a chemical release impacts the city of Deer Park. The LEPC has developed community education and warning systems such as the AM 530 radio station, telephone notification systems, and outside alarms or sirens throughout the city. The Deer Park LEPC also developed the Wally Wise Guy turtle mascot to teach school children and their parents how to Shelter In Place during a chemical emergency.

Driest year on record plagues Texas ...

VOA: Weather forecasters and agriculture experts in the southwestern U.S. state of Texas say there is no relief in sight for what already is the worst drought year on record. The searing heat and dry conditions have caused devastating wildfires in the western part of the large state and led to crop losses, cattle deaths and water rationing in areas of east Texas that are normally wet at this time of year.

Driving through the countryside northwest of Houston, one sees dried up fields, dying trees and livestock ponds that are not much more than a puddles of fetid, algae-covered water. In some towns, farmers' markets have been cancelled because local growers have little to offer. Those with wells for irrigation are struggling with the high cost of fuel to run their pumps.

Debbie Cross, who operates a farmers' market near Cypress, Texas, says people are becoming discouraged by the lack of rain and the high temperatures, which are around 40 degrees most days.

“The drought is hurting everything. It is hurting all the crops, the cattle, the hay. There is no grass. The chickens are miserable. I mean everybody is just miserable. We need water,” Cross said.

Cross says local farmers are unable to supply much fruit and vegetables and that she is getting by with produce trucked in from other states where conditions are better.

“We are getting it from the local southern states and southwestern states are kicking in -- Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma. Everybody knows that the Texas market is a great consumer market, so they are helping out a lot here,” Cross said.
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One of the hardest hit agricultural sectors is livestock. Texas is the biggest cattle producer in the United States and ships beef to many foreign markets. Earlier this year, ranchers endured one of the worst winters on record, with several days of subzero temperatures in a region where freezes are rare. The drought has made it even harder, driving up the cost of hay and leaving some areas so dry that cattle have died of thirst in their pastures.

One rancher who has managed to get through this crisis with most of her stock in fairly good condition is Dorie Damuth, owner of the Flying D ranch near Magnolia, Texas.

Damuth raises prize-winning Texas Longhorns for breeding and she has managed to find hay and enough water to keep them alive. She says she has seen dry spells before, but nothing that compares to this year.

“The drought is something I, as a cattle woman, and all of my fellow cattlemen and cattlewomen have never experienced before. This is probably the 100-year drought, just like you can have a 100-year flood. It is very devastating for all of us ranchers who work so hard to provide beef for our country as well as for around the world,” Damuth said.

In a dried up lake on her property, there is a Longhorn skull sitting on top of cracked earth that is muddy and soft underneath.

“We have had lakes and stock ponds on the ranch that have dried up because of no rain, no rainfall. They will dry down to a little mucky place in the middle that is still wet and the cattle will sometimes go down and try to get water and they can't. And they step into that mucky mud and it is kind of like quicksand, and they can't get out.”

Lately, there have been beautiful fluffy clouds floating over the area. But ranch hand Chris Quinters is not encouraged by them.

“Those are some nice clouds, but it don't look like they are going to bring any rain,” Quinters said.

Local Marine Punished For Fraudulent Recruitment

Local Marine Punished For Fraudulent Recruitment: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

Mutilated boy thriving - family needs your help.

Warning: This story involves some graphic and disturbing details.
HOUSTON -- Four years ago the world was horrified by a most unusual case of genital mutilation. The victim was a five-week-old baby boy.

In March of 2007, Holden Gothia’s mother, Katherine Nadal, took a knife and cut off all his private parts. She also cut deeply into his leg.
"His femoral vein was severed and his artery was punctured," said Patches Deshazo, Holden’s paternal aunt who adopted him.

Nadal got 99 years in prison for what she did. She claimed the small family dog was responsible for Holden’s brutal injuries. During trial, it was revealed that she used cocaine and appeared unconcerned in the minutes after she mutilated her baby.

Four years later, Holden is having the best life possible in Deer Park with the only family he has ever known. Not only did he survive the brutal attack, he is thriving.
"Holden is amazing," Deshazo said. He is the baby brother to the family’s three boys, ages 24, 17 and 14.

"He’s got ten times more energy than I do. He wears me out daily," said Parker Deshazo, a 17-year-old high school football player.

Holden doesn’t typically call his adopted brothers by name. Instead he refers to them as, "The Bubbas," collectively and individually, his mom Patches said.
He sat still just long enough for an interview about what he wants to be when he grows up.
"A football player and a Power Ranger and a drummer," Holden said.
He sings too.

"’Standing on the corner.’ That’s Dean Martin," he said. When told that’s an old song, Holden replied, "Well, not for me."

Then he grabbed the reporter’s microphone and started interviewing her and his family members.
"When’s your birthday?" he asked.

"September 16th," one "Bubba" answered. "July 3rd," said another.
Holden sees his biological dad, Camden, on a regular basis. But his mom said he doesn’t know about his biological mother. Patches said when the time comes she will tell him about her, and in an age-appropriate way, tell him what she did to him.

"His story is his story and it’s not gonna’ change no matter how we feel or how badly we want to change it," said Patches. "And so we don’t ever want him to feel shameful. I just feel like it’s going to be healthier for him to just own his story and for him to be really okay with it. "
She said Holden looks at his dad and his brothers and figures the only reason he doesn’t look like them is because he is too young. He thinks his penis and testicles will grow when he is older.

"There is nothing," where they should be, said Patches Deshazo. "There’s just a hole where the urethra meets the surface of the skin and it looks a lot like here," she said, pointing to the inside of her arm, "but with a lot of scar tissue, like a burn victim," she said.
Just before he hits puberty Holden will face extensive and expensive reconstructive surgery, estimated to cost at least half a million dollars.

To help pay for it, strangers, well-wishers, family and friends have donated $300,000 so far.
There was a benefit concert in Lake Charles, Louisiana on June 5. Holden took the stage to thank the crowd and was reluctant to give the mic back, his mom said. He also enjoyed playing a drum solo.
His family has created a website: Heroes for Holden.org for those wishing to show support.

2 killed in single-vehicle wreck in Pasadena

by khou.com staff
khou.com
Posted on July 3, 2011 at 7:04 PM

PASADENA, Texas – Two people died in a single-vehicle car wreck in Pasadena on Sunday.
Authorities said a car was traveling south in the 8600 block of Red Bluff when for some reason the male driver lost control.

Police said the vehicle rolled over and hit a Centerpoint pole.
Both occupants in the vehicle were pronounced dead at the scene.
No additional details were immediately available.

Texas Local Web Site Blooms into a Flower for the Community

New exciting things are developing in the Summer of 2011 for ExploreHouston.com

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Pasadena woman charged with rape of 12-year-old boy

PASADENA, Texas - A Pasadena mother accused of raping her friend's 12-year-old son almost a dozen times is now behind bars. Police arrested Brandi Fuller, 30, in Hitchcock after receiving a tip from Crime Stoppers. The focus now turns toward DNA; there is an allegation the young boy fathered one of Fuller's six children.

Jimbo Cozad always saw kids coming and going from the trailer where Fuller used to live.

"I don't know what was going on in there because that's one of the stipulations I tell my tenants when I rent to them, what goes on in your house keep it because if I hear it I'm going to call police," said the landlord.

Now Cozad wishes he'd paid more attention. It's inside the trailer where police say Fuller began having sex with her friend's son. He was just 12-years-old at the time. The boy said it happened again and again, according to court documents.

"We believe it was at least a couple of years. There were ten to eleven sexual contacts between the defendant and the juvenile," said Amy McCauley, Harris County Assistant District Attorney.

Investigators say Fuller confessed to having sex once with the boy after he forced himself on her. She says she had sex with him because she didn't want to "make a big scene" while others were asleep inside the trailer.

"I don't believe it. I don't. I really don't," said Jennifer Fuller, the suspect's sister.

Jennifer Fuller is helping to care for her sister's six children. The youngest is ten-months-old. Investigators now want to know if the victim fathered that baby. Fuller says the baby's father is actually the victim's older brother.

"I know for a fact this is his, the older son's baby, because I was in the house when my sister was dating the older son and I was there when she took the pregnancy test," said Jennifer Fuller.

Read more: http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/local/110602-brandi-fuller-arrest#ixzz1OW3WaFGH

Mother Caught; Accused in Rape of Boy: MyFoxHOUSTON.com