Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 264, Ed. 1 Friday, April 22, 2016 Page: 3 of 24
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LOCAL/STATE
3A
Denton Record-Chronicle
Friday, April 22, 2016
Deaths on flooded Houston roads spur
review
side of the underpass, Emmett
said no barricades were placed
on a dilferent part of the under-
pass and two drivers unknow-
ingly sent their vehicles into
dark floodwaters.
“If it’s somebody who drives
around a barricade and goes in-
to the water, that’s problematic. I
don’t know if any system can
stop somebody like that,” he
said. “But the other two deaths
were completely preventable.”
Others have drowned in the
same location, Emmett said,
most recently last May when
heavy rains also flooded Houston.
He said in the short term, he
will speak with the Harris Coun-
ty Sheriffs Office and the offices
of local constables to make sure
deputies and other officers are
stationed at underpasses and
other flooded locations.
In the long term, Emmett
said he’ll work with officials
from the city and state to deter-
mine what other solutions —
possibly some type of barrier —
are needed at the underpass
where the deaths occurred and
other places prone to flooding.
Texas Department of Trans-
portation spokeswoman Ra-
quelle Lewis said her agency is
committed to working with city
and county officials to find solu-
Houston Public Works and En-
gineering Department, said in
an email that “we are constantly
evaluating how best to protect
and inform the public.”
Skies were bright Thursday
afternoon after a heavy rain-
storm earlier in the day. But resi-
dents living in a subdivision near
the Addicks Reservoir, one of
two aging reservoirs in west
Houston that the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers considered
“extremely high risk,” were
warned of possible flooding.
The Harris County Flood
Control District said the streets
near the reservoir may be im-
passable over the next few days
and reservoir water levels may
remain high for days or weeks.
Meanwhile, officials in
Wharton, a community of about
8,700 residents about 50 miles
southwest of Houston, ordered
residents to leave their homes in
some low-lying neighborhoods
along the rain-swollen Colorado
River. The river’s flood stage is
39 feet but the river level there
exceeded 47 feet Thursday and
some streets were underwater.
Mayor Domingo Montalvo
Jr. expanded his order later
Thursday to include about a
square mile of town, affecting
some 350 homes.
By Michael Graczyk
and Juan A. Lozano
The Associated Press
HOUSTON - The deaths of
eight drivers whose bodies were
pulled from vehicles inundated
by this week’s torrential rains in
the Houston area have prompt-
ed local leaders to push for im-
provements in how they warn
people about the dangers of
flooded roads.
Houston and nearby coun-
ties have been hit with more
than a foot of rain since Sunday
night. Six of the driver deaths oc-
curred in the city or suburbs of
Houston, while two happened
in surrounding counties. Three
of the deaths were at the same
Houston underpass.
The flooding also has forced
thousands of people from their
homes as creeks and bayous be-
came overwhelmed.
“There’s no question that not
enough has been done” to warn
drivers, Harris County Judge Ed
Emmett said Thursday. Emmett
is leading an effort to ensure
drivers are properly notified
about flooded roads during
heavy storms.
The deaths at the Houston
underpass prompted Emmett to
take action. While one woman
drove around a barricade at one
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David J. Phillip/AP
Louis Marquez carries his dog Chocolate through floodwaters after rescuing the dog from his
flooded apartment Tuesday in Houston.
Before this week’s flooding,
the city of Houston had already
begun installing an early warn-
ing system at 27 locations where
high water sensors and flashing
lights are used to let drivers
know that a road in front of
them is flooded. The city has put
the sensors and lights in place at
19 locations so far.
tions to the problem.
“There is always going to be
the potential that people will
make decisions that are not nec-
essarily in their best interests or
life-preserving,” Lewis said.
‘What we will do is to look at
what can we feasibly do to mini-
mize the potential for those in-
stances.”
The system had also included
wooden gates, similar to those at
railroad crossings, that would
have dropped down to block
flooded roads. But the city de-
cided not to install the gates af-
ter drivers drove around and
crashed into the first one that
had been set up. Gary Norman,
executive staff analyst with the
Woodwork calms man’s bipolarism
ing homeless downtown, miles
from the wilderness where he’s
most comfortable, that he found
the help and the diagnosis he
needed.
By Tasha Tsiaperas
Associated Press
DALLAS — Glenn Billing-
sley sat in his beat-up Grand
Marquis on the side of the high-
way, somewhere past Weather-
ford, overwhelmed by the pre-
sent, scared of the future and
drawn to his past.
He’d just learned he would be
kicked out of his Knox-Hender-
son house in six months. He
would lose his wood shop and
the calming influence carpentry
has on his bipolar disorder.
The Dallas Morning News
reports Billingsley paced along-
side the road, traffic flying by,
trying to untangle his options.
When he was younger, Bil-
lingsley would sometimes slip
into the woods for months at a
time, foraging for dandelions
and sleeping on the ground, fi-
nally emerging in a new city to
start a new life.
Now, at age 54, he’d spent the
last seven years in Dallas trying
to break the cycle of five decades
of mental illness, turning to his
woodworking for stability.
For decades, Billingsley had
no name for his disease, one of
the most commonly misunder-
stood mental illnesses.
He now receives help from
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“I could spend months by
myself in the woods, but being
alone in downtown Dallas was
hard,” Billingsley said. “No one
really gives a damn.”
Billingsley’s illness always in-
terrupted whatever life he tried
to build, luring him away from
society and into the wilderness.
He first tried to settle down
in Richland Hills. He married in
his 20s, had a baby and held
down a job as manager of a fast-
food restaurant.
But paranoia crept in. He
had delusions of mind reading
and was certain his life was an
unsolvable maze.
So he walked away from his
wife and his daughter, not even
8 months old and destined to
grow up never knowing who her
dad was.
He would stay in the woods
— often the Rocky Mountains
tor as long as six months at a
time, sleeping under leaves, set-
ting up traps to catch food.
But he always made his way
back to Dallas to be near his
family.
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Hi
Courtesy photo/Alex Lee
Crews work to clean up a wreck between two semis on south-
bound Interstate 35E near Mayhill Road on Thursday.
ssr
&
Rose Baca/The Dallas Morning News
In this 2015, photo, Glenn Billingsley takes a measurement on
a piece of wood as part of a bathroom repair at a client’s du-
plex in Dallas.
Truck accident shuts
down part of I-35E
Metrocare Services, which treats
about 12,000 people with bipo-
lar disorder every year.
Metrocare on Thursday
hosted its second conference on
the disease at the Communities
Foundation of Texas, and cor-
recting misconceptions about
bipolar was part of the focus.
For example, experts say bi-
polar patients are far more likely
to be a danger to themselves
than anyone else.
“If you have bipolar disorder,
you’re more likely to be a victim
than be an aggressor,” said Ju-
dith Hunter, a forensic psychia-
trist for Metrocare.
What’s more, Hunter said,
the disorder isn’t linked to any
specific group of people.
“Bipolar is not a respecter of
social class or income class or in-
tellect,” she said. “It’s equal op-
portunity.”
As many as 62,000 locals are
believed to suffer from the con-
dition. Some, like Billingsley,
end up on the streets.
It wasn’t until he was 47, liv-
An accident and fuel spill
shut down a portion of south-
bound Interstate 35E at Mayhill
Road on Thursday afternoon.
Denton police received a call
about a vehicle accident at about
2:20 p.m., and officers arrived to
find two 18-wheeler trucks were
involved.
One truck had rear-ended
the other one, according to Den-
ton police spokesman Officer
Shane Kizer.
Fuel spillage from the acci-
dent required hazardous mate-
rials crews to spend hours on the
scene to clean up.
Denton Fire Department
spokesman Kenneth Hedges
said firefighters began the clean-
up before handing things off to a
private hazmat company from
Fort Worth.
Hedges said the company
initially underestimated the size
of the spill and needed more
supplies, which it was going to
borrow from the fire depart-
ment. It was going to take an-
other hour or two for the sup-
plies to get to the location. A lit-
tle before 6:30 p.m., the hazmat
workers decided not to wait and
continue to work to get the road
reopened sooner.
Lanes were reopened by
about 7:30 p.m.
DENTON ARTS & JAZZ FESTIVAL
APRIL 29 • 30 • MAY 1.2016
— Bj Lewis
Police: Head wound killed
woman found in church
pm
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in the
MIDLOTHIAN (AP) - In-
vestigators say a fitness instruc-
tor found dead at a North Texas
church died of a head wound,
and they suspect a person seen
on surveillance video clad in a
police jacket and helmet used an
unknown object to cause the
wound.
The findings on the death of
Terri “Missy” Bevers are con-
tained in a Midlothian police af-
fidavit.
The affidavit was submitted
Monday to obtain a search war-
rant to seize and search the truck
the 45-year-old Red Oak wom-
an drove early Monday to Creek-
side Church of Christ in Midlo-
thian, 20 miles southwest of
Dallas, where she was to teach
an exercise class.
Surveillance video showed a
person inside the church min-
utes before her arrival.
Federal and state agents have
been asked to assist the investi-
gation.
U
LJ
7 Stages:
Jazz, Blues &
Cross-Cultural
Music, Dance &
Choral Groups
Fine Arts
& Crafts,
Children’s Art
Tent, University,
Community
& School
Entertainment
Food, Games,
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 112, No. 264, Ed. 1 Friday, April 22, 2016, newspaper, April 22, 2016; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1127571/m1/3/?q=green+energy: accessed June 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .