Lufkin hit by tornado.

By Whitney Grunder -
LUFKIN, TX (KTRE) - Severe storms ripped through parts of East Texas Wednesday evening. Some Lufkin neighborhoods sustained extensive damage from a possible tornado.

Among them is the Lufkin VFW, which is now gone. The damage comes right after 10,000 dollars worth of recent tile work. A check for the construction was written Wednesday, before the storm hit.

One resident living near Gipson Funeral Home on Chestnut Street even reported seeing caskets in his backyard.
Jakoia Grimes and her children were happy to have made it safely out of their Lufkin apartment, before their entire roof collapsed. "I looked up and I just saw the light from outside and I had my girls come and sit by the door, and within minutes the entire roof caved in," said Grimes, who is now staying with family members.

Jennifer Mays watched the tornado touch down right outside Stephens Court Apartments. She described it as "massive." She said, "I couldn't believe it was so powerful to the point that it just opened up my door."
Next door, owners sifted through what remained of their welding business, part of Lufkin for 25 years. Max's Welding Shop on Denman Avenue was completely destroyed.
Owners said they can't blame God for the severe weather, and that fortunately another shop behind the building stands untouched by the storm.

"I think we're going to be able to salvage some of our equipment. I think we're going to be alright," said co-owner Betty Purgahn.
Cheddars employees also witnessed a tornado touch down in the middle of the Olive Garden parking lot. "I heard a bunch of commotion and they were talking about the patio chairs were nearly about to hit some cars so we ran to try to help," said Cheddars employee Brad Barrow.

According to witnesses, other than damaging a few of the vehicles parked in the Olive Garden parking lot, the tornado did not affect any of the buildings. The Department of Public Safety reported that the tornado lifted back up, and did not cause any injuries.
Utility crews were also working to remedy power outages caused by toppled power poles. Thursday morning, thousands of residents were without power. An Oncor spokesperson said approximately 2,500 customers were without power in the Lufkin area.

So far no severe injuries have been reported.

Captured escapee says prison staff helped him

by KHOU.com Staff

Posted on December 9, 2009 at 6:50 AM

CONROE, Texas—The escaped prisoner who was the focus of a week-long manhunt told a local activist that he had help from the inside. Convicted child rapist Arcade Comeaux said the weapon he used to hijack guards was in his cell for at least three weeks.

Questions still surround the prison system that allowed Comeaux to dupe authorities for years. The supposedly partially-paralyzed man managed to walk away from the guards and right into controversy.
Authorities are asking two questions; why didn’t prison officials realize Comeaux was faking his medical condition, and where did he get the gun?
Local activist Quanell X said Comeaux told him he had help from the inside.

“He named that guard and he also named someone who is involved in medical who had been giving him medical assistance,” Quanell X said.

But prison officials said Comeaux has not shared that information with investigators so there are no arrests at this time.
“This feels like the inmate is running the asylum,” said a former TDCJ staff member who remembers Comeaux clearly.
“He would sit in the food. Of course it would dry and start smelling. He refused to shower, refused to clean himself, basically saying ‘I’m immobile, I need someone to do this for me.’”

The former staff member said Comeaux orchestrated a deliberate campaign of extortion, despite medical reports that he was able to care for himself. He said Comeaux manipulated the system to get health assistance and better housing.
A grand jury on Thursday will hear the case against the convicted sex offender who was captured in northeast Houston Monday morning.
Comeaux is now facing aggravated kidnapping and felony escape charges. He was in custody in the Montgomery County Jail Tuesday, awaiting his hearing. Comeaux, who is currently serving three life sentences, was found when a salesman saw him trying to hitchhike in front of a business on East Little York.

The salesman called HPD, who came and took Comeaux into custody without incident.
Investigators said Comeaux escaped during transport from a prison unit in Huntsville to one in Beaumont.
As the prison van passed through Conroe, investigators said Comeaux pulled out a gun, held two transport guards hostage, handcuffed them in the back of the van, drove the van to Baytown, took the guards’ weapons, put on one of their uniforms and escaped.

Officials launched an extensive manhunt, but Comeaux managed to elude them for seven days before he was captured.
He had been confined to a wheelchair since 1997 when a stroke purportedly left him partially paralyzed, but when he was taken into custody, Comeaux was walking.

He has been in and out of the Texas prison system for 30 years.
Comeaux was first sent to prison in 1979 on three 10-year sentences for rape of a child, aggravated rape of a child and burglary of a building—all out of Harris County. He was paroled four years later.

His parole was revoked and he returned to prison in 1984 to serve a 20-year sentence on a new charge of indecency with a child out of Harris County. He was paroled in 1991 but was in and out of prison for parole violations until 1996.
In June 1998, he was given a life sentence for aggravated sexual assault in Brazos County.
Comeaux was given two extra life sentences after he was convicted of stabbing his wife and another person in 1999. That attack occurred in the Jester III Unit in Fort Bend County when his wife came to visit him. The other person stabbed was a man who tried to stop the attack.

Still, those at the top want to correct the miscommunication between the workers inside prison walls.

“If you are in charge of a prison, and you see there is a disputes between medical’s and correction’s, come to us and ask for laws that would eliminate the controversy, ”said John Whitmire, chairman of the senate criminal justice committee. He is calling for a full investigation of prison and medical staff.

WATCH KHOU VIDEO REPORT HERE

News Alert: Comeaux now on most wanted list

(CNN) -- A Texas inmate in a wheelchair, who escaped on foot from two armed guards as he was being transferred between prisons, is now on the U.S. Marshals' list of the 15 most-wanted fugitives.
Arcade Comeaux Jr., 49, "produced a weapon and fired upon two correctional officers, took them hostage and forced them to drive to Baytown, Texas," the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement.
He then put the officers in the back of the van and took their weapons and one of their uniforms, the statement said.

Comeaux was serving three life sentences for aggravated sexual assault and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He escaped Monday during transport from Huntsville, Texas, to Stiles, Texas.
The 6-foot, 200-pound man was shackled and in a wheelchair, "which he had claimed was needed for mobility," Michelle Lyons, director of public information for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville, said in a statement.

About 45 minutes into the trip, as they were driving through Conroe, 40 minutes north of Houston, the prisoner pulled out a pistol and ordered the guards to drive south to Baytown, east of Houston.
He fired once, but hit no one during the escape about 9 a.m., officials said.
Law enforcement officers found the unharmed officers an hour later.

Comeaux was being transferred so he could be near John Sealy Hospital in Galveston for treatment of the supposed paralysis he had suffered during a reported stroke, officials said.

At least $16,000 in reward money has been offered for information leading to Comeaux's rearrest and a task force of more than 100 investigators is searching for him, focusing on the Houston area, where he grew up and has family.
His escape has led the man who oversees Texas' criminal justice system to call for a shakeup of the prison system.
"I just think enough's enough," said Sen. John Whitmire, the Texas Democrat from Houston who is chairman of the state Senate's Criminal Justice Committee.

"We need a complete shakeup of the leadership of our prison system and/or an outside review by third parties," he told CNN by phone Wednesday. "We just can't have security breaches of this nature."
Whitmire said the guards had failed to pat down Comeaux while he was in his wheelchair and before they began the trip.
"Sure enough, he has a firearm," he said. "The question is, are there others (in the prison system)? I think you have to assume that there are until you find out differently."

So far this year, more than 900 cell phones have been confiscated from the 112 locations that house the state's 158,000 prisoners. "It's pretty rampant," he said.

"I want the director to come forward and tell us what it's going to take" to solve the problem, he said.
John Moriarty, inspector general of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said such lapses are highly unusual in the state's penal system. "We have no open gun investigations other than this one," he said. "The last one was several years ago."
Texas Department of Criminal Justice Executive Director Brad Livingston, who has been in the job since 2005, did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

Snow forecast in Houston area !

On average, once every four years even Houston gets visited by the Snow Gods. Although, this could be the second year-in-a-row for Houston snow. And if snow does indeed fall this Friday as forecasted, it would be the earliest snowfall on record.

Fred Schmud of ImpactWeather said to the Houston Chronicle, “Most of our forecasting data is caught right in the middle, meaning any subtle change in the position of the upper level disturbance will have huge consequences on how much, if any, snow falls across the Greater Houston area."

Right now NOAA is predicting a 70% chance of snow on Friday.

Tiger Woods saga continues ...

Tiger Woods, charged with careless driving and fined $164 by Florida authorities on Tuesday, is now squarely in the crosshairs of the celebrity and tabloid media.

US Weekly magazine put Woods on its cover, released Wednesday, and alleges he has a two-plus-year affair with a Los Angeles cocktail waitress. This comes a week after the National Enquirer reported that Woods had an affair with a New York VIP host -- a charge the woman strongly denies.

The US Weekly report claims that Jaimee Grubbs has more than 300 text messages from Woods, and the US Weekly Web site posted a voice mail Grubbs says is Woods calling her last week and asking to change the ID on her phone so that his wife wouldn't recognize it.

Grubbs says she met Woods at a Las Vegas nightclub the week after the 2007 Masters -- two months before Woods' wife, Elin Nordegren, gave birth to their first child.

Wednesday morning, the magazine published what it said was a voice mail provided by Grubbs that she said was left by Woods on Nov. 24, three days before his early morning car crash. In the voicemail, a man asks Grubbs to take her name off her phone.

"My wife went through my phone," the man's voice said. "And, uh, may be calling you.'

The call ends with the man saying: "You gotta do this for me. Huge. Quickly."

ESPN could not confirm Woods was the caller.

Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg, did not immediately return an e-mail requesting comment.

When asked whether Us Weekly paid Grubbs for her story, spokeswoman Cheryl Crowley said, "As a policy, we do not comment on obtaining stories or photo transactions." MSNBC reported that "rumors" are Grubbs could have been paid $100,000 for her story.

Grubbs was recently part of the VH1 cable channel reality series "Tool Academy."

Woods' only comments have come on his Web site. Sunday, he released a statement saying, in part: "Although I understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible. The only person responsible for the accident is me. My wife, Elin, acted courageously when she saw I was hurt and in trouble. She was the first person to help me. Any other assertion is absolutely false."

Woods remained in seclusion in the exclusive gated community of Isleworth, while some of the world's top golfers were in Southern California preparing for the start of a tournament he hosts. Woods, citing injuries from the crash, issued a statement Monday saying he would not attend or play in the Chevron World Challenge.

Tuesday, the Florida Highway Patrol said it "is not pursuing criminal charges in this matter nor is there any testimony or other evidence to support any additional charges of any kind other than the charge of careless driving," according to department spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Montes. "Despite the celebrity status of Mr. Woods, the Florida Highway Patrol has completed its investigation in the same professional manner it strives to complete each traffic investigation."

After consulting with the local prosecutor's office, investigators also decided there was insufficient evidence to issue a subpoena that would have given them access to records from his hospital visit after the crash, Montes said.

Reached in Sweden by The Associated Press on Wednesday, Woods' father-in-law, Thomas Nordegren said: "I don't want to comment on this whatsoever."

Woods is also on the cover of the January issue of Golf Digest, a magazine he's had a longstanding relationship with. In a photo illustration, he's pictured with President Barack Obama. The issue offers "10 things Obama could learn from Tiger -- and vice versa" according to a Golf Digest news release.

A magazine spokeswoman said Tuesday that the issue was printed before the car crash involving Woods.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Christmas on the Island

Moody Gardens lights up its pyramids and more for Festival of Lights which shines through Jan. 8.

By Carol Rust
Updated: 11.30.09
Galveston Island will be the host of Christmas Past and Christmas Futuristic with twin annual attractions – the 36th annual Dickens on the Strand – back in full festive force after Hurricane Ike – and the Moody Gardens Festival of Lights, transforming the Gardens’ glass pyramids into spectacular, sparkling mountains of incandescence. Both offer an array of entertainment for all ages.

Christmas carols and cockney accents alike will fill the air in Galveston’s historic district this Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 5-6, when the 19th-century characters from the world of Charles Dickens come alive, sauntering along a 10-block area crowded with Victorian-era costumes, entertainment, wares, choirs and boutiques and featuring artifacts from London’s Charles Dickens Museum.

New this year is the Dickens Victorian Bed Races, in which costumed contestants pull and push their mattress-topped chariots, complete with pajama-clad passengers, along a two-block route toward the finish line. Halfway through, members of each team must switch places – and costumes – with members who have been riding in the beds, Chinese Fire Drill-style.

The fun-filled festivities will represent a boisterous comeback from last year, when event sponsor and attendees valiantly kept the spirit of Dickens on the Strand alive in half the usual festival area in the wake of Hurricane Ike, aka Scrooge, which flooded many buildings in the district with 8 to 13 feet of corrosive water, shuttering numerous shops whose owners typically participate in Galveston Island’s unique Christmas holiday. Some sold their merchandise from the second floors of their businesses and others erected outdoor booths.

“There is no better place in Texas to be than on the historic streets of Galveston during the first weekend in December,” said Dwayne Jones, executive director of Galveston Historical Foundation, which has turned its annual Dickens on the Strand into one of the premier holiday festivals in the nation. “This year’s festival is very special to Galveston. Hurricane Ike forced us to scale back last year’s Dickens on the Strand. This year, we have even added to all the wonderful features that have made attending the festival a tradition for thousands of Texas families over the years.”

The Dickens Emporium, another new feature this year, highlights the famous painting “Dickens’s Dream,” never before been seen in the United States. In the painting, the beloved author dozes in his office chair as images of the characters he made famous in his novels float in the air around his head. The exhibit also includes artifacts from the Charles Dickens Museum, including the author’s chair, where festival patrons may sit to pose for Victorian Christmas portraits. Retail items depicting the “Dickens’ Dream” image will be on sale.

Advance tickets may be purchased only at www.galvestonhistory.org. for $9 for adults and $4 for children ages seven to 12. At the gate, tickets will be $12 and $6 for children ages seven to 12. Attendees dressed in period costume get in free.

Across the island, holiday visitors get a different kind of treat with the Moody Gardens’ Festival of Lights, with more than 100 sound-enhanced light displays and nightly entertainment. Even on this Gulf Coast island, visitors can don a pair of ice skates and glide around the specially made outdoor skating rink — a first this year — along the scenic Offatts Bayou.

The multiple-week event, which attracts some 85,000 visitors each year and runs through Jan. 8, also features an array of holiday-themed films at the IMAX Theater. Movie-goers can experience “Disney’s A Christmas Carol,” starring Jim Carrey, in three-dimensional delight. Polar Express 4D offers special effects such as falling snow, the sensation of blowing wind and the smell of hot chocolate to appeal to all the senses.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. daily. Admission to Festival of Lights is $5.95. Tickets for additional attractions, including the Aquarium Pyramid, the holiday IMAX film, holiday Ridefilm, the Discovery Museum and the Colonel Paddle Boat, are $5 each.

Moody Gardens also offers a savory alternative to the pressures of holiday meal preparation with its Holiday Dinner Buffet at the Garden Restaurant or at the “Gift of Christmas Live” Show and Dinner, combining a fine-dining experience with a lively performance of some of the state’s tall talents. Tickets to this event are $43

Pavers Entering the New Kingwood Library Viewed - Kingwood

By: Frances M. Pelham
Back to Kingwood News


Friends Of the Library Kingwood Board Members and Library Branch Manager recently gathered at the entry of the new library to view the laying of the dedicated pavers on the sidewalk entering the building. 150 pavers have been purchased and laid. More will be ordered in January 2010. FOLK Board Members and Librarian were joined by Joyce Gould, who created two sculptures which will be placed in the new library.

Pictured left side front to back Carolyn Humphrey, Connie Jaeger, Wanda Bartels, Betsy Birkett, Joyce Gould. Right side front to back Becky Jinnette, Marianne Lincoln, Christi Whittington. For more details regarding the purchase of a paver, or other library contributions, visit FOLK's website: http://www.kingwoodfolk.org/, or call Connie Jaeger at 281-360-5261, or Carolyn Humphrey at 281-360-5844.