Houston Area Flu Cases Spike!

THE CHRON: If you've been putting off your annual flu shot, don't delay any longer: Texas is already being hit hard this flu season.

Houston-area hospitals have seen a spike in the number of emergency room visits for flu-like symptoms, said Porfirio Villarreal, spokesman for the Houston Department of Health and Human Services. During the week of Nov. 18, about 1,580 visits to emergency rooms were attributed to flu-like illnesses, compared with just 249 visits during the same week last year, Villarreal said.

Influenza is a serious disease that can lead to hospitalization or even death, the CDC says.

Every flu season is different, and even healthy people can get very sick from the disease and spread it to others. From 1976 to 2007, estimates of U.S. deaths each year due to flu ranged from 3,000 to 49,000.

"Flu is predictably unpredictable," said Dr. Gail Demmler-Harrison, pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Texas Children's Hospital and pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine. "There's no cause for alarm but cause for action. People should get themselves vaccinated so it doesn't get any worse."

National Influenza Vaccination Week, a campaign established in 2005 to counter the notion that December is too late to get a vaccination, ends Saturday. Once a vaccine is administered, it takes about two weeks to develop immunity.

Although the influenza season usually peaks in February, 48 states and Puerto Rico have reported cases, with rates rising quickly nationwide, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week.

Along with Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee are also reporting high levels of activity.

In Houston, Texas Children's Hospital has seen an early start to the season with 123 confirmed cases of Type A influenza and 32 cases of Type B, compared with just two Type A cases in the same span last year, Demmler-Harrison said.

Everyone who is at least 6 months old should get a flu vaccination, but the CDC says it's especially important for these groups:

» People at high risk of developing serious complications like pneumonia if they get the flu, including those with medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes and chronic lung disease.

» Pregnant women.

» People 65 years and older.

» People who live with or care for others who are at high risk of developing serious complications.

Kingwood school warns parents of suspicious photographer

KINGWOOD, TX (KTRK) -- A Kingwood elementary school is warning parents of a man reportedly snapping photos of a student near campus.

It happened  last Tuesday on Wilderness Point near Woodlands Hills Elementary School. The student told his parents that a man was taking pictures of him as he rode his bike home from school. The man is described as a young white male with glasses.

(Copyright ©2012 KTRK-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

Kingwood student accused of hacking

KHOU AUSTIN, Texas -- A 19-year-old University of Texas student has been charged with a felony after he was accused of hacking into the UT computer system and shutting it down temporarily during student registration.

Garret Ross Phillips turned himself in to campus police Monday, was charged with breaching computer security and released after posting a $20,000 bond. Conviction would result in a punishment of up to two years in state jail.

A police affidavit says Phillips downloaded software used by hackers to crash websites and used it to crash the UT registrar’s office’s computer system in April. The affidavit says UT campus information technology experts traced the commands to Phillips’ computer address.

Phillips is from Kingwood.

Kingwood police on high alert after gun incident at Kingwood middle school

by KHOU.com staff & Tiffany Craig / KHOU 11 News

khou.com

Posted on September 19, 2012 at 1:59 PM

Updated Wednesday, Sep 19 at 5:13 PM

KINGWOOD, Texas—School officials and parents were on high alert after a man with a gun allegedly fired toward students walking near a middle school in Kingwood last Tuesday.

Three students were walking away from Creekwood Middle School around 4:40 p.m. when a man fired two shots in their direction, according to Houston police.

Police believe it was an air soft gun that shoots plastic pellets.

The students were about 50 feet away and managed to run away. No one was injured.

Police have a digital picture that was reportedly taken by someone on the Greenbelt of the alleged gunman. At this point, they are not releasing it to the public.

The man is said to be in his early 30s, about 6 feet tall and was wearing blue jeans and a black shirt.

Nicole Vincent got the email from her daughter’s school.

"I tell my kids stay off the Greenbelt trails and just come straight to the car when it’s time for pickup," said Vincent. "We’re not playing in the front yard."

Anyone with information is urged to contact HPD at             281-913-4500      or Humble ISD police at             281-641-7900      .

Humble ISD police officers will be on and near the campus at arrival and dismissal time.

Kingwood woman set for double arm transplant

Doctors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have approved Katy Hayes of Kingwood, Texas, for a double arm transplant. The 44-year-old mother of three would be the first person in the United States to receive a transplant of both arms above the elbow. A similar procedure was performed in Germany.

Hayes lost her arms and legs two years ago, when she was infected with a flesh-eating bacteria after giving birth.

“Two years ago, I walked on my own two feet into the emergency room and most of the doctors there said I would die,” Hayes said at a press conference at the hospital Wednesday morning.

Doctors were able to save enough nerve and muscle when her arms were removed at about mid-biceps to make the transplant possible. Brigham surgeons said a transplant could give Hayes the ability to bend her elbows, making it possible for her to lift herself out of a wheelchair. They said they were not sure, because so few of these transplants have been performed, how much hand sensitivity or fine motor skills she would gain.

“I have to be baby-sat, which is ridiculous. I’m 44 years old,” Hayes said. “I’m really looking forward to having my independence back.”

Hayes was a massage therapist and said the loss of her hands has been painful.

“I still feel like myself inside,” she said. “I don’t think of myself as different until I look in the mirror. It’s hard to look in the mirror. It’s hard.”

Hayes and her family moved to the area in anticipation of the transplant, which required her husband to leave his job as a middle school teacher. The Brigham is working with the New England Organ Bank to find a donor. Read more about Hayes’s story on their family blog.

Chelsea Conaboy can be reached at cconaboy@boston.com. Follow her on Twitter@cconaboy.

Kingwood woman bites attacker

KINGWOOD, TX (KTRK) -- Police in Kingwood are looking for a man who attacked a woman.

It happened yesterday at around 2:30pm. The woman told police she was walking through a tunnel near Northpark and Vale when a man grabbed her. He told her to take her clothes off, but she bit him on a hand then ran to her apartment.

Police have not found the attacker.

Authorities remind people to be cautious when entering dark areas and be aware of your surroundings.

Kingwood school steps up to stop bullying

KINGWOOD, Texas, July 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Bullying Academy congratulates Shadow Forest Elementary School for attaining the highest score for the 4^th-5^th grade contest cycle which took place from May-June 2012.  Competing against 450 schools from around the United States, Shadow Forest outperformed the competition by demonstrating their high level of knowledge of bullying issues by achieving the highest scores on examinations integrated into the Bullying Academy online curriculum.  They will be awarded with a Bullying Academy trophy, and $250 to be spent on a party for the class.

The participating students effectively demonstrated their commitment to learning as much as possible about tactics to not only respond to incidents of bullying appropriately, but also to develop open lines of communication with adults in their lives in order to avoid tragic outcomes.

Texas education code now requires all schools to adopt programs that educate and address the prevention of unwanted physical or verbal aggression, and other forms of bullying in schools.  The Bullying Academy meets the standards of the Texas mandate. "Shadow Forest is setting an excellent example for school communities in Texas as well as throughout the United States in integrating the Bullying Academy program into their school curriculum.  All students should be exposed to anti-bullying, and specifically anti-cyberbullying education somewhere in the classroom," explains Tommy Walser, program founder of the Bullying Academy.

"Cyber cruelty is rapidly increasing in volume and complexity because teens are never taught how to act responsibly and appropriately while communicating online or via other electronic devices," explains Tommy. "The Bullying Academy is a simple and cost effective solution to a pressing dilemma: How to teach students that bullying should not be tolerated as merely part of growing up, and that all students have the right to a safe learning environment."

Students in the Know Foundation, a non-profit group, launched The Bullying Academy, a web-based interactive program designed to help 4th-8th grade students recognize the dangers associated with bullying and cyber-bullying.  The Bullying Academy requires no additional software or extensive training for teachers. Schools simply register with the program's website and students immediately have the curriculum available to them. It can be implemented during any class period or extracurricular activity.

Teachers and administrators can access details about pricing and implementation on our website, http://bullyingacademy.org or call our program coordinator at Haley Murray at             (305) 791-4478      .

SOURCE Bullying Academy

PR Newswire (http://s.tt/1j3u6)

Historic rain event soaks Houston and vicinity

CBS/AP) HOUSTON - Historic rainfall levels that drenched the Houston area this week flooded dozens of homes and caused widespread street flooding, but the rain also is likely to result in the end of drought conditions in Southeast Texas, officials said Friday.

Officials estimated that fewer than 100 homes were flooded after Cypress Creek, located in the northwest part of the Houston area, rose above its banks after getting about 14 inches of rain over the past couple of days, said Francisco Sanchez, a spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

County officials were still trying to reach flooded neighborhoods oan Friday to better assess the damage, but initial reports had homes affected anywhere from a few inches to a couple of feet of water, Sanchez said.

"Some areas along Cypress Creek got more rain in the last 24 hours than in Hurricane Ike (in 2008) or from major flooding in 1998," Sanchez said.

CBS Affiliate KHOU reports it will be mostly dry Saturday morning, but there is a 60-percent chance of rain beginning in the afternoon.

A flood warning is in effect until 8:50 a.m. Sunday for northwest Harris County and Montgomery County. A flood warning is in effect until 10 Sunday night for the Spring Creek area of Harris County.

In northwest Harris County, a good portion of the subdivision called the Enchanted Valley Estates was only accessible by boat. Homeowners could be seen using canoes, pontoon boats and even a jet ski to navigate around the area.

Firefighters rescued several families from the Norchester subdivision near Cypress Creek Friday when two to three feet of water seeped into their homes overnight.

Several people also had to be rescued early Friday morning after driving into high water.

Gary Whitaker Jr., who lives in one of the areas affected by Cypress Creek, said street flooding in his neighborhood had started to recede on Friday but a nearby subdivision still had streets that were impassable. Water from the creek was flowing "like a waterfall" across one street and into a golf course, he said.

"Quite a few people in our subdivision couldn't go to work today. They couldn't get out (due to flooded streets). It was pretty risky," he said.

Whitaker, 36, who lives in Cypress, an unincorporated area in northwest Harris County, said there were no reports of flooded homes in his neighborhood.

The American Red Cross in Houston sent out workers Friday to affected neighborhoods to assess the flooded homes, said spokesman Cameron Ballantyne. The agency had not opened any shelters.

In Montgomery County, located just north of Harris County, officials reported seven to eight flooded homes.

A shelter had been opened in Montgomery County at Living Stones Church in Magnolia, but church secretary Linda Arnold said no residents had used the facility.

Victor Murphy, a climate expert with the National Weather Service, said one rain gauge on the border of Harris and Waller counties recorded 10.3 inches of rain in a 10 hour period.

Murphy said that amount of precipitation within that short period of time suggests that area experienced a "100-year rainfall event," which caused Cypress Creek to overflow.

Other areas in Southeast Texas also got large amounts of rain, including just west of Bay City in Matagorda County, which received about 18 inches this past week.

"Rainfall in the entire (Southeast Texas) area this week was in the 8 to 10 inch category," he said. "The average weekly rainfall for this time of year is about 1 inch or so."

While the current U.S. Drought Monitor shows some parts of Southeast Texas as being abnormally dry, that does not include this week's rainfall totals.

"When the next U.S. Drought Monitor comes out Thursday, there will not be any drought in Southeast Texas," Murphy said. Most of the rest of the state was expected to remain in drought conditions.

Even if Southeast Texas only experiences average rainfall or dry weather the rest of the summer, drought conditions should be kept at bay until at least the fall, Murphy said.

Sanchez said officials were hopeful Cypress Creek, which was still rising Friday, would eventually recede if the area was not inundated with more rain. Water levels at two other nearby creeks which had also flowed out of their banks, had started to fall.

Rain was forecast for this weekend but the chances of showers were expected to be lower than earlier this week.

Man beats his stepfather and mother over cockroach argument.

Houston, June 12:  A dispute over a cockroach led a man to assault his stepfather and hit his mother, police revealed.

According to Houston Chronicle, Investigators said that 23-year-old Zachary Paul Thornhill flew into a rage during a dispute Thursday over the fate of the bug in the 900 block of Knights Court in Friendswood, Texas.

"After refusing to kill the cockroach, Thornhill became enraged and is accused of kicking his stepfather and throwing objects at him, then hitting his mother across the back," according to the Friendswood Police Department crime blotter.

Thornhill is also accused of breaking a window at the residence. 

Kingwood woman getting first of it's kind double arm transplant.

After losing every one of her limbs from a flesh-eating infection, a 43-year-old Texas mother of three will have another person’s arms and hands transplanted onto her in the first ever procedure of its kind in the U.S., the Houston Chronicle reported.

Katy Hayes, from Kingwood, TX, contracted the disease that took her arms and legs shortly after giving birth to her last child just two years ago.  Doctors were forced to amputate her limbs above her knees and elbows, leaving behind small stubs.

“I want my life back,” Hayes told a medical team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, Mass., about why she wanted the transplant.  “I want to hold my last child before she’s grown – and she’s already 2.  If anybody tells me ‘no,’ I’ll just go to the next hospital.  ‘No’ is not an option.”

According to the Chronicle, Hayes has been defying expectations for the past two years, after doctors thought the flesh-eating disease would ultimately claim her life.  She had slipped into a coma for a month after giving birth, when she suddenly awoke to discover her arms and legs were missing.

Since then, Hayes has undergone numerous physical exams to establish she is in the best physical shape possible for the transplant.

The surgical procedure is expected to take at least 15 hours and will require about 40 medical personnel, the Chronicle said.  According to Dr. W. P. Andrew Lee, chairman of the plastic and reconstructive surgery department at Johns Hopkins University, the transplantation process will be extremely tricky because new nerves must attach to the arms old nerves and grow a very long distance to reach the new hands.

“The nerve in the arm will grow only about an inch a month,” Lee told the Houston Chronicle.  “It can take a year or two to reach the hand.  Functional recovery is less predictable.”

Hayes understands that even if the procedure is a success, she still won’t have fine motor skills like the ability to button a shirt. However, she is looking forward to possibly performing tasks she could never do currently – such as grabbing cups, brushing her teeth or giving hugs.

She also hopes to pave the way for more complex transplants in the future.

"I'll be their guinea pig," Hayes said. "But I'll also be that pioneer in a new world who can one day talk to others about having transplants."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/05/29/texas-mother-to-receive-first-ever-double-arm-hand-transplant-in-us/#ixzz1wGuLStD2

Real story behind The Sugarland Express

This Week in Texas Historyby BARTEE HAILE

As the sun came up on May 2, 1969, a young couple got the drop on the highway patrolman who answered their phony plea for help at an isolated ranch in southeast Texas.

Robert “Bobby” Dent, 22, was passing through Port Arthur at 2 a.m. with his wife of one year, Ila Fae Dent, 21, when flashing red lights suddenly appeared in his rearview mirror. The ex-convict, out of the joint just two weeks, did not know what the lawmen wanted, but he was not about to hang around and find out.

Roaring out of town on state highway 73, the Dents’ car broke down near Anahuac. With the police only seconds behind them, the two eluded capture by dashing into the woods that bordered the blacktop.

Bobby and Ila Fae made their way north in the darkness to a ranch house between the tiny Jefferson County communities of Fannett and Nome. In dire need of a four-wheel getaway, Bobby hit upon the ironic idea of calling the cops for a ride.

The dispatcher gave directions to Kenneth Krone, 27, and told the DPS trooper two hitchhikers that claimed to have been beaten and robbed would be waiting for him. It was six o’clock in the morning, when Krone walked into the kitchen of the ranch house and found Bobby and Ila Fae holding handguns pointed right at him.

Bobby disarmed the stunned state trooper, making his better half a present of Krone’s .357 Magnum, and forced him to try on his own handcuffs for size. Marched at gunpoint to his patrol car, Krone did as he was told and slipped behind the wheel. Bobby sat next him in the front seat with the cocked Magnum in his ribs, while Ila Fae stuck the trooper’s shotgun in his ear from the back seat.

Obeying Bobby’s terse instructions to “drive,” it did not take Krone long to realize his captors had no plan nor even a destination. To make matters worse, they clearly had not counted on the attention a state trooper under such obvious duress would attract on the heavily traveled highway to Houston.

When the commandeered cruiser reached Texas’ largest city, a lengthening line of law enforcement was in close but restrained pursuit. The caravan, which eventually numbered more than a hundred vehicles, included additional highway patrol, local police, deputy sheriffs from several counties, news media vans and an ambulance.

By the time the “chase” turned north toward Conroe, DPS captain Jerry Miller was in charge and in constant two-way radio communication with the fleeing fugitives. As Miller saw it, his job was to calm Bobby Dent down and keep him from flying off the handle.

“I told him what you are doing is foolish,” Capt. Miller later recounted. He advised Bobby to “pull over and stop” only to be told “I’m not going back to the penitentiary.”

On another occasion, Miller suggested that Bobby at least let his wife out of the car, but the former inmate could not bear the thought of being separated again from Ila Fae. “She doesn’t want to come back there with you!” was his heated response.

In attempt to earn the Dents’ trust, Miller allowed them on two occasions to stop for gas. True to his word, he kept the army of pursuers at a distance while the three stars of the real-life drama filled their tank, went to the restroom and bought snacks and drinks.

Not long after the second time-out, Bobby offered to release his hostage if Miller would let him visit his two stepchildren, Ila Fae’s from a previous marriage, at their grandparents’ place near Bryan. Miller agreed to the deal and sealed it with a promise to give the couple a 15-minute head-start after the reunion.

Bobby Dent was not only a third-rate petty criminal, who had done hard time for vandalizing vending machines, he also was incredibly gullible.

It was nearly noon, when the Dents pulled up to the white frame house in Wheelock. As per Miller’s orders, the caravan parked a mile down the dirt road.

The three climbed the front steps with Patrolman Krone in the lead, Bobby behind him with the shotgun and Ila Fae bringing up the rear with the .357 Magnum.

As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Krone could make out his rescuers. He stepped to the side and dropped to the floor just as Sheriff Sonny Elliott of Robertson County and FBI agent Bob Wiatt opened fire.

The shotgun blast and pistol rounds propelled Bobby Dent right back out the door and onto the steps. “Oh, my God, you’ve killed him!” screamed Ila Fae dropping her pistol to the ground, and she was right.

For her part, Ila Fae Dent was given five years but served only five months. She died of natural causes in 1992 while working at a motel in Livingston.

“The Sugarland Express” hit movie theaters in 1974. Despite a cast with two Academy Award winners (Goldie Hawn as Ila Fae and Ben Johnson as Capt. Miller), the first feature film by 30-year-old Steven Spielberg laid an egg at the box office.

It might have helped ticket sales if the script had stayed true to the real story. Case in point: Ila Fae did not bust Bobby out of prison. But to his credit Spielberg did show a lot of recognizable Texas countryside during the marathon chase scenes.

Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549 or haile@pdq.net.

Read more at the Hays Free Presshttp://haysfreepress.com/2012/05/09/the-real-story-behind-the-sugarland-express/#ixzz1uTfXEMIj