tate
ulal tornadoes touch Galveston
THE BATTALION Page 5B
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1981 ■' <
ctoti
Three brothers die in flood
consumers
) Gardner, a
ctices are tl
e exception will|
ies.
ise of one bad
bole bunch,” i
1 that in one
in who had
infined to a
itened bycolledji
lim “a
United Press International
Three brothers drowned in
ing near Shiner and at least
en tornadoes touched down in
Iveston in a Gulf storm that
iped up to 16 inches of rain on
:s of southeast and south cen-
Texas.
| Shiner Mayor Arthur Ward
lid 17-year-old Glenn Mights and
|o of his brothers — Johnny, 15,
id Bradford, 13 — drowned ear-
■Monday trying to escape rising
ct nases fV > ters on Rocky Creek in Lavaca
L,rc fr- 100 miles eas * rf Sa "
calls and ii| * l * * * * ™" urth brothei% 16-year-old
leg Mights, survived the flood
o Commission h lich swept away the family’s
oh to grant or if? |obile home. He was rescued as
it is granted, pii|( he clung to a tree in the swollen
e held on thepupfeek.
If they denylh* The boys’ father, Glenn
easonforthertjuHights, was working in San Anto-
iven in writing, nio, and their mother, Mozella
■ghts, was in a San Antonio hos
pital with undisclosed complica-
9 Kns when the floodwaters
. ___ Bproached. No one else was in
' 1 ft the home.
■Authorities said the brothers
ijparently heard the water and
•"l /I ^ ree w ^° went * nto a
| I rj mme house in front of their
■bile home while Greg went
speth was oiitsii onto r0 °f of the frame house
od line, eitherl|j
mposter,
fore cannot htt
d Hughes,
in 1976 leavinp
1 at $163 millioti
about 4:30 a.m.
The bodies were found more
than four hours later over a half
mile stretch of the creek about a
mile downstream from where the
mobile home and frame house
were, said Shiner justice of the
peace Daniel Peters.
The heavy rains, unofficially
measured up to 16 inches within
24 hours in some areas, were
sparked by remnants of a tropical
depression that pushed inland
over south Texas.
As many as four other people
were reported missing in Hallett-
sville, 10 miles east of Shiner.
“Witnesses saw three people in
a car get washed away,’’ Lavaca
County Deputy Sheriff Sheila
Perkins said. “Other people saw a
man get swept away and we found
his lunch bucket nearby.”
She said the reports were un
confirmed.
However, a Department of
Public Safety spokesman in Vic
toria said the DPS had reports of
only two men missing in Hallett-
sville. The spokesman identified
them as Herman Reyna of Yoakum
and Sam Goode Jr. of Hallett-
sville.
“Their vehicles were found
abandoned near the flood area,”
the spokesman said. “They are
presumed missing.”
Officials abandoned their
search for the men at dark Monday
and planned to resume looking
Tuesday.
In Galveston, officials reported
seven tornadoes touched down by
late Monday, tearing the roof off of
the Broadway movie theater
downtown and damaging an air
port hanger. Winds at the muni
cipal airport were clocked at up to
92 mph.
Strong winds caused a 430-foot
freighter, the Amoa, to break
loose from its moorings at Pier 22
of the Galveston Wharves. Steve
dore Mario Flores said the wind
picked the ship up, whirled it
around and rammed it into a Del
Monte ship.
The island received 10.5 inches
of rain in a 13-hour period begin
ning at 8 a.m. Officials said there
were scattered reports of injuries,
but could not say if any were se
rious.
Widespread flooding in Hous
ton forced the Metropolitan Tran
sit Authority to pull all 350 buses
off the streets at noon, stranding
80,000 commuters, but bus runs
restarted when rains slowed later
in the day.
South American fire ants
the move westward
, brothers, sM
S and awardeib| United Press International
of the HuM ;LUBBOCK — The red im-
tg heirs ofHujfe , || rtec l fire ant, already a pest to
■mers and outdoorsmen in nine
■ithem states, is on the march
r jury is heWand researchers at Texas Tech
vhether ElspMiversity are trying to find ways
was a legitimrlb eliminate it.
t Hughes. If 11 The quarter-inch long ants,
aims by herd® lich are native to South America
i-sister and t nd known for their powerful
:p-brother. (ing, are “extending their do-
yer for 400distil Bin,” says Texas Tech etomolog-
d a 1977 fail it Dr. Oscar F. Francke.
livide the eslt i “Can they go as far as the dry
relatives, indi: Was of far west Texas or Arizona?
io claim throii| I'll they survive in the High
|ins of Texas? We do not know. ”
|The pesky ants are prodigious
rge Parnhamss iilders and Franke says they
ing of the jury 4 fistructhuge mounds that dam-
uires close fai ; ? farm equipment and impede
ify Elspeth w;
harvesting. The mounds are
usually 1V4 feet high with dia
meters up to three feet.
Core samples from newly dril
led water wells show the ants can
burrow down to 25 feet in the
ground to reach water tables.
Cold weather and arid condi
tions are two of the ants’ enemies,
and etomologists are not sure how
far west and north the ants can
spread. Francke is currently ex
perimenting with temperature
and humidity conditions under
which red imported fire ants can
survive.
He hopes the answers will
allow accurate predictions of how
far the insect will spread.
The ants can be found south of a
shifting line running west from
South Carolina to the Red River
between Texas and Oklahoma.
The western flank is a line running
from Dallas to just west of San
Antonio, near Bandera.
Although freezing tempera
tures are recorded in much of the
area, the fire ants can survive tem
perature and humidity extremes
by staying inside their mounds.
Franke said if ground tempera
tures rise, the ants go deeper into
the mounds.
He said they are amazingly resi
lient, foraging at night during hot
summers and only during the war
mest part of winter days.
Franke says he is now trying to
develop a new, slow-acting pesti
cide that the ants will carry back to
their nests after foraging.
ted to a clause:
pacifying any»
•eement trying
3e excluded fc
state.
Specialists question miracle surgery
H MALL
■9315
>AT 10-6
INDAY
United Press International
) — Some north Texas
Jje specialists claim a new and
implc surgery they have been ex-
erimenting with for three years
minates the need for eyeglasses
nearsighted persons but the
tional Eye Institute warns the
iperation remains unpredictable.
The institute has appropriated
$2.4 million to eight medical
iooIs to conduct a five-year
dy to determine the short- and
ig-term side effects of the oper-
Son, known as radial keratotomy.
The specialists, however, feel
: success of the operation has
been proven and say the funding is
|» waste of money.
“The federal study is a duplica-
fon of effort,” said Dr. Ronald
ichachar, a Denison eye specialist
who says he has performed 700 of
operations with his brother,
j Schachar said federal officials
Were disregarding research done
trough the private practice of
phthamology and that data could
>e easily obtained from the pri
vate sector.
IHowever, the 10,000-member
merican Academy of Ophthal
mology has sided with the insti
tute and warned the operation
ust only be considered ex-
rimental.
Institute officials, in calling for
4c study, said surgeons pre-
nted inadequate information
iring a June meeting at which
tticy’d been asked to furnish data
Hid did not include complete fol-
Wups on patients.
The institute estimates some
3ti) specialists have performed
LOGO radial keratotomies across
4e nation. More than 800 such
operations have been performed
tt Dallas, Denison and Sherman,
Be institute said.
I The operation, which involves
^ incision in the cornea, costs ab-
<Hit $1,000 and the specialists say
Icould have far-reaching implica
tions for the estimated 40 million
Americans who suffer from
myopia or nearsightedness,
i Dallas defense attorney Richard
|jnderson said he had been legally
in both eyes and had been
Rearing glasses since the third
ade. After three operations, he
id, he has 20-20 vision and no
Inger needs glasses.
I But institute officials said an
Oklahoma operating room nurse
Undergoing the operation suffered
O'ercorrection in one eye and
Hndercorrection in another eye.
lasses can no longer correct her
sion adequately and she faces
problems in her occupation, the sey of the University of Oklahoma,
officials said. who has performed 220 such oper-
“I think that patients aren’t ations and will participate in the
being adequately informed of the proposed institute study. “They
risks and complications from the ar 6 being persuaded to have the
surgery,” said Dr. J. James Row- surgery prematurely, he said.
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In the Aldine area of north
Houston, more than 100 students
were forced to stay after school
Monday because roads leading to
their subdivisions were flooded.
As flooded areas cleared at night,
the students were taken home.
Classes were canceled at the
University of Houston and Texas
Southern University because of
street flooding on the southside of
downtown.
National Guardsmen were
ordered to Hallettsville and other
flooded communities to prevent
looting.
Police officer Jimmy Bums said
there were several incidents of
looting in Kenedy and other inci
dences were reported in Hallett
sville.
Several hundred people were
evacuated from Hallettsville,
Shiner and Moulton with all three
cities mostly submerged from
floodwaters and remained in eva
cuation shelters late Monday, a
DPS spokesman in Victoria said.
Glistening honeysuckle
Photo by Becky Swanson
Students at Texas A&M were probably honeysuckle probably welcomed it after
disheartned at having to attend their first several weeks of dry weather. The deluge
day of class in the rain, but this of rain resulted from a Gulf storm.
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