Texas m m W •
The Battalion
Vol. 82 No. 163 GSRS 045360 8 pages
College Station, Texas
Thursday, June 18, 1987
eople stay in MSC despite bomb threat
_ I By Yvonne DeGraw
id . and
■ Elisa Hutchins
'' I Staff Writers
bomb threat at the Memorial
CdC Bdent Center turned out to be a
I Vf V false alarm Wednesday afternoon.
Bd while the bookstore and a few
tareshoriother areas in the MSC closed for
But an hour, most people stayed in
0 disperststhe building and took their chances,
rch totliti! police Chief Elmer E. Schneider
ajontreeissaid a worker at the MSC Print ’n’
Bpy received the threat around
ut Wednai kp p m. that said a bomb would ex-
ipolitical,Bele at 3:30 p.m.
tionwidte fThis threat makes the third call in
mention of■
dorsed CIibB
a week that was reported to Univer
sity Police. The two previous threats
were off campus. It is not known if
they are linked with the bomb scare
at the MSC.
Trena Wilroy, supervisor of Print
’n’ Copy, said the caller sounded like
a young male and he stumbled over
several words as he made the threat.
“There’s a bomb in the MSC, and
it will go off at 3:30,” the caller said.
“Everybody in there will be killed.”
Wilroy immediately called the
University Police.
The police dispatcher said police
searched only the copy center area
and found nothing suspicious.
University Center Manager Ste
ven Hodge said around 3:25 p.m. —
five minutes before the caller’s dead
line — the threat was being treated
as a prank. The managers of the va
rious areas of the MSC could decide
whether they wanted to close and for
how long, he said.
The MSC Bookstore closed from
about 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. The
game area and bowling lanes in the
basement and the Student Programs
Office on the second floor also were
closed.
Maintainance workers were sta- ~
tioned at all entrances except the
main one to keep people from enter
ing the building.
At 3:20 p.m. more than one hun
dred high school drill team members
were still dancing in a room on the
second floor of the building.
A pianist kept playing in the main
lounge and visiting fall freshmen
and their parents remained in the
MSC along with students.
“The managers are taking this too
lightly,” said a visitor in the MSC
who asked not to be identified.
“Even if it is a joke, there are a lot of
people in here, and it could be a di
saster if a bomb exploded.”
Schneider said that when a bomb
to assess the danger from the tone
and mood of the call.
The department looks at the time
of the call, the duration of the call,
what was said, background noises
and whether there is a likely target
in the area.
Based on this, he said they decide
how to advise the building proctor.
“In this case we had no indication
to call for an evacuation,” Schneider
said.
Wilroy said Print ’n’ Copy has not
fired any employees recently and
had no explanation of why the call
was made to the copy center rather
than to the main desk.
John Nethercutt, the room divi
sions manager for the College Sta
tion Hilton, says their emergency
procedure is to call the manager on
duty, the general manager, the secu
rity manager and the police.
He said they take directions froth
the authorities because “they are the
professionals.”
Whether the bomb threat was real
or just a prank call, the penalties if a
person is caught can range from a
third-degree felony to a misdemea
nor.
Bryan attorney William W. Vance
said this case would be classified as a
Class A misdemeanor that carries up
to a $2,000 fine and/or a year in jail.
’00 to !U[
xraucetoj
the “pomtij
:gime.
edungullit
‘d powdit.
■d m 1M
thoimnrl
lay thailll
d Moodaul
17 weretej
in step (to
ion.
dll be Stic
lich cri&air
to furtke
fter the II
Tower spends remaining money
from campaign for personal use
Beleaguered agency
considers 1-35 corridor
for nuclear dump site
It
housing
[opening
? ® money market interest were all recorded as in-
g induin'.
i suffered
deficit it
year and t
icting ill!
ghtly lo»«
thefi
Jesal
vement d
ices Aiwf'
irts beca»«
WASHINGTON (AP) — Since retiring from
the Senate in January 1985, former Sen. John
Tower has dipped into his old campaign fund to
spend nearly half a million dollars on every
thing from airfares to lavish banquets.
Last Aug. 1, the former Republican senator
reported that his campaign committee, the
Tower Senate Club, spent $1,645 at the Man
sion on Turtle Creek in Dallas.
Tower also reported that his committee spent
$1,104 at the Monocle restaurant on Capitol
Hill, according to documents filed with the Fed
eral Election Commission.
In addition, Tower reported on the same day
that he used the campaign fund to pay $1,030
for airfare on American Airlines, $819 for
meals and $51 for a rental car, according to the
FEC documents.
There are two payments totaling $2,938 that
were listed as having gone to Alpha Aviation, a
Dallas Love Field-based air charter company
that offers turbo-props and corporate jets for
private air travel.
Treasury bills, dividends on cash funds and
come by the committee.
Since Tower left the Senate in January 1985,
the campaign fund has dwindled from $466,000
to $20,761 as of December 1986.
The committee has spent $498,498 and has
taken in $53,401.
All of the charges and receipts are legal be
cause Tower qualifies them under a “grandfa
ther clause” in the campaign financing laws.
That clause states that it is permissible for
congressional members elected before 1980 to
“I did not see anything on the re
ports that indicated that an inordi
nate amount was spent on personal
use. ”
Hub Bechtol, campaign committee
treasurer
use their campaign funds for personal expendi
tures.
The former Senator was out of his offices in
both Dallas and Washington Wednesday and
was not available for comment.
But according to a story in the Legal Times of
Washington, Tower claims all of the expendi
tures were political in nature and that none of it
was applied for personal expenses.
Hub Bechtol of Austin, treasurer for Tower’s
campaign committee, defended the expendi
tures.
“I did not see anything on the reports that in
dicated that an inordinate amount was spent on
personal use,” he told the Fort Worth Star-Tele
gram.
“I think he was a good trustee of the funds,”
Bechtol said.
In addition to his luncheons, airfare and
other expenses, the campaign fund has doled
out generous consulting fees to former staffers
of the former senator.
Tower recently headed a presidentially ap
pointed commission looking into the Iran-Con
tra scandal.
Political candidates favored by the 24-year
veteran of the Senate have received $ 1,000 con
tributions through his campaign committee.
And one losing gubernatorial candidate, Re
publican Tom Loeffler, received $4,000 from
Tower over a year for the lease of a computer
system.
Southwestern University in Georgetown,
Texas, was given $100,000 in November 1985,
two months after the Tower Senate Club con
tributed $50,000 to the Republican Party of
Texas and $18,000 to the Associated Republi
cans of Texas.
DALLAS (AP) — Rebuffed in its
efforts to put a low-level radioactive
waste dump in rural West Texas, a
beleaguered state agency is looking
for potential nuclear dump sites
along the Interstate 35 corridor
from Dallas to Austin.
Rick Jacobi, general manager of
the Texas Low Level Radioactive
Waste Disposal Authority, said sites
in North Central and South Texas
are prime contenders for the dump.
Texas must build such a facility
within five years to comply with fed
eral requirements.
The agency is reconsidering sites
in those two regions after the Legis
lature failed two weeks ago to desig
nate state-owned land in Hudspeth
County near El Pasp for the dump
site’.
Ruben Alvarado, the authority’s
chief engineer, said the agency is, in
effect, starting over. He estimates
the project, which must be finished
by Jan. 1, 1993, may be set back as
much as two years.
Although the agency has asked
Gov. Bill Clements to include the is
sue on the agenda of the special ses
sion that begins Monday, Jacobi said
the waste authority could not afford
to wait for the outcome before ex
amining other alternatives.
“Our schedule is so tight now, we
hate to sit on our hands and see what
happens,” Jacobi said.
The Legislature has directed the
authority to give preference to state-
owned land for a site.
The area along 1-35 between Aus
tin and Dallas is known as the Black-
land Prairie and includes Navarro,
Limestone, Hill, Bell and Falls coun
ties. There is very little state land in
those counties, though, and the
agency hopes someone will come
forward with property for sale.
It is an attractive site, Jacobi said,
as it has a dense, clay soil and deep
ground water and would be equidis
tant from most major waste genera
tors.
Tornado damage cleanup at Bryan complex continues
By Robert Morris
Staff Writer
As cleanup of Tuesday’s tor
nado damage at the Grove
Apartments in Bryan continued,
residents began their pilgrim-
mage to “higher ground.”
Many took with them confu
sion because of what residents
termed a lack of response or
communication by the manage
ment of the complex with the
residents who were affected.
As of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday,
none of the residents packing up
had been contacted by apart
ment management.
Although The Battalion made
repeated attempts to speak to a
representative of the Grove, as
of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, the
complex manager was unavail
able for comment.
Haniet Cranek is a resident
of one of the more severely dam
aged apartments.
Photo by Robert W. Rizzo
The twisted remains of sheet metal roofing from one apartment unit lie crumpled on the ground.
“Eve been waiting on them to
tell us something, but they
haven’t told us anything,” she
said.
Cranek said other residents
she had talked to had not been
contacted either.
“There’s no way we can go up
there and live,” she said. “The
carpets are wet and the sheet
rock is soggy.
“I went this morning at 8 a.m.
and they said, ‘Come back at 10
a.m.’ And I went at 11 a.m. and
they said, ‘Come back later.’ So I
guess I’ll go back this afternoon
to find out what is going on.”
The Rev. David Belasic, of
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, was visit
ing his daughter and son-in-law,
an A&M graduate student, at
the apartments when the tor
nado hit.
“As far as I know, no one
from the apartments ever came
by,” Belasic said.
The police and fire depart
ments both were there, but no
one from the complex ever
showed up, he said.
Belasic, a Lutheran pastor,
contacted Our Saviour’s Lu
theran Church in College Sta
tion and several volunteers from
the church arrived to help the
apartment residents move be
longings.
The funnel cloud, which ap
peared at about 6:30 p.m.,
caused extensive damage to the
complex, located at 3132 E. 29th
St. in Bryan, affecting approxi
mately 20 apartments, but no in
juries were reported.
Four units from the College
Station Fire Department, several
officers from the Bryan Police
Department and the Brazos
County REACT organization ar
rived shortly after the funnel
cloud touched down.
Bryan building inspector C.A.
McCollom was at the scene early
Wednesday morning and said
the metal roof was constructed
and screwed down according to
building code guidelines.
“A lot of people feel that just
because it was a metal roof it was
a problem, but I think that we
just got high wind in that partic
ular location,” he said.
Descriptions of the event took
various forms.
A&M student Staci Parkman,
whose apartment suffered water
Photo by Robert W. Rizzo
The Rev. David Belasic peers through what was once an attic en
trance of a closet at his daughter’s Grove apartment.
damage, said, “I didn’t even re
alize it had happened until the
water started coming in.
“I was looking out the window
and I saw the insulation blow off
and I thought it was just lint
blowing out of the dryer vent
and then a lot of insulation
started falling.
“The water started dripping
down along the walls and in the
closet. It was really coming
down. Then I opened the door
to the attic and I could see the
light.”
Cranek said, “It sounded like
a lot of rain and thunder. And
then all of a sudden you could
tige
tm
“We could see that the roof
had peeled back and gone over
the apartment and then it slid
down and landed on top of our
cars.”
About that time the police ar
rived at the complex to tell resi
dents to leave before the sheet
rock caved in, she said.
That’s when everyone started
hauling stuff out of the apart
ments, Cranek said.
A small tornado hit different
buildings in the same complex
last August, tearing the roof off
two buildings.
It also caused no injuries.