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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 1989)
Texas A&M Battalion WEATHER TOMORROW S FORECAST: Partly cloudy with slight chance of continuing rain. HIGH: 90s LOW: 70s ry,-;- Vol. 88 No. 181 USPS 045360 6 Pages I: 11 ' ~~ College Station, Texas Wednesday, August 2,1989 Rain runoff claims lives of two teens Whirlpool pulls raft underneath Highway 6 By Kelly S. Brown SENIOR STAFF WRITER Two College Station high school students drowned near the east bypass Tuesday af ter rapid flood waters they were rafting in turned into a violent whirlpool, throwing four youths from their rafts. Officials on the scene called it a miracle that the two sur vived the ordeal. Three divers from M&M Scuba found the bodies of Eric Winslow, 17, and Robert Craig, 16, after hours of searching through muddy and murky waters in southeast Col lege Station near Allen Honda. The drain age water eventually dumps into Carter Creek. Survivors Tony Sharp, 16, and James Morris, 17, suffered minor injuries. The four A&M Consolidated High School students set out late in the afternoon with a raft and a pool float with the inten tion of rafting down an area of high water that began near Consolidated and ended just before the mouth of a culvert that went under Highway 6. But around 7 p.m., as the youths were about to get out of the water, a whirlpool near the culvert sucked three of them un der. Morris was able to jump onto the em bankment and run to a nearby Tenneco convenience store for help. The strong current shot the youths un der the culvert extending 200 yards east under Highway 6. Sharp came out on the other side and climbed onto the embank ment. He was taken to Humana Hospital for treatment. The concrete culvert is six feet high, eight feet wide and the length of one-and-a- half football fields. CSPD Dective Larry Johnson said it was a miracle that Sharp survived. “The way I understand it,” he said, “Sharp was moving so swiftly through the culvert that he made it 200 yards with one breath. It was amazing.” John Knauer, a friend and classmate of Sharp, said he and his friends have been on this same rafting route several times and had made the area somewhat of a water playground with a rope swing near the fork of the creek where the youths’ bodies were found. “It’s sad that it had to be something like this to make us stop,” Knauer said. “This is horrible. Shoot no, we won’t do it again.” Rescue workers and volunteers from the CSPD, M&M Scuba, Sheriffs Department, Brazos County React, Fire Department, Texas Parks and Wildlife, College Station Fire Department and even county inmate trustees began arriving on the scene at 7:15 p.m. — all delving in with an optimistic atti tude. But as the hours inched past, the opti mism turned into frustration for the mass of friends and family who stood and paced on the frontage road waiting for word. Using the same raft the youths were in, three divers without oxygen tanks took the raft into the water to hold onto for support. Muddy water prevented the divers from having any kind of visibilty beneath the wa ters, which had calmed down considerably, forcing them to swim around and feel for the bodies. Rescue workers also used two boats to drag the water, at depths of as much as 16 feet. Johnson said that after a certain point in situations such as this when it begins to look bad, everyone holds onto the slightest possi- blity of the victim being alive clinging to a tree limb somewhere. But even hope was hard to hold onto af ter Winslow’s body was discovered by M&M Scuba co-owner and diver Mike McCleary around 11 p.m. Craig’s body was found about two hours later. Johnson, who said he can’t remember any incident similar to Tuesday night’s drownings occuring in College Station, said that when flash-flooding occurs, no matter how good of a swimmer someone thinks he is, under no circumstances should he un derestimate the uncertainty of rapid waters, “but it happens, and unfortunately some thing as tragic as this follows.” Kidnappers reject cleric-hostage trade Officer Craig Anderson of the College Station Police informs the parents of Sobert Craig, 16, of College Station, of Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack their son’s condition Tuesday evening. Craig was one of two youths who drowned in a rafting accident BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — A group be lieved to represent pro-Iranian kidnappers rejected Israel’s offer to trade an abducted Moslem cleric for hostages. The Tuesday deadline for killing an American hostage was extended for two days. The captors of Joseph Cicippio acknowl edged a plea for mercy from his Lebanese wife in announcing the 48-hour postpone ment. On Monday, after the group holding U.S. Lt. Col. William R. Higgins said he had been hanged, Cicippio’s kidnappers said he would be killed unless Israel freed Sheik Abdul Ka rim Obeid by 6 p.m. Tuesday (11 a.m. EDT). Telephone callers in Cyprus, Nicosia, and Beirut claiming to represent the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, which held Hig gins, also set deadlines to kill Anglican church envoy Terry Waite. But Tuesday night a typewritten statement signed with the name of the group denied it made such threats. Waite, 50, disappared Jan. 20, 1987, after leaving his hotel in Moslem west Beirut to ne gotiate for the release of American hostages. No group ever claimed to have kidnapped him. The second deadline mentioned by the telephone callers concerning Waite was mid night Tuesday (5 p.m. EDT). Fifteen minutes before that, the independent newspaper An- Nahar received a statement saying, in Arabic: “The use of our name to threaten to kill Terry Waite is a hostile and frivolous act. “We warn opportunists and transgressers against entering on the line to lie to world public opinion by using the name of our orga nization for wicked ends. “We have threatened to kill Higgins and have completed that. We are not going to be bothered by the Nicosia bats or their offshoots in Beirut who like making tele phone claims on behalf of foreign intelligence services.” It was signed Organization of the Oppressed on Earth. The midnight deadline passed with no re port of any action taken against Waite. Israel Television said the army would let the International Committee of the Red Cross visit Obeid and his two abducted assis tants if Shiite groups would allow a Red Cross visit to three Israeli soldiers held in south Lebanon. A Defense Ministry spokesman confirmed the report but would not give de tails. Obeid is a spiritual leader of Hezbollah, or Party of God, the fundamentalist Shiite Mos lem group believed to be an umbrella for hos tage takers. Hezbollah also is said to have two of three Israeli soldiers held prisoner in south Lebanon. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel suggested Tuesday that Israel was conducting negotiations with pro-Iranian Shiite groups to win freedom for the soldiers and Western hostages in a trade for Obeid and other Shiites. )n Program will loan household items to international students at A&M By Cindy McMillian $50 :s trains, $S| cipate $*•: icsen jit > # $50 tfij $200 $2ft' artic- »*• 0 ite. 0 $200 0 : 300 S31; iarti- $3^ lose $3D STAFF WRITER International students attending Texas A&M often shoulder a heavy financial burden, but a new program ! developed by the International Student Services Office | will lend these newcomers a helping hand. The International Loan Closet will provide donated household items to new international students and their families who need help getting started. Since a number of countries forbid these students to leave with more than $50, they arrive at A&M with little or no money for basic items to furnish a home. Items such as dishes, kitchen utensils, linens, office supplies and children’s toys and games will be made available to the 600 international students expected in August. Students are encouraged to take whatever items they need, use them, and either pass them along or return them to the program for reuse. Suzanne Droleskey, Assistant International Students Adviser, said most universities with large international student enrollments already have a similar program. A&M had one several years ago, she said, and student need has prompted its revival. The International Student Services Office distrib uted flyers last week to all faculty and staff members asking for donations to the program, and Droleskey said response has been positive. She has received a number of calls from individuals around campus who are interested in donating and are telling others about the program, she said. Her main concern now is storage space, she said. The office is prepared to pack things in boxes or stow them under desks until they are distributed. “We feel it’s more important to offer the program than to worry about space,” she said. The students will be arriving August 14 and 15, and the items will be made available to them in a conference room in Bizzell Hall August 14-18. Donations may be dropped off in the alcove on the first floor of Bizzell Hall West any time during the week of August 7-11. 100 hi [? Delta 1141 crew joked about crashes minutes before D-FW airport disaster DALLAS (AP) — The Delta 1141 flight crew chatted jovially about an earlier fatal plane crash and topics from birds to politics minutes before their own plane crashed on take-off at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport last August, killing 14 peo ple. The cockpit conversation record ing was unsealed Tuesday despite objections by Delta, which has said the flight crew failed to properly set wing flaps before takeoff. About 10 minutes of conversation had been kept secret by investigators after it was deemed “casual and non duty related.” Those segments were released by a judge at the request of ABC affiliate WFAA-TV. The Salt Lake City-bound flight, which originated in Jackson, Miss., crashed in clear weather. More than 90 passengers survived. Flight attendant Mary O’Neill, who survived the crash, participated in the conversation in the jet’s cabin, according to the tape. Some of the talk apparently took place while the plane was moving on the tarmac. Since 1981, the Federal Aviation Administration has had a “sterile cockpit” rule that prohibits any con versation among flight crews not re lated to the operation of the aircraft when the plane is taxiing and in mo tion, and when flying below 10,000 feet in an approach or departure. Flight attendants also are specifically prohibited from entering the cockpit during those periods. As they waited for takeoff, an un identified cockpit crew member said that before arriving in Dallas, “We forgot to discuss about the dating habits of our flight attendants so we could get it on the recorder in case we crashed.” “Then the media would have some kind of a juicy tidbit,” the crew member said. That was a reference to Continen tal crew members who were said to have discussed the dating habits of a flight attendant before their jet crashed on takeoff in Denver in 1987, killing 28 people. “I think they’d have nothing on this crew,” O’Neill said with a laugh, according to the tape. “We’ve got to leave something for our wives and children to listen to,” a crew member said. The crew also discussed their views on the media and the 1988 presidential election and com mented on Jesse Jackson and Dan Quayle. The tape ends with a scream and the sound of the plane breaking apart. Delta last week accepted responsi bility for the crash and said its own investigation revealed the crew failed to set the wing flaps for take off. Jailbird Glenda Cole of Bryan calls potential sponsors in an effort to raise money for her “bail” of $500 Photo by Kathy Ha vein an after she was thrown in the March of Dimes mock jail fundraiser.