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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 11, 2001)
Ms may be down because of flooding ■HOUSTON (AP) — An esti- Rted 76,000 ATMs in 22 itates may be affected by ■ekend flooding in the Joi.theast Texas, a banking Dflncial said. ■Access to ATMs in the PULSE leiwork was disrupted when hf primary and secondary llwer supplies were flooded in ■■uston. said Julian Read, a ;arza rw&w Bjkesman for PULSE, a non- mg down tt4r<pfit electronic funds transfer was part of:||twork. It has more than class of tftoO financial institution .lumbers. Iso, an estimated 300,000 nt-of-sale transactions — us- , ■ an ATM at a cashier — also fay be affected. Read said. | I |®Officials are trying to switch ^ Ope rations to a processing cen- . '■ in Dallas. PULSE anticipates ^ j majority of the system to be 1 I IMerational sometime Sunday, i jt should be fully opera- Maal early in the week, he said. the chest. Sh Second trial ends •at tragedy,’ ^/vith guilty verdict brds just failitljB :er has been?.»WICHITA FALLS (AP) — native leave.I ^ree years after Zacchauus nd a halfve : ’ e ^ was 9 un ned down on a . . .u , .. itreet simply because he was . . .black, relatives say they can a letters ot coir:*. ' . , J J . , itai: to heal, a so two ^ t jK3 nce . avowec j w hjte su- Dremacist John Matthew Turn- r sIk was, 30W/ 28, of Iowa Park was con- ar, Kowalski - /jcted Friday of murder in 78th and neighbo District Court. The judge will cepticalalwut determine sentencing, ng of the site .The jury deliberated less than ; officer wasi? twe hours in Turnbow's second itinij and polii Tial. His first, in fvlarch 2000, vestigating it 2n ded in a mistrial after jurors — ICopefiilkdJ 1 of them white .— remained deadlocked for two days. ^ : Turnbow and co-defendant lodger Bridges allegedly at- the police are acked F j e | d jn October 1998 css t" some int yhj| e 1 00 Lj ng for another black jeling t ' le nan who had dated Bridges' an the incider ix-wife. Bridges remains jailed 11 the details, i nd is awaiting trial in connec- know if theddon with the murder, t fault. H^rurnbow's sentencing has ieen set for July 3. Nation INSIDE • Four Aggies selected in 2001 baseball draft ittalion News Radio 57 p.m. KAMU 90.9 www.thebatt.com Nlorth Dakota hit by looding, hail storm ' BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) —Vio- ^ storrns swe Pt through parts I ^ j jfNorth Dakota, dunhping hail L M. ^at piled up like snow and ; :alled vehicles in the streets, iracattered power outages ^ere reported with Saturday ight's storms, but there were o immediate reports of in- iries. More than an inch of hail 'as reported in some areas. BThe National Weather Ser- ice said 2 inches of rain fell in iss than an hour, causing ooding that cut off a number f Bismarck streets. A small ream flash flood advisory was sued for the area. |1|& number of funnel clouds 'ere also reported, but there 'ere no reports of tornado iuchdowns. Floods blamed for 15 deaths Houston declared disaster area y some highways remain under water HOUSTON (AP) — Floods from Tropical Storm Allison were blamed Sunday for at least 15 deaths as damage estimates climbed into the hundreds of millions of dollars in the Houston anea. With waters in most areas receding, it was feared the death toll could grow as the raging waters that inundated areas of Southeast Texas were slipping back with in bayou banks. Some residents, primarily on Hous ton’s east side, continued to be rescued from their homes Sunday by National Guard troops in 5-ton trucks who ar rived after Gov. Rick Perry declared a 28-county area disaster area. President Bush also followed Saturday with a Fed eral disaster declaration. Skies wete cloudy Sunday and fore casts were for little or no additional rain. Most of the heavier rain had moved to the east into Louisiana, where at least one fatality was reported. Some of the rainfall amounts were staggering. Double-digit figures in inch es were common on rain gauges around Southeast Texas, with one station on the east side of Houston registering just un der 3 feet since Allison, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, came ashore last week. Much of the nation’s fourth-largest city dried out and returned to normal Sunday although some highways, par ticularly on the east side or near down town, remained blocked by high water or scores of cars and trucks that were abandoned Friday night when flash flooding from the storm caught mo torists by surprise. “This is overwhelming,” said Hous ton Police Sgt. CJ. Klausner as he watched crews removing dozens of cars and tractor-trailer rigs from Interstate 610, which was closed on the east side of the city for a third day. “It’s probably totaled,” Charles Steele said of hi§ big rig, which he swam from when the high water hit. His empty tanker trailer floated in the rising water and jackknifed, landing on a small Jeep that was stuck behind him. A Houston fire truck and a bus were among the vehicles that had been trapped. “I’ve got to get this thing going,” said Steve Gonzales, who returned Sunday to where his girlfriend’s car was among about 35 vehicles engulfed at one intersection. Water had topped the dashboard. The Harris County Office of Emer gency Management estimated 20,000 homes suffered $500 million worth of damage from floodwaters. Damage to public facilities and businesses, not to mention the toll outside of Harris Coun ty, were expected to send the cost much higher. “If I were to give a guess ... it would top $1 billion,” Brown said. “That would he a guess, but it would suggest we have had a serious problem.” The mayor urged downtown employ ers to give their workers the day off Monday. “Because of buildings being closed j power out and water in some of the buildings, I’m asking employers to con sider tomorrow a day of recovery to let downtown get back on track, back on its feet, to take the day off to take care of See Floods on Page 2. Summer days Regan Chesher holds the flag as Chuck Glenwinkel takes a shot at the A&M golf course on Sunday after- BERNARDO GARZA/Th£ Battalion noon. With the showers gone, many students and area residents took advantage of sunny summer skies. Man surrenders peacefully after standoff with police Stuart Hutson The Battalion The 500 block of Kyle Av enue was blocked off and resi dents were evacuated from their homes early Saturda) r morning as a 14-hour standoff began between police and a 26-year-old College Station man who allegedly attacked his mother and barricaded himself in her house. College Station police re sponded to a report of an assault at 505 Kyle Street at 1 a.m. to find the mother of Robert Alex Garza with a broken finger and nose, a bruised arm and a black eye. She said that Garza, who was wanted by the police for pa role violation, had attacked her and was armed with a knife. Garza’s mother was sent to the College Station Medical Center for treatment while his 20-year-old sister looked on tearfully as College Station Police Department (CSPD) SWAT and hostage negotia tion teams set up a perimeter around the house Garza re fused to exit. “We aren’t sure if there are any guns in the house, but at this point we are acting cau tiously to make sure no one gets hurt,” said Sgt. Leeth of the CSPD, two hours into the stand off. “Our basic plan is to just wait him out.” And wait they did. Periodi cally attempting to contact Qarza with the aid of his sister, who was waiting nearby in her car, CSPD officers rotated with Bryan Police until Garza finally surrendered peacefully at approximately 3:20 p.m. “This is just crazy, I didn’t ex pect something to happen like this in dais neighborhood,” said A&M sophomore business ma jor Aaron Murski, who was with friends when he was asked by police to leave his house around 2:30 a.m. “All I wanted to do was to sleep in my own bed tonight, but they won’t even let me near my house.” The police were unaware of the conditions of Garza’s parole violation, but he is currently be ing held for the violation at the Brazos Countyjail. The assault on his mother is still being in vestigated and additional charges could be filed. Heroin overdoses rise in Austin AUS T IN (AP) — Ten peojile have died in Travis County this year from heroin- related overdoses, almost half the 22 over dose deaths from all drugs this year, offi cials say. Four of the deaths occurred during one week in April. Although it’s too soon to tell whether the county will set a record this year, the jump in the number of heroin users seeking treatment has alarmed officials. A few years ago, about five peo ple a week would seek help at Austin Recovery, a non profit rehabilitation clinic. Now the clinic is seeing about five new addicts a day. It’s just a tremendous increase that I haven t seen ever, and I’ve been doing this for 1 3 years, said Bud Hibbs, the direc tor of admissions at Austin Recovery. I lei oin just seerps to be at th is point very * cheap and very readily available, whereas many years ago it was more of an under ground drug.” The number of heroin abusers seeking treatment at the clinic has jumped 17 percent « Heroin just seems to be at this point very cheap and very readily available” — Bud Hibbs director of admissions at Austin Recovery since 1997, Hibbs told the Austin American- Statesman. Other drug-abuse professionals say they’ve noticed the same thing. Three years ago, teen-agers at Phoenix Academy, which provides substance abuse treatment in Austin for adolescents, rarely mentioned using heroin. “Now they are reporting trying it one or two times, and most typically they are smoking it,” said Laurie DeLong, the cen ter’s director. Officials have noticed that traffickers are starting to stockpile the drug at the Texas- Mexico border, said Nicholas Nargi, resi dent agent in charge at the U.S. Drug En forcement Administration office in Austin. “Some are smuggling larger kilogram quantities in tar and powder form from the interior of Mexico,” Nargi said. The amount of heroin seized by the DEA nationwide has increased in the past few years. See Heroin on Page 2. TEAM Blinn debuts Elizabeth Raines The Battalion Last week, 500 hopefuls on A&M’s fall waiting list were giv en the word that they were ac cepted —well, partially accepted. Texas A&M University Pres ident Dr. Ray M. Bowen met with Blinn College President Donald E. Voelter on June 7 at the Bush Presidential Confer ence Center to formally initiate the Transfer Enrollment at A&M (TEAM) Blinn program. TEAM Blinn has been formed through the combined Most students that go to Blinn go to Texas A&tM, and TEAM Blinn will make the transition easier for them.” — Ronald Douglas A&M executive vice president and provost efforts of Texas A&M and Blinn to allow students who qualify for acceptance into Texas A&M, but could not get in because of lim ited space, to be admitted as part-time students. “There are many more stu dents that apply to A&M and [meet all the requirements] than we can take due to space,” said Ronald Douglas, A&M execu tive vice president and provost. “Most students that go to Blinn go to Texas A&M, and TEAM Blinn will make the transition easier for them.” The top 500 students on the A&M waiting list were sent in vitations in the beginning of June to participate in the TEAM Blinn pilot program. “We are very excited about the program,” said Vivian Jeffer son, director of admissions and records for Blinn. “ We sent out 500 invitations and so far ap proximately 175 students have responded.” Students in the program will be considered part-time students at A&M and will pay for and re ceive the benefits of being a part- time student. These benefits in clude access to A&M’s library resources, the Student Comput ing Center (SCC), the Student Recreation Center, A.P. Beutel Health Center and Food Ser vices, along with tickets to stu dent athletic and performing arts events. They may also join the Corps of Cadets, fraternities and See Blinn on Page 2.