GALVESTON — Landry’s employees and their families put Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier workers to the test Sunday as they prepare for the official opening.
A visiting judge on Thursday ordered $7,500 in sanctions against Christopher Dupuy, judge of Galveston County Court at Law No. 3, stemming from a Houston attorney's attempts to depose Dupuy in connection with a $500,000 fraud and malpractice suit filed against him.
The judge also denied Dupuy's first and second motions to recuse visiting Judge Shearn Smith from hearing the lawsuit. Dupuy's motions were filed, "solely for the purpose of delay and without sufficient cause, and that in the interest of justice an award of sanctions against (Dupuy) and his counsel are warranted," Judge Elizabeth Ray said in her order.
Phone service at the county's Joe Vickery Animal Shelter was cut off by a construction crew this afternoon. It took crews about four hours to fix the downed phone lines, but phone service was restored at about 5:25 p.m., Galveston County Health District Spokesman Kurt Koopmann said.
Residents and others can call 409-948-2485 for animal control assistance.
Galveston County residents, including Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski, gathered Thursday at the courthouse to participate in the 60th Annual National Day of Prayer.
Power was knocked out for about two hours in the South Shore Harbour area of League City Wednesday night. The lights went dark about 9 p.m., but power was restored to most customers about 11 p.m., officials with Texas-New Mexico Power told League City officials.
9:31 p.m. Update: League City officials report that the South Shore Harbour area is experiencing a power outage. Texas-New Mexico Power crews on working to make repairs. Texas-New Mexico tells city officials the repairs should be complete by 10 p.m.
Area Closings
The Clear Creek and Friendswood school districts cancelled all athletic and after school activities Wednesday due to the threat of ice on roads. All after school activities for Wednesday at Texas City ISD were cancelled.
All of League City's parks department activities were cancelled Wednesday evening.
County officials had two warming centers on standby in case residents lose power during the cold spell. If opened, the warming centers would be located at High Island Middle School, 2113 6th Street in High Island, and the first floor of the Galveston County Courthouse, 722 Moody Avenue in Galveston.
College of the Mainland closed at 5 p.m. Wednesday. The college will reopen at the normal scheduled time Thursday. All evening classes Wednesday were canceled.
The City of Galveston Municipal Court and Water Department Customer Service closed at 3 p.m. Wednesday. Island Transit Bus Service will continue without interruption. McGuire Dent Recreation Center and Wright Cuney Recreation Center closed at 6 p.m.
Galveston City Hall remains open, but the city began releasing non-essential employees at their department head’s discretion at 3 p.m Wednesday. The city will open for business Thursday at 8 a.m. as usual. City council meetings will continue as scheduled.
No plans to close Galveston Causeway
Spokeswoman Alicia Cahill reported Wednesday that the Galveston Causeway would remain open and is a state priority.
All traffic lanes will remain open unless ice accumulation requires lane closures, the city announced in a statement. In the event of icy conditions Wednesday night, travel across the causeway would be restricted to one inbound and one outbound lane. Crews were closely monitoring the causeway’s deck temperature.
Spokeswoman Karen Othon of the Texas Department of Transportation said traffic on the Galveston Causeway helped to keep the bridge dry.
Update 4:40 p.m: The Texas Public Utility Commission says weather-related problems at about 50 power plants took 7,000 megawatts, about 15 percent, of the state's generation capacity off line today forcing rolling blackouts that are expected to continue tonight and tomorrow.
Update 3:45 p.m: The Electric Reliability Council of Texas says there is a "strong possibility" of more rolling blackouts this evening and tomorrow "depending on how quickly the disabled generation units can be returned to service."
Neither ERCOT, which manages most of the state's power grid, nor the Texas Public Utility Commission, which oversees ERCOT, has offered any detail about what generation units were disabled, how they were disabled or where they are.
EROCT is urging consumers to conserve power between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. today.
At peak periods about 18,000 CenterPoint Energy customers, and about 22,000 Texas-New Mexico Power customers were without power Wednesday.
Update 1:45 p.m: CenterPoint Energy and Texas-New Mexico Power both have said the rolling blackouts are completed for today. Customers who continue to have electrical problems should call for service. TNMP had as many as 22,000 customers without power, but said all were restored as of 1:08 p.m.
Original Post:
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which controls most of the state’s power grid, has imposed rolling blackouts across most of Texas because of high demand driven by cold weather.
Rolling blackouts occur when providers selectively cut power to entire neighborhoods for periods of time to reduce demand on the grid. Businesses and consumers were being asked to conserve energy where possible today.
Power outages should last 15 to 20 minutes in CenterPoint Energy’s service areas, according to the city of Galveston. However, ERCOT told the Associated Press that outages could last 10 to 45 minutes.
If your power stays out for longer than 45 minutes, notify CenterPoint energy at (800) 332-7143. An ERCOT spokeswoman could not say when the blackouts would end, the news service Reuters reported.
College of the Mainland has cancelled classes today due to the rolling blackouts. The La Marque school district will postpone the Community Celebration of the 2010 La Marque Cougar football team scheduled for Thursday. The City of La Marque has cancelled municipal court for Friday.
Galveston County residents called police and fire departments most the morning complaining of a smoky haze that appears to have covered much of the county.
County emergency management officials also spent much the morning trying to track down the source of the haze. Turns out the smoke is coming from a brushfire in Chambers County.
John Simsen, Galveston County Emergency Management Coordinator, was able to find the source of the smoke with the help of the National Weather Service. Using satellite imagery and adjusting for wind direction, the fire is burning on Smith Point in Chambers County, Simsen said.
“It was almost too small for satellite to pick it up,” Simsen said.
League City officials sent a notification to its residents that erroneously reported the smoke was coming from Galveston.
Simsen said he spoke with Chambers County officials, who confirmed the brush fire. Those officials also told Galveston County authorities the blaze was not a controlled burn.
Galveston County Commissioners unanimously approved a plan to distribute $66 million in Ike recovery grant monies to cities. The plan calls for each of the cities in the county, with the exception of Galveston, receive a minimum of $1 million for infrastructure repairs or enhancements.
A formula that equally weighs damage caused by the hurricane, property value loses and how much storm debris there was also approved to determine how much more than the $1 million each city will receive.
The county had to decide today how it will distribute about $66 million of the federally funded community development block grants for infrastructure needs for the unincorporated parts of the county plus all of the cities except for Galveston, which has received $267.4 million in its own grant money. In their vote they also approved a plan to manage the $99 million that will go to Ike-related housing needs in the county.
Eligible projects include fixing or upgrading water and sewer systems, roads or power systems that were damaged or failed to work during the hurricane. The money is then divided up with the unincorporated areas of the county — Bolivar Peninsula, San Leon/Bacliff and Freddiesville — earmarked to get about $40 million with the rest to be split among the cities.
County Commissioners will meet again today to map out a plan to divvy up some of the $166 million in Ike recovery grant money to cities. Even before the session begins, some are complaining the county’s distribution formula is flawed.
Galveston County commissioners are scheduled to meet early Wednesday morning to discuss how they will spend $166 million in Hurricane Ike relief money for housing and infrastructure improvements.
You can follow the commissioners’ discussion on my Twitter feed.
The commissioners are under a deadline to devise a plan on how to spend the money. First step is to tell the federal government how they will devise the program that will determine who gets money and how much.
60 percent of the funds have to be spent on repairing or rebuilding houses damaged by Hurricane Ike. Funds are earmarked to be given to low-income individuals.
After meeting in League City since Hurricane Ike wrecked Galveston Island in September, Galveston County Commissioners Court will hold its first scheduled meeting at the county courthouse next week.
Commissioners had been meeting in the pavilion at Walter Hall Park since the storm flooded the courthouse. The last of those regular meetings in the north county was held today (Jan. 7).
The return to the courthouse (722 Moody) is another sign of recovery since the hurricane, but it is also somewhat bittersweet for Commissioner Ken Clark, a League City resident who was enjoying the shorter drive to get to the meetings.
Incidentally, the move of the meetings back to Galveston coincides with County Judge Jim Yarbrough moving back into his island house after it had been ravaged by the storm. He had been living in League City while his house was being repaired.
The agenda for the meeting has not been set, but I expect it will include at least a brief recognition of the return to the courthouse.
Wednesday night brought Galveston County's first snowfall in four years. There were reports of the white stuff from Friendswood to Santa Fe, from Alta Loma to Dickinson and Texas City to Galveston.
Many Galveston County Daily News readers sent in their photos of the snowfall.
The winter weather wasn't all fun and games, though. Read more
Chickens in Alta Loma covered in snow. Photo by Carl Glas Send us your pics
Carliana Cook looks up with excitement as she watches the snow fall. Photo by Erica Cook/Nassau Bay Send us your pics
Snow falls onto the Santa's Kingdom fire truck. The annual parade and other related Santa's Kingdom holiday festivities are Friday in Santa Fe. Photo by Kevin Salter/Santa's Kingdom
Have you had trouble voting, or getting a voter registration card?
Counties all over the state are having problems with a new elections administration system. Some say the result will be chaos at the polls come May 12. Others have faith that a lot of scrambling on the part of state and county officials will keep things running smoothly.
Many of the problems stem from a backlog of voter registration records. I’d like to know of anyone who has waited a long time for a voter card after applying for one. Is there anybody out there who has had to go to great lengths to exercise the right to vote?
Something about this puppy mill story has been bugging me for days.
I’m relieved that almost all of the seized dogs have found new homes. But what about the thousands of unwanted animals that are euthanized every year in area shelters because no one shows up to adopt them? Why don’t hundreds of people line up at the shelter to take them home?
I know this case has received a lot of attention all over the Houston area. One dog lover came all the way from Katy to take home one of the puppies. I also realize the circumstances under which the animals arrived at the shelter were horrible.
But every situation that produced an unwanted or abandoned animal is bad. The dogs and cats that come into shelters every day likely came out of situations that would generate just as much sympathy.
Only, their stories never get told.
As an animal lover, it’s just hard for me to realize we have so many people willing to take in “celebrity” dogs but unwilling to give homes to “unknown” animals.
Another annoyance: Why didn’t anyone show up to adopt one of the four cats that were taken from the puppy mill owner?
About Chris Paschenko
Chris Paschenko, a native of Birmingham, Ala., moved to Texas in 2007 with his wife and covers public safety and courts for The Daily News.
Paschenko began his newspaper career in 1996 at The Birmingham News and also worked at the Opelika-Auburn News and Decatur Daily in Alabama.
