Category: Top News Stories

Massive flight cancellations by Southwest Airlines during the Christmas holiday week are prompting the federal government to look into why thousands of travelers were left stranded across the country, along with huge piles of luggage in airports served by the beleaguered airline.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his agency would examine what caused Southwest’s widespread cancellations, which began as a massive polar storm gripped much of the country a few days before Christmas. The airline was able to resume normal operations on Friday as another holiday weekend approached. The airline canceled more than 15,700 flights since Dec. 22, according to The Dallas Morning News. Cancellations by other airlines were a fraction of that amount, according to published reports.
“Because what we’re seeing right now, from the system and the flights themselves to the inability to reach anybody on a customer service phone line, it is just completely unacceptable,” Buttigieg told CBS early Wednesday. The Senate Commerce Committee also plans to investigate.
Southwest does not use the hub-and-spoke system relied upon by other major carriers, instead relying on a point-to-point system. That means even where planes were available, often crews and pilots were stranded in other cities.
RRC launches probe into Atmos service issues
The Texas Railroad Commission has launched an investigation of Atmos Energy’s gas distribution system, which left some Texans without heat during freezing weather just before Christmas. The company reported low gas pressure in cities across North and Central Texas, leaving some customers without heat. On Dec. 23, the Texas Tribune reported, Atmos asked its 2 million Texas customers to conserve gas use by lowering thermostats, not using gas fireplaces and any gas-powered appliances.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed a letter ordering the railroad commission and the Texas attorney general’s office to investigate Atmos Energy’s “failure to prepare for the winter weather event last week.”
Leading up to and during the winter event, State of Texas agencies worked around the clock to mobilize resources and assist utilities in any way possible. At no time did Atmos Energy request assistance… It is apparent that Atmos Energy acted irresponsibly and was unprepared for the event,” the letter said in part.
TPWD opposes listing prairie chicken as endangered
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has reiterated its opposition to a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the lesser prairie chicken as endangered in some areas and threatened in others, citing “tremendous” voluntary collaboration with private landowners and industry to conserve the chicken’s habitat.
The federal designation will take place in January. It primarily affects Panhandle counties where the lesser prairie chicken is found.
“This decision jeopardizes decades of voluntary conservation efforts, increases regulatory burden and does not assure recovery of the species,” David, Yoskowitz, TPWD executive director, said.
$54 million in career, technical education grants
The Texas Workforce Commission has announced 152 grants totaling more than $54 million to various public community, state and technical colleges, as well as school district and charter schools across the state. The grants will be used to buy equipment to establish or expand programs that offer Texas students the opportunity to earn licenses, certificates, or post-secondary degrees in fields such as nursing, welding, automotive repair and dentistry.
“It’s important to identify high-demand jobs, but it’s critical to proactively commit resources to ensure Texans are ready to meet those workforce needs,” said TWC Chairman Bryan Daniel.

1ST Place: The Jaworowski family home is full of the most beautiful kind of Christmas Spirit – the kind where the whole community comes together to make Christmas special for a family going through a hard time. Mrs. Caitlin Jaworowski passed away this December after
a long battle with cancer, so friends, family and community all pitched in to create this wonderful
Winter Wonderland for her children. So the gold medal and a $500 gift card donated by DJ Carlson Memorial Bust n’ Burn will go to the Jaworowski family this year.
2nd place: The Ingleston family
has a sprawling display on Highway 173 heading toward Jourdanton. It has it all – color, animation and a manger scene at the center of it all. Towering alone is a huge 51-foot tall tree of lights topped with an angel. If you are lucky, you might see Santa here too. 3rd Place– With every Christmas
character lit up across their sprawling display, the Ruesch family home is truly magical – feels just like we were walking into Santa’s workshop.
“Most Magical” – Morris home. Live! Santa Claus himself
greeted children at the gate,

If you think it was cold this week, let us tell you a story of record cold temperatures that were experienced in Texas history.
February 1899 was a very cold month, thanks in part to a bitterly cold outbreak from the 11th through the 13th. In fact, nothing in the history of Texas quite compares to February 12th 1899.
Some of the coldest weather to ever hit Texas occurred on February 12th of that year. The lowest temperature ever recorded in the state occurred at Tulia in Swisher County in the extreme southern Texas Panhandle. The thermometer dropped to 23 degrees below zero. However,
there were unofficial reports that were even colder. Low temperatures
of 30 degrees below zero were measured that night at Wolf Creek and at a site southeast of Perryton, both in Ochiltree County in the northern Panhandle. This cold air spread throughout the state with reports of a thin layer of ice coating most of Galveston Bay.
The all-time record low temperature that was established at Tulia was tied years later when Seminole, in Gaines County in West Texas,
reported a temperature of 23 degrees below zero on February 8, 1933.
Many Texas cities established all-time record low temperatures In February 1899. Below is a list of the record lows at various cities across the state.
Abilene………….9 below zero…set in 1947
Amarillo………..16 below zero…set in 1899
Austin…………..2 below zero…set in 1949
Beaumont……..10 degrees……set in 1906
Brownsville……..12 degrees……set in 1899
Corpus Christi…..11 degrees……set in 1899
Dallas/Fort Worth….8 below zero…set in 1899
Del Rio…………10 degrees……set in 1989
El Paso………….8 below zero…set in 1962
Galveston………..8 degrees….. Set in 1899
Houston………….5 degrees……set in 1930 and 1940
Lubbock…………17 below zero…set in 1933
Midland/Odessa…..11 below zero…set in 1985
San Angelo……….4 below zero…set in 1989
San Antonio………0 degrees……set in 1949
Waco…………….5 below zero…set in 1949 and 1899
Wichita Falls……12 below zero…set in 1947

By ANTON RIECHER
A ransomware attack on the company serving as hosting provider for the city of Devine means that any email communications from Dec. 9 through 13 may be permanently lost, the city’s IT consultant told the city council last week.
“Network Solutions basically lost their exchange server due to an encryption hack,” consultant James Evans said. “So it was pretty much on their part. They didn’t upgrade some servers and I think it was just due to negligence on their part.”
In response, Evans redirected the city’s computer servers to Office 365, a subscription service operated by Microsoft.
“Now that we are up and running I would probably stick with 365 just because they are a publicly traded company,” Evans said. He doubted that Network Solutions would survive the lawsuits certain to result from the latest loss of critical data.
Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware, preventing access to computer files, systems, or networks unless a ransom is paid for its return.
According to Forbes magazine, Network Solutions is the fifth largest domain name registrar worldwide with nearly seven million domains on file.
Evans said that city service emails are normally copied to a local hard drive for protection. However, any emails received during the affected period are likely encrypted by the ransomware and unreadable.
As a precaution, Evans said he has reset passwords for all the city accounts affected by the attack.

By Anton Riecher
Despite a 12-hour power outage Dec. 10 at the East Medina County Special Utility District plant in Pearson none of the 5,000 people served went without water, district superintendent Bruce Alexander said.
“What really helped were capital improvements we recently made that included building a new half million gallon storage tank at plant one,” he said.
However, that tank came within a foot of being empty before water could be restored, Alexander said.
As of Dec. 14, operations at plant one and all its wells is completely restored, Alexander said.
Either late Friday or early Saturday a 150-horsepower well motor at plant one failed. Employees arriving at the scene attempted to reset the motor but it suddenly burned out instead, causing a “compounded issue,” Alexander said.
“It just literally blew fire out the side of the motor,” he said. “The surge was so great and so quick that it went through our control circuits and actually took out the electrical service coming from CPS,” Alexander said. “First we had to get CPS out to restore service and, even then, we couldn’t get out controls to work.”
Those controls operated not only the well with the burned-out motor but all the wells on site, effectively shutting down plant one, Alexander said. Fortunately, within 12 hours workers were able to get one well working to replenish the rapidly depleted water in storage.
The district took steps to make customers aware of the need to minimize water use. Besides posting a notice on the district webpage, Alexander activated an emergency communications system to alert customers via text message and email as to the progress being made.
Another capital improvement that came in handy was the district’s drive to update emergency generators at all its water plants. Prior to obtaining federal stimulus money through the county for the project, the district invested more than $200,000 in emergency generators in recent years.
“We put one in a few years ago at plant 1 and it was the system that kept power running during the big snow in 2021,” Alexander said. Enough fuel to operate five days straight is kept on site, he said.
Meanwhile, workers toiled around-the-clock to get plant one back completely back on line. Finding the needed parts for the control system alone became a daunting task, Alexander said.
“I’ve been told we were actually very fortunate to get things working because the controls we use come from California and it’s a 15-day wait to get the parts,” Alexander said. “We were able to scrounge up the parts we needed. I hate to use that phrase – scrounge up – but it is what it is.”
Replacing the destroyed motor cost $32,000 with another $10,000 spent to repair the damaged controls, Alexander said.
“This was a major issue for us but thank goodness we have the resources to cover these types of emergencies,” he said.