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Posts Tagged ‘Texas’

Drought and wildfire threaten America’s cattle capital

July 21, 2011 1 comment

csmonitor

* A mother and her calf idle in dead grassland on the Swenson Ranch outside Stamford, Texas, in this photo from May 21. Severe drought and millions of acres of wildfires have delivered a potent one-two punch this year, forcing tough decisions on ranchers across cattle country. Elliott Blackburn / Reuters /. File

Chicago-As if the heartland hasn’t faced enough this summer, with wildfires, droughts, and punishing heat, cattle ranchers are now facing a hay shortage.

The triple-digit temperatures, expected to result in the worst drought north-central Texas has ever experienced, follows spring wildfires, which scorched millions of acres that traditionally nourish the nation’s largest steer population – five million head of cattle.

Most Texas pasture and range lands – 86 percent – are currently “poor” or “very poor,” according to the US Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. The same rating applied to 69 percent of Oklahoma and 40 percent of Kansas.

The hardships this year “don’t compare to any in recent years,” says Jason Miller, a county agriculture agent for the Texas AgriLife Extension Service (TALES). “The ranchers are just holding on.”

July temperatures have topped 110 degrees in the heart of cattle country, from Texas to Kansas. Ranchers complain that Read more…

Categories: Droughts, United States Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Texas will be getting another eye in the sky

July 14, 2011 1 comment

mysanantonio

Second aerial drone is coming to Corpus Christi.
By Gary Martin

WASHINGTON — A second unmanned aerial vehicle soon will be based at Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, providing surveillance of the Gulf Coast and the U.S.-Mexico border above Texas, officials said Wednesday.

A third Predator drone maintained in Arizona is used to monitor Texas border areas over the Big Bend region and El Paso.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Kostelnik, who heads the U.S. Customs and Border Protection UAV program, told a House Homeland Security subcommittee the new drone would provide additional surveillance, and “on any given day there could be three or more (unmanned) aircraft in Texas.”

Texas lawmakers on the Homeland Security Committee asked Secretary Janet Napolitano in a letter this year to base in Texas one of two additional UAVs approved by Congress.

“Technology is part of Read more…

Categories: Texas Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Amazing -‘Massive Growing Sinkhole’ In Texas

July 12, 2011 Comments off
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Experts warn epic weather ravaging US could worsen

June 29, 2011 Comments off

rawstory

CHICAGO — Epic floods, massive wildfires, drought and the deadliest tornado season in 60 years are ravaging the United States, with scientists warning that climate change will bring even more extreme weather.

The human and economic toll over just the past few months has been staggering: hundreds of people have died, and thousands of homes and millions of acres have been lost at a cost estimated at more than $20 billion.

And the United States has not even entered peak hurricane season.

“This spring was one of the most extreme springs that we’ve seen in the last century since we’ve had good records,” said Deke Arndt, chief of climate monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

While it’s not possible to tie a specific weather event or pattern to climate change, Arndt said this spring’s extreme weather is in line with what is forecast for the future.

“In general, but not everywhere, it is expected that the wetter places will get wetter and the drier places will tend to see more prolonged dry periods,” he told AFP.

“We are seeing an increase in the amount (of rain and snow) that comes at once, and the ramifications are that it’s a lot more water to deal with at a Read more…

Categories: Coming Events, Earth changes Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Drought conditions taking toll on Texas lakes

June 21, 2011 Comments off

kens5

 The boat ramps at Lake Medina just seem to go on and on. What used to be only a few feet to the water are now hundreds of feet and getting further every day. While Medina is by far the lowest of the area lakes, it isn’t alone in its shrinking shoreline.

Medina Lake is down almost 30 feet, Canyon Lake is down 5 feet, Lake Buchanan is down 14 feet; even Lake Travis is down 34 feet.

The summer drought has depleted these reservoirs one by one, with areas of shoreline exposed for the sun for the first time in two years.

Across the state, the combined totals of Texas’s reservoirs are down to 71.8 percent, a decline of almost five percent since May 22, with lake levels dropping a combine 2,700,000 feet. Read more…

Categories: Droughts Tags: , ,

Wallow Fire Threatening Power Supplies to New Mexico and Texas

June 9, 2011 Comments off

christianpost

Firefighters have battled through the night in an attempt to protect numerous Arizona mountain communities from the spreading Wallow fire that has forced thousands to evacuate and flee their homes.

(Photo: Reuters/Joshua Lott)Arizona Department of Trasportation workers prepare to close off a section of U.S. Highway 60 due to the Wallow Wildfire in Springerville, Arizona June 8, 2011. A wildfire believed sparked by inattentive campers blazed unchecked for an 11th day in eastern Arizona on Wednesday, leaving at least 600 square miles of pine forest blackened and menacing several mountain towns near the New Mexico border.

The fire has now become the second largest ever seen in Arizona, and is threatening electricity supplies as far away as Texas.

The fire, which during Wednesday night was being reported as covering 607-square miles, is expected to reach power lines by early Friday. It is feared that if lines are damaged, hundreds of thousands in New Mexico and Texas would face rolling blackouts.

For the early part of this week driving winds have Read more…

Categories: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas Tags: , , , , ,

DOJ letter to Texas: ‘TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight …’

May 25, 2011 Comments off

lonestarreport

The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to House and Texas Senate leaders Tuesday — reportedly in person — threatening a shut-down of airports if HB 1937 is passed.

The letter claims Rep. David Simpson’s (R-Longview) anti-TSA-groping bill is against federal law and the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. We include the text of the DOJ’s letter, as well as a portion of Simpson’s reply, below.
May 24, 2011

[On U.S. Department of Justice, Western District of Texas, stationery. Addressed to Speaker Joe Straus, Dewhurst, the House Clerk and the Senate Secretary]

Dear Leaders,

I write with regard to HB 1937, which I understand will imminently be presented to the Texas Senate for a vote.

This office, as well as the Southern, Northern, and Eastern District of Texas United States Attorneys, would like to advise you of the significant leagal and practical problems that will be created if the bill becomes law. As you are no doubt aware, the bill makes it a crime for a federal transportation official (“TSO”) to perform the security screening that he or she is authorized and required by federal law to perform. The proposed legislation would make it unlawful for a federal agent such as a TSO to perform certain specified searches for the purpose of granting access to a publicly accessible building or form of transportation. That provision would thus criminalize searches Read more…

Categories: Texas, TSA Tags: , , , ,

Joplin storm contained a rare multivortex tornado

May 25, 2011 Comments off

kansascity

Shawn and Joella Zaccarello of Joplin pitched in Tuesday to help sort through the damage of their uncle’s home, which was destroyed by Sunday evening’s tornado that swept through the city’s central section. DAVID EULITT
Shawn and Joella Zaccarello of Joplin pitched in Tuesday to help sort through the damage of their uncle’s home, which was destroyed by Sunday evening’s tornado that swept through the city’s central section.

JOPLIN, Mo. | The death toll from Sunday’s tornado has risen to 122, making it the eighth-deadliest tornado in U.S. history, the National Weather Service said.

The Joplin twister was upgraded to EF-5, the strongest category on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, with winds exceeding 200 mph. The storm was apparently a “multivortex” tornado, with two or more small and intense centers of rotation orbiting the larger funnel, a rare occurrence.

It’s the country’s deadliest storm since 1950.

The number of those still missing isn’t known because many have left Joplin to stay with relatives and friends. Rescue Read more…

Categories: Missouri, tornado, Weather Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Texas cameras to track school lunches

May 12, 2011 Comments off

guardian

FOOD ANALYSIS

Dr Roger Echon of the Social and Health Research Centre displays the digital food analysis equipment which will track chlidren’s eating habits at WW White elementary school in Texas. Photograph: Tom Reel/AP

The next time children in some elementary schools in the state of Texas try to sneak extra french fries on to their tray in the cafeteria queue, the eye in the sky will be watching them.

Using a $2m (£1.3m) grant from the US department of agriculture, the schools in San Antonio are installing sophisticated cameras in the cafeteria that read barcodes embedded in the food trays.

“We’re going to snap a picture of the food tray at the cashier and we will know what has been served,” said Dr Roberto Trevino of the Social and Health Research Centre in San Antonio, which is implementing the pilot programme at five schools with high rates of childhood obesity and children living in poverty.

“When the child goes back to the disposal window, we’re going to measure the leftover.”

The goal is to cut childhood obesity by providing parents and school nutrition specialists with information on what types of Read more…

Categories: Big Brother, Texas Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Deadliest tornado days in U.S. history

May 3, 2011 Comments off

vision

PRATT CITY, Ala., May 1 (Reuters) – Federal officials vowed urgent support on Sunday for a region devastated by the deadliest U.S. natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina, even as they acknowledged recovery would not be quick or easy.

President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to show an effective response to the storms and twisters that killed about 350 people last week in seven southern states, reduced neighborhoods to rubble and caused damage expected to run into billions of dollars.

Obama visited Alabama on Friday and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate, toured damage on Sunday.

“I don’t think words can fairly express the level of devastation here. I am not articulate enough,” Napolitano said after seeing how killer storm winds had torn through Pratt City, Alabama.

Later in Smithville, Mississippi, Napolitano said the visit had offered an acute sense of urgency about the need to help Read more…

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