Houston Food Bank calls for volunteers and donors

September 15, 2008
Houston Food Bank calls for volunteers and donors

HOUSTON -- The Houston Food Bank is calling for volunteers to help sort,
process and box food and other necessities for distribution to its member
agencies - church pantries, shelters and other relief agencies - to assist
with recovery from Hurricane Ike.

Volunteers ages 8 and older are needed between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5
p.m. beginning on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at the Houston Food Bank, 3811 Eastex Freeway. Volunteers can register in advance at
www.houstonfoodbank.org or in person when they arrive. Volunteers are asked
to wear closed-toe shoes and shirts with sleeves.

The Houston Food Bank is also asking individuals and businesses that are
able and want to donate food, water and essential to drop off items at their
facility. The most needed items are:
Canned tuna or chicken, packed in water
Canned stews and pasta with meat (easy on salt and fat)
Peanut butter
Canned fruits in light syrup, natural applesauce
100% juice in cans or boxes (no glass, please)
Canned vegetables, tomatoes, tomato sauce
Soups with meat and/or beans, meal-in-a-can (easy on salt and fat) Cereals and cereal bars (easy on sugar and fat) Pasta, spaghetti, macaroni, noodles Packages of dry beans
** Please choose plastic containers or canned items rather than glass

For more information, please contact the Houston Food Bank at 713-223-3700.


Posted by Jason Spencer at September 15, 2008 04:33 PM
http://blogs.chron.com/hurricanes/2008/09/houston_food_bank_calls_for_vo.html

Texas after Hurricane Ike

'I've never seen water like this'
Wanda Collins has lived four blocks from Galveston's seawall for 30 years, and though she's seen hurricanes hit coastal Texas before, she's never had 5 feet of water collect in the garage under her home. "I've never seen water like this," she said after Hurricane Ike hit. full story
'Lot of cleaning up to do' Ike videos
iReport.com: See images of Ike's aftermath
CNN Wire: Houston under nighttime curfew
iReport.com: Ike evacuee, pets ready to go home
Time: What it felt like to ride out Ike
Blog: Coping with Hurricane Ike's aftermath

TX:Benefit held for wounded police officer Joe Pyland

Chronicle file
Houston police officer Joe Pyland suffered multiple leg fractures and a fellow officer was killed when they were hit by a car on June 29.
BBQ benefit today for HPD officer injured by car
By RUTH RENDON Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 29, 2008, 9:16AM

A benefit is set today for a Houston police officer injured in June when a car plowed through barricades on an Interstate 10 access road where he and another officer were working.

The other officer died.

Officer Joe Pyland and his family will be the beneficiaries of the barbecue lunch sponsored by the Texas Association of First Responders.

A Toyota sedan crashed through the construction barriers about 5:30 a.m. on June 29 when Officer Gary Gryder was about to hand off traffic duties to Pyland.

Pyland, 55, fell to the ground and suffered multiple leg fractures. Gryder, 47, died after being dragged alongside the patrol car and thrown several feet.

Pyland, who joined the Houston Police Department in 1980, is assigned to the neighborhood protection unit and also is a police union board member.

The driver of the car, Hung Dasion Truong, 24, remains in the Harris County Jail charged with manslaughter.
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Partially paralyzed woman rescued by neighbor from high rise fire

Fire safety focuses on the disabled
Recent blaze at high-rise indicates challenges faced during evacuation
By ALLAN TURNER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 24, 2008, 11:24PM

From her 25th floor apartment in the Greenway Condominiums, Pam Singer had a killer view. Downtown's spires, the Galleria, Allen Parkway and the meandering bayou — all formed the backdrop for the life the retired clothing boutique owner serenely shared with her golden retriever, Louie.

Singer's serenity recently was shattered, though, when a fire alarm sounded on the building's upper floors, warning residents to get ready to evacuate. For frantic minutes, the partially paralyzed Singer, who relies on a motorized wheelchair, wondered if she would die.

"I grabbed my dog and went into the hallway and yelled, 'Help!' " she recalled. Within minutes, her plea was answered by her neighbor, TC LeNormand, who carried her down the stairs to the lobby.

"He just picked me up and took me," the 49-year-old Singer said. "I was so afraid he was going to hurt himself."

Singer's story had a happy ending.

The fire, confined to a clothes dryer, was extinguished before firefighters arrived. And the City Council honored LeNormand, 52, a hypnotherapist, for his actions.

For advocates for the disabled, however, the recent Greenway fire underscored the challenges emergencies pose to disabled residents of high-rise buildings.

"I'm very concerned about this issue," said Michelle Colvard, director of the mayor's office for people with disabilities. "It's important to raise people's awareness. They need to think about what they would do to evacuate way ahead of time. They should practice with friends and family."
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Early-morning bus crash kills 13 in Texas

Early-morning bus crash kills 13 in Texas
Story Highlights
Helicopters make 18 trips taking injured to hospitals, police say

Passengers were pilgrims from Houston, Texas, churches

Blown tire found on bridge; police investigating whether it caused crash

Bus going north on U.S. 75 when it went off a bridge and down an embankment

(CNN) -- A bus crash that may have been caused by a blown tire killed at least 13 people Friday in northern Texas, police said.

Emergency officials work at the scene of a bus crash early Friday in Sherman, Texas.

Many other passengers were injured, some of them seriously, according to authorities and hospital officials.

Fifty-five people were on the bus, part of a Vietnamese church group traveling from Houston to a fair in Carthage, Missouri, east of Joplin, authorities said.

The bus was traveling north on U.S. 75 when it left the highway and went off a bridge and down an embankment at about 12:45 a.m. CT (1:45 a.m. ET), said Lt. Robert Fair, spokesman for the Sherman Police Department. Watch as the fire chief describes crash scene »

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Amber Alert for missing kids in Houston

Amber Alert issued after Houston woman leaves with 5 kids
By LINDSAY WISE Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 6, 2008, 6:32PM
Authorities issued an Amber Alert on Wednesday after a woman disappeared with five children she had taken in when they were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Rhonda Tavey, 44, is charged with five counts of kidnapping, said Harris County Assistant District Attorney Jane Waters, chief of the family criminal law division.

Tavey says she is protecting the children from alleged abuse and neglect by their biological parents, authorities said.

A Dallas television station spoke with Tavey before the Amber Alert was issued. "Their parents are into drugs, crime and I know God put these kids into my hands to take care of," Tavey told WFAA-TV.

The district attorney's office and law enforcement officials have asked Child Protective Services to look into the case, said agency spokeswoman Estella Olguin.

"A report has been made to us that children have been kidnapped and the caregiver claims she can't give the kids back because the biological mom and dad have hurt the children and will hurt the children," Olguin said. "If the kids do show up, we'll have to look into whether the children are at risk if they remain with her or if they return to the mom."
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Houston family seeks helping finding dad's killers

Houston family seeks helping finding dad's killers
By KEVIN MORAN Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
July 30, 2008, 3:26PM

Nadir Ijaz spent his 24th birthday trying to help track down his father's killers.

"My dad was my angel," the Texas A&M University student said Wednesday as he joined with family members, Houston police and Crime Stoppers in appealing for information about the men who killed Mohammad Ijaz Mahmood.

Investigators are seeking the public's help in solving the July 7 killing of Mahmood, who was attacked while going about his routine in his job with a mobile paycheck-cashing service.

Mahmood, 67, was shot about 3:30 p.m. and taken away in his van from a warehouse area on Turning Basin Drive in east Houston, where he had parked to cash workers' paychecks, police said.
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Children crushed by debris when stairwell collapses

July 17, 2008, 12:48PM
Children crushed by debris when stairwell collapses
2 die and another is injured in southwest Houston


By RUTH RENDON and JENNIFER LATSON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

The southwest Houston apartment complex where two children died and another was injured late Wednesday in the collapse of a stairway had not undergone a city inspection in 12 years, according to records.

As three city inspectors examined the site today at the Westwood Fountains apartments, security guards shooed the news media off the property and the management office remained locked, with the blinds drawn.

Phone calls to the office were not answered.

Residents, however, came to the site of the collapse to look at the wreckage and recall the horror of the previous night, when two young boys were crushed while playing on a staircase that was supposed to have been locked.

Tacatta Spears, who lives near the family of a boy who died, said one of the boys screamed, "Help me! My back! My back hurts!" as men worked to free him from the broken concrete.

The bodies of the two boys who were killed, ages 4 and 10, were removed about 1:30 a.m. after the area had been secured enough for workers to move the wreckage, Assistant Fire Chief Omero Longoria said this morning.

A 9-year-old boy is at Texas Children's Hospital, being treated for injuries including an apparent broken leg.

The three were playing in a three-story outdoor stairwell, which Westwood Fountains residents say was corroded and rarely used, when the concrete landings groaned loose and slammed down on the boys about 7:40 p.m.
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Domestic dispute in NW Houston ends in fatal shooting

July 5, 2008, 4:21PM
Domestic dispute in NW Houston ends in fatal shooting


Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle


A man was fatally shot by the father of his sister's child in northwest Houston early this morning, authorities said.

Police responded to the shooting around 2:50 a.m. in the 10000 block of West Montgomery, where they found the man, estimated to be about 30 years old, dead.

The incident began after the victim's sister told him that the father of her child had physically assaulted her, authorities said. The victim went to meet with the man to talk about the alleged assault and was shot, authorities said.

The victim's identity was withheld pending an autopsy by the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office.

The suspect is in police custody. His identity has not yet been released.

No further information was immediately available.
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Houston blaze injures 2 firefighters

May 15, 2008, 12:17PM
Blaze in northwest Houston injures 2 firefighters


By KEVIN MORAN
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Two Houston firefighters were injured fighting a blaze that gutted a northwest Houston home this morning.

The firefighters were taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital and suffered from second-degree burns, one on his face and one on his hands and face, said assistant Houston Fire Department Chief Tommy Dowdy.
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Five found dead at house in apparent murder-suicide

May 10, 2008, 5:14PM
Five found dead at house in apparent murder-suicide

A northwest Houston man appears to have killed his family and then himself this afternoon, police said.

Five people are dead of gun shot wounds at the house in the 9900 block of Stonewood, authorities said.

Police are still investigating the scene and haven't released any details yet.
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Houston prepares for flood of PTSD and TBI veterans

March 30, 2008, 11:30PM
A healthier homecoming
Houston needs to prepare for flood of veterans with mental and brain disabilities


Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle


The converted Holiday Inn at 4640 Main Street is packed, but fulfilling its purpose. The nonprofit facility now houses 280 veterans with head injuries, mental illness or other combat-related wounds.

The only hitch: Most are Vietnam veterans. Houston so far has barely glimpsed the psychological harm suffered by thousands of soldiers soon to come home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's a certainty, though, that they will need services far beyond what Houston currently can give.

"We're basically busting at the seams, to tell you the truth, " said Tom Mitchell, director of the Main Street facility. "And it may be three, or four, or five years before (new) veterans start hitting the streets" because post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries unglued their lives.

In some ways, these newer veterans will benefit from lessons of the Vietnam War and, more recently, scandalous mistreatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Doctors today are more familiar with PTSD. Its symptoms include anxiety, insomnia, substance abuse and depression. And the Walter Reed revelations goaded Congress into studying veterans' physical and psychological needs and better coordinating the Veterans Administration and Defense Department so wounded veterans can get treatment more easily.

Even so, both national and local mental health experts say programs aren't in place to handle the flood of homecoming soldiers who will be suffering PTSD and traumatic brain injury. It's estimated that 17 percent to 30 percent of soldiers will come home with PTSD alone.

Harris County, with its gross deficit in mental health care services for civilians, could be particularly hard hit. Already, about 70 percent of Houston's 10,000 homeless people suffer serious mental illness. Some 30 percent of those homeless are veterans, mostly from Vietnam.

The returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan could have even more severe problems. The new phenomenon of repeated, prolonged combat — two, three, even four tours of duty — intensifies traumatic stress disorders.

Houston will see a large number of these patients. One in 11 soldiers who are wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan is a Texan. And 25 percent of the state population is from the Houston-Galveston area.
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