Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 296, Ed. 1 Monday, May 25, 2015 Page: 3 of 22
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STATE/NATIONAL
3A
Denton Record-Chronicle
Monday, May 25, 2015
Severe weather continues to wreak havoc
At least two killed
in floods; hundreds
of homes gone
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It looks like the rainfall that
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— Forrest Mitchell,
National Weather Service meteorologist
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By Seth Robbins
Associated Press
SAN MARCOS - Record
rainfall wreaked havoc across a
swath of Texas and the Midwest
on Sunday, causing flash floods
in normally dry riverbeds,
spawning tornadoes and forcing
at least 2,000 people to flee.
Tornadoes struck, severely
damaging an apartment com-
plex in Houston. A firefighter in
Oklahoma was swept to his
death while trying to rescue 10
people in high water. And the
body of a man was recovered
from a flooded area along the
Blanco River, which rose 26 feet
in just one hour and left piles of
wreckage 20 feet high, authori-
ties in Texas said.
“It looks pretty bad out
there,” said Hays County emer-
gency management coordinator
Kharley Smith, describing the
destruction in Wimberley, a
community that is part of a fast-
growing corridor between Aus-
tin and San Antonio.
“We do have whole streets
with maybe one or two houses
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waterways overflowing.
Rivers rose so fast that whole
communities woke up Sunday
surrounded by water. The Blanco
crested above 40 feet — more
than triple its flood stage of 13 feet
— swamping Interstate 35 and
forcing parts of the busy north-
south highway to close. Rescuers
used pontoon boats and a heli-
copter to pull people out.
Dallas also faced severe
flooding from the Trinity River,
which was expected to crest near
40 feet today and lap at the
foundations of an industrial
park. The Red and Wichita riv-
ers also rose far above flood
This May is already the wet-
test on record for several cities in
the southern Plains states, with
days still to go and more rain on
the way. So far this year, Oklaho-
ma City has recorded 27.37inch-
es of rain. Last year the state’s
capital got only 4.29 inches.
The reasons include a pro-
longed warming of Pacific
Ocean sea surface temperatures,
which generally results in cooler
air, coupled with an active
southern jet stream and plenti-
ful moisture from the Gulf of
Mexico, said Meteorologist For-
rest Mitchell at National Weath-
er Service office in Norman,
Oklahoma.
“It looks like the rainfall that
we’re getting now may actually
officially end the drought,” that
has gripped the southern Plains
states for years, Mitchell said,
noting that moisture now reach-
es about two feet below the sur-
face of the soil and many lakes
and reservoirs are full.
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Jay Janner, Austin American-Statesman/AP
From left, Jeremy Steele, Ric Jaime and Keith McNabb salvage belongings at their friend Mike
Cook’s house near Wimberley on Sunday.
stage.
Heather Ruiz returned from
work early Sunday to ankle-
deep water and a muddy couch
inside her home in San Marcos.
She wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Pick up the pieces and start
all over I guess. Salvage what can
be salvaged and replace what
needs to be replaced,” Ruiz said.
left on them and the rest are just mained missing. Kenneth Bell,
slabs,” she said.
From 350 to 400 homes
were destroyed in Wimberley, said the damage in Hays County
many of them washed away, alone amounts to “millions of
Smith said. Several people re- dollars.”
Authorities also warned peo-
the emergency management co- pie to honor a nighttime curfew
ordinator in nearby San Marcos, and stay away from damaged ar-
eas, since more rain was on the
way, threatening more floods
with the ground saturated and
Defense chief: Iraqis showed
‘no will to fight’ at Ramadi
BRIEFLY
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STATE AND THE U.S.
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Austin
Homestead property tax
exemption hike passes
The Texas House has prelim-
inarily approved a homestead
property tax exemption in-
crease, key to a $3.8 billion tax
cut package on Republican Gov.
Greg Abbott’s wish fist.
The plan passed 136-0 late
Sunday.
On average, it saves Texas
homeowners about $120 annu-
ally, but only if voters approve
the change in a November refer-
endum.
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By Ken Dilanian
AP Intelligence Writer
WASHINGTON - The Is-
lamic State group’s takeover of
the provincial capital Ramadi is
stark evidence that Iraqi forces
lack the “will to fight,” Defense
Secretary Ash Carter said in a
TV interview that aired Sunday.
The harsh assessment raised
new questions about the Obama
administration’s strategy to de-
feat the extremist group that has
seized a strategically important
swath of the Middle East.
Although Iraqi soldiers “vast-
ly outnumbered” their opposi-
tion in the capital of Anbar prov-
ince, they quickly withdrew last
Sunday without putting up
much resistance from the city in
Iraq’s Sunni heartland, Carter
said on CNN’s State of the
Union. The interview aired
Sunday.
The Iraqis left behind large
numbers of U.S.-supplied vehi-
cles, including several tanks,
now presumed to be in Islamic
State hands.
‘What apparently happened
is the Iraqi forces just showed no
will to fight,” Carter said. “They
were not outnumbered; in fact,
they vastly outnumbered the op-
posing force. That says to me,
and I think to most of us, that we
have an issue with the will of the
Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend
themselves.”
The White House declined to
comment Sunday.
Iraqi lawmaker Hakim al-
Zamifi, the head of the parlia-
mentary defense and security
committee, called Carter’s com-
ments “unrealistic and baseless,”
in an interview with The Associ-
ated Press.
“They were not outnumbered; in fact, they
vastly outnumbered the opposing force.
That says to me, and I think to most of us,
that we have an issue with the will of the
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John Forbes
Nash takes a
break during
the European
School of
Economics
conference in
Rome in 1997.
1
ft
Iragis to fight ISIL and defend themselves.
— Defense Secretary Ash Carter
viving questions about the effec-
tiveness of the Obama adminis-
tration’s approach in Iraq, a
blend of retraining and rebuild-
ing the Iraqi army, prodding the
Shiite-dominated government
in Baghdad to reconcile with the
nation’s Sunnis and bombing Is-
lamic State group targets from
the air without committing
American ground combat
troops.
Obama’s strategy is predicat-
ed on Baghdad granting politi-
cal concessions to the country’s
alienated Sunnis, who are a
source of personnel and money
for the Islamic State group. But
there has been little visible prog-
ress on that front. Baghdad has
continued to work closely with
Shiite militias backed by Iran,
which have been accused of
atrocities against Sunnis, a reli-
gious minority that ruled Iraq
for centuries until Saddam Hus-
sein fell from power.
The U.S. has sought to reach
out on its own to Sunni tribes
and is training some Sunni
fighters, but those efforts have
been limited by the small num-
ber of American troops on the
ground.
Carter defended the use of
U.S. airstrikes, but he said they
are not a replacement for Iraqi
ground forces willing to defend
their country.
“The Iraqi army and police
did have the will to fight IS
group in Ramadi, but these forc-
es lack good equipment, weap-
ons and aerial support,” said al-
Zamifi, a member of the political
party headed by radical Shia
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is
stridently anti-American.
American officials say they
are sending anti-tank weapons
to the Iraqi military. But they al-
so noted that Iraqi forces were
not routed from Ramadi — they
left of their own accord, fright-
ened in part by a powerful wave
of Islamic State group suicide
truck bombs, some the size of
the one that destroyed the feder-
al building in Oklahoma City
two decades ago, said a senior
State Department official who
spoke to reporters last week un-
der ground rules he not be
named.
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Plinio Lepri/AP
file photo
Le Mars, Iowa
Perry courts Iowa
Rick Perry is working his way
through small-town Iowa one
handshake, bear hug and back-
slap at a time.
The early, hands-on ap-
proach from the 2016 presiden-
tial prospect contrasts with his
failed bid four years ago, when
he entered the race relatively late
and stumbled in the debates.
The former Texas governor says
he has more policy knowledge
under his belt buckle now and
more time for the early states.
“Nobody came to Iowa more
in 2014 than I did,” Perry said af-
ter speaking to about 20 people
at a Pizza Ranch in Sioux Center
this past week. “And I will sug-
gest to you that will probably be
the case in 2015. If somebody is
going to spend more time in Io-
wa than I am, they better bring
their lunch.”
Although politicking in din-
ers and pizza places is hardly
new in the leadoff caucus state,
Perry has been notably active in
some of Iowa’s more out-of-the-
way places, which get less fre-
quent traffic from presidential
hopefuls. Since 2014, he has
made more than a dozen visits to
Iowa.
John Nash, wife, dead
after taxi crashes in N.J.
called the couple “an inspiration,”
and the film’s director, Ron How-
ard, tweeted that “it was an honor
telling part of their story”
Known as brilliant and ec-
centric, Nash was associated
with Princeton University for
many years, most recently serv-
ing as a senior research mathe-
matician. He won the Nobel
Prize in economics in 1994 for
his work in game theory, which
offered insight into the dynam-
ics of human rivalry. It is consid-
ered one of the most influential
ideas of the 20th century.
Just a few days ago, Nash had
received a prize from the Nor-
wegian Academy of Sciences
and Letters in Oslo with New
York University mathematician
Louis Nirenberg, who said he’d
chatted with the couple for an
hour at the airport in Newark
before they’d gotten a cab. Ni-
renberg said Nash was a truly
great mathematician and
kind of genius.”
By Bruce Shipkowski
Associated Press
TRENTON, N.J. - John
Forbes Nash Jr., a mathematical
genius whose struggle with
schizophrenia was chronicled in
the 2001 movie A Beautiful
Mind, has died along with his
wife in a car crash on the New
Jersey Turnpike. He was 86.
Nash and his wife Alicia, 82,
of Princeton Township, were
killed in a taxi crash Saturday,
state police said. A colleague
who had received an award with
Nash in Norway earlier in the
week said they had just flown
home and the couple had taken
a cab home from the airport.
Russell Crowe, who por-
trayed Nash in A Beautiful
Mind, tweeted that he was
“stunned.”
‘An amazing partnership,” he
wrote. “Beautiful minds, beauti-
ful hearts.”
In a statement Sunday, his co-
star in the film, Jennifer Connelly,
“The ISF was not driven out
of Ramadi,” Gen. Martin Demp-
sey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, said last week. “They
drove out of Ramadi.”
A senior defense official not-
ed that the troops who fled Ra-
madi had not been trained by
the U.S. or its coalition partners.
The official was not authorized
to address the matter publicly
and spoke on condition of ano-
nymity.
Still, the fall of Ramadi is re-
a
Los Angeles
Anne Meara dies at 85
URij'ia
Actress and comedian Anne
Meara, whose comic work with
husband Jerry Stiller helped
launch a 60-year career in film
and TV, has died. She was 85.
Jerry Stiller
and son Ben
Stiller
Meara
Saturday. No
other details
were provided.
The Stiller
family
leased a state-
ment to The Associated Press on
Sunday describing Jerry Stiller
as Meara’s “husband and part-
ner in fife.”
“The two were married for 61
years and worked together al-
most as long,” the statement
said.
mil u £
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Who Have Sacrifice
Memorial Day
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say
died
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Meara
Denton Funeral Home
. and Cremation Services
The couple performed as
Stiller & Meara on The Ed Sulli-
van Show and other programs
in the 1960s and won awards for
the radio and TV commercials
120 South Carroll Blvd.
Denton, Texas 76201
Phone: (940) 382-2214
T _
wAvw.dentonfuneralhome.net
Wesley G. Phillips, Sr.
they made together.
(J.B. Floyd Memorial Chapel)
Director in Charge
— The Associated Press
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 296, Ed. 1 Monday, May 25, 2015, newspaper, May 25, 2015; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1124934/m1/3/: accessed June 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .