AP: Texas

09/27/2005

Associated Press

Waterways in Texas, Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico were reopened Monday with some restrictions, according to U.S. Coast Guard officials.

The Houston Ship Channel is open to all daylight tug and barge traffic, as well as to vessels drafting less than 35 feet.

The Calcasieu, Neches and Sabine rivers as well as parts of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway were open to daylight tug and barge traffic. Only a portion of the Calcasieu River to Cameron Parish in Louisiana was closed.

Entergy Texas and Coast Guard crews were working to remove a downed power line in a section of the Intracoastal Waterway.

The Coast Guard advised boaters to be careful because some aids to navigation might not be working.

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AUSTIN — The Texas Supreme Court is extending deadlines for court filings because of the effects of Hurricane Rita on courthouses in the state. The order issued Monday expires Oct. 31.

The Supreme Court cited appellate procedures that provide for extensions when a clerk's office is closed during regular hours on the last day of a filing period.

"To provide clarity to the judiciary and to the bar in this difficult period in the aftermath of a natural disaster, the court orders that the closure of a clerk's office is 'good cause' for enlarging the time for filing any document within the meaning of Rule 5 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure and any other provisions of the Rules of Civil Procedure and the Rules of Appellate Procedure that permit an enlargement of time on a showing of good cause, or a similar showing," the court said in its ruling.

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BRIDGE CITY, Texas (AP) — A local convenience store didn't have the electricity to run the cash register in this small Southeast Texas town, but that didn't stop the manager from letting some of his regulars pick up some groceries on the honor system.

"I don't want business, I just want to help them," Stop and Drive manager Momin Qumruddin said in a story in Monday's editions of The Monitor in McAllen. "I am selling stuff and writing it down."

Robert Johnnie had a generator at his house to run a refrigerator, but needed some bottled water and other supplies. He said he appreciated Qumruddin letting him into the store.

"I caught him walking down the road," said Johnnie, 49. "He said, `Come in and get what you want.' He told me to come back later and pay for it."

Qumruddin said he didn't know when he would open for regular business.

"I have gas, but without electricity I can't pump," he said.

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LUFKIN, Texas (AP) — Seventy-year-old Harold Richey spent Sunday evening cutting the limbs of a tree he estimated to be 100 to 150 years old. The tree had fallen on two of his vehicles and the roof of his porch.

"I heard one heck of a noise on Saturday morning around 8:30 or 9 in the morning and saw this tree crush the vehicles," he said in a story in Monday's editions of The Lufkin Daily News.

Doris and Tom Tatum called a tree service to remove the tree off their house.

They were sitting in their den Saturday morning when they heard a loud noise and glass breaking.

A large tree in their front yard had uprooted and crashed through a window in the front of their house and damaged a part of their carport in the backyard.

"We've lived in this house for 43 years, and this is the worst anything ever happened," Doris Tatum said.