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Nearly 500,000 Residents in Texas, Louisiana Left without Power

reporter 1222 — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 08:27:02 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Nearly a half-million residents in Texas and Louisiana have been left without power after Hurricane Delta made landfall along the US gulf coast, battering cities with winds up to 80 miles per hour.

Delta hit land in southwest Louisiana on Friday night, inflicting widespread damage and knocking out electricity for some 379,636 people in the state and another 108,402 in neighboring Texas, according to PowerOutage.us, a project that aggregates data from utility companies around the country, RT reported.

Footage circulating on social media showed powerful gusts sweeping through the streets of multiple Louisiana cities, including Jennings and Lake Charles, where power lines were also seen downed by the wind.

As the storm surge began to swell ocean tides along the Louisiana coast on Friday evening, flooding could be seen in some areas of the state, including in the town of Delcambre. According to the New Orleans National Weather Service, however, no flash flood warnings are currently in effect.

Though the storm was initially classified a Category 2 hurricane, producing winds up to 100 miles per hour, it was downgraded to a Category 1 soon after making landfall. Delta is expected to continue to lose steam as it moves northeast across Louisiana and will eventually become a tropical storm, according to forecasts from local meteorologists.

The storm comes on the heels of a number of destructive weather systems in recent months, with the Category 4 Hurricane Laura pounding Louisiana and neighboring states in August with winds up to 150 miles per hour, resulting in some 77 deaths in total and more than $14.1 billion in damage. Tropical Storm Beta also hit Texas last month, wreaking destruction across parts of the state’s coast.

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Eight Cities in Texas Alerted After Brain-Eating Amoeba Found in Water

reporter 1222 — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 09:54:49 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Residents of eight cities in Texas were alerted this week that a brain-eating amoeba was found in water supplies in the southeastern part of the state.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issued a “do not use water” advisory late Friday after water officials were told about naegleria fowleri, a brain eating amoeba in the water supply, according to a Friday statement issued by the commission.

Lake Jackson, Freeport, Angleton, Brazoria, Richwood, Oyster Creek, Clute and Rosenburg, Texas were all under orders not to use water. The Dow Chemical plant in Freeport and the Clemens and Wayne Scott Texas Department of Criminal Justice corrections facilities also received the order.

The commission has since found that the water is safe in all of the locations except for Lake Jackson, according to a Saturday statement. Lake Jackson officials have issued a disaster declaration over the contamination.

“Lake Jackson residents are still urged to follow the Do not Use Water Advisory until the water system has been adequately flushed and samples indicate that the water is safe to use. It is not known at this time how long this make take,” the commission said in a statement, The Hill reported.

Residents are “urged not to drink or use the tap water from the impacted system for any purpose,” including for bathing.

Residents are permitted to flush toilets, according to the statements. They can also receive a free case of water from the city.

The incident occurred on Sept. 8, when Lake Jackson city officials were informed of a 6-year-old boy who was hospitalized with the amoeba. The Texas Department of Health Services later traced the infection to a water fountain “splash pad” the boy played in at the Lake Jackson Civic Center, CNN reported.

The boy, Josiah McIntyre, died on Sept. 8 after fighting an infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis, ABC13 in Lake Jackson reported. He was honored on Saturday.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the amoeba is found in warm freshwater like lakes, rivers and hots springs, as well as soil. People cannot get infected by swallowing water contaminated with the amoeba, but infections are typically traced to water entering the body through the nose.

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Massive Fire at Poly America Plant, Texas

reporter 1222 — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 11:20:00 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A huge contingent of police and fire fighters have been deployed following an apparent explosion and subsequent fire at the Poly America plant in Grand Prairie, Texas.

There was a huge response by emergency services shortly after midnight local time. Eyewitness video from the scene shows huge flames licking the night sky as vast plumes of smoke fill the area, RT reported.

There have, as yet, been no reports of injuries or fatalities in the incident but investigations have begun.

Poly America claims to be the world’s largest producer of construction film and America’s largest producer of trash bags.

Firefighters would only confirm that they were working on a fire located at the same address as Poly America. Eyewitnesses also reported seeing the enormous blaze engulfing part of the facility.

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SpaceX Starship Prototype Explodes in Texas

reporter 1222 — Sat, 30 May 2020 11:40:20 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The Starship SN4 prototype, built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company for interplanetary flights, has blown up after an engine test in Texas. It’s already the third prototype to explode this year.

SpaceX is not having the best of luck this week – first, the Falcon 9 launch was scrubbed Wednesday and now the firms’ a prototype Starship rocket has exploded, the Daily Mail reported.

The prototype Serial Number 4 vanished into a fireball at SpaceX’s Boca Chica site in Texas Friday shortly the engine was ignited for a pressurized test.

The failure comes days after SpaceX had to abort the blastoff of their Falcon 9 rocket, in what would have been the first manned launch from US soil in nine years.

That launch has now been rescheduled for tomorrow.

This is the fourth Starship rocket that has been lost while testing – all of the previous vessels also imploded during testing.

Starship, a rocket standing 394 feet tall, is designed to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond.

The SN4 had passed several important milestones during development, including a pressurization test that had foiled previous models.

The massive rocket is SpaceX’s planned next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle, the center of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s ambitions to make human space travel affordable.

The first rocket was tested in 2019, Mk1 prototype, but was engulfed in flames during a cryogenic pressure test.

The second rocket, dubbed Serial Number 1 (SN1), fell victim to another pressure test when it failed to contain its liquid nitrogen.

However, this time the stainless steel cylinder flew off the stand and came down crashing.

And the third time SpaceX saw its third catastrophic failure was last month -again the Starship prototype imploded during the cryogenic pressure test.

Musk had high hopes that Starship would be ready for its first orbital test flight sometime this year, which would send the rocket over 12 miles into orbit and land the craft back in the same spot it took off from.

SpaceX was among the three companies awarded a combined $1 billion by NASA last month to develop rocket systems capable of ferrying cargo and humans to the moon. SpaceX proposed Starship for the award.

The FAA granted the space company a license Thursday to begin Starship’s first suborbital flight tests, though it was unclear when those tests would occur.

The failure is just the icing on the cake for Musk this week, as of Wednesday the billionaire had to scrub the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket due to poor weather.

The mission, called ‘Launch America,’ was set to take astronauts Robert Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station.

However, with just 16 minutes and 54 seconds left on the countdown clock, the mission was aborted.

The rocket launch has now been rescheduled for 3:22 pm Saturday, but bad weather is still on the minds of the team, as there is currently a 50 percent probability Falcon 9 will head to space.

If successful this would be the first time American astronauts have been launched from US soil in nine years.

The ground crew needed to pass three weather criteria in order to launch at the 4:33 pm liftoff time, but officials had to stop the countdown – even though the weather would have cleared 10 minutes afterward.

But the launch could not wait, because the fast-changing position of the International Space Station (ISS) meant the rocket would have missed the target even leaving just seconds after the scheduled liftoff time.

The space station orbits some 250 miles above Earth and travels more than 17,000 miles per hour.

This means NASA needs to stay with a precise launch schedule in order for the Crew Dragon to successfully dock on the ISS.

The current forecast for Saturday calls for precipitation, anvil clouds and cumulus clouds – three key factors that could keep Launch America grounded.

According to the reports, Sunday holds just a 40 percent chance of bad weather for liftoff – making it a 60 percent chance the mission will be a go.

The bad weather looming over Florida is related to Tropical Storm Bertha, which made landfall in South Carolina Wednesday morning.

The National Weather Center said the storm’s center was near the Great Lakes by the end of the day on Thursday and is expected to dissipate in the next two days.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstein hosted a live press conference today to discuss the details of Saturday’s event.

‘One of the things we are going to do this afternoon is getting another weather brief and we might make the decision that Sunday is the day and not Saturday,’ he said.

‘It will depend on the probabilities, it will be arranged by what the probabilities are on Saturday and what the probabilities are on Sunday.’

‘If it is a high enough probability on Saturday, we target that day.’

‘The question is, if we have a 50 percent probability and the next opportunity is on Sunday, we could put ourselves in back-to-back wet dress rehearsals Saturday and Sunday.’

However, NASA has recently noted that the final decision on Saturday’s launch will be made tomorrow morning.

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Texas oil spill restarts after containment

reporter 1222 — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 09:14:32 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A crude oil spill near Baytown, Texas, has restarted after earlier being contained, US Coast Guard officials said in an updated statement on Sunday.

About 630 gallons of diesel fuel spilled in Tabbs Bay and approximately one mile (1.6 km) of shoreline has been affected, officials said.

The cause of the oil spill in Texas is under investigation.

“The source of the release was initially secured but has since begun to leak again,” they said. “Personnel on-scene are developing mitigation plans and strategies to re-plug and secure the wellhead.”

Emergency responders had placed roughly 700 feet (213 meters) of floating boom lines as of Sunday night to contain the spill and prevent damage to the Houston Ship Channel, the nation’s largest petroleum export port. About 2,000 feet (610 meters) of absorbent material was placed along the shoreline.

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