HEMPHILL COUNTY - A new lawsuit claims a falling utility pole caused the tragic 1 million-acre Smokehouse Creek fire in the Texas Panhandle. A system of different wildfires has torn through the Panhandle scorching over 1.2 million acres over the past week. A woman is suing the Southwestern Public Service Company after her home near Canadian was burned, alleging the Smokehouse Creek fire was caused by human error. Melanie McQuiddy sued Southwestern Public Service Company, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, and Osmose Utilities Services, a Georgia-based contractor that inspects wood utility poles, late on Friday. According to McQuiddy's lawsuit, the fire started on February 26 when the pole, which the firms "failed to properly inspect, maintain, and replace," cracked and snapped off at its base. view article

On Thursday, February 29, 2024, School Resource Officers from the Midlothian Police Department swiftly responded to a concerning situation at Midlothian High School. Reports indicated that a student had made threats against two teachers. Upon arrival, officers took immediate action. One officer entered the classroom and detained the student, while another approached the juvenile's vehicle. It was during this approach that a firearm was observed in the front seat. view article

Get the latest updates as firefighters continue battling massive fires that have burned more than 1 million acres. The largest wildfire in Texas history has burned more than 1 million acres in the Panhandle. The spreading has slowed, but weather conditions remain precarious. At least two people have died. The blaze has also killed thousands of livestock, destroyed crops and gutted infrastructure. Officials in some areas are only now beginning to assess the damage. Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties and traveled to the region Friday. view article

STINNETT, Texas (AP) — Firefighters in Texas faced rising temperatures, whipped-up winds and dry air Saturday in their battle to keep the largest wildfire in state history from turning more of the Panhandle into a parched wasteland. Firefighters were focused on containing the fire along its northern and eastern perimeter, where aggressive gusts from the southwest threatened to spread the flames and consume more acreage, according to Jason Nedlo, a spokesperson with the team of firefighters battling the Smokehouse Creek Fire that began Monday and has claimed at least two lives. “The main goal is to continue using dozers and fire engines to contain and patrol the fire,” Nedlo said. “We’re also focused on not losing any more structures, no more loss of life.” view article

STINNETT, Texas (AP) — Wildfires may have destroyed as many as 500 structures in the Texas Panhandle and that number could rise as damage assessments continue, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday. The Smokehouse Creek fire, the largest blaze in state history hat began Monday, has burned about 1,700 square miles (4,400 square kilometers) in Texas and killed two people. It has left behind a charred landscape of scorched prairie, dead cattle and burned-out homes in the Texas Panhandle. “When you look at the damages that have occurred here it’s just gone, completely gone nothing left but ashes on the ground,” Abbott said at a news conference in Borger, Texas. view article

The small town of Fritch is again picking through the rubble of a Texas wildfire, a decade after another destructive blaze burned hundreds of homes and left deep scars in the Panhandle community  Residents in and around Fritch and other rural towns fled for safety Tuesday afternoon as high winds whipped the flames into residential areas and through cattle ranches.  Fritch Mayor Tom Ray said on Wednesday the town’s northern edge was hit by a devastating wildfire in 2014, while this week’s blaze burned mostly to the south of the town, sparing the residents who live in the heart of the community. view article

A nuclear weapons facility was forced to evacuate most of its staff due to a fast-moving wildfire blazing across the Texas Panhandle. The Pantex plant, northeast of Amarillo, removed nonessential staff Tuesday night as the fire grew into the second-largest in state history. Pantex is one of six production facilities in the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Nuclear Security Enterprise. It has been the main U.S. site for assembling and disassembling atomic bombs since 1975. Early Wednesday, Pantex posted on X that the facility has reopened for "normal day shift operations" and that all personnel should report for duty. view article

Known as the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest blaze expanded to more than 1,300 square miles and jumped into parts of neighboring Oklahoma. It is now larger than the state of Rhode Island, and the Texas A&M Forest Service said the flames were only about 3% contained. “I believe the fire will grow before it gets fully contained,” said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management. The largest fire recorded in state history was the 2006 East Amarillo Complex fire, which burned about 1,400 square miles and resulted in 13 deaths. view article

LUBBOCK — Five raging wildfires in the Texas Panhandle collectively worsened Wednesday and have already burned more than 1 million acres of land, an amount of land that's nearly as big as the Grand Canyon National Park. view article

Fort Worth ISD is inching closer to bringing sex education back into district classrooms. During a board meeting Tuesday, Feb. 27, district trustees will consider the approval of a brand new sex education curriculum. If adopted, Fort Worth ISD students would be taught sex education this spring. “The steps to recommend a human sexuality education curriculum resource have been thoroughly conducted and completed,” district spokesman Jessica Becerra said in a statement sent to the Fort Worth Report. “Approving … Choosing the Best provides the opportunity for students to participate in high-quality learning.” view article

A nuclear weapons facility in the Texas Panhandle said it had evacuated some staff Tuesday amid wind-fueled wildfires that covered thousands of acres and prompted the governor to issue a disaster declaration. The Pantex Plant, which handles nuclear weapons, said it was monitoring the situation but that there was no fire on the plant site. All weapons were safe and unaffected, the facility said. “We are responding to the plant, but there is no fire on site or on our boundary,” Laef Pendergraft, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration Production Office stationed at Pantex, said at a news conference Tuesday night. view article

Officials have ordered nearly 5,000 residents in the Panhandle cities of Canadian, Fritch and Glazier to shelter in place Tuesday as four separate wildfires engulfed the region, burning more than 280,000 acres. Residents in Hemphill County, where Canadian is, were initially told to evacuate as the Smokehouse Creek fire — the largest of the four — spread and burned more than 250,000 acres within a day. As firefighters worked to contain the fire in Canadian, about 100 miles northeast of Amarillo, evacuation efforts hit a snag as the main roadway was blocked by the fire. view article

As fires continue to rage throughout the Texas Panhandle, several school districts in North Texas have opted to cancel classes Wednesday, February 28, after several cities and counties issued evacuation orders. view article

One student sustained minor injuries during an accident involving a La Joya Independent School District school bus, the district announced. In a letter sent to parents, the district stated that the accident occurred at 4:20 p.m. Thursday while a school bus was transporting students home near 5 Mile Line and La Homa Road. view article

A nonprofit commissioned the report that found severe and fatal vehicle crashes in the Permian Basin far outpaced the state.  ODESSA — Severe and fatal vehicle crashes occur at a higher rate in the Permian Basin than the rest of Texas, a new report released Wednesday by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute found. Commissioned by the Permian Road Safety Coalition, the report analyzed data from 2018 through 2022 and focuses on the 20 counties in West Texas and two in New Mexico that constitute the Permian Basin. This is the organization’s first attempt at quantifying vehicle crashes occurring on the congested roads of the Permian Basin, a sprawling region that shoulders both the rush of the energy industry and everyday traffic. The Midland-based nonprofit hopes the report will spur solutions to make the region's roads safer. view article

What's happening: Local leaders will begin a long-term fix to the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority’s underwater pipeline on Feb. 28. What it means: Ahead of the repairs, the city of Leander will move to Stage 4 water restrictions Feb. 12, officials said. This prohibits outdoor watering and restricts all nonessential uses of water. view article

The 41-year-old man was sent to the Nueces County jail after the victim & a witness stated he made intentional and inappropriate physical contact with the juvenile.  Officers spoke with the juvenile victim and a witness, who stated an adult male made intentional and inappropriate physical contact with the victim.  view article

We believe this message to be non-credible, but are taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of our students and staff,” the district said at 11:19 a.m. Later Thursday, Kilgore ISD said the treat was confirmed by the FBI as a hoax email that originated from Germany. “This same message has been received by several other area school districts this week,” the district said. “Kilgore ISD and Kilgore Police Department take all of these threats seriously and as such, law enforcement arrived on campus to sweep all areas.” On Wednesday, Henderson ISD said a phoned-in threat against the district eventually was traced to Europe through an investigation by Henderson police, the Rusk County Sheriff’s Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the FBI. view article

The ongoing power outages are forcing some North Texas school districts and universities to cancel all in-person and virtual classes Tuesday. Some districts were able to continue classes remotely last week when the weather was milder — a pandemic-related twist on the traditional “snow day” as COVID-19 resulted in an expansion of students’ access to online learning. view article

Yawning chasms continue to open on streets around the Bayou City, the latest occurring at an intersection southeast of dowtown.  If you're looking to explore the Earth's mantle during your daily commute, there may be no better place than Houston, Texas.  The Bayou City area has seen its share of rough road conditions in recent memory, including the sudden appearance of a gigantic, 24-foot-deep sinkhole at Fondren Street last summer that took workers weeks to fill. Now, Houston has a new addition to its growing collection of impromptu street caves, courtesy of a large gaping hole that nearly swallowed a school bus on Friday morning. view article

Texas accounts for 854,000, or 22%, of all uninsured children across the U.S., according to the study. Despite declining numbers, a recent university study found that 11.6% of children in Houston are living without insurance, more than double the national average. The uninsured rate for children improved over the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, but the state of Texas still comes in with the highest uninsured rate in the country: 10.9% compared to the national average of just 5.1%. After calling a public health emergency amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government required states to keep people enrolled in Medicaid insurance without needing to re-enroll. The continuous enrollment program ended in March last year when COVID-19 conditions began to “unwind,” and states were given 12 months to return to normal eligibility operations, according to a Medicaid webpage. view article

President Joe Biden’s decision to freeze liquefied natural gas export permitting to non-free trade agreement countries — an action taken to appease left-wing climate activists — is disastrous policy no matter which way you cut it. LNG exports are critical to our energy, economic and national security while providing major environmental benefits.  Since Russian troops invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago, American LNG has served as a vital lifeline for countries in Europe and across the globe. In 2022 alone, European LNG imports increased by 60%. The U.S. met the majority of that demand, providing affordable and reliable energy to our friends and allies. Thanks to America’s energy producers, these countries have reduced their reliance on Russian natural gas and bolstered their energy security. Biden’s LNG freeze threatens to reverse that progress. It may force European leaders to make an impossible decision: gamble on an unreliable supply of American LNG or prop up Putin’s war by switching to Russian gas to keep the lights on. view article

McKinney Independent School District posted on social media around 5:30 a.m. that a break in the main water line at the school forced crews to turn the water off. view article

The rate of students chronically missing school got so bad during the pandemic that it will likely be 2030 before classrooms return to pre-COVID norms, a new report says. But even that prediction rests on optimistic assumptions about continued improvement in the coming years. For some states, it could take longer. In Louisiana, Oregon and South Carolina, for example, the percentage of students chronically absent for at least 10% of the school year went up in 2022-23, according to the analysis from the American Enterprise Institute. view article

An Humble ISD teacher is recovering after hitting his head against a brick wall while trying to break up a fight. The district said it happened on Friday at approximately 10:44 a.m. at Atascocita Middle School. Two students reportedly got into a fight in the hallway during a passing period. That's when school personnel and a campus police officer responded to deescalate the situation. view article

CHEROKEE COUNTY — Two people were taken to hospitals after a crash involving a school bus on Tuesday morning. Around 7 a.m., a Rusk ISD school bus and a car were involved in a crash. Texas Department of Public Safety said according to preliminary investigation, the car failed to yield to the right of way at a stop sign and hit the school bus near the intersection of County Roads 2117 and 2116 in Cherokee County. view article

More solar energy powered Texas than ever before on Sunday morning, with over one third of the electricity running on the state’s power grid coming from the sun. Experts say it’s a Texas record that’s not expected to last very long. Weather conditions were ideal for solar, with clear skies across most of the state, when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas recorded the record at 10:09 a.m. Sunday. At that time, about 15,222 megawatts of solar ran over Texas transmission lines to homes and businesses. According to ERCOT, one megawatt can power 200 homes in times of peak energy use. Later that day, Texas broke a record for the share of electricity on the grid that comes from the sun: 36.11%. view article

On Jan 24, 2024, a small plane crash claimed the life of a 23-year-old man in Fannin County. Authorities revealed that the aircraft involved had been stolen from an Addison, Texas flight school. The pilot was identified as 23-year-old Logan Timothy James from Stokesdale, N.C., the Texas Department of Public Safety told Local Profile. The single-engine Cessna 172 was taken from the ATP Flight School at Addison Airport. The aircraft was then flown over 80 miles northeast towards Paris, Texas. view article

Both districts were closed for most of last week after reaching a threshold of illnesses among students and staff. view article

LOCKHART, Texas - A senior at Lockhart High School died in a crash, the school district said. Lockhart ISD said Yairette Tovar-Pineda died Tuesday, Jan. 23 in a car crash. A crisis intervention team has been called to the school to help with the needs of students, parents and staff. view article

More Texans than ever have signed up for cheap or free health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act, with more than 1 in 9 residents covered under government-subsidized health plans for 2024, according to federal health data released on Wednesday. In a state that has the highest number of uninsured residents in the nation, public health advocates say it’s an encouraging trend that the number of Texas enrollees in ACA programs climbed by 37% to nearly 3.5 million over last year’s figures. Texas enrollment in ACA plans has more than doubled since 2020 and is among the states with the highest rate of enrollment growth for the last three years. The plans were first made available in 2014 and designed to offer more health insurance options for those individuals whose income was not low enough for Medicaid insurance but who could not access insurance through their workplaces. view article

A fifth grade Lumberton Independent School District student reported "vulgar" language in the STAAR reading test last month, according to information from LISD.  view article

Vidor ISD superintendent Jay Killgo estimates the district has $12-13 million in damages from Harvey. Both Oak Forest Elementary and Vidor Middle School are unusable right now. Those students are going elsewhere, which is overcrowding some schools. view article

Burnet school district officials were probably expecting to get more than two years from the synthetic turf installed at Bulldog Field in 2015, but that didn’t happen and it’s now set the district back $150,000. Burnet Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Keith McBurnett, however, said the district is looking to get $105,000 back from one manufacturer. Last year, officials noticed some turf fibers sticking up higher than others, so they took a closer look, McBurnett said. “To most people, it probably wasn’t noticeable,” he said. “We had all the experts look at the field, and they looked at the backside. It needed to be replaced.” view article

North American Solutions (NAS), a leading provider of insurance and risk management services for public entities, is excited to announce that Michelle Faust, currently Director, Safety & Risk Management at Round Rock ISD, will be joining the NAS team in January. view article