Orange County faced “H” in 2017. Harvey and the hospital, or lack of one, were obviously the top stories of the year.
It’s traditional for news media at the end of a calendar year to review the top stories. Harvey, which was a tropical storm when it poured some 50 inches of rain on the county, could rank as the top story in Orange County’s history.
Law officers reported 11 deaths in Orange County during the storm. The deaths included two drownings and two young men who were electrocuted while shutting off a breaker box the night of the heaviest rain. Most of the deaths were elderly people.
The National Weather Service recorded 60.58 inches from Harvey at the Southeast Texas Regional Airport in Nederland. Most areas in Orange County received 50 inches or more, with an area in the northwest part of the county getting 60 inches.
But it wasn’t all bad news for the county. Wienerschitzel on MacArthur Drive in Pinehurst opened again in May with people waiting in line all the way down MacArthur Dr. for a chili cheese dog. The store built in 1965 had been closed by the corporation for months.
Weather was the top bad news, but it became good news on December 8. A rare snowstorm came in the night and snow was coming down as dawn broke. Measurements went to four inches or more in places. Schools that were trying to make up days missed because of the flood gave a snow day to excited children who bundled up to make snow people, snow angels and have snowball fights.
Also, the West Orange-Stark High football team went to its fourth straight championship game. Even though high school football season was delayed because of Harvey, the young Mustangs went beyond expectations. Coach Cornel Thompson and his team chalked up 40 straight wins before losing to the Pleasant Grove Hawks 41-21 in the championship game.
The century-old Southern Pacific Depot in downtown Orange had been vacant and decaying for some 25 years until a native of Orange, Carrie Joiner Woliver, started a non-profit group to restore it. In May, the Friends of the Orange Depot had a grand opening for the renovated train station.
Hurricane Harvey’s winds had caused massive damage on the Texas Gulf Coast. The storm went up through Austin, went back into the Gulf of Mexico and circled back to record amounts of rain to Southeast Texas.
The heavy rain here began the morning of Monday, August 28, just a week after we witnessed a total solar eclipse. People in Orange County had been reading and watching reports of the torrential rains in Houston that began on Saturday. They were bracing for a lot of rain here, but they didn’t imagine they would be living the nightmares of Houstonians.
Most schools in the county had been scheduled for first classes to begin on Monday. Because of the storm warnings, school officials canceled classes for Monday and Tuesday. After the flood, it took weeks for some schools to start.
The rain on Monday let up and drained off, leaving drainage ditches, gullies and bayous full. Then before noon on Tuesday, the rain came again. It barely let up during the day and fell hard through the night.
Water rose where it had never risen before. People were awakened by the water coming up in their houses. Water was ankle deep. Water was knee deep. Water was waist deep. Water was chest high. Lights were out.
Orange County residents love boats. Those who could get to theirs launched to go help relatives, friends, and strangers get to dry ground. Volunteers from other states with the so-called “Cajun Navy” quickly arrived.
The morning of August 30 most of Orange County was sea. Motorboats were traveling on thoroughfares. State and federal help came, too. Helicopters helped rescue people. Large military helicopters and transport planes brought supplies.
Residents scattered to stay with friends or family. Some who had been left at Northway Shopping Center in Orange were bused to shelters in Louisiana. One woman was later heard saying “You don’t know what it’s like to have to depend on a stranger for your underwear and a shirt.”
After the water went down, the clean-up began. Every conversation involved words like “mucking,” “dehumidifier,” “mold spray,” “insurance” and “FEMA.”
Students at schools across the county have had to use make-shift classrooms in other buildings. LC-M students have been using North Orange Baptist Church and at Orangefield, some classes were moved into a gym with blue tarps forming “walls.”
Four months after Harvey’s flood, many people are still living in RVs or in gutted-out houses with bare necessities in a couple of rooms. Harvey recovery could end up being a top story for 2018.
2017 started with bad news hanging over from December 2016 when Baptist Hospital of Southeast Texas announced the local emergency room would be closed on January 12. After that date, the only a couple of private emergency centers catering to people with insurance and the money to pay for quick service would be open.
The hospital closing came in steps. Back in late 2003, the administrator of the hospital sent a letter to all members of the Greater Orange Chamber of Commerce saying “use it or lose it.” Even after that time, Baptist opened a new emergency room and remodeled a wing for a “state of the art” medical care.
But a combination of events, including Texas not expanding Medicaid, left the hospital losing money. Baptist ended delivering babies in May 2013 and then in June 2015 closed in-patient service. The emergency room then followed.
One of the results of the closing was Dr. Miquel Castellanos, the county’s only cardiologist, moved to Palestine. When he moved, in said Orange County was the largest county in Texas without a hospital.
Local government officials jumped in to try to get another hospital. Baptist owns the building off Strickland Drive in Orange and the officials could not use it as a bargaining tool to get another company.
Two meetings were held at the county Expo Center for citizens to learn about the medical status and solutions. Soon, local businessman Ross Smith started a petition drive for an election to create a special hospital district with taxing powers and an elected board of directors.
The first petition drive did not work because the signatures did not meet state requirements. A second petition drive was started. The second petition met the requirements but was turned in after Tropical Storm Harvey hit and people had lost their homes and belongings. They weren’t ready for another tax. Orange County Commissioners Court under state election law had to call the election.
KOGT and Lamar State College-Orange hosted two forums before the December 19 election. More than 100 people attended each forum where they could hear “for” and “against” arguments and ask questions.
The proposal to create a hospital district failed miserably, by a 5-1 margin with 7,597 “against” and only 1,253 “for.”
The May 8 kidnapping of local lawyer Jim Bearden from his Bridge City house shocked the community. Bearden, though, kept a cool head and preserved information to lead law enforcement to three men, one 20 years old and the other two 17 years old.
Bearden had slept late at his house that morning while his wife and children had gone to school. Investigators believe the three young men planned a burglary.
Bearden said a gun was pointed at his head, they threatened him with a baseball bat, and tied him up with electrical cords. He convinced them to let him get money from his account at a Port Arthur bank. One of the kidnappers gave Bearden his cell phone to keep on a live stream when the lawyer went into the bank. The kidnapper kept Bearden’s cell phone to watch.
While inside the bank, Bearden took a screen shot of the kidnapper’s phone information and messaged it to his own phone. He later said he was glad the kidnapper didn’t notice the message coming in.
The kidnappers took money and dropped him off along a Port Arthur street with his cell phone. Police picked him up and were later able to arrest the three kidnappers.
In July in Bridge City, businessman Jimmy Scales, who also served as city judge, was killed in a tractor-mower accident. Scales was a former Bridge City Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year.
He wasn’t the only person active in the community who died in 2017. 89-year-old Carlton “Corky” Harmon passed away in May. He helped organize the community college that became Lamar State College-Orange and served as president of the college’s non-profit support group since its formation nearly 50 years ago.
Mary Louise McKee, a patron of the arts and local charities, passed away in June at the age of 94. She was a native Texan who had lived in Orange for 70 years. In the 1950s, she worked to establish the Orange Service League and became its first president. The charitable group is still active.
The Orange Police Department lost two retirees during the year. Sarah Jefferson-Simon, who had been a detective sergeant, passed away in January. At her death, she was serving on the West Orange-Cove school board. Miller Jack was in charge of the building maintenance for the police department was known as “the unofficial assistant chief of police.”
Retired West Orange-Cove coach Leroy Breedlove passed away. The high school football field is named in his honor. At the end of the year, Orange native and longtime local attorney Marcia Brandon DeLarue passed away.
Mary Feathers celebrated her 100 birthday in August and then quietly passed away a few weeks later. She had long been active at St. Paul CME Church and was a loyal listener of KOGT radio.
The Greater Orange Area said goodbye to a local landmark of the Post-War Era. MacArthur Shopping Center in Pinehurst was demolished to clear the way for new HEB store. The shopping center had opened in 1960 with dozens of stores including Sears, Worth’s, Kresge, Weingarten’s, and Levine’s. Through the years, though, stores moved out and spots were left vacant for years.
Decades ago, the shopping center drew people away from downtown Orange, but in 2017, two new large buildings were opened in downtown. Lamar State College-Orange opened the Cypress Center and the Stark Foundation dedicated a classroom-archives addition to the Stark Museum of Art.
The foundation named the classroom area in honor of Walter G. Riedel III, who had retired as president and CEO of the foundation earlier in the year. He had led the foundation after the death of Nelda C. Stark and was instrumental in opening Shangri La Gardens and Botanical Center.
Clyde “Tad” McKee III, the longtime chief financial officer of the foundation, became president and CEO. It was a double year of titles for McKee. In December, he took over as chairman of the board of the Greater Orange Area Chamber of Commerce.
Harvey flooded the foundation’s Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center. The gardens have been closed since the storm but are expected to reopen in 2018. The storm also delayed the opening of the season for the foundation’s Lutcher Theater. Though the theater was not damaged, local hotels had no rooms available for the touring shows with their crews.
During the year, two infamous fatal accidents ended with guilty pleas and punishment trials. One driver got a probated sentence, the other is to serve 15 years in prison. Neither man had a previous criminal record.
Carl Broussard, age 54, pleaded guilty to failure to stop in render aid in a fatal accident. He was driving a small car that hit and killed 25-year-old Ava Nicole Lewis and her 6-year-old daughter, Lamya. The collision was at night on November 2, 2015, on MacArthur Drive. Broussard was a coach at West Orange-Stark High School. He surrendered to police two days after the accident and resigned from his job.
After pleading guilty, Broussard opted to have a punishment trial before the presiding judge. Broussard faced a total of 40 years in prison. 260th District Judge Buddie Hahn gave a 10-year probated sentence and took the option of making Broussard serve six months in the Orange County Jail.
31-year-old Travis Collins pleaded guilty to two counts of intoxicated manslaughter for driving while drunk and killing motorcyclists Riley and Emily Portie. The couple were riding on a motorcyle on a trip to the post office in Orange on May 24, 2015. The motorcycle was traveling westbound on Park Avenue as the couple were returning to their Little Cypress house as a speeding pickup truck driven by Collins went airborne at the railroad tracks and landed on the motorcycle.
A jury trial was held for the punishment phase before 123rd District Judge Courtney Arkeen. Collins faced a total of 40 years in prison, 20 years for each county. The jury deliberated about four hours and decided to give him 15 years on each count. The jury also decided the two terms would be served concurrently, making Collins sentence a total of 15 years.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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