Texas, Beaumont | featured news

When Tropical Storm Harvey first made its way into the region, Katie Durio and her staff at Stable-Spirit, a therapeutic riding facility in Rose City, thought they would be safe.
By Aug. 30, as Harvey began unleashing a relentless torrent of rainfall, swelling the Neches River and surrounding bayous, water began rising at an increasingly rapid pace.
It became clear that Durio and the 17 horses that call the stables home needed to get out.
By the time the first trailers arrived, Durio was already in waist-high water.

In the middle of neighborhoods of gutted and rebuilding homes, abandoned structures sit growing mold, deteriorating and becoming health hazards, bearing red tags declaring them unsafe, unfit and hazardous. Vidor Mayor Robert Viator said at least half a dozen houses in residential areas that the city was already looking to demolish before the storm now threaten their neighbors' health. The city short on time and money to go through the process needed to demolish them, he said.

A major railway crossing in Silsbee, which has caused bottleneck traffic and frustrated drivers for years, has become the recent target of a little light ribbing on social media.
Kayla Sheppard, 51, is one of the more than 1,200 people who has "checked-in" on a Facebook page called "The Effing Train."
Friends joke that the Silsbee native should be named the "Train Queen" because she is caught at the intersection multiple times a week.
The average wait time is 30 minutes, Sheppard said.

Bevil Oaks residents didn't let Tropical Storm Harvey's devastation dampen their Christmas spirit as they held their Christmas celebration in their city hall trailer on Saturday afternoon. Mayor Becky Ford said they weren't sure how many children were still living in town, but they had about 50 registered to attend the event. Santa Claus gave each child a gift and a bag of cookies, and drawings were held for larger gifts such as bikes.
"We can't let it get us down.

Our cameras were at West Orange-Stark's state title game on Friday. Did we see you there?

A Jefferson County judge lowered bond for the 70-year-old accused of killing her boyfriend in October, though she remains in jail Friday afternoon.

The Jasper family found guilty of 28 charges of fraud and theft for illegally diverting hurricane relief money could have to repay almost $1 million, if a judge rules in the federal government's favor next month.
Walter Diggles, the former executive director of the Deep East Texas Council of Governments, was convicted in August of 16 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and theft. His wife, Rosie, was found guilty of wire fraud and money laundering. The couple and their daughter, Anita, were each also convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
They have not yet been sentenced.