Connect with us

News from the South - Texas News Feed

Measles hits adults hardest in El Paso

Published

on

feeds.texastribune.org – By Eleanor Klibanoff – 2025-05-21 05:00:00


Measles is spreading in West Texas, with El Paso seeing a high rate of adult infections. Although typically affecting children, two-thirds of the cases in El Paso are among adults. The county’s high vaccination rates for children, with 96% of kindergartners and 98% of seventh graders vaccinated, may be helping protect the younger population. Public health officials are now targeting adults for vaccination, as many may not remember their immunization status. Measles can lead to serious complications like pneumonia, and El Paso’s proximity to Mexico, where the outbreak has also spread, raises concerns about further transmission.

In El Paso, measles is infecting more adults than children

In El Paso, measles is infecting more adults than children” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.


As soon as measles started spreading in West Texas, El Paso health officials began preparing schools and day care facilities for the day the virus would inevitably arrive.

But now that it’s here, it’s not kids who are making up the brunt of the cases — it’s adults. Two-thirds of El Paso’s cases so far are among people over the age of 18, and only 7% are among school-age children.

Anyone unvaccinated can contract measles, but it tends to hit children first and hardest. Most children are not fully vaccinated until they are five years old and they spend more time than adults in congregate settings where the virus can spread quickly. More families of young children are opting out of vaccines, leaving them exposed.

Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak, followed this traditional path, starting with school-age children before spreading to adults. Almost six months into what is now the country’s largest measles outbreak since 2000, Texas’ 722 cases are about evenly spread between the three age groups the state divides them into: under four, 5-17 and adults.

El Paso stands out for its high rate of adult infections. The county only has 56 cases so far, the third-highest among Texas counties but still too small of a sample size to conclude much, public health experts say. But if this trend holds, it may be a credit to El Paso’s high vaccination rates among kids — 96% of kindergartners and 98% of seventh graders are fully vaccinated for measles, higher than the percent required to maintain herd immunity. The state does not track adult vaccination rates.

“That is one of the protective factors that we feel is helping us,” said El Paso public health authority Hector Ocaranza. “But still we’re going to continue to see cases of measles that are going to be clustering in some of the schools or day cares that have low immunization rates.”

These surprising initial statistics have required public health officials to change their outbreak response on the fly. They’re aiming more of their vaccination events specifically at adults, especially as many health care providers who serve adults do not have the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine on hand the way pediatricians do.

“Most of the adults, they don’t remember whether they’ve had the MMR vaccine,” Ocaranza said. “They were kids, and nobody has a shot record.”

Adults unsure of whether they were vaccinated as children can safely get another round of the shots, said Patsy Stinchfield, past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a measles expert.

“If you did have two [shots] already, it will only make your full antibody cup even fuller,” Stinchfield said.

Older adults especially should consult with their doctor about their immunization status, she said. People born before 1957 are presumed immune, since the virus was so common back then, but some people who got an early version of the vaccine between 1963 and 1967 may not have gotten the same protection as later shots.

The exceptions, she said, are people who are immunocompromised, pregnant women or the tiny minority of people who have had a bad reaction to the vaccine in the past. Those people are counting on everyone else’s vaccination status to keep them healthy.

Healthy adults are generally able to fight off the worst of a measles infection, but anyone who gets infected runs the risk of it morphing into pneumonia or worse, said Ben Neuman, a virologist at Texas A&M University. Three of the five hospitalizations in El Paso so far are in adults.

And anyone with measles will spread it in the community, potentially to children too young to be vaccinated who are especially vulnerable to the worst outcomes, like encephalitis, deafness, blindness and permanent brain damage.

“Especially kids two years and under, their immune systems are just bad at everything,” Neuman said. “We’re all sort of helping them out with our herd immunity.”

Neuman said it’s possible that El Paso’s high rate of adult cases is “the first sign of something weird,” but he anticipates the data will start to look more normal as more people get tested.

El Paso borders the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where the outbreak that originated in Texas has taken hold due to the large Mennonite communities in both places. Ocaranza said measles doesn’t respect borders, and he anticipates it spreading vociferously on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico line now that it’s in El Paso.

The messaging is the same, whether it’s children or adults who are testing positive, in Mexico or the United States, he said: Get vaccinated.

“We welcome anybody who needs the vaccine,” he said. “We can vaccinate regardless of their place of residence, regardless of their immigration status, regardless of the ability to pay … Everyone needs to join forces to stop this.”

Disclosure: Texas A&M University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.


First round of TribFest speakers announced! Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd; U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio; Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker; U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California; and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas are taking the stage Nov. 13–15 in Austin. Get your tickets today!

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/05/21/texas-el-paso-measles/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

The post Measles hits adults hardest in El Paso appeared first on feeds.texastribune.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article is largely focused on a public health issue—measles outbreaks in El Paso—offering a factual account of the situation and the local response. The language is neutral, presenting statements from health officials, medical experts, and public health data without introducing any political or ideological perspectives. The inclusion of both local and expert opinions further emphasizes the aim to inform rather than advocate for a particular viewpoint. Additionally, the article adheres to a non-partisan stance, highlighting health measures and facts while avoiding politically charged language or policy endorsements.

News from the South - Texas News Feed

6-year-old boy survives near-drowning, witnesses angels in heaven

Published

on

www.kxan.com – Rodricka Stevens – 2025-07-10 23:31:00

SUMMARY: On July 4, Krista Parker’s 6-year-old son, DJ, nearly drowned at Paragon Casino Resort in Louisiana. Despite DJ’s fear of water, he suddenly went lifeless by the pool. Krista and her husband performed CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, eventually reviving him as water was expelled from his lungs. DJ was taken to Rapides Women’s and Children’s Hospital, where he recounted a near-death experience of seeing angels and God, strengthening his family’s faith. He now wants to be named Avir, meaning “air” in Hebrew, reflecting his experience. DJ suffered no lasting physical harm, emphasizing the importance of CPR training and water safety.

Read the full article

The post 6-year-old boy survives near-drowning, witnesses angels in heaven appeared first on www.kxan.com

Continue Reading

News from the South - Texas News Feed

Why Kerr County balked on a new flood warning system

Published

on

feeds.texastribune.org – By Terri Langford, Dan Keemahill and Hayden Betts – 2025-07-10 17:52:00


Following devastating July 4 flooding in Kerr County that killed nearly 100, officials blamed taxpayer resistance for the lack of flood warning sirens along the Guadalupe River. Despite awareness since 2016 of flood risks and the need for a $1 million warning system, political conservatism and a tight tax base stalled progress. An application for FEMA funding was denied due to the absence of a hazard mitigation plan, and the county’s $10.2 million American Rescue Plan Act funds were largely spent on public safety radio systems, not flood warnings. Local leaders and residents now push to install sirens for future safety.

Did fiscal conservatism block plans for a new flood warning system in Kerr County?” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.


In the week after the tragic July 4 flooding in Kerr County, several officials have blamed taxpayer pressure as the reason flood warning sirens were never installed along the Guadalupe River.

“The public reeled at the cost,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly told reporters one day after the rain pushed Guadalupe River levels more than 32 feet, resulting in nearly 100 deaths in the county, as of Thursday.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly speaks during a press conference at the Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville on Saturday July 5, 2025.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly speaks during a press conference at the Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville on Saturday July 5, 2025. Credit: Ronaldo Bolaños/The Texas Tribune

A community that overwhelmingly voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024, Kerr County constructed an economic engine on the allure of the Guadalupe River. Government leaders acknowledged the need for more disaster mitigation, including a $1 million flood warning system that would better alert the public to emergencies, to sustain that growth, but they were hamstrung by a small and tightfisted tax base.

An examination of transcripts since 2016 from Kerr County’s governing body, the commissioners court, offers a peek into a small Texas county paralyzed by two competing interests: to make one of the country’s most dangerous region for flash flooding safer and to heed to near constant calls from constituents to reduce property taxes and government waste.

“This is a pretty conservative county,” said former Kerr County Judge Tom Pollard, 86. “Politically, of course, and financially as well.”

County zeroes in on river safety in 2016

Cary Burgess, a local meteorologist whose weather reports can be found in the Kerrville Daily Times or heard on Hill Country radio stations, has noticed the construction all along the Guadalupe for the better part of the last decade.

More Texans and out-of-state residents have been discovering the river’s pristine waters lined with bald cypress trees, a long-time draw for camping, hiking and kayaking, and they have been coming in droves to build more homes and businesses along the water’s edge. If any of the newcomers were familiar with the last deadly flood in 1987 that killed 10 evacuating teenagers, they found the river’s threat easy to dismiss.

“They’ve been building up and building up and building up and doing more and more projects along the river that were getting dangerous,” Burgess recalls. “And people are building on this river, my gosh, they don’t even know what this river’s capable of.”

By the time the 1987 flood hit, the county had grown to about 35,000 people. Today, there are about 53,000 people living in Kerr County.

In 2016, Kerr County commissioners already knew they were getting outpaced by neighboring, rapidly growing counties on installing better flood warning systems and were looking for ways to pull ahead.

During a camp evacuation ahead of rising floodwaters, a Seagoville Road Baptist Church bus was swept into the Guadalupe River near the town of Comfort during the July 17, 1987 flood. 43 people — four adults and 39 teenagers — were washed into the river. 10 teenagers died.
During a camp evacuation ahead of rising floodwaters, a Seagoville Road Baptist Church bus was swept into the Guadalupe River near the town of Comfort during the July 17, 1987 flood. Forty three people — four adults and 39 teenagers — were washed into the river. Ten teenagers died. Credit: The National Weather Service

During a March 28 meeting that year, they said as much.

“Even though this is probably one of the highest flood-prone regions in the entire state where a lot of people are involved, their systems are state of the art,” Commissioner Tom Moser said then. He discussed how other counties like Comal had moved to sirens and more modern flood warning systems.

“And the current one that we have, it will give – all it does is flashing light,” explained W.B. “Dub” Thomas, the county’s emergency management coordinator. “I mean all – that’s all you get at river crossings or wherever they’re located at.”

Kerr County already had signed on with a company that allowed its residents to opt in and get a CodeRED alert about dangerous weather conditions. But Thomas urged the commissioners court to strive for something more. Cell service along the headwaters of the Guadalupe near Hunt was spotty in the western half of Kerr County, making a redundant system of alerts even more necessary.

“I think we need a system that can be operated or controlled by a centralized location where – whether it’s the Sheriff’s communication personnel, myself or whatever, and it’s just a redundant system that will complement what we currently have,” Thomas said that year.

By the next year, officials had sent off its application for a $731,413 grant to FEMA to help bring $976,000 worth of flood warning upgrades, including 10 high water detection systems without flashers, 20 gauges, possible outdoor sirens, and more.

“The purpose of this project is to provide Kerr County with a flood warning system,” the county wrote in its application. “The System will be utilized for mass notification to citizens about high water levels and flooding conditions throughout Kerr County.”

But the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which oversees billions of FEMA dollars designed to prevent disasters, denied the application because they didn’t have a current hazard mitigation plan. They resubmitted it, news outlets reported, but by then, priority was given to counties that had suffered damage from Hurricane Harvey.

Political skepticism about a windfall

All that concern about warning systems seemed to fade over the next five years, as the political atmosphere throughout the county became more polarized and COVID fatigue frayed local residents’ nerves.

In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.

Kerr County did not opt for ARPA to fund flood warning systems despite commissioners discussing such projects nearly two dozen times since 2016. In fact, a survey sent to residents about ARPA spending showed that 42% of the 180 responses wanted to reject the $10 million bonus altogether, largely on political grounds.

“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.

“We don’t want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We’d like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.”

When it was all said and done, the county approved $7 million in ARPA dollars on a public safety radio communications system for the sheriff’s department and county fire services to meet the community’s needs for the next 10 years, although earlier estimates put that contract at $5 million. Another $1 million went to sheriff’s employees in the form of stipends and raises, and just over $600,000 went towards additional county positions. A new walking path was also created with the ARPA money.

While much has been made of the ARPA spending, it’s not clear if residents or the commissioners understood at the time they could have applied the funds to a warning system. Current Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, and Thomas have declined repeated requests for interviews. Moser, who is no longer a commissioner, did not immediately respond to a Texas Tribune interview request.

Many Kerr County residents, including those who don’t normally follow every cog-turn of government proceedings, have now been poring over the county commissioners meetings this week including Ingram City Council member Raymond Howard. They’ve been digging into ARPA spending and other ways that the county missed opportunities to procure $1 million to implement the warning system commissioners wanted almost 10 years ago, and to prevent the devastating death toll from this week.

A week ago, Howard spent the early morning hours of July 4 knocking on neighbors’ doors to alert them to the flooding after he himself ignored the first two phone alerts on his phone in the middle of the night.

In the week since, the more he’s learned about Kerr County’s county inaction on a flood warning system, the angrier he has become.

“Well, they were obviously thinking about it because they brought it up 20 times since 2016 and never did anything on it,” Howard said, adding that he never thought to ask the city to install sirens previously because he didn’t realize the need for it. “I’m pretty pissed about that.”

Harvey Hilderbran, the former Texas House representative for Kerr County, said what he is watching play out in the community this week is what he’s seen for years in Texas: A disaster hits. There’s a rush to find out who’s accountable. Then outrage pushes officials to shore up deficiencies.

It’s not that Kerr County was dead set against making the area safer, Hilderbran said. Finding a way to pay for it is always where better ideas run aground, especially with a taxbase and leadership as fiscally conservative as Kerr’s.

“Generally everybody’s for doing something until it gets down to the details paying for it,” Hilderbran said. “It’s not like people don’t think about it … I know it’s an issue on their minds and something needs to be done.”

Howard, the 62-year-old Ingram city council member, came to Kerr County years ago to care for an ailing mother. Although he has now been diagnosed with stage four cancer, he said he intends to devote his life to make sure that his small two-mile town north of Kerrville has a warning system and he already knows where he’s going to put it.

“We’re going to get one, put it up on top of the tower behind the volunteer fire department,” he said. “It’s the thing I could do even if it’s the last thing I do …to help secure safety for the future.”

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/10/texas-kerr-county-commissioners-flooding-warning/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

The post Why Kerr County balked on a new flood warning system appeared first on feeds.texastribune.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

This article presents a mostly factual and balanced overview of Kerr County’s flood warning system challenges within a politically conservative community. It highlights the county’s strong conservative stance on limited government spending and skepticism toward federal aid, reflecting typical right-leaning priorities such as fiscal conservatism and wariness of federal involvement. The coverage is careful to present multiple perspectives, including official statements and local residents’ concerns, without overt editorializing or ideological framing. The tone and content suggest an objective report focused on local governance dynamics rather than promoting a partisan agenda, though the conservative context is clearly emphasized.

Continue Reading

News from the South - Texas News Feed

Georgetown wildlife rehab caring for more than 500 animals, many taken in after Texas floods

Published

on

www.kxan.com – Abigail Jones – 2025-07-10 12:34:00

SUMMARY: Devastating floods in Texas have caused significant damage and at least 120 deaths, with many still missing. Central Texas wildlife is struggling too. All Things Wild Rehabilitation in Georgetown is caring for over 500 animals affected by the floods, including orphaned, injured, and displaced wildlife. The nonprofit urgently needs donations, volunteers, and more land to continue its work. They have already admitted nearly as many animals in 2025 as all of last year, emphasizing the ongoing impact of extreme weather. All Things Wild provides extensive care and safely releases animals back into natural habitats. They encourage public support and offer guidance for reporting injured wildlife.

Read the full article

The post Georgetown wildlife rehab caring for more than 500 animals, many taken in after Texas floods appeared first on www.kxan.com

Continue Reading

Trending