By BJ Austin, KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – The National Weather Service says there were six tornadoes in North Texas yesterday as the remnants of "Hermine" roared through. The one that hit an industrial area of west Dallas was an E-F 2, with winds in excess of 110 miles an hour.
Meteorologist Jesse Moore says there were also "amazing" rainfall totals with this storm.
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Moore: Anywhere from five to over 11 inches of rain fell. The 11 inches of rain was down near the Killeen area in Bell County. But there were even some heavier amounts here. We had a place in Arlington that picked up nearly 10 inches.
Moore says that was around Park Springs and Pioneer Parkway, near the apartment complex that was swamped with up to 8 feet of water.
Plan To Save 3 Fort Worth Libraries
The Fort Worth City Council is considering a deal to keep three branch libraries open.
The Ridglea, Northside and Meadowbrook libraries were slated to close because of the city's 73 million dollar budget shortfall. The Fort Worth Public Library Foundation has offered to run the three branches using private donations.
Betsy Pepper, President of the Foundation, says it's in the city's best interest to keep the libraries open.
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Pepper: We don't believe they should close. We believe that we can manage them as a private entity for three days a week and we can save the city money and we can keep the buildings open.
Under the new deal, the three branches would be open 20 hours a week. The city will continue to run Ridglea, while a consortium of non-profits, led by the Library Foundation, operates the others. A few more details must be worked out before final Council approval.
Texas retail gasoline prices level off
Retail gasoline prices remain steady across Texas and nationwide.
The weekly AAA Texas price survey released Thursday shows that a gallon of unleaded regular averaged $2.52 per gallon across Texas and $2.68 nationally for the second week in a row.
The cheapest gasoline is found in Houston, where the average price of unleaded regular remained at $2.46 per gallon. El Paso continued to have the most expensive gas at $2.70 per gallon, also unchanged from last week.
The auto club statement attributes the price stability to sluggish demand for gasoline and a narrow trading range for crude oil in recent weeks, between $73 and $78 per barrel.
Feds reject Texas application for school funding
The U.S. Department of Education has rejected Texas' application for $830 million in federal money for schools.
Federal officials say in a letter to Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott that they could not award the money to Texas because of "conditional assurances" included in the state's application.
Texas Republicans have balked at a provision in the federal law that requires Texas to make additional assurances to the feds about how Texas schools will be funded for the next three years.
Gov. Rick Perry says complying with the provision he would violate the state constitution.
The letter from the Department of Education asked Scott to resubmit the application without the conditional language.