(Susan Carroll/Houston Chronicle)
Doug Dreher smiled broadly at the group of good Samaritans crammed into a back bedroom of his Heights-area duplex, trying to match faces with his muddled memories from the morning of the fire.
There was the petite, seventh-grade teacher, Patricia Lozano, who broke out a bedroom window to awaken him on Dec. 11, and then ran into his kitchen screaming, “Get your family! Get out of the house! Your house is on fire!” And Ramon Medina, a 35-year-old electrician, who grabbed a garden hose in the dark and doused the flames on Dreher’s front porch.
And Mario San Miguel Alcala-Reyes, a former police officer, who reached through a broken window to open the door. His hankering for Andy’s Café on 11th Street led the group of 10 friends from Rosenberg to caravan up Michaux Street and past Dreher’s duplex around 2 or 3 a.m., just as the fire lapped at the porch’s ceiling.
“God put us on that road for a reason,” Alcala-Reyes said.
(See the full story at the Houston Chronicle)
OTHER HEADLINES:
- Improvements Being Made In Blighted NW Area Of Houston (KUHF Public Radio)
- More Students in HISD Take AP Test, But Most Score Low (Houston Chronicle)
- EPA Air Chief Believes Cross-State Rule Will Prevail in Court (Fuel Fix)
- All 2011 Unemployment Insurance Benefits Taxable (KTRK 13 News)
- BP Sees Growth of Renewables, But Continuing Role for Fossil Fuels (Fuel Fix)
OPINIONS OF NOTE:
- Douglas Kliener: How to Groom the Problem Solvers of Tomorrow? Involve Them in the All-Earth EcoBot Challenge Today (Houston Culture Map)
- Nicholas Kristof: How Mrs. Grady Transformed Olly Neal (New York Times)