Category: San Antonio News

Editor’s note: Each weekend, we share five stories that captured the attention of the Alamo City over the past seven days. Here are the most-read stories of the week. 1. 6 San Antonio spots named on Texas Monthly’s best new restaurants list. This year’s list highlights the best dishes from new eateries around the state. 2. DeLorean drives into the future with new San Antonio headquarters. The car made famous in Back to the Future…

Officers with the San Antonio Police Department spent part of their Saturday morning trying to figure out how an SUV ended up in the San Antonio River.

Officers were called to the part of the river that goes under Highway 281, just north of downtown near the Brackenridge Park Golf Course, before 10 a.m.

Police found a silver SUV sitting in the river submerged in the water. There was no damage to the highway above. A fence near the river suffered some damage, but it is unclear if that is a result of the accident.

Police did not say if anyone was inside the vehicle or was hurt.

The biggest obstacle they had was figuring out how to get the vehicle out of the water.

More on KSAT:

Search underway for missing 38-year-old man in Aransas Pass, police say

When it comes to the weather in South Central Texas, February can be an volatile month, bringing anything from winter storms to severe weather.

And it was on the night of February 19, 2017 that several tornadoes touched down around the San Antonio metro area, creating significant damage.

DETAILS

A strong cold front produced a well-defined squall line of thunderstorms, which moved through San Antonio Sunday evening, around 10 p.m.

Spots of tight rotation developed along the leading edge of this line of thunderstorms, producing several tornadoes.

While the entire system eventually produced nine tornadoes from San Antonio to Austin, five touched down in the KSAT 12 viewing area — the strongest of which was in the Ridgeview/Alamo Heights subdivisions.

TornadoRating (Max Winds)TimeLengthRidgeview / Alamo Heights (Bexar Co)EF-2 (120 mph)10:36 p.m. to 10:43 p.m.4.6 miNorthern Hills (Bexar Co)EF-1 (105 mph)10:43 p.m. to 10:49 p.m.3.0 miGlen Heights (Bexar Co)EF-0 (80 mph)10:42 p.m. to 10:45 p.m.1.6 miSchoenthal Ranch (Comal County)EF-0 (85 mph)11:00 p.m. to 11:02 p.m.0.7 miSouthern Guadalupe CountyEF-0 (85 mph)11:16 p.m. to 11:18 p.m.0.23 mi

DAMAGE

Thankfully, no major injuries were reported. However, significant damage was done. Click on the slider in the middle of each photo to view before and after images.

“You take the money you have, you invest it, and then you watch it work for you.”

Here at Legends Charter school, which fittingly sits in a corporate office area of Washington D.C., Financial Education is comprehensively built into the curriculum and offered to the entire school community.

”A payment that is taken out of your bank account… it’s debit. Every single class in here is named after a stock portfolio,” said Shomari James, co-founder, CEO Equity Now.

James, one of the four founding members of Legends, wanted the student body of mostly minority children to get real-life experiences in investing and how money works.

”This is the machine that has your money and it’s hooked up to your bank. When you have an understanding about money, it changes things, it opens things up for you,” said James.

The kids couldn’t have better teachers on the subject. Shomari snatched people, like Justin Devoe, right out of the financial world, convincing them that helping these kids is their true calling.

”So when you start investing don’t get scared or upset because you don’t have a lot of money right away.”

The kids are extra invested in this class because they can win hundreds of dollars in scholarship money to invest in their own portfolios.

”You really need to learn how to invest and grow you money at a young age, and I think that’s really good for young kids to learn that,” said 5th grader Sincere Turner.

As it turns out, Turner is really good at investing. He’s one of the current students picked to use scholarship dollars to build up his personal portfolio.

The school uses its resources to help create wealth for the adults as well, who are part of the Legends community.

”We know what teacher wages are so what Justin does is he holds specific classes for just the teachers to talk to them about their finances or financial education as well,so they can feel prepared,” said James.

”I love the fact that he also, the financial department, Mr. Devoe also helps the parents as well to save, to  start investing in stocks and stuff like that,” said Dionna Towell, Legends parent and teacher.

Legends is a school that’s taking investing into one’s community to a whole new exciting level.

It’s that time of year when love is in the air. Can you remember back to what drew you to your special someone? Was it their energy? Their smile? Or their adorable face? Did you find each other in person, or did you swipe right to virtually meet your match?

Now, there is an innovative service that links people with their perfect furry fit.

Is it chemistry? Or personality? The traits that create a great partnership… can also help match a person to the perfect pet.

Jodi Andersen, the co-founder of How I Met My Dog, says her secret is, “The assessing is the magic. That’s, that’s really our secret sauce.”

Andersen is an expert in dog behavior and co-founder of How I Met My Dog. It’s an online site that matches shelter dogs and dogs that need to be re-homed, with people who are ready to adopt.

Shelter workers fill out an online survey that details the pet’s personality. Adoptees answer a survey of 56 questions, based on three categories.

Andersen explains how the process is designed, “So, ‘pet’ is really the categories that we match on, and P stands for personality. Expectations is the E, and the T is training style.”

A complex computer algorithm matches pets with their potential humans. The Calves family had three kids, a cat named Frank Sinatra, and golden labradoodle, Tybee (tie-bee)… but two years ago, Frank died. Then Tybee got sick.

”All of a sudden the house felt very empty,” Herbie Calves explained to Ivanhoe News.

The family filled out a How I Met My Dog survey and matched with Casper, a Jack Russell mix they admit they never would have picked at first sight.

”He makes us laugh all the time and we need that actually,” Herbie states.

And in what Andersen calls the logical next step, they’ve launched a companion site, called Competibility. Competibility offers customized tips for improving current pet relationships based on your personality and your dogs too.

”It’s marriage therapy. It’s exactly what it is,” Andersen jokes.

Giving pets and their people a new leash on life. How I Met My Dog works with over 400 shelters in 39 states. They do not match people with dogs from breeders or pet shops.

Andersen says traditionally, about 15% of all dogs from shelters are returned by adoptive owners. Dogs matched though How I Met My Dog are only returned about 5% of the time.

There is no charge for the matching service or the new advice website, Competibility. By the way, Andersen is the fur mom to two rescue dogs, Finn and Stella, and she and her husband met on a human matching website.

A man made good on his threat to his in-laws and now he has pending charges from San Antonio police.

The incident happened around 3:45 a.m. Saturday in the 100 block of N. Navidad Street, on the city’s West Side.

Police said the man was angry with his in-laws and he made threats that he would drive his pickup truck through their home. It wasn’t long before he followed through.

When he arrived at their home, authorities said he drove through their fence and crashed right into their home. The man then got out of his vehicle and ran from the scene.

Police arrested him shortly after the incident, just a few blocks down the road.

No injuries were reported but the damage from the crash was significant. Officials had to brace the structure from collapsing due to the impact.

The man has pending charges at this time.

More on KSAT:

Fire at West Side home quickly spreads to 2 others nearby; 8 people displaced

Update:

James Woody, 38, has been located and the CLEAR Alert issued in his disappearance has been discontinued, according to the Texas Dept. of Public Safety.

Further details are limited at this time.

Original:

A search is underway for a missing 38-year-old man in Aransas Pass, and a CLEAR Alert has been issued in his disappearance.

James Woody was last seen at 5 p.m., Wednesday, in the 1100 block of West Moore Avenue on foot.

He has black hair, brown eyes, “spiked up” hair, a tattoo of the state of Texas on his right calf and a tattoo of “unbroken” written on his chest, according to Ingleside police.

Authorities believe Woody’s disappearance “poses a credible threat to his own health and safety.”

Anyone with more information on Woody’s whereabouts is urged to contact Ingleside PD at 361-776-2531.

More on KSAT:

SAPD searching for missing 15-year-old girl

Spring is a prime time for many to get going on their home renovation projects. But if painting is on your list, make sure to plan ahead.

Danny Garcia, owner of Pintura Paint, said there’s a shortage of paint that is causing prices to go up.

“We had an influx of customers coming in that we’ve never had before because they wanted to paint walls. So to try to appease everybody is really, really hard. We have customers residential and then we also have commercial customers, too. So different playing fields for everybody,” he explains.

Garcia’s team is on the phone for hours a day trying to find paint from suppliers to meet customer needs. His warehouse looks pretty stocked, but he said it hasn’t been easy.

“Everything requires paint. I mean, you look at this little color cards and any kind of piece of wood, any road sign that you’ve seen — road paint, traffic paint, field marking paint. Paint is everywhere,” he said.

He said a series of problems is driving up the cost. First there was the COVID-19 labor shortage, followed by supply issues like the aluminum shortage. Aluminum is used make paint cans.

Then there was the Texas freeze in February 2021, which ruined material and impacted chemical plants.

“There’s a couple of warehouses that Benjamin Moore has [in Texas]. There was raw material stored outside and so that when the freeze happened, it affected the the raw materials. So those were no longer good,” he said.

Garcia is also a contractor and he said building supply prices are on the rise as well.

“Supply and demand. We’re not just trying to, you know, make more money. It’s we’re being charged more so we have to pass along the cost,” he explains.

Some paint is just hard to find, such as paint for metal, road signs, traffic signs and even sports fields. For some contractors, it means a delay in getting paid.

“Painters aren’t getting to finishing their jobs because the builders won’t pay them until they’re finished. And so homes are taking longer to finish and it just makes things a little bit more difficult,” he said.

His supplier tell him things are expected to get better around the second quarter of 2023.

At least three West Side shopping centers have been dealing with similar issues of theft and vandalism. The small crimes are costing owners and tenants thousands of dollars.

The most recent crime happened Monday when an AC unit was stripped of its metal. It happened at the shopping center off General McMullen and Culebra.

The owner of the shopping center said they’ve had numerous thefts over the past year. One man keeps popping up on their security cameras but they haven’t been able to get a good look at his face.

Six different locks and multiple AC units have had to be replaced, according to the owner. And, one of his tenant’s front glass doors has been broken as well.

The owner said he’s spent roughly between $5,000 to $6,000 in repairs. He also owns another shopping center in the area, undergoing similar issues.

A third shopping center, just two miles away from the center at General McMullen, has recently drawn a police response after $40 worth of copper was stolen last weekend.

Suspects allegedly cut through a chain-link fence, cut electrical wires and stripped the copper.

Rafael Pena, the regional director for Cano Health, a med clinic in the shopping center, said the copper theft killed power to the entire shopping center, costing them thousands to fix.

“I have medications in my refrigerators. I have vaccines, not only flu but even Covid vaccines. I needed to make sure those were secure and safe and we actually loaded those up into an ice chest and transported them to another clinic so that didn’t compromise the integrity of the vaccines” said Pena.

Police tell us they are investigating these reported crimes. We have reached out for further comment from the District 5 Councilwoman. We have not yet heard back.

More on KSAT:

$40 worth of stripped copper costs a West Side medical clinic thousands in repairs

A toddler is in critical condition after San Antonio police said she was shot in the head while at her family’s Southeast Side duplex.

The incident happened Friday evening in the 100 block of Dublin Avenue, near Pickwell Drive.

Police were initially called to the scene for a self-inflicted gunshot wound. However when officers arrived, they found the child, just shy of three-years-old, had been shot in the head.

Authorities are still investigating how the little girl got shot. Police said the child’s mother and her boyfriend were in the duplex at the time of the shooting.

A man left the scene shortly after the incident and police are still looking for him. The little girl was taken by EMS to University Hospital and is in critical condition.

The child’s mother is cooperating with police and the investigation is in its preliminary stages.

Information could change as the investigation unfolds. We’ll bring more updates as they become available.

More on KSAT:

Fire at West Side home quickly spreads to 2 others nearby; 8 people displaced