Wednesday News Rundown (11-5-14)

By Emily Parma
Assistant Web Content Manager

Heavy rainfall and a Flash Flood Watch continues to affect areas surrounding Austin and San Antonio. Average rainfall amounts of one-to-two inches are expected and isolated two-to-four inches are possible across this watch area. The National Weather Service has put out a Flash Flood Watch that’s active for the next 10 hours over affected areas.

Social media is being utilized to create awareness of crime in the San Marcos area. The  San Marcos Police Department is planning on increasing patrols on Fredericksburg Street after reading tweets about gang activity there. Residents of the Vistas apartments reported threatening activity, suspicious people and harassing behavior through their Twitter accounts. The UPD read the tweets and are now cooperating with the San Marcos Police Department in order to ensure the safety of residents on that street.

The 2014 elections took place yesterday and some voters had complications voting because of power issues at a few polling stations. Several issues came up across the county and had county officials scrambling to repair the polling stations. San Marcos Housing, City Hall and Allenwood Homes Auditorium all experienced power outages. Wallace Middle School in Kyle lost power for an hour-and-a-half during the voting period and Buda City Hall, which had a long ballot for voters, opened at 7 a.m. with only one machine available to voters.

Jowers was evacuated earlier today for about 45 minutes after a small fire occurred near the dance studios. Facilities Manager Marcus Hendry says that a fire started after a load of towels in a dryer were overheated.

President Obama says that he’s eager to work with Republicans to find common ground after his party lost its Senate majority. The results took a blow to the administration’s hopes to further broaden the president’s health care law by expanding Medicaid in additional states. Some of these states will now be controlled by Republican governors who are unlikely to agree with the expansion. Obama has promised to go through with unilateral action on immigration over strong Republican objections.