TXDOT will be performing maintenance on FM-552, from SH-205 in Rockwall to SH-66 in Fate. The project includes adding 3-foot shoulders to each side; reconstructing the sub-grade and resurfacing the road. The project is tentatively scheduled to begin the week of February 6th. Construction time is 188 working days (20 days per month). During the day the road will be reduced to one lane in the construction area with flagmen for traffic routing. The road will be open in both directions during non-construction times (nights and weekends). At various times during the sub-grade reconstruction, the roadway will have a gravel surface. Expect delays during construction.

Please contact Kerry Lively, TXDOT Project Manager, at 972-962-3617 or Chuck Todd, Rockwall City Engineer, at 972-771-7746, with questions about the project.

by JONATHAN BETZ
WFAA
Posted on January 28, 2012 at 10:04 PM
Updated Sunday, Jan 29 at 5:40 PM

ROCKWALL — A sheriff’s deputy is being hailed a hero after pulling two young women from a sinking car early Saturday morning — moments before it slipped beneath the surface of Lake Ray Hubbard.

“I saw the two females in the back seat,” said Deputy Keven Rowan of the Rockwall County Sheriff’s Office. “I was like, ‘I got to get them out!’”

Rowan spotted the submerged Honda Civic shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday while he was patrolling the shoreline.

Moments earlier, the car’s driver, Ngac Do of Garland, had mistaken a boat ramp for a road at Robertson Park in Dallas and drove into the lake. She and her cousin got lost while driving home from dinner.

Rowan, a five-year deputy, never saw the car until he happened to glance down the ramp and notice headlights 30 feet from the shore.

“I don’t know what it is,” Rowan said of the timing. “I guess it wasn’t those girls’ time, and I guess I was at the right place at the right time.”

Inside the car, Do, 20, and her cousin, Nhi Tran, 21, were scrambling to get out of the sinking sedan. The women recently moved to the United States from Vietnam and attend a local community college.

“We call 911,” Do said. “I call them twice, but they kept asking me, ‘Where I am?’ I don’t really know where I am.”

When Do lowered the driver’s side window to escape, she said water flooded in.

“The water was up to my neck,” she said. She was especially worried since her cousin can’t swim.

“I was thinking I was going to die,” Tran said. “I was scared a lot.”

With backup on the way, Rowan grabbed his window punch, a small tool that shatters windows, and swam out to the car in the 52-degree water. His squad car’s dashboard camera recorded the rescue.

“They had their heads pressed against the roof of the vehicle, and were screaming at me to hurry up to try and get them out,” Rowan said.

He pulled both women to safety seconds before the car disappeared into the lake.

“It’s just absolutely incredible he happened to be at that location at that particular time,” said Rockwall County Sheriff Harold Eavenson. “If he hadn’t been there, those girls would have drowned… no question.”

Do and Tran agree that their fate was in the hands of Deputy Rowan.

“I want to say thanks to him,” Do said. “He saved our life, and I don’t even know how he find us!”

E-mail jbetz@wfaa.com

Original Story at WFAA.com

By NANETTE LIGHT
Staff Writer
nlight@dallasnews.com
Published: 29 January 2012 11:14 PM

Days before he celebrated his 90th birthday, Ray McNeil said he shouldn’t be alive.

It wasn’t the trials of old age that the Rockwall resident, whose birthday was Wednesday, said should have killed him.

It was in the B-24 — “the coffin.”

“When I got an overseas assignment, I didn’t expect to come home, and I certainly didn’t expect to survive 50 missions,” said McNeil, who survived 65 bombing missions while serving in the Army Air Forces in Europe during World War II, first as a flight engineer and then as a pilot. “I never thought I’d get to this age.”

McNeil served in the 449th Bomb Group of the 15th Air Force, receiving two Distinguished Flying Crosses and 13 Air Medals.

He said his toughest target was an oil field site critical to Nazi war production in Ploesti, Romania, where he said the flak was so thick that the group of 40 aircraft in front of him would disappear.

“They say if you survived one fly over Ploesti, you made it,” he said. “I survived six.”

McNeil, who completed missions over southern France, Germany and the Balkan Islands, said he was already five missions over the required 50 for service in the Air Forces when he realized he had surpassed the bar, and he opted to stay for 10 more.

“You could tell the war was running down, and I thought, as long as they needed people, I’d hold in a little longer. But at 65, I’d had enough,” he said. “To me, he’s a real hero, but, of course, he’d say the real heroes are the ones who didn’t come home,” said Mike Sanders, who teaches 10th-grade social studies at Rockwall High School and has lived in McNeil’s neighborhood for about 10 years. McNeil routinely comes to Sanders’ class to tell war stories to accompany the class’s World War II unit.

A narration of McNeil’s war stories — such as his backstage attendance at a London meeting among military brass such as Gen. George Patton and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to outline the D-Day plan — also can be found at the U.S. Library of Congress as part of its Veterans History Project.

Reposted from The Dallas Morning News

GRAND OPENING

January 30th

Fri., Feb. 3, 9am-6pm – 20% of proceeds will benefit the Rockwall ISD Education Foundation supporting innovative teaching grants in the district.
Fri., Feb. 3, 4-6pm -Wine and cake tasting featuring the wines of KE Cellars and lots of delicious cakes!
Sat., Feb. 4, 10am – Free Bundtlets for a Year for first 50 customers with purchase
Thurs., Feb. 9, 1:20-1:50pm – Ribbon cutting with the Rockwall Chamber of Commerce and Mayor Bob Simmons

Nothing Bundt Cakes Rockwall
Plaza at Rockwall
1035 E IH 30
214-771-3333

The TXDOT contractor for the FM-740 Project switched traffic onto the new FM-740 pavement on January 18.

The signal at Henry M. Chandler has been set to cycle differently than prior to the traffic being moved to the new lanes. The signal is going through 3 cycles (one movement per cycle) instead of 2 cycles (multiple movements per cycle). This should improve traffic flow.

TXDOT has also installed a traffic detector on Henry M. Chandler. If a car does not pull up to the stop bar, the signal may not change. The contractor has ordered a “STOP HERE” sign so drivers will know how far to pull forward to be “seen” by the signal motion detector.

Please contact Kerry Lively, TXDOT Project Manager, at 972-962-3617 or Chuck Todd, Rockwall City Engineer, at 972-771-7746, with questions about the project.