Sheriff: At least 68 dead including 28 children in Kerr County, Texas after floods
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CBS News
38 minutes ago
- CBS News
Coast Guard member from N.J. describes effort to help rescue 165 from deadly Texas floods
A New Jersey man with the U.S. Coast Guard is being hailed as a hero for helping rescue more than 165 people from the deadly Texas floods. Many of those rescued were girls staying at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp, where at least 27 other campers and counselors died in the devastating flash flooding. "It was pretty traumatic" As the Guadalupe River surged in Texas on the Fourth of July, Coast Guard rescue swimmer Scott Ruskan, who is from New Jersey, flew with his team through severe weather to get to Camp Mystic, where hundreds were trapped. "We decided the best course of action was to leave me there," Ruskan said. Ruskan, 26, was on his first mission out of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. He found himself on the ground in the flood zone, setting up triage and comforting many girls at the camp. Vehicles sit submerged as a search and rescue worker looks through debris for any survivors or remains of people swept up in the flash flooding on July 6, 2025 in Hunt, Texas. Jim Vondruska / Getty Images "It was pretty traumatic. You have a lot of kids who are having probably the worst day of their life, they are missing friends, they are missing loved ones, they don't know where they are," Ruskan said. "Bridges were gone, roadways were gone" Ruskan and colleagues from the Air National Guard rescued 165 victims from the flood. "They were in need of airlift. There was no other way to get them out. Bridges were gone, roadways were gone, and the water was coming up too high for boat rescue. The only option was airlift," Ruskan said. Ruskan credited his crew. His family said he did exactly what he was trained to do. An aerial view over the Guadalupe River on July 6, 2025 in Kerrville, Texas, after heavy rainfall caused deadly flooding. / Getty Images "This is exactly what he wants to do" Ruskan was sworn in to the U.S. Coast Guard while at Rider University during the height of the COVID pandemic. His mother and aunt said the Warren County, N.J., native went to college for accounting but quickly realized saving lives was his calling. "Very proud. He is doing what he loves to do. This is exactly what he wants to do," his mother, Eileen Ruskan, said. "We are just grateful for him, you know, on the other hand, so full of sadness for these people that are living through what really he has tried to help and do his very best in," his aunt, Marie Rowan, said. "My thoughts and prayers go out to all the families that are involved in this today and the last few days," Eileen Ruskan said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
My husband asked me to change my last name to his when we got married. Years later, he apologized.
After getting engaged, I joked to my husband that we should both change our last names together. He didn't find it funny and really wanted me to take his last name. A few years ago, he apologized for suggesting that I take his name over mine. In the early days of our engagement, one of my favorite ways to tease my husband was to come up with new last names we could take when we got married. I would joke that rather than taking his last name, we could both go through the identity change together. We could start fresh with something cool, something that was just ours. But my future husband, whose extended family throws reunions that are essentially small festivals, didn't find it funny. It wasn't that I was emotionally tied to my previous last name. Saying and spelling "Childs" for the rest of my life was just easier than "Nieslanik". Not to mention, it feels weird to think of yourself as one person with one name for so many years, only to change that. My name was a fundamental part of who I was. To change it in my mid-thirties felt strange. Plus, there is the bureaucratic red tape that comes with changing your name. Birth certificate, driver's license, passport, and bills. Changing your name is like updating your entire identity one tedious form at a time. At the end of the day, though, I knew how much it would mean to my husband if I took his last name. And part of that was because I had already changed my name once. My last name when I met my husband wasn't the one I was born with. Ironically, in my late teens, I'd already gone through a name change after a short-lived first marriage. My maiden name had been a mouthful that people always messed up, so adopting a simpler one was a relief. Plus, no one in my immediate family shared my last name. My mom had given me her maiden name, but she remarried and took my stepfather's last name, as did my half-brother, whom they had together. I was the only one left with a hard name no one else seemed to want. The fact that I had changed my name before, no matter the reason, didn't sit well with my soon-to-be husband. If I had changed it before, he argued, why wouldn't I be willing to change it again? This time, for him. It felt like a personal slight, which I understood. Beyond that, my husband comes from a large, close-knit family who do all share the same last name. Every summer, they gather in the hundreds for a family reunion and have streets named after them in towns sprinkled across the Western Slope of Colorado. As an only child, he felt we needed to carry on the name for his family branch by having me take his name. He had a strong internal belief that members of the same family should have the same name. Although his family is relatively liberal, they shared the cultural expectation that a woman takes her husband's name when they marry. And he had some pride wrapped up in the idea that I would carry his name—that when people met us, they would know that we belonged together. Since I had no strong objections, I did end up changing my name, and I never really looked back. I used a service that helped me change all my accounts, IDs, and paperwork in one (mostly) easy go, so the hassle was more minimal than expected. Now, more than a decade later, I see several upsides to having changed my last name. For example, it's uncommon, so I rarely get confused with anyone else. As a writer, I find that beneficial. I like having the same last name as our children, and I'm glad I didn't have to think about whose name we should give them or if we should hyphenate. And I've realized that my last name has a lot of personality. If that means I have to spell it an extra time or two, the trade-off is now worth it in my opinion. A few years ago, my husband apologized to me for "making" me change my name. He mentioned how silly he thought his reasonings were now, that he understood having the same last name is kind of arbitrary. He pointed out that it affects literally no part of our lives together in a substantial way. My favorite realization that he mentioned was how our love is so much greater than a shared last name. Then, he asked if I'd like to change my name back. The thought of returning to the ease of "Childs" as a last name has its appeal, but I couldn't help but laugh. I have zero desire to go through that paperwork again. Not unless he wants to revisit that original idea of picking a brand-new name together. And he's willing to file the forms himself this time. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘Part of our culture': Navajo Nation's Oak Ridge Fire response includes livestock
A flock of sheep is gathered in a pen as they wait for a much-needed haircut from a group of Diné volunteers during a shearing event held on July 4, 2025, at the Navajo Nation Fairgrounds to help sheep evacuated from the Oak Ridge Fire. (Photo by Shondiin Silversmith/Arizona Mirror) As the Oak Ridge Fire continued to spread southwest of the Navajo Nation capital last week, families living in the fire's path not only scrambled to save what they could from their homes, but many also had to rescue their animals and livestock. Even as the fire grew, a majority of Navajo families living in the immediate evacuation homes refused to leave because they did not want to abandon their livestock. 'It was really heartbreaking,' Navajo Nation Council Delegate Brenda Jesus said. She represents the St. Michael's and Oak Springs chapter and has been on the ground helping the impacted communities since the fire started. For many families on the Navajo Nation, livestock is their livelihood. They rely on their livestock to support their family. 'I'm not leaving if I can't take my livestock. I'm not going to leave my livestock behind, ' Craig Tsosie, vice president of St. Michael's Chapter, said he was told by many families during the peak of evacuations after the fire started on June 28. Tsosie said that the only way many families in evacuation zones felt comfortable leaving their homes was if their livestock also got out. The Navajo Department of Agriculture, Forestry, Fish & Wildlife, Navajo park rangers and Resource Enforcement have been on site in Window Rock since the fire began and have been actively assisting families who need their livestock evacuated. The Department of Agriculture announced on its Facebook page that the Dean Jackson Arena on the Navajo Nation Fairgrounds was open to evacuated livestock as of June 28. The department established a livestock evacuation team that families affected by the disaster could contact to coordinate evacuation assistance. Veterinary staff were on-site at the fairgrounds to monitor the animals as they arrived. The livestock were fed and watered daily. Tsosie said he was glad that the Department of Agriculture stepped up and mobilized to work with families to save their livestock. 'They provided trucks, trailers and they were limited on their end to what they could do,' he said. 'They couldn't be everywhere at once.' Tsosie said many of the teams working to evacuate livestock were out on the ground in Hunters Point, Oak Springs and St. Michael's, helping owners load their livestock into trailers at all hours of the night. There were days when he was out until 3 a.m. Even as they worked to evacuate livestock, Tsosie said there was some frustration from the community, potentially due to the long wait times or miscommunication. He said he hopes people understand that it was whole communities that were impacted and needed assistance. 'It wasn't just a couple of people,' he added. 'Everybody in those fire zones that were getting evacuated needed livestock evacuated along with them.' As of July 4, the department had evacuated 39 cattle, 236 sheep, 27 chickens, 21 goats, 16 horses, seven dogs, four hogs and two turkeys, according to the Navajo Nation President's Office. As a way to help the sheep and owners impacted by the Oak Ridge Fire, a group of volunteers banded together at the Dean Jackson Arena on July 4 to give a flock of sheep a much-needed haircut. 'A lot of families are going to receive their sheep back better than they brought them in,' Tsosie said of the sheep shearing provided by the volunteers. During the summer months, sheep are sheared to help them handle the heat and stay healthy. Sheep have thick wool, and unshorn sheep often experience extra stress and potential health problems during hot summer temperatures. 'They're reliant on their shepherds to shear them,' Diné shepherd Nikyle Begay said. If they don't get sheared, they could potentially get flystrike, a condition where flies lay their eggs within the sheep's wool. 'Maggots will work their way into the sheep's skin, infecting the sheep and basically eating it,' he said. To help keep the sheep healthy and ease some of the stress from the owners, Diné shepherds Jay Begay from Hard Rock, Arizona, and Nikyle Begay from Cornfields, Arizona, put a call out on social media for volunteers to help them shear the sheep impacted by the Oak Ridge Fire. With more than 200 sheep evacuated from the fire, there were a few flocks that were not sheared for the summer. 'Many flocks are shepherded by elders who probably had (shearing) planned for the summer, but instead, they were displaced by the fire,' Nikyle said. 'We just wanted to ease whatever worries they might have and offer our services.' Working with the Navajo Department of Agriculture, they were able to arrange a shearing event for the sheep. 'This is a way for us to help without being in the way and helping the best way we know how,' Nikyle said, adding that when they put out the call, the response was immediate. The response, Nikyle said, is because because they are part of a great community of shepherds, fiber artists and those who admire sheep. Shearers from across the Navajo Nation showed up to help give haircuts to nearly 80 sheep, each of them taking one animal at a time throughout the day. Traps and plyboards were laid out on the dirt floor in different areas of the arena for volunteers to use to hand-shear the sheep. The sheep varied in size, from small lambs to full-grown rams. The volunteer shearer would take a sheep, tie off the legs if needed, and hold the sheep down to be sheared using sharp shearing scissors. After the volunteers were done shearing, the wool was collected and saved in bags for the owners. A total of 18 volunteers showed up to help with the sheep, Nikyle said, and 10 stayed throughout the day. 'Sheep are an integral part of our culture,' Nikyle said. 'They've always been; they've made their place within ceremonies and everyday life.' For more information about the event and the shearing work, Nikyle can be reached on Instagram at Navajo Shepherd. Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
