| Harvey Insurance Claims 101 CLE Webinar Series |
The Texas Trial Lawyers Association presents a 4-part CLE webinar series to give you the information you need to assist families and businesses affected by Hurricane Harvey with their insurance dispute. Each of these webinars is presented by experts in first party insurance.Each installment of the series is $50. Get the Bundle for $150 and save. Click on the headline to learn more and register.
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Texas Tribune Daily Brief
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| Houston Officials let Developers Build Homes Inside Reservoirs. But No One Warned Buyers. |
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It's clear after Harvey that it wasn't obvious to a lot of people. None of the more than half a dozen residents interviewed by The Texas Tribune and ProPublica after the floods said they knew they were living inside Addicks or Barker many of their neighborhoods are several miles away from the dams. Several local officials including Houston's "flood czar" and a neighboring county executive said they had no idea the neighborhoods had been built inside the flood pools. Several real estate agents said they didn't realize they were selling homes inside the pools.
NEENA SATIJA, THE TEXAS TRIBUNE AND REVEAL, KIAH COLLIER, THE TEXAS TRIBUNE, AND AL SHAW, PROPUBLICA, Texas Tribune10/12/2017    |
| Read Article: Texas Tribune |
| Failures of Floating-Roof Oil Tanks During Harvey Raise Concerns |
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As Hurricane Harvey swept across the Houston area, torrential waves of rain built on top of crude oil storage tanks at Valero Energy's Houston refinery, causing one of the roofs that float atop the oil to flip almost on its side and release more than 235,000 pounds of toxic vapors and other pollutants into the atmosphere.The collapse at Valero was one of more than 15 floating roof storage tanks that failed during the record-setting storm, allowing a combined 3.1 million pounds of volatile chemicals to spew into the air across the region, according to reports the companies filed with environmental agencies. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched an investigation into the Valero tank failure, which may include a broader inquiry into the potential weaknesses of floating roofs, but declined comment. Environmental advocates and watchdog groups also have raised concerns about the roof failures, which exposed nearby residents to high levels of harmful emissions.
Jordan Blum, Houston Chronicle10/12/2017 |
| Read Article: Houston Chronicle |
| EPA OKs Plan to Rid Toxics from Waste Pits |
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The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday approved a plan to permanently remove tons of toxics from the San Jacinto Waste Pits - a Superfund site that was heavily flooded and began to leak cancer-causing dioxin into the river after Hurricane Harvey.The plan, which comes after years of litigation and citizen activism that built public support for permanently removing the pits from the river's path, includes installing cofferdams to prevent release of the pollutants before excavating and removing an estimated 212,000 cubic yards of dioxin-contaminated waste. The decision comes only two weeks after the EPA confirmed that a concrete cap used to cover the pits since 2011 had sprung a leak during Harvey's floods. An EPA dive team found dioxin in sediment in a concentration of more than 70,000 nanograms of dioxin per kilogram of soil - more than 2,300 times the EPA standard for cleanup.
Lise Olsen, Houston Chronicle10/12/2017 |
| Read Article: Houston Chronicle |
| Equifax Takes Down Web Page After Reports of New Hack |
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Equifax Inc said on Thursday it has taken one of its customer help web pages offline as its security team looks into reports of another potential cyber breach at the credit reporting company, which recently disclosed a hack that compromised the sensitive information of 145.5 million people. The move came after an independent security analyst on Wednesday found part of Equifax's website was under the control of attackers trying to trick visitors into installing fraudulent Adobe Flash updates that could infect computers with malware, the technology news website Ars Technica reported.
Reuters, Yahoo News10/12/2017 |
| Read Article: Yahoo News |
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