JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Building inspectors in Jefferson City are tagging structures damaged by a Wednesday night tornado with red, yellow and green placards.
16 inspectors are part of the Structural Assessment and Visual Evaluation Coalition, which consists of volunteer engineers, architects and building officials from across Missouri.
Buildings marked with red placards are considered too unsafe to occupy. Yellow placards mean a portion of the structure is unsafe. A green placard means the building is structurally safe and residents can occupy it.
Gov. Mike Parson’s Office said in a Friday news release that the coalition is expected to assess about 500 Jefferson City buildings and 200 structures in Cole County.
Of the first 321 structures inspected, 183 received green placards, 60 received yellow placards and 78 received red placards.
LIVINGSTON COUNTY — One person was injured in an accident just after 5:30p.m. Saturday in Livingston County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2016 Chrysler 300 driven by Cynthia E. Johnson, 58, Chillicothe, was westbound on Route V one mile east of Chillicothe.
The vehicle traveled off the road, struck a ditch. Chillicothe ambulance transported Johnson to Hedrick Medical Center. She was properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the MSHP.
Standing near the corner of his property in southeastern Reno County, Nick Egli looked east and pointed to the proposed locations for several 500-feet-tall wind turbines.
Nick Egli stands in front of the grass airstrips he’s worked 10 years to establish. BRIAN GRIMMETT
Egli is standing on a grass airstrip he’s spent the last 10 years building. He pictures a few more homes, some hangars and, eventually, a residential community for pilots of small planes.
“If there’s turbines there, you’ve completely killed everything I’ve been working on the last 10 years,” he said.
It’s the latest of several projects NextEra has already completed in the state. And the company isn’t alone.
Businesses from all over the world have cashed in on Kansas’ abundant wind in the past decade. Most projects went up without much fanfare.
But stiff opposition facing the Reno County project has raised some anxiety in the industry as companies consider its implications for future development.
NextEra developer Spencer Jenkins addresses the Reno County Planning and Zoning Commission
CREDIT BRIAN GRIMMETT
Over the past 4 years, NextEra Energy signed deals with Reno County landowners to plant giant wind turbines on their property. It’s one step in a long process that needs a go-ahead from county officials.
Developers chose this part of Reno County because it has plenty of wind, it’s close to transmission lines that transport the electricity to places that need it, like Wichita, and it had enough willing landowners.
“Farming has not been an especially lucrative income producer,” Randy Jackson told the planning commission during one of several hours-long public hearings. “To continue to own our property, we need to take advantage of every income potential we have.”
But Jackson was among the few to speak in support, and most of those were landowners benefitting from the project.
The majority of speakers voiced their opposition.
“We could have chosen to live anywhere but we chose to live here,” Matt Amos said. “Had I known that this was going to happen, I would have not have chosen to live here.”
One after another, the stream of voices filled the conference hall.
“Why is this wind farm being built so close to concentrated populations of people and wildlife?” Darcy Gray of Andale asked. “I’m not opposed to wind energy, but the location does not make sense.”
Nick Egli also spoke at the hearing. But he ultimately blames his neighbors who signed leases, not county officials.
He recalled what one of his neighbors told him.
“He said, ‘Well, I’m going to make $4,500 a quarter,’” Egli said. “Really? That’s what you’re selling me out for?”
Egli isn’t against renewable energy. He’s actually an electrician and has installed solar panels on the roof of the house he’s building. It will provide him with enough electricity that he won’t need to connect to the grid.
He just wants what he calls sensible setbacks.
A setback is the distance a wind turbine has to stand from something, like a property line, road, or house. Egli thinks that if turbines are placed 3,000 feet away from the property lines of people who didn’t lease their land to NextEra, it would resolve concerns about noise and shadows.
But while he calls it sensible, a 3,000-foot setback from property lines would be the largest in the state. That type of setback in Kansas typically runs about 500 feet.
Setbacks have been a sticking point from the beginning, including for the Reno County planning commission. After failing to reach a consensus, the commission rejected the proposal.
He said this is the first project in the state he’s ever seen rejected by a county planning commission. Previously, if projects got enough landowners to sign leases, it was generally a sign the community was on board.
A decade and a half ago, local officials did stop a wind farm in Waubansee County. It created a controversy that led to a case that went all the way to the Kansas Supreme Court. But the trend has been decididly more pro-wind since.
While the decision in Reno County was unexpected, Peterson doesn’t think it’s a sign developing future wind projects is going to get harder in Kansas.
“It may be new to these portions of the state,” he said, “but we develop as an industry in many communities that are very similar.”
And NextEra’s Reno County project isn’t dead yet. The three-member county commission has the final say and will take up the issue June 11.
Like the landowners who support the project, Reno County stands to gain financially from its approval. Tax revenue from the turbines will generate as much as $39 million over the next 30 years.
But for those still opposed, it’s about more than just what the county will gain. It’s about what they could lose — a quiet home on a lonely prairie.
“I’m going to be able to tell our kids that I did everything I could,” Egli said, “before I had to sell our place I built for generations.”
LACLEDE COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 1:30p.m. Saturday in Laclede County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 1981 Chevy C15 driven by Patrick E. Lubbock, 28, Lebanon, was traveling on Red Oak turning westbound onto Highway 32 three miles east of Lebanon.
The vehicle turned into the path of a 2015 Nissan Quest driven by Sara E. Cook, 34, Lebanon. The vehicles collided head-on.
Mercy Air Ambulance transported Maria I. Stone, 59, and Carmen E. McCulloch, 58, both of Lebanon, and passengers in the Nissan, to Cox North Hospital where Stone died.
Mercy Ambulance transported Cook and two 5-year-old children to Mercy Hospital in Lebanon. Lubbock was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident, according to the MSHP. He refused treatment at the scene.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri is the 20th state to join a nationwide sex offender registry.
David Lynn Thompson is listed on the Missouri Sex Offender Registry as non compliant, absconder. He is listed as a Tier 3 offender requiring lifetime registration for his crime involving an 8-year-old girl
OffenderWatch said in a news release this week that every Missouri law enforcement agency that manages or investigates registered sex offenders will be able to collaborate on offender records, aid each other in investigations and share notifications with the public. It won a five-year contract from the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Missouri has about 16,000 registered sex offenders.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says there are more than 900,000 registered sex offenders in the United States.
OffenderWatch says its service allows different law enforcement agencies to collaborate on a single offender record, improving accuracy and aiding in public safety. Its technology is used by more than 3,000 law enforcement agencies in 37 states.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A new television series with Ethan Hawke starring as the fiery abolitionist John Brown is set to film in Virginia.
Image courtesy Penguin Random House
Brown led a raid in 1859 on a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, in what is now West Virginia, hoping to start an armed slave rebellion. The rebellion didn’t happen, and Brown was later hanged for treason.
Before the raid, Brown and a group of abolitionist settlers killed five pro-slavery settlers in Kansas in the Pottawatomie massacre.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Eight years to the day after a devastating tornado killed 161 people and injured more than 1,100 others in Joplin, another big twister ripped through Missouri — this time the capital of Jefferson City — but with a far different result: no deaths or serious injuries.
Tornado approaching Carl Junction, Missouri Wednesday night photo courtesy Sarah Harreus
The two storms hit Missouri cities roughly the same size on the same day of the year, May 22. And they both ravaged residential neighborhoods and business districts. But several factors created completely different scenarios — factors that worked against Joplin and helped spare the lives of Jefferson City residents like Debra Gary, who along with her husband, mother and four kids hunkered down in the basement before emerging to find their home badly damage.
“I always tell my kids, ‘Keep God first,’ because God was there for us,” Gary said Friday. “He kept us and our home safe when the tornado was going on.”
The Jefferson City twister was a big one, an EF-3 with winds estimated at 160 mph. But the Joplin tornado was a rarely-seen monster, an EF-5 with winds in excess of 200 mph. It was on the ground for 22 miles and 38 terrifying minutes, tearing through one-third of the town.
Then there was the timing. The Joplin tornado hit on a Sunday afternoon, as people were out and about, including hundreds who had just left the high school’s graduation ceremony.
“You had many more people potentially in the path, in vulnerable locations,” said Bill Bunting, chief of forecast operations of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
The Jefferson City twister arrived in the middle of the night, which was actually a good thing, said Brian Houston, a communications professor and director of the University of Missouri’s Disaster and Community Crisis Center.
“We think of nighttime tornadoes being pretty dangerous because people might be asleep and not aware of them, but one of the good things is people tend to be at home, in structures,” Houston said. “It’s always better to be inside somewhere when a tornado strikes, rather than being out.”
The ability to find safe refuge from the storm also favored Jefferson City. Joplin sits in an area of southwestern Missouri where the soil is rocky, so basements are uncommon. In 2011, only about one in five Joplin homes had basements, which forced people to take shelter in far less secure places like bathtubs and closets. Basements are far more common in Jefferson City, which was built on rolling hills along the Missouri River.
Bunting and Houston agree that technology also was a factor that helped in Jefferson City. Smart phones are now omnipresent, and many people have alerts on their phones that warn of approaching weather danger.
Those warnings are now more precise, too. Houston said storm warnings are now more localized, meaning people “are hopefully more likely to take it seriously because you’re not getting these warnings for a tornado that’s on the other side of the county that might be dozens of miles away.”
National Weather Service image shows the track of the deadly storm moving from Kansas to Jefferson City-click to expand
Radar is more advanced, too. Forecasters were warning as far back as last week that the Plains and Midwest faced a highly dangerous storm scenario. On Wednesday night, central Missouri TV stations tracked the approaching storm and sirens in Jefferson City first sounded at 11:10 p.m., which was at least 30 minutes before the first property damage was inflicted. Gov. Mike Parson credited the warning system for saving lives.
As Jefferson City residents began the long task of cleaning up, they faced additional challenges: Flooding and heat.
The Missouri River topped a levee on the north side of town, threatening the airport and a few homes and businesses, including a golf course and events center Danny Baumgartner owns.
“It’s part of Mother Nature — these things happen, and you make the best of it and help each other out,” Baumgartner said. “With the tornado and this going on, it’s a lot of activities for a small community. But we’ll all make it.”
Flooding also forced the closure of some roads around the state Capitol, though the building itself sits on a bluff overlooking the river, out of harm’s way. The tornado also spared the Capitol building.
Ameren Missouri crews worked in sweltering humidity with a temperature nearing 90 degrees, replacing about 200 broken power poles and re-stringing lines in Jefferson City and Eldon, another central Missouri community hit by a tornado.
Ameren Missouri division director Chip Webb said it may be late Saturday before power is fully restored in Jefferson City.
Starting next week, a section of Northwest Parkway will be closed to traffic for roadway repairs.
According to a press release from the City of St. Joseph, Northwest Parkway, between Karnes Road and St. Joseph Avenue will be closed for approximately 3 to 4 weeks, dependent on weather.
For motorists heading west on Northwest Parkway, the detour will go left on Ferndale Avenue to Randolph Street, right on Randolph Street to St. Joseph Avenue, then right on St. Joseph Avenue. Motorists heading east will take Randolph Street off St. Joseph Avenue, and then turn left onto Ferndale Avenue to Northwest Parkway.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas online gamer whose dispute over a $1.50 bet sparked a hoax call that resulted in police shooting a man who lived at his old address has struck a deal with prosecutors that could allow the charges against him to be dropped.
U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren approved on Friday the joint motion for deferred prosecution that had been filed earlier in the day by prosecutors and the attorney for 20-year-old Shane Gaskill of Wichita.
Such agreements typically result in charges being dropped if a defendant fulfills all its conditions.
The judge deferred court proceedings and discovery during a period ending on Dec. 31, 2020 and ordered Gaskill to pay $1,000 in restitution, costs and penalties as required under the agreement.
The death of Andrew Finch, 28, in Wichita drew national attention to the practice of “swatting,” a form of retaliation in which someone reports a false emergency to get authorities, particularly a SWAT team, to descend on an address.
“I think the diversion agreement recognizes in part that Gaskill’s involvement in swatting was less than the others,” said Jim Cross, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.
Gaskill is charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, wire fraud, and making false statements.
The other online player, Casey Viner, 19, of North College Hill, Ohio, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of justice under a deal in which both sides recommend two years of probation. He will be sentenced on June 26.
Authorities said Viner recruited Tyler R. Barriss to “swat” Gaskill in Wichita stemming from a dispute on the game Call of Duty: WWII. Barriss, a 26-year-old Los Angeles man with an online reputation for “swatting,” called police from Los Angeles on Dec. 28, 2017, to falsely report a shooting and kidnapping at that Wichita address. Finch, who was not involved in the video game or dispute, was shot by police when he opened the door.
Barriss was sentenced in April to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to 51 counts for making fake emergency calls and threats around the country, including the deadly hoax call in Kansas.
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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The government has agreed to an alternative to prosecution of a Kansas online gamer whose dispute sparked a hoax call that resulted in police shooting a man who lived at his former Wichita home.
Police body camera images of The December 2018 fatal response to a hoax call -courtesy Wichita Police
A joint motion filed Friday by federal prosecutors and the attorney for 20-year-old Shane Gaskill of Wichita asks the court to approve the agreement.
Gaskill is charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, wire fraud, and making false statement during an investigation.
Deferred prosecution agreements typically result in charges being dropped if a defendant fulfills all its conditions.
Under terms of Gaskill’s May 15 pretrial diversion agreement, the government agreed not to pursue prosecution for at least 18 months.
Gaskill agreed to waive any speedy trial defenses and pay $1,000 in restitution, costs and penalties.
GRUNDY COUNTY — Two people were injured in an accident just after 4:30p.m. Friday in Grundy County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2013 Arctic Cat ATV driven by Abigail R. Hearne, 18, Rockford, IL., was northbound on 2nd Street at Chalet in Spikard.
The driver lost control as unrestrained animals were following them. The ATV overturned and landed on top of the passenger Cayman M. Blais, 19, Rockford, IL. The driver landed in the road west of the ATV.
EMS transported Hearn and Blais to Wright Memorial Hospital in Trenton. They were not wearing helmets, according to the MSHP.
