TOPEKA – Kansas has resolved the second lawsuit filed under the state’s mistaken-conviction statute enacted by the legislature last year, according Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
Floyd Bledsoe was exonerated after spending 16 years in prison. He told lawmakers that financial compensation from the state would help him establish a footing in life that prison denied him. CREDIT STEPHEN KORANDA / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
The attorney general reached an agreed resolution of a mistaken-conviction lawsuit filed under the new statute by Floyd Scott Bledsoe in July 2018. In 2000, Bledsoe was convicted in Jefferson County and imprisoned for murder, kidnapping, and indecent liberties. His conviction was vacated and charges against him dismissed in 2015. The agreed resolution was approved Wednesday in Shawnee County District Court by Judge Richard D. Anderson.
“We are committed to faithfully administering the state’s mistaken-conviction law as the legislature wrote it,” Schmidt said. “In this case, it was possible based on review and evaluation of the existing record and discovery from Mr. Bledsoe to resolve all issues, satisfy all of the statute’s requirements, and agree to this outcome so Mr. Bledsoe can receive the benefits to which he is entitled by law because of his mistaken conviction.”
In the agreed order, the court determined that Bledsoe did not commit the crime or crimes for which he was convicted, nor was he an accessory or accomplice to that crime or crimes, nor did he suborn perjury, fabricate evidence or cause or bring about the conviction. Between November 1999 and December 2015, Bledsoe served 5,592 days in prison or jail and 277 days confined by bond and court supervision.
Accordingly, the court ordered the following relief for Bledsoe, as provided by the mistaken-conviction statute:
Bledsoe was granted a Certificate of Innocence.
Records of his conviction, arrest, and DNA profile record information were ordered expunged.
He was granted total compensation of $1,038,526.95.
He was granted counseling.
He was granted permission to participate in the state health care benefits program for plan years 2019 and 2020.
A separate federal lawsuit filed by Bledsoe in May 2016 remains pending. Requirements of that federal case, including an order entered in that case by U.S. Magistrate Judge James P. O’Hara on May 17, 2019, affected the relief the State could provide in this case and were taken into account in the agreed resolution. That federal case is Floyd S. Bledsoe v. Jefferson County, Kansas, et al., Case No. 16-CV-2296, United States District Court for the District of Kansas.
By law, payment on the state judgment entered yesterday is subject to review by the State Finance Council. Schmidt plans to formally ask the Finance Council to review the matter at its June 5 meeting.
In total, five lawsuits have been filed under the new mistaken-conviction statute. Three remain pending in Sedgwick County, Clay County and Shawnee County. One previous lawsuit in Johnson County was resolved in December.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Latest on severe weather moving across the central United States (all times local):
The National Weather Service says a deadly storm in southeast Kansas and southwest Missouri spawned four tornadoes in roughly 50 miles.
National Weather Service image
Weather Service Meteorologist Mark Burchfield in Springfield, Missouri, said Thursday that two of the tornadoes Wednesday night were EF3 tornadoes with winds of 140 mph.
One outside Golden City, Missouri, northeast of Joplin, killed three people and seriously injured a fourth. Burchfield said it was on the ground for 12 miles.
Another EF3 tornado struck Carl Junction and was on the ground for 9 miles.
The tornadoes started Wednesday night with an EF0 tornado outside of the southeast Kansas ghost town of Treece that remained on the ground for 3 miles.
An EF0 tornado also touched down near Oronogo, Missouri, and was on the ground for 8 miles.
KANSAS CITY (AP) — Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas is partnering with two Midwestern Democrats to fight the spread of misinformation about vaccines in the face of measles outbreaks across the nation.
Roberts introduced legislation Thursday to instruct Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to award competitive grants for public information campaigns aimed at combating the anti-vaccine movement.
The bill does not specify a dollar figure, but would enable the CDC to steer money toward them.
The Kansas senator called a lack of confidence in vaccines as one of the top public health threats in a video released by his office Thursday.
Co-sponsors on the legislation are Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan and Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, both Democrats.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A lawsuit alleges a Kansas police cadet was fired after pressing sexual battery charges against her supervisor.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Kansas contends the Kansas City, Kansas, cadet delayed reporting the abuse for fear of retaliation and found that fear justified when Police Chief Terry Zeigler fired her for “exaggerated cause” following the criminal prosecution of her attacker.
Police officer Steven Rios was sentenced in December to a year’s probation for misdemeanor battery of a young cadet whom he supervised.
The Kansas City, Kansas, police department and the Unified Government of Wyandotte County did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It is unclear whether Rios is still employed by the police department.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is delivering another $16 billion in aid to farmers hurt by his trade policies, an effort to relieve economic pain among his supporters in rural America and another sign that the U.S.-China trade war likely won’t end anytime soon.
Watch LIVE: President Trump Delivers Remarks on Supporting America’s Farmers and Ranchers https://t.co/CVtQkZ9TwK
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the first of three payments is likely to be made in July or August. He suggested it was unlikely a trade deal would be done by then, a sign that U.S. negotiators could be months away from settling a bitter trade dispute with China.
“The package we’re announcing today ensures that farmers do not bear the brunt of unfair retaliatory tariffs imposed by China and other trading partners,” Perdue said.
The latest bailout comes atop $11 billion in aid Trump provided farmers last year.
Trump, seeking to reduce America’s trade deficit with the rest of the world and with China in particular, has imposed import taxes on foreign steel, aluminum, solar panels and dishwashers and on thousands of Chinese products.
U.S trading partners have lashed back with retaliatory tariffs of their own, focusing on U.S. agricultural products in a direct shot at the American heartland, where support for Trump runs high.
Farm country is hurting, I’m glad to see @realdonaldtrump & @SecretarySonny respond to Cheating China’s shady tactics that consistently undermine direct negotiations. Our farmers need a deal, but this $16B package will hopefully give some relief during the ongoing trade war.
— Dr. Roger Marshall (@RogerMarshallMD) May 23, 2019
William Reinsch, a trade analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former U.S. trade official, called the administration’s aid package for farmers “a fairly overt political ploy.”
“It’s not economics,” Reinsch said. Trump wants win the farm states again in the 2020 election, “and he’s got members of Congress beating up on him” to resolve the trade conflicts.
Financial markets buckled Thursday on heightened tensions between the U.S. and China. The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 400 points in afternoon-day trading.
U.S. crude plunged 6% on fears that the trade standoff could knock the global economy out of kilter and kill demand for energy.
Talks between the world’s two biggest economies broke off earlier this month with no resolution to a dispute over Beijing’s aggressive efforts to challenge American technological dominance. The U.S. charges that China is stealing technology, unfairly subsidizing its own companies and forcing U.S. companies to hand over trade secrets if they want access to the Chinese market.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to discuss the standoff at a meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Osaka, Japan, next month. There are no current plans for talks to occur before then.
Briefing reporters on the farm aid package, Perdue said he doubted that “a trade deal could be consummated before” the first payments to farmers in July or August.
The second payment will be made around November and the third likely in early 2020, USDA officials said, unless a trade deal has been reached by then.
The direct payments will make up $14.5 billion of the $16 billion package and will be handed out on a county-by-county basis. The amounts will be determined by how much each county has suffered from the retaliatory duties imposed by China, as well as previous tariffs put in place by the European Union and Turkey.
The rest of the package includes $1.4 billion to purchase surplus food commodities from farmers and distribute them to U.S. schools and food banks, and $100 million to help develop new export markets overseas.
The payments will go to farmers producing roughly two dozen crops, including soybeans, corn, canola, peanuts, cotton and wheat. Dairy and hog farmers are also eligible.
U.S. soybean exports to China have been hit particularly hard, falling from $12.3 billion in 2017 to just $3.2 billion last year.
The aid offsets some of the losses. But farmers are worried about the future and whether they can win back lost sales in China, a market they’ve spent years breaking into. “I don’t think any kind of bailout package, even if it was permanent, would substitute for the loss markets,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council and a former U.S. trade official.
Trump has said that China is footing the bill for the farm bailout by paying the tariffs. But tariffs are taxes paid by U.S. importers, and studies have shown that American consumers and businesses usually end up absorbing the higher costs.
Perdue acknowledged that the tariffs, regardless of who pays them, are sent to the Treasury Department and not earmarked for the relief program. But he said that China is “indirectly” paying for the aid.
“The president feels that China is paying for this program through the tariffs,” Perdue said.
Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports and is planning to hit another $300 billion worth, a move that would extend import taxes to just about everything China ships to the United States.
Among those bracing for higher costs if the new tariffs kick in is Jay Foreman, CEO of Basic Fun!, a Boca Raton, Florida, toy company that imports from China.
“The thought of the government taking my money and giving it to farmers as subsidies to support their loses doesn’t sit well,” Foreman said by email. “It’s not fair to take money from a Florida company to support an Iowa farmer! Farmers don’t want welfare. I’m sure they, like us, just want open free markets to trade in!”
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NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump is providing another $16 billion in aid to U.S. farmers hurt by his trade policies.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” that Trump has “authorized the $16 billion facilitation program.” Last year, the Trump administration delivered farmers an $11 billion bailout to offset the costs of his trade conflicts with China and other U.S. trading partners.
Trump has imposed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum and thousands of Chinese products. Foreign countries have lashed back with retaliatory tariffs. They have focused on U.S. agricultural exports in a direct shot at Trump’s supporters in rural America.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt says he will investigate troubles at the Missouri’s elder abuse hotline.
Schmitt announced the investigation in a news release Wednesday, after reports that only about 50 percent of the nearly 92,000 calls to the hotline in 2018 were answered.
The Columbia Missourian and KBIA reported only about 39 percent of the calls answered between January and April this year have been answered.
Schmitt said he will investigate the severity of the claims made against the hotline. He also pledged to provide more resources until a remedy can be found, possibly including emergency court orders to protect members of vulnerable populations who need immediate assistance.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Only about half of last year’s nearly 92,000 calls to Missouri’s hotline to report abuse of the elderly were answered and the situation has only gotten worse, according to state records.
From January through April this year, only about 39 percent of calls to the Missouri Elder Abuse Hotline were answered, the records obtained by The Columbia Missourian and KBIA radio show.
“They’re not pretty numbers,” said Kathryn Sapp, policy unit bureau chief for the Division of Senior & Disability Services Adult Protective Services, a Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services division that operates the hotline.
Eighteen full-time staff and two part-time workers answer the calls from 7 a.m. to midnight every day. They collect reports of abuse, neglect or exploitation of people age 60 or older and people age 18 and up who have disabilities.
The department has added only one hotline worker in the past decade despite a 35 percent increase in reports of abuse or sexual exploitation.
Hold times averaged about 8½ minutes during the first four months of this year, but some callers have waited an hour or more.
The problems came to light about a year ago, after Jessica Bax became director of the division.
She said data provided before 2018 by Unified Communications, a division of the Missouri Office of Administration, didn’t support complaints that the department was hearing about long wait times and dropped calls. The data on call handle rates didn’t include dropped or disconnected calls, resulting in the department reporting a call handle rate of 98.8 percent for fiscal year 2018 and projecting an even better rate this year.
Bax said her management team worked with Unified Communications to ensure that in the future, the rate of calls handled would include dropped or disconnected calls.
The bureau has also told those required to report such abuse, such as law enforcement and in-home care providers, to skip the hotline if no one answers and fax their reports instead.
Faxes and other methods of reporting have accounted for about 1,200 reports so far this year, but the call handle rate hasn’t improved.
“That is my big fear is we’re losing folks because they couldn’t get through (to the hotline),” Sapp said. “They don’t call back. And so that means someone’s out there vulnerable.”
The department wants to add an online submission form but doesn’t have the funding. It is applying for a grant, trying to streamline the current reporting process and studying how other states run their hotlines.
The time that hotline workers spend writing up reports has been decreased to allow them to spend more time answering calls. And Bax said the department is allowing hotline workers to telecommute during undesirable shifts, which has decreased the staff turnover.
This year’s state budget doesn’t include an increase in funding to staff the hotline.
“This is something we need to address this summer or the fall to get the data together to give it to someone on the budget committee,” said Missouri House Rep. Rudy Veit, R-Wardsville, who is on the newly-created Special Committee on Aging. “It seems to me like if it’s just a pure number of employees or number of people to answer the calls, we just need to get more people there.”
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A tornado tore apart buildings in Missouri’s capital city as part of an overnight outbreak of severe weather across the state that left at least three people dead and dozens injured.
Our hearts go out to the people of Missouri as they woke up to assess the damage from storms. You are strong and resilient, and we are here to assist. https://t.co/paeOVcUQWn
The National Weather Service confirmed that the large and destructive twister moved over Jefferson City shortly before midnight Wednesday.
“Across the state, Missouri’s first responders once again responded quickly and with strong coordination as much of the state dealt with extremely dangerous conditions that left people injured, trapped in homes, and tragically led to the death of three people,” Gov. Mike Parson said.
The tornado cut a path about 3 miles long and a mile wide from the south end of Jefferson City north toward the Missouri River, said police Lt. David Williams. Emergency workers reported about two dozen injuries, Williams said, and dozens of people were in shelters. Hospitals reported treating injuries such as cuts and bruises.
There were no immediate reports of any deaths or missing people in the capital city of about 40,000, but door-to-door checks were being done Thursday.
@MSHPTrooperF is in Jefferson City assisting @JeffCityPolice and Cole County Sheriff Dept. after tonight’s tornado. If you are NOT affected, please avoid the area. You will see several power lines down in these pictures. Treat them as though they are live. #MoWxpic.twitter.com/JHyNNfDX8F
Weather forecasters had been tracking the storm before it arrived in the capital city, and sirens first sounded in Jefferson City at 11:10 p.m. — about 30 minutes before the first property damage. Parson credited the warning system in central Missouri for saving lives.
The three deaths happened more than 150 miles away near Golden City in Missouri’s southwestern corner.
Kenneth Harris, 86, and his 83-year-old wife, Opal, were found dead about 200 yards from their home, and Betty Berg, 56, was killed and her husband, Mark, seriously injured when their mobile home was destroyed, authorities said.
National Weather Service meteorologist Cory Rothstein said it’s possible that tornado had a 50-mile path and could have been on the ground for 80 minutes. Teams were surveying the path Thursday and trying to determine whether one or multiple tornadoes had touched down.
The severe weather moved in from Oklahoma, where rescuers struggled to pull people from high water. This week has seen several days of twisters and torrential rains in the Southern Plains and Midwest.
Kerry Ann Demetrius locked herself in the bathroom of her Jefferson City apartment as the storm approached.
“It sounded like stuff was being thrown around, everything was just banging together, and then it just went dead silent,” she said. She emerged to find the roof had been blown off her apartment building.
Austin Thomson, 25, was in the laundry room of his complex of two-story apartment buildings in Jefferson City when he saw sheets of rain coming down and a flagpole bend and slam to the ground in the wind. The windows broke, and he dove behind the washers and dryers.
After the storm had passed, he went outside to see the damage: “There’s basically one building that’s basically one story now.”
At the Cole County Sheriff’s office in Jefferson City, insulation, shingles and metal pieces lay on the ground outside the front doors.
Jefferson City school district offices were closed because many of its buildings were without power and sustained damage overnight. The state high school track championships scheduled this weekend in the city were moved to different sites in central Missouri, after the Missouri State High School Activities Association issued a release that warned, “Do not travel to Jefferson City.”
Another natural disaster could be imminent in Jefferson City. Most of the city, including the tornado-ravaged section, sits on a bluff overlooking the south side of the Missouri River. But the swollen river is projected to top a levee on the north side of the river by Friday, potentially flooding the city’s airport, which already has been evacuated.
The weather service had received 22 reports of tornadoes by late Wednesday, though some may have been duplicate sightings of the same twister.
A tornado also skipped through the town of Eldon, population 4,900, about 30 miles outside Jefferson City, where it damaged the business district and “tore up several neighborhoods,” Miller County Emergency Management Director Mike Rayhart said.
He said several people were injured seriously enough to be sent to the hospital, but he did not have specifics.
A twister also caused damage and several injuries in the town of Carl Junction, not far from Joplin, on the eighth anniversary of the catastrophic tornado that killed 161 people in that city.
The severe weather was expected to push eastward Thursday, with forecasters saying parts of the Ohio Valley and the mid-Atlantic — including Baltimore and Pittsburgh — could see tornadoes, large hail and strong winds.
Storms and torrential rains have ravaged the Midwest, from Texas through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois, in the past few days.
Two barges carrying a total of about 3,800 pounds of fertilizer broke loose Thursday and floated down the swollen Arkansas River in Oklahoma, spreading alarm downstream as they hit a dam and sank. On Facebook, Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, warned the town’s 600 residents: “If the dam breaks, it will be catastrophic!! Leave now!!”
The barges had been floating out of control, on and off again, since Wednesday night near the town of 600, which was under a mandatory evacuation order due to flooding concerns. Aerial footage from the Oklahoma City television station KFOR showed the moment of impact shortly before noon Thursday. The Army Corps of Engineers was checking the dam for damage.
The Interstate 40 bridge and another span over the river were closed as a precaution. Over Memorial Day weekend in 2002, a barge struck the Interstate 40 bridge pier at Webbers Falls, causing part of the bridge to collapse into the Arkansas River. Fourteen people died after their vehicles plunged into the water.
Missouri’s three tornado fatalities bring to seven the number of deaths from storms this week.
The YWCA in St. Joseph will host its 18th annual event to recognize local women who make a difference in the community.
According to YWCA St. Joseph CEO Tammy Killin, 18 years ago, a group of women came together and wanted to plan an event to recognize women leadership in the community.
“I don’t believe any of them thought it would be as big as is it is now… last year we had over 1,100 guests attend, so it has become quite the event to recognize women in our community, leadership and their volunteerism,” Killin said. “We had 51 nominees this year. We had two ‘Lifetime Achievement’ awardees, Carol Meyers and Jo Eyberg, and then we had our ‘Y Woman of Merit’ and that was selected through the YWCA and that was Linda Judah, for this year.”
Other award categories include ‘Women in the Workplace,’ a ‘Future Leader’ scholarship for a high school senior and ‘Women in Volunteerism.’
Those receiving awards in each category will be announced during the Women of Excellence Awards Luncheon on June 20th.
The event takes place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, June 20th, at the Civic Arena in St. Joseph.
For more information, or to make a reservation to attend, click here or call (816) 232-4481.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas clinic stopped providing telemedicine abortions months ago and returned to court Wednesday after concluding that the legal climate remains uncertain despite a judge’s order late last year saying the state couldn’t stop the procedures.
The clinic in Wichita operated by the Trust Women Foundation also faces a complaint over its past telemedicine abortions filed with the state’s medical board by officials from the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life. The state has enacted three laws in eight years to require physicians to be physically present when giving women pregnancy-ending medications.
The clinic has two doctors who live outside Kansas and can be at the clinic two days a week. In October, it started having them confer by webcam with women seeking medication abortions to increase the hours the physicians were available to patients. The clinic stopped Dec. 31.
“I was just fearful that our clinic and our doctors could be penalized,” Julie Burkhart, the foundation’s CEO and founder testified during a daylong state district court hearing Wednesday. “I wanted to be in a position where we absolutely knew we were able to wade into those waters.”
The clinic stopped telemedicine abortions on the same day Shawnee County District Judge Franklin Theis ruled that the state couldn’t stop the procedures. But Trust Women attorneys said Wednesday that they could not get written assurances from the local district attorney and the State Board of Healing Arts that no ban would be enforced.
The Trust Women Foundation filed a new lawsuit in late January, seeking an order to block enforcement of any ban. Another judge, District Judge Teresa Watson, had the hearing Wednesday and said she hopes to rule “in short order.”
The hearing was the first lower-court action since the Kansas Supreme Court ruled last month that access to abortion is a “fundamental” right under the state constitution. The high court said the state constitution grants a right to “personal autonomy” and to “control one’s own body.”
Mary Kay Culp, Kansans for Life’s executive director, said she worries that the legal dispute over telemedicine abortions “could turn out badly” — and be only the first of many.
Abortion opponents fear that that the Kansas Supreme Court decision endangers even longstanding restrictions. Many were enacted under Republican Govs. Sam Brownback and Jeff Colyer before Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly took office in January.
Their frustration is rising as other states, including Alabama and neighboring Missouri, move to ban most abortions and abortion foes hope the U.S. Supreme Court will reverse its historic Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 legalizing abortion across the nation.
“They could back and turn over virtually all our abortion laws,” Culp said.
Kansas enacted its first telemedicine-abortion ban in 2011, only to see it swept up in a broader lawsuit against multiple restrictions that prompted Theis to block them all together. In his December ruling, Theis said that earlier order blocked a 2015 version of the ban, and he declared that a 2018 version was an “air ball” without enforcement provisions. The state has appealed.
Kansans for Life launched its complaint over the Wichita clinic’s telemedicine abortions before Theis’ last ruling and received a notice last month that the complaint had been assigned to an investigator. The medical board regulates the clinic’s physicians, while the clinic itself is regulated by the state health department.
The medical board’s 15 members all were named by Brownback and Colyer, both strong abortion opponents. Kelly, an abortion rights supporter, cannot fill any spots until four members’ terms expire June 30.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Burkhart testified that webcam conferences made the clinic’s two physicians available to patients and additional eight to 12 hours a week. She also said telemedicine allowed the clinic to reduce waiting times, so patients could spend less than two hours there, instead of from six to eight hours.
She said that Trust Women hoped eventually to open a clinic in rural Kansas offering telemedicine abortions.
But Shon Qualseth, a lawyer representing the Kansas attorney general’s office, said the clinic still cannot show that its patients face imminent harm without another court order.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Latest on severe weather moving across the central United States (all times local):
12:45 p.m.
Jefferson City residents had at least 30 minutes advance warning before the tornado hit.
Weather forecasters had been tracking the storm from Eldon. The tornado warning sirens first sounded in Jefferson City at 11:10 p.m. Wednesday. Police Lt. David Williams says they were sounded again at 11:40 p.m. after the first report of property damage in Cole County. The first calls about property damage in the city came about 6 or 7 minutes after that.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson says he’s thankful there were “plenty of people doing everything they could to warn people — the general public — to take safety, and a lot of people did.”
11:15 a.m.
More than 80 people are staying in shelters in central Missouri after tornadoes ripped through the region.
Tornadoes caused significant damage overnight in Missouri’s capital city of Jefferson City and in Eldon, a town of about 4,900 residents around 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest. The National Weather Service said it was the same storm that hit Jefferson City, though it’s not clear whether it was the same tornado.
The American Red Cross opened one shelter in Jefferson City and two in Eldon. Spokeswoman Sharon Watson says 50 people were at the Jefferson City shelter as of late morning.
Thirty-two people were staying at a shelter at an Eldon elementary school. Watson didn’t yet have details about how many people were staying at the third shelter, at the Eldon Community Center.
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10:40 a.m.
The National Weather Service says it’s possible that a tornado that left three people dead and one injured in southwest Missouri had a 50-mile path.
Weather Service Meteorologist Cory Rothstein in Springfield, Missouri, said a tornado touched down Wednesday night near Treece, a southeast Kansas ghost town on the Oklahoma border, and then moved northeast.
Officials said a tornado damaged homes in Carl Junction, Missouri, near Joplin and moved through Oronogo and Golden City. Authorities said three people were found dead and one injured outside Golden City.
Rothstein said a single tornado could have been on the ground for 80 minutes.
But he said the Weather Service won’t know for sure whether there was one or multiple tornadoes until two teams finish surveying the storm’s path Thursday.
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9:40 a.m.
Tornado damage in Jefferson City photo courtesy WDAF
A local emergency management official says a few people sustained injuries from a tornado in a town southwest of the Missouri capital of Jefferson City.
Miller County Emergency Management Director Mike Rayhart said Thursday that several of the injuries in Eldon were serious enough to send people to the hospital but he did not have more specifics.
Eldon has about 4,900 residents and is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Jefferson City. The National Weather Service said it was the same storm that hit Jefferson City, though it’s not clear whether it was the same tornado.
Rayhart said the tornado skipped through Eldon, damaged the business district and “tore up several neighborhoods.”
Rayhart said two shelters in Eldon are housing between 60 and 70 people.
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8:45 a.m.
Jefferson City hospitals report treating 19 people after a tornado hit the city overnight.
Jessica Royston, a spokeswoman for SSM St. Mary’s Hospital, said seven people with minor injuries were treated there.
About 12 people suffering minor to moderate injuries such as cuts and bruises were treated at Capital Regional Medical Center.
Spokeswoman Lindsay Huhman says only one person was admitted.
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8:25 a.m.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol says an elderly couple and another woman were killed when a powerful storm destroyed their homes in southwest Missouri.
Patrol spokesman Sgt. John Lueckenhoff said the bodies of 86-year-old Kenneth Harris and his 83-year-old wife, Opal, were found about 200 yards from their home outside Golden City Wednesday night.
And 56-year-old Betty Berg died and her husband, Mark, was seriously injured when their mobile home was destroyed just west of Golden City.
The storm also ripped a roof off a fertilizer plant in the area, prompting a precautionary evacuation of 1-mile radius because of a possible chemical leak.
Lueckenhoff said Golden City itself had power lines and trees down but no serious injuries. The town is about 43 miles (69.2 kilometers) northeast of Joplin.
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7:10 a.m.
Damage from a tornado that struck Jefferson City overnight was concentrated in a 3-mile square area in the southern part of the city.
Jefferson City Police Lt David Williams said there are no reports of missing people in the city, but authorities will be making door-to-door checks Thursday.
Williams said no deaths were reported in Jefferson City from the storm that hit the state’s capital shortly before midnight on Wednesday. About 20 people have been rescued.
The storm damaged the roof of a state labor department building but the Capitol and governor’s mansion were not damaged.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson surveyed the hardest hit areas in Jefferson City on Thursday and called the damage “devastating.”
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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A tornado caused heavy damage in Missouri’s capital city as severe weather swept across the state overnight, causing at least three deaths and injuring nearly two dozen people as homes and businesses were ripped apart.
@MSHPTrooperF is in Jefferson City assisting @JeffCityPolice and Cole County Sheriff Dept. after tonight’s tornado. If you are NOT affected, please avoid the area. You will see several power lines down in these pictures. Treat them as though they are live. #MoWxpic.twitter.com/JHyNNfDX8F
The National Weather Service confirmed that the large and destructive tornado moved over Jefferson City shortly before midnight on Wednesday.
“Across the state, Missouri’s first responders once again responded quickly and with strong coordination as much of the state dealt with extremely dangerous conditions that left people injured, trapped in homes, and tragically led to the death of three people,” Governor Mike Parson said.
Missouri Public Safety said the three were killed in the Golden City area of Barton County, near Missouri’s southwest corner, as the severe weather moved in from Oklahoma, where rescuers struggled to pull people from high water. The tornado hit during a week that has seen several days of tornadoes and torrential rains in parts of the Southern Plains and Midwest.
No deaths were reported in the capital, but Jefferson City Police Lt. David Williams said about 20 people were rescued by emergency personnel.
The weather service reported that a “confirmed large and destructive tornado” was observed over Jefferson City at 11:43 p.m. Wednesday, moving northeast at 40 mph (64 kph). The capital city has a population of about 40,000 and is located about 130 miles (209 kilometers) west of St. Louis.
“It’s a chaotic situation right now,” Williams said.
Storm damage in Jefferson City Photo courtesy KCRG TV
Williams spoke from the Cole County Sheriff’s office, where debris including insulation, roofing shingles and metal pieces lay on the ground outside the front doors. Authorities were discouraging people from beginning clean-up efforts until power is safely restored. Area hospitals set up command centers in case the need arises.
Missouri Public Safety tweeted that there was a possibility of more tornadoes and flash flooding.
Austin Thomson, 25, was in the laundry room of his complex of two-story apartment buildings to do his wash and noticed the wind started picking up. He saw sheets of rain coming down and a flagpole bend and then slam to the ground. The windows broke and he dove behind the washers and dryers.
After it calmed down, he walked outside to check the damage, and retrieved a stuffed animal for his daughter from his damaged apartment.
“There’s basically one building that’s basically one story now,” he said.
The National Weather Service said it had received 22 reports of tornadoes by late Wednesday, although some of those could be duplicate reporting of the same twister.
One tornado skirted just a few miles north of Joplin, Missouri, on the eighth anniversary of a catastrophic tornado that killed 161 people in the city. The tornado caused some damage in the town of Carl Junction, about 4 miles (6.44 kilometers) north of the Joplin airport, where several injuries were reported.
Storms and torrential rains have ravaged the Midwest, from Texas through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.
Two barges broke loose and floated swiftly down the swollen Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma on Wednesday, spreading alarm downstream as they threatened to hit a dam.
Authorities urged residents of several small towns in Oklahoma and Kansas to leave their homes as rivers and streams rose.
The Arkansas River town of Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, was one such town. Town officials ordered a mandatory evacuation Wednesday afternoon because of the river’s rising level.
But Wednesday evening, a posting on the town’s official Facebook page sounded the alarm about the runaway barges for its 600 residents: “Evacuate Webbers Falls immediately. The barges are loose and has the potential to hit the lock and dam 16. If the dam breaks, it will be catastrophic!! Leave now!!”
There was no word by midnight Wednesday where the barges were on the river, but local television stations showing live video of the river and the lock and dam said they had not yet arrived.
The Arkansas River was approaching historic highs, while the already high Missouri and Mississippi Rivers were again rising after a multi-day stretch of storms that produced dozens of tornadoes. Forecasters predicted parts of Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas could see more severe weather on Thursday.
Deaths from this week’s storms include a 74-year-old woman found early Wednesday morning in Iowa. Officials there say she was killed by a possible tornado that damaged a farmstead in Adair County. Missouri authorities said heavy rain was a contributing factor in the deaths of two people in a traffic accident Tuesday near Springfield.
A fourth weather-related death may have occurred in Oklahoma, where the Highway Patrol said a woman apparently drowned after driving around a barricade Tuesday near Perkins, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) northeast of Oklahoma City. The unidentified woman’s body was sent to the state medical examiner’s office to confirm the cause of death. Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Keli Cain said she isn’t yet listed as what would be the state’s first storm-related death.
