(News release) TOPEKA, Kan. – The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) is reporting West Nile virus positive mosquitoes in all four counties where mosquito surveillance is performed including Sedgwick, Shawnee, Reno and Johnson counties.

West Nile virus can be spread to people through bites from infected Culex species mosquitoes, but it is not contagious from person to person. Although West Nile virus has been detected in more than 60 different mosquito species in the U.S., only a few Culex species are known to transmit primarily West Nile virus. These species are not known to transmit Zika virus.

Symptoms range from a slight headache and low-grade fever to swelling of the brain or brain tissue and, in rare cases, death. People who have had West Nile virus before are considered immune.

KDHE recommends the following precautions to protect against West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne diseases:

· When you are outdoors, use insect repellent containing an EPA-registered active ingredient, including DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus, or IR3535. Follow the directions on the package.
· Many mosquitoes are most active at dusk and dawn, but can bite at any hour. Be sure to use insect repellent and wear long sleeves and pants at peak times or consider staying indoors during these hours.
· Make sure you have good screens on your windows and doors to keep mosquitoes out.
· Get rid of mosquito breeding sites by emptying standing water from flower pots, buckets and barrels. Change the water in pet dishes and replace the water in bird baths weekly. Drill holes in tire swings so water drains out. Keep children’s wading pools empty and on their sides when they aren’t being used.

West Nile virus cases are most common in the late summer and early fall months. In 2016, there were 37 cases of West Nile virus in Kansas. More than half of these cases were hospitalized, and five cases died.

Birds are not tested for West Nile virus in Kansas and KDHE will not be collecting information about dead birds. If you find a dead bird, KDHE recommends that you wear gloves, place the bird in a plastic bag, and dispose of it in the garbage.

(Missourinet) – The Missouri Baptist Convention says its volunteers helping with hurricane relief work will serve about 20,000 meals a day.

Tamara Parry tells Missourinet the organization has 60 volunteers lending a hand for about ten days.

“I would estimate that we’re going to be through a couple hundred volunteers by the time it’s all said and done just because the potential for this recovery is probably going to be months,” says Parry.

The organization has about 1,400 total disaster relief volunteers. It has shower trailers and childcare volunteers in the hurricane region. Parry says the childcare unit creates a safe place for kids.

“It just allows the parents a place to drop kids off so they can go handle grown-up adult things that come along with these sort of disasters,” says Parry. “They’ve got to deal with life. They’ve got to deal with insurance.”

Once the flooding recedes enough, another group of the organization’s volunteers will do some very physical work.

“They’ll strip flooring. They’ll rip out dry wall and get all that where it can get somewhat dried out,” says Parry. “Then they will treat it with a mold treatment to prevent mold. So that way these people are ready to come back in and rebuild.”

Other chainsaw-wielding volunteers will clean up tree debris.

The outpouring of support from around the country is overwhelming for those on the ground in a disaster region. Parry says besides volunteer time, the best thing to do to help with these types of causes is to give monetary donations to reputable organizations.

(Missourinet) – A Tennessee man who has followed the president to 33 states is selling pro-Donald Trump merchandise today in Springfield, as part of the president’s visit there. Whitey Taylor says he has sold his Trump apparel at 54 of the president’s rallies.

“About 200 thousand miles we’ve traveled with him. We’ve made a decision if we travel with him anymore, this is the first time I’ve done it in a while, that we’re going on the plane with him. (Laughs) He hasn’t cleared that yet though,” Taylor tells Springfield TV station KOLR-10.

Supporters can stock up on things like “Make America Great Again” logo gear.

“We just come in a couple days ahead of time and sell to people so they don’t have to stand in line at rallies and not get the merchandise that they want. We got it right here,” says Taylor.

He has a brick and mortar storefront in Tennessee. According to Taylor, it’s the only one in America.

Trump will be at the Loren Cook manufacturing plant Wednesday to gather support for tax cuts. More than 600 protesters are expected near the location.

(Missourinet) – Missouri’s right to work law passed by state lawmakers and signed by Governor Greitens in February has effectively been suspended.

The statute which would have normally taken hold Monday has been delayed by union efforts to have it go to a public vote.

The labor organizations met a deadline to present required petition signatures to the secretary of state’s office for the law to be placed on the ballot. It won’t be known if there’s a sufficient number of valid signatures until the secretary of state completes tabulations of the petitions and announces results in early February.

It’s generally assumed the union are in good shape since they submitted more than three times the required number of signatures for verification.

The public vote being sought is known as a ballot referendum, which has taken place 26 times since 1914, the last time in 1982. The issue at that time was whether maximum weight and length of large trucks would be increased. The law was rejected by voters.

The secretary of state’s office provided Missourinet with an electronic image of a 1982 newspaper story which reported that then Secretary of State James Kirkpatrick had determined the truck law was suspended after petition signatures were filed.

A lawsuit to block the current ballot referendum by pro right to work interests was rejected by an appeals court. The state Supreme Court could still choose to take up the case, but has not indicated its intentions. The high bench announced a full slate of cases last week which did not include the right to work litigation. Its next scheduled announcement is in October.

The success so far of the union effort hasn’t gone unnoticed by pro right to work organizations with deep pockets. The Missouri Chamber of Commerce has vowed to mount a full-throated campaign to support the law.  Chamber President and CEO Dan Mehan says he’s prepared for a lengthy process.

“It looks like we will be heading into some political campaign to defend that,” said Mehan.

Meanwhile, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation sent the second in a series of mailers Monday defending the law. The mailer (featured above) is part of the organization’s six-figure effort which includes digital video and display ads, direct mail, events, door-to-door canvassing, and phone banking.

Right to work supporters with connections to dark money have also come to the table.  Two nonprofits donated $600,000 to political action committees working to protect the statute. As non-profits that are classified 501(c)(4) entities, the organizations don’t have to report their donors.

National labor organizations are also expected to donate heavily to union attempts to promote the ballot referendum.  The Chamber’s Mehan says he thinks the amount of money spent on both sides of the issue will be staggering.

“I think the total cost of this campaign for either side will be upwards of $10 million and more.”

Missourians rejected a right to work ballot proposal in 1978, with 60% casting no votes.

(Missourinet) – The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has issued guidelines for individuals who want to contribute to relief efforts from Hurricane Harvey.

A release from FEMA says the most effective way to support disaster survivors is to donate money and time to reputable, non-profit groups.  Cash donations offer the organizations the most flexibility to address urgent needs that could change with evolving conditions.

Needed resources can be obtained more easily near disaster locations with cash, which will also pump money back into the local economy.  FEMA Missouri spokesperson John Mills says cash donations are a difference maker for the organizations.

“The need today may change tomorrow,” said Mills.  “That will give those organizations some flexibility to change what they’re providing, so they provide for what people need right now, and in the future. With money in hand, they have that flexibility.”

FEMA advises against donating unsolicited goods such as used clothing. The agency says those items divert attention away for providing direct services because they require sorting and packaging before they’re delivered to survivors who could be in greater need of something else.

Mills says the guidelines offer ways for busy people to support relief efforts.

“They can’t go to Texas in most cases. People in Missouri have jobs to go to. But they see people in need and they want to help. These are some ways that people can help.”

Those who do have the time and want to volunteer are being urged by the State of Texas not to self-deploy. The state says doing so simply creates an additional burden for first responders.

Individuals can learn more about how to help on the National Voluntary Organization Active in Disaster (NVOAD) website.  Also, the Texas Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (Texas VOAD) has a list of trusted disaster relief organizations.  Texas VOAD represents more than three dozen faith-based, community, nonprofit and non-governmental organizations.

According to the National VOAD, conditions may not be conducive to volunteers entering the impacted zone, and individuals may find themselves turned away by law enforcement.  Volunteer safety is also a concern.  Volunteers are advised to only enter disaster areas with a specific volunteer assignment, proper safety gear, and valid identification.

Kansas City is home to one of 10 regional FEMA offices.  It opened a call center last Friday to help disaster survivors in Texas register for the agency’s assistance. Seventy-five of the office’s 250 employees are either working in the call center or have been deployed to Texas.  That number is expected to increase.

FEMA Administrator Brock Long has said more than 450,000 people were expected to seek disaster assistance. FEMA Missouri’s Mills says the agency is concentrating on emergency needs now, but is preparing for long term recovery.

“FEMA is very focused right now on life safety, lifesaving activities, getting people to a safe place. But as you can see, there’s going to be a lot of needs going forward because many people have lost everything.”

Hurricane Harvey has now broken all records. With rain expected to stop late Tuesday afternoon, the storm has unloaded over 50 inches of rain east of Houston, the greatest amount ever recorded in the Lower 48 states from a single storm.

FEMA’s elite Task Force One from mid-Missouri’s Columbia continues its search and rescue efforts with local responders in Houston.  It was working in the northeast section of the city late Tuesday afternoon.  The Houston Fire Department was assisting the unit in locating homes in more difficult areas to access.

(Missourinet) – An elite group of Missourians is performing activities that are now being shown all over cable TV and over the air news programs.

The Missouri Task Force One from Columbia is in Houston for the specific purpose of executing water rescues and resident evacuations resulting from Hurricane Harvey.

As of Monday evening, the squad reported its work with the Houston Fire Department resulted in 300 people being rescued or evacuated and numerous pets being saved.

The Boone County Fire Protection District is the sponsoring agency of the Task Force, which is owned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  Only 28 of the elite operations exist in the country, being strategically located in different regions.

Gale Blomenkamp with the Boone County District says 49 members of the Task Force have been deployed specifically to address current needs in southeast Texas.

“There’s an embedded swift water rescue component that includes swift water rescue technicians, boat operators, and then we also send six boats as well as an additional cache of water rescue equipment,” said Blomenkamp.

The Task Force is designed to assist the local emergency agencies facing a disaster response. The Missouri unit was originally sent to Rockport, Texas, northeast of Corpus Christi, where it conducted searches and welfare checks on residences with local law enforcement.

It was then moved to Katy, a far western suburb of Houston, where it assisted with water rescues before finally being assigned to relief efforts within Houston city limits.

Blomenkamp says even though the Task force is based in Columbia, its members come from all over the state.

“We have members on this deployment from the Joplin area, from Cape Girardeau, from Springfield, the St. Louis area, the Kansas City area and all those areas in between.”

More than 100,000 pounds of equipment was sent to southeast Texas along with staff members. The Task Force was last used for the same type of disaster in October 2016 after Hurricane Matthew brushed past the coast of North and South Carolina.

The typical convoy of 11 to 12 vehicles deployed, Blomenkamp says, would be hard not to notice traveling down a highway.

“It would be very obvious that this group is traveling together, not sure what they are, but yes they’re traveling together, and they’re headed in a direction that most people are coming away from.”

The Task Force handles urban search and rescue operations which include the location, extrication, and initial medical stabilization of individuals. It’s set up to send up to 80 people to a destination at any given time, and as such, is staffed three deep at every position. In all, 210 people fulfill 18 different job functions ranging from canine search specialist to physicians to rescue specialists and heavy equipment operators.

The team performs operations dealing with a wide range of circumstances, including structural collapses, floods and wide area searches.  Blomenkamp notes it was involved with federal efforts following the tragic 2003 event when a NASA space shuttle broke up as it returned to Earth, killing the seven astronauts on board.

“One of the deployments that Missouri Task Force One went on was the space shuttle Columbia disaster over the state of Texas, where we did wide area searches for debris fields.”

According to the Boone County Fire Protection District web site, the Task Force has more than 17,000 separate equipment items that are maintained in inventory and sent when the Task Force is deployed. Its total equipment cache weight is “in excess of 40,000 pounds that is designed to be self-sufficient for up to 72 hours”.

Blomenkamp contends there are very few, if any, emergency situations the Task Force couldn’t handle.

“They have the capabilities to do about any assignment that is tasked, including weapons of mass destruction and hazardous materials,” Blomenkamp said. “It’s an all hazards response unit.”

A posting on the Boone County Fire Protection District Facebook page Monday afternoon reported the six boats the Task Force transported to southeast Texas were being used in rescue efforts.

“Things are going real well at this point. We have a steady stream of boats coming and going and we continue to work side by side with private citizens and the Houston Fire Department,” said Task Force Leader Randy Sanders.

Blomenkamp points out the deployment to Texas, which could last up to 14 days and cost a million dollars, is being fully funded by FEMA.

“When we deploy to a federal event like this, FEMA picks up the tab, the cost, the wages, the salaries, every bit of cost to deploy the team. It’s all federal funded.”

State tax dollars are used for efforts within Missouri, such as when the Task Force was sent out to assist with relief during floods in late April and early May.