The Platte County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate the death of a woman whose body was found in a conservation area last week.
A fisherman made the discovery on June 1st at the Platte Falls Conservation area.
The victim is a white woman in her early 20’s with short brown hair driving a brown, older-model Chevy pickup. Authorities believe she had been fishing sometime between May 30th and June 1st.
Anyone with information is asked to the call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS.
Concerns continue to brew in Atchison County Mo. as releases start to peak at the Gavins Point dam on the Missouri River.
Rumors continue to circulate, however officials made it clear Monday afternoon, no major breaches to levee’s in the county have occured.
Two small breaches happened over the weekend where the levee dropped down because of erosion. Those have since been fixed by volunteers and the Army Corps of Engineers, Atchison County Commissioner Curt Livengood said. There was a third small concern that was also addressed.
The County is prepping the water-treatment plant that serves rural Atchison County and Rockport. They are making a levee around the plant to prevent it from being flooded if the waters reach the plant at the intersection of Interstate 29 and U.S. Highway 136. The work started last tuesday, Rockport Police Chief Curtis Elam said.
“My job is to protect this water-plant and some people say it was overkill, and if it was, then I’m sorry,” Elam said. “I couldn’t imagine three months or longer until the water went down and the water-plant was not functional until then.”
Prisoners from Maryville are helping place sandbags on the levee’s and will help around the water-treatment plant near Rockport this week, Atchison County Emergency Management Director Rhonda Wiley said.
“The heat is a very big concern,” Wiley said. “Everybody is pitching in and helping us with hydration as well as food (for the volunteers).”
Voluntary evacuations have been issued for an area in Atchison County West of the interstate to the Missouri River.
“We would like to see them getting their personal belongings out of their home,” Livengood said. “It’s hard for us to patrol all their houses so we don’t want them to leave their houses if they don’t have too.”
Most people are evacuating south of U.S. Highway 136. Some north of the highway are getting prepared but are not ecavuating because the waters did not reach them in 1993. Around 60 homes or less are evacuating at this time, Livengood said.
There is a likely hood that Interstate 29 could become over-topped with water. That would close the interstate, Livengood said. Road closure information can be found by clicking the picture to the left.
The financial strain on the county has yet to be seen, eight days into the preparations, Livengood said.
“Luckily we have had some growth in the last few years and that has helped us,” he said. “If it gets to the point where they close I-29 North and I-29 South, that intersection of 136 and I-29, which is where a lot of our revenue comes from, it will hurt.”
All persons included in this post are innocent of crimes until proven guilty in a court of law. Courtesy Photos.
This information is not criminal history. All individuals included in this post are innocent of crimes until proven guilty in a court of law. The St Joseph Post assumes no legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, or completeness, of this information.
Northwest Missouri State head football coach Scott Bostwick died Sunday morning from an apparent heart attack.
Bostwick suffered a heart attack while doing yard work Sunday. He is survived by his wife and two children.
See below for video of Sunday evenings press conference at Northwest.
Bostwick, former defensive coordinator for the Bearcats, was named head coach in December following Coach Mel Tjeerdsma retirement announcement.
“We are hurting today, we will hurt tomorrow,” Northwest president Dr. John Jasinki said. “Thoughts about Scott’s next game day and field conditions will provide us comfort through these difficult times.”
Many spoke of the family atmosphere at Northwest. Athletics Director Wren Baker joined that family in December. He and the other university and athletics officials met with the team Sunday afternoon.
“Everybody in athletics talks about family but this place is really about family, that’s why they put 10,000 people in the stadium every Saturday,” Baker said. “We had an hour to share stories about Coach Bostwick. We cried, we laughed, but overall, I think it was the beginning of a healing process and I think they are doing as well as could be expected.”
Coach Tjeersma will leave June 26th to coach the United States national American football team in the 2011 IFAF World Cup. Until then, Tjeersma will be around to help the team heal and move forward.
“I’ve got three weeks yet so we’ll be here,” Tjeersma spoke of himself and his wife. “This is where we need to be.”
Services will be scheduled this week.
Another levee in Northwest Missouri has been compromised, and parts of the city of Hamburg, Iowa are being evacuated because of floodwaters.
Emergency officials and volunteers in Atchison County, Missouri worked through the weekend to prevent rising Missouri River waters from compromising levees, roads and other infrastructure.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that a partial levee breach occurred Sunday morning on Missouri River levee L-575, near Hamburg. Early assessments determined this was the second partial breach to the levee. Officials warn the levee is likely to fully breach the as water levels continue to rise.
“The levee has a partial breach in which the levee collapsed on itself approximately 10-15 feet in width,” said Kim Thomas, Chief of the Emergency Management Office here. “All personnel on-site were moved off-site as a safety precaution. Additionally we strongly encourage everyone to avoid this potentially dangerous area.”
The Corps is working closely with Iowa and Missouri Emergency Management Agencies, as well as the County Emergency Managers, the National Weather Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Region VII to ensure the safety of all in these areas.
Levees can be breeched for a variety of reasons and, at this point, it is too early to determine what the cause or causes of these breaches may have been, said Thomas.
The levee breach follows weeks of high flows and increasing releases from the main stem dams in Montana and the Dakotas. The Corps continues to aggressively monitor and evaluate the inundation areas.
“Through monitoring, we’ve also identified a concern with levee L-550 near Brownville, Nebraska, and are working with the local sponsor to develop a solution for that as well,” said Thomas.
As a temporary measure to reinforce the levee to delay a full breach, the Iowa National Guard is dropping thousands of pounds of large sandbags to help fill the breaches.
Levee L575 is located at River Mile 552.5 in Atchison County, Missouri.
A dispatcher in Fremont County, Iowa says it is not a severe breach, but it could cause secondary problems due to erosion. The dispatcher said people are being evacuated from the south end of Hamburg, Iowa. She said it was a mandatory evacuation.
I-29 remains open in Iowa, but the dispatcher pointed out there is a flood warning from exit one to exit ten on the interstate in southwest Iowa.
Atchison County Emergency Management has a page on Facebook, in which Director Rhonda Wiley offers the following regarding some misinformation that was released about another levee in her county: There IS a levee compromise 1.5 miles south of Iowa line. It is a trickle only and NOT a flash flood situation at this time. WATER IS NOT FLOWING OVER I-29! and none of the leadership in this county and Fremont County are responsible for the bad info. It was put out by another source! At this time it is still a voluntary evacuation in Atchison County.
Wiley posted this video on Facebook. It shows a “sand boil” 30 yards from the L550 levee. When a sand boil occurs, water percolates underneath a levee, and can cause erosion and damage from underneath.
Wiley says crews are building a new levee, and preparing to brace it with sandbags to protect the Rock Port drinking water plant near I-29 and US-136 highways.
Wiley says that so far no one has asked for shelter in the center set up for evacuees last week.
Here is a wider angle photograph of the water trickling past the L550 levee south of US-136. This was about 30 yards from the base of the levee.
City officials say the increased flow of water on the Missouri River should reach the St Joseph are around June 14th.
The Army Corps of Engineers predicts the river to rise between 27 and 32 feet in St Joseph. Those levels are greater than last year’s flooding and could exceed river levels from 1952 and 1881, depending on rainfall in the river basin.
The Corps of Engineers delivered an automated sandbagging and 100,000 sandbags to St Joseph this week. The city already has 60,000 sandbags on hand. They will be used for public safety only, city officials said.
Six pumps were ordered this week and four are now in place to pump 30 million gallons of water per day at the wastewater treatment plant. Once the river level reaches 26 to 27 feet, the plant cannot drain to the river.
The nature center boat dock has been removed and the Riverwalk trails are closed.
Key elevations that will affect St. Joseph are:
Riverfront Park experiences water
A Saint Joseph company and its vice president have been sentenced for illegally discharging pollutants into the city’s wastewater treatment system. Oak Mill Inc and vice president Robert Arundale of San Diego were each sentenced to five years probation. They jointly agreed to pay a $50,000 fine over a five-year period. The court also ordered them to pay $4,000 restitution to the city of Saint Joseph. Arundale admitted that Oak Mill exceeded federal limits for discharges containing zince and nickel on two occasions in 2006.
No one was hurt when a car crashed through the front of Shoe Carnival on the Belt Highway Friday morning.
Witnesses say an elderly man was trying to park his car just after 10:00 a.m. He apparently hit the gas pedal and not the brake. The car crashed through the glass doors and made a 90 degree left turn inside before stopping.
A witness says the driver let her cross the street before he attempted to park.
The witness also says a clerk at the front check-out of Shoe Carnival jumped onto the desk and out of the way of the car. A structural engineer was called in to make sure the building is safe.
After the tornado in Joplin earlier this month, one neighborhood was reduced to rubble, and the cross at St Mary’s Church was the only thing left standing.
By Steve Moody
“Federal Emergency Management Agency is pleading for the public not to make unsolicited donations of supplies or volunteer work that will hamper the rescue and relief efforts in Joplin.”
“Joplin is OVERWHELMED with unsolicited donations, and in dire need of messaging to discourage folks from sending unsolicited donations!”
Why don’t FEMA and other disaster agencies get it? People bring unsolicited donations after every disaster and FEMA parrots out the same message. It seems FEMA is just as stuck with their approach as are the donators of the unsolicited goods.
I propose a new approach. Here it is:
For starters accept the reality – many people DO NOT want to donate cash. There are solid reasons for that desire. First, cash just doesn’t seem personal to many folks. Second, I’m sure that many folks don’t trust that their cash will go where they want it to go.
My proposal is to set up a disaster web site store. The site would have pictures of all the goods that are needed for the disaster. Each product would have a number needed. The goods would be priced like any other Internet store. You buy a pair of child’s shoes – the quantity needed goes down one.
FEMA and other disaster agencies could control when and where the products are shipped. Donators would be able to print out a receipt for tax purposes if they wish. And, a database would exist to send a thank you to all those who helped with the disaster.
Problem of having too much at the wrong time solved!
Your Welcome FEMA.
Steve Moody is the former Leavenworth Fire Chief.
