By BRENT MARTIN

St. Joseph Post

Downstream Missouri River levee districts are asking the Army Corps of Engineers to greatly reduce water releases from Gavins Point Dam so they can drain backed-up floodwaters and take pressure off badly strained levees.

The Corps is dropping the releases from 75,000 cubic feet per second to 70,000.

Joel Euler with the Elwood-Gladden Drainage District in Doniphan County, Kansas tells Corps officials during a conference call that floodwaters need to be drained from behind downstream levees.

“So, we can service the 70,000 if we have some leeway, but right now at least two of these districts, the South St. Joseph Drainage and Levee District and the Elwood-Gladden District are out of room and we can’t pump down, we can’t pump the water,” Euler tells Corps officials during the conference call. “All we can do is maintain. We can’t get enough pumps from the Corps of Engineers and, to be candid, if we could get enough pumps we can’t afford to run them.”

The suggestion is getting a cool reception from the Corps, which says it has to maintain high releases from Gavins Point as snowmelt and additional rains enter the upper Missouri River basin.

Northwest Division Chief John Remus with the Missouri River Basin Water Management Office tells Euler there is more than 11 million acre feet of water stored in the flood control pools of the six reservoirs upstream on the Missouri River. Even though most of the snowmelt is gone, it and recent rains still poured 20,000 to 50,000 acre feet a day into the reservoir system the last several days.

“If we had zero inflow into the system, zero, none whatsoever, we would still have to release 35,000 cubic feet per second just to evacuate the water before next year’s runoff,” according to Remus. “A substantial reduction, in the order where you could probably drain, is just not going to be possible just based on that simple arithmetic alone.”

Euler counters something has to give or the levees will.

“But, at some point, we have to have a break. And, I’m not saying that you have to keep it low indefinitely. I’m saying that we don’t have the capability to mechanically pump this water and if we can let nature to do its work for a brief period then we’re ready to get back in the game,” Euler replies to Remus. “But, at some point, you have to hold more up there so we can get rid of some down here so we can participate. If not, all you’re doing is flooding everybody. So, nobody wins.”

Corps officials will only say they plan to speak with levee representatives.

By BRENT MARTIN

St. Joseph Post

Floodwaters continue to plague northwest Missouri roads.

The Missouri Department of Transportation reports it had to close U.S. Route 24 between Brunswick and De Witt only six days after reopening it.

MoDOT says its crews closed both lanes of Highway 24 between Route 11 and Route 41 this morning after floodwaters closed around and then spilled onto the roadway, covering it.

Several roads remain closed, due to flooding.

Route 41 to Miami, Route 10 east of Carrollton, and U.S. Route 65 from Carrollton to Waverly remain closed as the area fights a sometimes losing battle against floodwaters.

MoDOT warns motorists not to drive through floodwaters and not to drive around road closure barricades.

If you come upon a flooded roadway without barricades, do NOT drive through the water. Pull over to a safe location and call the MoDOT’s 24-hour Customer Service line at 888 ASK MODOT (1-888-275-6636) to report it.

Click here for the website MoDOT is maintaining on flooding in northwest Missouri.

By SARAH THOMACK

St. Joseph Post

A grant for more than $500,000 will enable Missouri Western State University to meet the needs of the area healthcare workforce.

According to Missouri Western, the state budget signed by Gov. Mike Parson includes $557,744 for Missouri Western through the Missouri Department of Higher Education’s MoExcels workforce initiative. The funding will be matched locally with donations from Mosaic Life Care, Mosaic Auxiliary, the Heartland Foundation and the Missouri Western State University Foundation.

Crystal Harris is the Associate Dean of the School of Nursing and Health Professions and Interim Dean of Professional Studies at Missouri Western. 

Harris said Missouri Western worked with Mosaic and over 20 other organizations in the community to identify where their needs were. 

“We just really wanted to transform things so that we were so closely aligned with the needs of the employers that we really gave our students the best experiences so that they were ready to  hit the workforce, they were well informed and they knew exactly what experiences they would be doing.” 

Harris said the grant which, after matching funds, totals over a million dollars will go toward enhancing classrooms and simulation lab experiences through increasing technology available.

“We’re talking about setting up real life like experiences for students so that they can practice in safe settings and develop those skills so that when they do graduate, they’ll be able to go out into the world, fully prepared,” Harris said. “We have a mannequin or simulator that breathes, it has a pulse, you can give it medications, you can hear it talk. One of the other things that we put into this grant was virtual reality glasses. Students can wear these glasses and they can actually see what’s going on inside the mannequins.”

One of the stipulations of the grant is that it must be spent within one year. Harris said, overall, the grant is going to help enhance what Missouri Western is already doing and help them meet the needs of northwest Missouri.

“I’m so excited. We’ve had such wonderful community support… we had over 20 letters of support, we had just a lot of input on what is needed and we’re going to have an advisory group that is going to help us identify what training, what simulations, what work we need to be doing that our education that we’re providing is responsive to their needs.” 

The School of Nursing and Health Professions offers undergraduate and graduate programs in nursing as well as undergraduate programs in health information management, physical therapist assistant and population health management.