Missouri is nearing peak foliage season

MARYVILLE, MO (KXCV) - The Missouri Department of Conservation says the state is nearing the peak of its fall foliage season.

Fall color almost always peaks around October 15th in Missouri, but due to dry weather conditions, the trees will be turning a little bit earlier.

Conservation Department spokesman Jim Low says the lack of rain could also impact the vivid colors we see this year.

"I would just call it maybe a little bit less than the usual amount of fall color, but it’s still going to be pretty and in any part of the state there will always be some trees that are just spectacular," Low said.

The Missouri Department of Conservation says , however, seasonal conditions, such as freezing temperatures, heavy rains, or strong winds, could still cut short the fall-color season by stripping leaves from trees.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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Rare bison breed coming to NW Missouri

MARYVILLE, MO (KXCV) - Northwest Missouri will soon be home to an extremely rare breed of bison.

The Dunn Ranch is nearly 4 thousand acres north of Bethany owned by the national Nature Conservancy.

In late October the group is getting 30 head of bison from South Dakota for the ranch.

They come from one of just two herds in the nation with pure bison genetics…. having no cattle genes in them.

Randy Arndt is the site manager at Dunn Ranch and says the bison will help conserve the grassland birds and thousands of acres of tallgrass prairie in the preserve.

“We’re using bison instead of cattle because bison graze differently than cattle do. They focus on different plants. Cattle will stay in ponds, when we get heat like we’re having now they’ll concentrate in the water, they’ll stay in the shade, where bison will- even in the heat- will drink and move on. And they’re continually moving so the impact to the prairie is totally different,” Arndt said.

Besides the 30 head arriving this fall, 30 more are expected next year.

Conservationists hope in about five years nearly 350 head will live at the north Missouri site.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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St. Joseph officials concerned over flood's economic impact

ST. JOSEPH (KXCV) - Northwest Missouri’s largest city dealing with rising Missouri River flood water is struggling with policy versus potential economic impact.

St. Joseph officials have plans in place for both voluntary and mandatory evacuations but are concerned about clearing out its south-side industrial park area.

City spokeswoman Mary Robertson says forced evacuations of businesses will be case-by-case.

"Given the duration of this long-term event, if we rise to 31 and a half feet, we could stay there for 60 days," Robertson said.

"You might have a business in the south side that is not inundated by water - is not effected by river levels and we want to have them be able to sustain their operations and would want to work. But we would insist they have their own preparations- their own plan- in place, would work with the city, and make sure the city is very comfortable with their plans."

Missouri River levels at St. Joseph are forecast to drop slightly until Tuesday morning.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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Iowa levee breach helps communities downstream

ROCK PORT, MO (KXCV) - Thursday morning’s levee breach at Percival, Iowa has actually helped flooded communities downstream.

Mark Manchester is the deputy emergency manager at Atchison County in Rock Port, Missouri- about 30 miles south of the levee failure.

He says several communities south of the breach have noticed flood waters dropping.

"The gauge at Nebraska City has dropped 6 to 8 inches in approximately 5 hours and the Brownville gauge hasn’t dropped near that much but you can see it looked like it was starting to turn down a little bit so it’s not going to be a huge break for us but anything that we can get we’ll take right now," Manchester said.

Baring any unexpected rain, flood levels on the Missouri are expected to remain lower than they have been for the next 4 or 5 days.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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Guard warns citizens that flood could last for months

State emergency officials are expecting Missouri River flooding to move across the state in the coming months.

The Missouri National Guard is warning residents along the swollen river if flooding starts to go down, it’s no sign the flood fight is letting up.

The Guard has more than 200 citizen soldiers working with local agencies in flooded areas, protecting abandoned property and even flying Blackhawk mission to drop sandbags.

The Missouri National Guard’s director of plans and operations, Colonel David Boyle, says river stage forecasts can be deceiving.

“This fight will expand as it expands from northwest Missouri across to the lower Missouri all the way over to Saint Charles,” Boyle said. “ It also will ebb and flow, so whatever fights we’re in today- say it’s overtopping today, sometime in the future we’ll probably be revisiting that same fight with a breech or some kind of a failure or some kind of other problem. Or if it goes down we’ll revisit with overtopping again.”

The Guard is also using more than 30 Hum-V’s in northwest Missouri’s flood areas and 11,000 Guard soldiers are available to state officials to help during the next two months.

Flood waters from the Missouri River are not expected to cause additional flooding on the Mississippi in Southeast Missouri. However, the Army Corps of Engineers cautions that a rising Ohio River may cause a bump in river levels south of Cairo.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV with Jacob McCleland, KRCU

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Flood fight continues in NW Missouri

ST. JOSEPH, MO (KXCV) - More than 2 hundred Missouri National Guard and Air Guard Soldiers are now fighting the flooding Missouri River.

Monday at Rosencrans Air Base near St. Joseph, Governor Jay Nixon got an extensive briefing from the Guard and heard the Missouri will rise even higher throughout this week.

"The bottom line is the purpose is to say to everybody across the Show-Me State, all the way from that Nebraska-Iowa border all the way to the Illinois-Missouri border, we are standing up flood fighting operations, we are standing with the locals," Nixon said. "We expect to continue to be in this operation for many, many weeks."

After the operational briefing by the Guard, Nixon flew in a Blackhawk helicopter over extreme northwest Missouri to survey the flooding from the air.

At the same time he took off from the base, a town about three minutes away issued a voluntary evacuation order for its residents.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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Total cost of Missouri disasters won't be known until August

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon says it could be another month before the state knows the bill after the Joplin tornado and the ongoing north Missouri flooding.

Nixon says he’s hoping the $50 million he’s set aside for matching Federal Emergency funds will be enough, and is confident the Joplin tornado will be more costly than the flooding.

Still, Nixon adds the finances are holding for now.

"The bottom line is that we have the adequate resources to deal with the issues," Nixon said. "We haven’t been out-resourced here yet. There hasn’t been any decisions that we have made- that have been made- based on either overtime for troopers or necessity to call up the Guard or get the helicopters down, that have been limited by cost factors."

Nixon says with debris still being cleaned up in Joplin and the flooding in northwest Missouri continuing, it could be August before the state has a complete cost analysis of the disasters.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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Missouri Army National Guard, Civil Air Patrol team up for flood fight

ST. JOSEPH, MO (KXCV) - State officials are calling the northwest Missouri response to Missouri river flooding the “flood fight”… and it’s becoming a literal battle.

Officers from the 139th Task Force at Rosecrans Air Base near St. Joseph have moved equipment out and away from the rising threat, and the Missouri Army National Guard is teaming up with the Civil Air Patrol on air reconnaissance missions over the river.

Colonel Greg Mason heads up Task Force 110 that’s in charge of protecting northwest Missouri from the flooding.

He says both planes and helicopters are being used with more on standby.

"Some of the assets that they may bring to bear are the electrical hoist in case there is a need to rescue people from water. The hoist can also lift huge sandbags and place them on the levees at a spot in an emergency if need be," Mason said. "And also smaller helicopters that we can use to fly the route for reconnaissance or aerial observation."

Mason says even civilian help is welcomed…alerting the citizen soldiers of possible levee breaches as soon as they happen.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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Rockport prepares for flood

ROCKPORT, MO (KXCV) - This is day nine for Rockport, Missouri residents trying to prepare for the Missouri River Flooding.

This morning about 65 state prison inmates from Maryville – about an hour away – are in town to help residents fill more sandbags.

Earth dams are being built around a grain elevator two miles from the river … but the focus is the 10 feet of dirt around Rockport’s water treatment plant four miles from the river.

Atchison County Presiding Commissioner Kurt Livengood says while Rockport area residents are packing belongings, around 120 citizens have already moved out … based on the flooding in 1993 and again in 2007.

"The good part about this is most people in this county has been through this before. Those people who are moving out, have been through this before. They understand it- they know it way better than I do. And so it’s not hard for them to understand where we’re coming from," Livengood said.

The county’s emergency manager says 40 thousand sandbags have been filled in the past four days in Rockport, with 20 thousand of those protecting the water treatment plant.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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Holt County preparing for flood

HOLT COUNTY, MO (KXCV) - Just as the Army Corps is ready to release water upstream, Missourians living along the Missouri River are already bracing for flooding.

In extreme Northwest Missouri about 40 residents in the Big Lake State Park area have voluntarily evacuated as they anticipating flooding by this weekend.

County clerk Kathy Kunkel serves with the county’s emergency management operations there and says local authorities are getting ready.

"Our emergency management center is open, the dispatch is set up to handle phone calls with a breach- how we’re going to be actionable about that. We’ve sped up our preliminary operations with Red Cross to do temporary sheltering if someone is in need of that," Kunkel said.

Holt County is not issuing mandatory evacuation orders yet but “strongly urging” residents in the Missouri River floodplain to evacuate in the coming days.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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Blunt and McCaskill sound off on gas prices

High gas prices are on the minds of both Missouri Senators this week.

A bill co-sponsored by Senator Roy Blunt was on the Senate flood Wednesday to address expanded oil production and other issues.

Blunt says one area of concern is refineries taking time to customize production under the Clean Air Act rather than working on bulk oil refining.

"It really impacts supply whenever you have to make all these special blends of fuels in the summertime for the 19 or 20 or two dozen cities that are under some Clean Air requirements right now. Until we changed the law a little bit a few years ago all of them had to have a unique blend of fuel that had to be produced just for them," Blunt said.

Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill says alternative fuels is her focus – with a caveat.

"Incentivizing alternatives to oil petroleum is a very good idea," McCaskill said. "I do think we have to be careful that doesn’t turn into an entitlement program. Incentivizing the beginning of a market is much different than an entitlement program that goes on for decades and decades and decades. So we do need to look to the future and figure out at what point and time do we need to wean that market off of the tax dollars that they have received."

The Senate this voted down a McCaskill proposal that would have dropped tax credits for the largest of the oil companies.

Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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Blunt on debt ceiling

The Obama Administration wants more room for U.S. debt, but that’s not sitting well with Missouri’s Republican Senator.


Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked a Congressional subcommittee on appropriations on Wednesday to raise the debt ceiling, saying it has to be done because “there’s no alternative.”


Missouri GOP Senator Roy Blunt says unless lawmakers include fundamental changes in the way the feds spend money, he won’t vote for a rise in the country’s debt ceiling.


“I don’t believe Congress would do that and things that both change the budget process and impose controls on the federal government like a balanced budget amendment would are the kind of things that need to be not just part of the discussion by the determination to move forward with the debt ceiling,” Blunt says.


Blunt says last year was the first time since the early 1970s that both houses failed to pass a budget or a single appropriations bill.


Kirk Wayman, KXCV

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