Council Bluffs is preparing for 25-thousand visitors as RAGBRAI begins this weekend. The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa brings in bicyclists from around the world and they’ll start the west-to-east trek in Council Bluffs this year. Kathy Fiscus, with the Council Bluffs Convention and Visitors Bureau, says 20 committees have been working on RAGBRAI preparations for several months, with public safety as the top priority.
Fiscus says, “That means examining the route to make sure the streets are in good shape, to consider where directional signage should go so that semi-truck traffic and RVs and campers and bicycles don’t tangle up and create a mishap.” Fiscus says it’s an honor for Council Bluffs to be the first host city for this year’s big cycling event. “It’s a way to show, not only Iowans, but the world, our beautiful city,” she says. “This year, the tire dip is at the Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park and the exit route this year will go through Council Bluffs, so the riders will see our beautiful Bayliss Park, our historic 100 block of Broadway, for example.”
Council Bluffs hosted RAGBRAI in 2009 and was designated then as City of the Year. Fiscus says 15-thousand bicyclists are expected to leave Council Bluffs Sunday morning for the start of the week-long RAGBRAI. Riders will also pass through Harlan, Perry, Des Moines, Knoxville, Oskaloosa and Fairfield along the route. RAGBRAI ends on July 27th in Fort Madison.
(Radio Iowa)
Clarinda Police Chief Keith Brothers reports a Page County Sheriff’s vehicle was involved in an accident this (Tuesday) morning. According to the report, 43-year old Sheriff Lyle Palmer, of Shenandoah, was traveling west on Lincoln Avenue at around 11:05-a.m., when the 2009 Chevy Silverado Sheriff’s pickup he was driving, and a 2010 Mazda driven by 62-year old Rebecca Wiese, of Clarinda, collided in the middle of the uncontrolled intersection, in the westbound lane. The accident happened as Wiese was traveling north on 15th Street and approaching the intersection with Lincoln Street.
Wiese was issued a citation for Failure to Yield. Damage from the crash amounted to $10,000. No injuries were reported.
MAXINE BUTLER, 92, of Atlantic died Mon., July 15th at Salem Lutheran Home in Elk Horn. A lunch in honor of MAXINE BUTLER will be held at 11:30-a.m. Thurs., July 18th in the Hockenberry Family Care Community Room in Atlantic.
Graveside services will be in the Atlantic Cemetery at 11:00-a.m. Thurs., July 18th.
Memorials may directed to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and Salem Lutheran Home.
MAXINE BUTLER is survived by:
Daughter, Barb (Dallas) Strand of Atlantic
Four grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and one great, great-grandchild.
Jim field has the call of game 2 of a doubleheader at the Atlantic High Baseball Diamond.
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Jim field has the call of game 1 of a doubleheader at the Atlantic High Baseball Diamond.
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IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – State data shows that more than 3,200 license plates have been issued to local, state and federal agencies with a designation that allows them to avoid tickets from Iowa traffic cameras. A recent speeding incident involving Gov. Terry Branstad’s state SUV has revealed how cities give a break to some government vehicles caught on red light and speed cameras. Several cities said they do not issue tickets to drivers whose plates are not included in police databases because they’re conducting undercover or sensitive work.
Iowa Department of Transportation data requested by The Associated Press shows that 350 agencies have been issued at least one license plate with that designation, ranging from small police departments to the Transportation Security Administration. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources leads the way with 210.
You’ve heard of flash flooding. Now, there’s the flash drought. Parts of Iowa are seeing the driest July in decades and Jim Lee, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, says the term “flash drought” applies, as the heat wave came on very quickly following Iowa’s wettest-ever spring. “A drought can be characterized by a lack of rainfall, low levels of ground water and soil moisture, affects on plants and so forth and sometimes droughts occur over long time scales of several years, sometimes the occur over a period of a few months,” Lee says. “So for the shorter events, sometimes we refer to them as flash droughts.”
Lawns that aren’t being watered are becoming brown and crunchy, especially in parts of central Iowa, where it’s the driest July, so far, since 1976. Des Moines has only gotten six-hundredths of an inch of rain this month. Lee notes, the turnaround from earlier this year is unusual.
“We did have the wettest spring on record in Iowa in terms of the average statewide rainfall from March through May,” Lee says. “We’re not necessarily in a drought yet, in fact, very little of Iowa is in drought conditions right now, however, if we continue to see the dry pattern that we’ve seen established over the last couple of weeks persist through the rest of July, then we could enter that territory.”
Much of the state and a large portion of the region were hit with a drought that lasted the majority of last year, however, the rainy spring gave promise to a change for Iowa. Lee says it’s still not known whether this flash drought will become another full-fledged drought. Lee says, “The fortunate thing about events like this is that because we had that wet spring, we were able to replenish our soil moisture, subsoil moisture, river levels, reservoirs and so forth, so that we’re better able to take a drier second half of summer.”
(Radio Iowa)
The forecast calls for a few scattered showers but no significant rainfall until perhaps the weekend.
Lavon Eblen speaks with Joyce Miller, Artistic Director for River City Ringers, about the handbell choir from the Omaha area. They perform broadway tunes and more; and will be performing as part of the Third Thursday Summer Concert Series this week at the Atlantic City Park.
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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Environmental groups pushing the federal government to take over enforcement of Clean Water Act regulations in Iowa say Gov. Terry Branstad has lobbied the EPA on behalf of farmers, ignoring the fact that water in Iowa’s rivers is worsening due to manure spills and farm runoff.
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement says Tuesday it has obtained a letter from Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds through a Freedom of Information Act request. The letter shows Branstad and Reynolds wrote to top EPA officials in Washington in May, stepping over the EPA’s regional office in Kansas City, which is negotiating with Iowa DNR about stricter livestock enforcement.
Branstad and Reynolds express “strong concern” about proposed increased farm regulation. The EPA has been pushing Iowa for stricter enforcement for a year.