(Radio Iowa) – Work on the new Mississippi River bridge from Lansing to Desoto, Wisconsin has stopped. D-O-T engineer Clayton Burke says high water made conditions unsafe. “The contractor is completely leaving the site until the water goes back down,” he says. “There’s very little they could possibly do to overcome the water levels that we’re seeing so yeah it’ll it might be a while before you see those cranes swinging around.” Burke says Mother Nature will determine when the work gets underway again.

“We’re seeing about a week out the river gauge is going to be over 16 and a half feet. And we need that to get back down to about 12 before we can keep working on the bridge again,” Burke says. “And we’ve seen in the past when the Mississippi goes up, it goes up fast but it stays there for a long time. So we might be losing weeks to a month of scheduled time here.”

Burke says the contractor will likely bring in multiple crews once the water goes down so they can work nights and weekends to make up for lost time. The new bridge is was scheduled to be completed at the end of 2026. Burke says around 29-hundred people cross the Lansing bridge each day. The bridge that’s being replaced at Lansing was closed for a time in February after two piers shifted and they had to be repaired.

Des Moines, IA – State Auditor Rob Sand today (Wednesday) urged Iowans and their community leaders to be on alert for people preying on victims of the flooding in Iowa. Sand says “Iowans are known for rallying around victims of natural disasters.  Communities come together to help with clean-up and provide for people who have lost everything. Unfortunately, natural disasters are also calling cards for con artists.”

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the most common fraud following a natural disaster includes fake housing inspectors and building contractors, phony disaster donation efforts, and calls or texts requiring account information in exchange for financial assistance. Sand says “These scammers are not stupid.  They’re sneaky. They’ll use all means to try to steal personal and public funds – phone calls, texts, emails.  They’ll even pose as government officials to get account information or social security numbers.”

Sand offers these tips for avoiding scams in the wake of natural disasters:

• Never give out social security numbers or account information over the phone or via text or email.
• Confirm that emails from vendors are legitimate by calling the vendor through a verified number, not the number in the email.
• Never pay a contractor a large sum of money upfront.
• Make checks for materials payable to the contractor and the supplier.
• Request a copy of the contractor’s liability insurance information.
• Require that all work be outlined in a contract, including completion dates and costs for materials, permits, and labor.
• Get at least three estimates from contractors and be leery of “too good to be true” offers.
• Federal and state workers will never ask for money and will always carry identification badges.

(Radio Iowa) – The president of the North Iowa Area Community College is predicting enrollment at community colleges will grow in the years ahead. Dr. Steven Schulz is retiring at the end of the month. “Let’s be honest, the methodology’s changing. There’s going to be more people in this sector, people looking for skills, not four year degrees,” Schulz says. “There’s lot of change going on.”

Schultz has been president of NIACC in Mason City for the past decade. Schulz, who’s retiring after a 42 year career as an educator, says he worries about the future for students in rural areas of the state. “I think it’s going to be up to communities and local school boards and local community colleges to really tell their story and express their needs in way that the legislature can see we’re still here,” Schulz says, with a laugh, “and we want to do the work of our communities.”

NIACC president Dr. Steven Schulz is retiring at the end of this month. (NIACC photo)

Schultz is a native of Geneva, a small town in Franklin County. He holds degrees from Wartburg College, the University of Northern Iowa, Drake University and Iowa State University. Schulz previously worked at Des Moines Area Community College and U-N-I, He served as the superintendent of Carroll Community Schools from 2000 to 2004.

(Radio Iowa) – More severe weather stormed across Iowa on Tuesday night, bringing high winds, heavy rain and large hail. National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Lee says there were perhaps 30 sightings of funnel clouds statewide and a few of them touched down to become tornadoes. “Preliminarily, we think there may have been three, and they were pretty weak funnels that just briefly touched down and didn’t really produce any damage,” Lee says, “so it’s kind of hard to tell how many there were because most of them didn’t really damage anything.”

Tornadoes were reported near Cumming, Van Meter, Lambs Grove, Patterson and Ely — with reports of funnel clouds stretching from Charter Oak in western Iowa all the way to the Cedar Rapids area in the east. Lee says the active nighttime weather pattern followed a very hot, humid day. “We had a lot of instability and a kind of boundary laying across roughly the I-80 corridor across the state,” Lee says. “It was able to spin up those little funnels but thankfully, most of them didn’t touch down and weren’t of any particular severity, so it was a spectacular sight but not one that did a lot of damage, thankfully.”

While there was no damage reported from tornadoes in this series of storms, Lee says there -was- damage from other elements. “The largest hail stone that we had reported fell near Winterset and that was about roughly baseball-sized,” Lee says. “We also had some strong winds, particularly out close to Omaha, that were measured wind gusts up around 90 miles an hour with some damage, so it was a night for severe weather across at least the southern half of the state.”

Storm damage Tuesday night (6/25) west of the Tri-Center High Schoo by about 2 miles or so. Winds gusted up to 60 mph. (Photos courtesy Zach Ploen)

The typical tornado season in Iowa runs April, May and June, and the state’s seen an above-average number of twisters this year. “It doesn’t really end in June. It just gradually tapers off,” Lee says. “We can get tornadoes in any month of the year and they’re most likely in May and June, but they still occur fairly regularly in the other summer months as well. We have a long way to go, particularly in an active year like this one.”

Prior to last night’s (Tuesday night’s) storms, the National Weather Service reported Iowa had 86 tornadoes so far this year, with 44 in April and 42 during May. The average in a year is about 50. In 2021, Iowa had a record 63 tornadoes in a single day — in December. That was during the state’s second derecho in as many years, and that December outbreak set another record for most EF-2 tornadoes in one day — at 21. Iowa’s worst-ever day for deadly tornadoes was May 15th of 1968, when the state saw five massive F-5 tornadoes that killed 18 people.

(Creston, Iowa) – Police in Creston, Tuesday evening, temporarily arrested, and then released, a woman who allegedly allowed an animal at her residence, to run at-large. 26-year-old Paige Nicole Westbrook, of Creston, was cited at the scene and released on a summons to appear in court.

The former Ringgold County Conservation Director is suing the county for alleged discrimination, defamation and malicious prosecution. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports Kathryn Mortensen Zimmerman is suing the county, the board of supervisors, the county auditor, a county deputy and an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation employee, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

According to her lawsuit, Zimmerman began working for the county in 2010 as the director of Ringgold County Conservation, which maintains three public parks for camping. Beginning in January 2021, she alleges, the supervisors, particularly Colby Holmes, engaged in a pattern of gender discrimination, sexual discrimination, age discrimination, retaliation, harassment, slander and defamation.

The lawsuit alleges Holmes “fabricated and disseminated false information” pertaining to Zimmerman’s work ethic, character and competence, while stating at a board meeting that she would be “better off as a janitor.”

Holmes is also accused of falsely claiming Zimmerman hid money within her budget and used it on personal expenses, and of telling the county’s conservation board “it isn’t right that (Zimmerman) is making more money than some other male employees,” according to the lawsuit. Holmes is also alleged to have posted a hostile comment to Facebook alleging Zimmerman could not do her job and should leave.

The lawsuit alleges that after Zimmerman filed complaints about Holmes with the county auditor, county attorney and the Iowa Public Information Board, Holmes urged the conservation board to reduce her compensation for overtime.

In December 2022, the lawsuit alleges, Holmes “intentionally physically assaulted (Zimmerman) with his vehicle and yelled, ‘move your ass!’ and ‘get out of the way!’ ” The lawsuit claims that after Zimmerman filed a police complaint on the matter, she was investigated by the DCI and charged with filing a false police report.

According to the police report in that case, Zimmerman claimed Holmes struck her with his vehicle — a statement that police say was contradicted by witnesses and by Zimmerman’s own initial statement to officers.

A second criminal charge against Zimmerman alleged interference with official acts. According to an April 2023 press release from the DCI, that charge stemmed from a Dec. 5, 2022, incident at Poe Hollow Park. According to the DCI, Zimmerman refused Ringgold County deputies and bomb technicians entrance to the park so they could work on an explosive device found earlier that morning.

Court records indicate the two criminal charges are still pending, with no trial date set.

Due to the alleged hostile work environment in the county, the lawsuit alleges, Zimmerman was constructively discharged in February 2023. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for sexual discrimination, retaliation, defamation and malicious prosecution.

The county and the DCI have yet to file a response to the lawsuit.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says dairy exhibitors will be required to submit additional tests before their dairy cattle can be transported to a show to help minimize the potential spread of Avian Influenza. The Department’s order for fairs and exhibitions will go into effect on July 1st. The order will require dairy exhibitors participating in Iowa fairs or exhibitions to complete testing for Bird Flu within seven days of moving to the exhibition.

Secretary Naig says in a statement the state wants to strike a balance between allowing our 4-H, FFA, and dairy exhibitors the opportunity to show their animals, while also requiring additional testing to protect livestock and minimize the potential spread of the virus.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A man was arrested Tuesday night in Red Oak, on assault and child endangerment charges. According to the Red Oak Police Department, Nathan Allen Aldrich was taken into custody at around 8:20-p.m., in the 200 block of S. 8th Street. Aldrich was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and charged with Domestic Abuse Assault/3rd or subsequent offense, and four-counts of Child Endangerment. He was being held in the jail without bond, as of the latest report.

(Creston, Iowa) – A collision between a UTV and a car Tuesday evening in Union County resulted in one person being transported to the Creston hospital. The Union County Sheriff’s Office says the accident happened at around 6:42-p.m. on the High and Dry Road, south of Creston.

According to the Sheriff’s report, a 2012 VW Passat driven by 17-year-old Rebecca Janae Hoffman, of Diagonal, was traveling south on the High and Dry Road, and had attempted to pass a 2024 Polaris UTV operated by 24-year-old Alexis Elizabeth Baker, of Creston. Hoffman didn’t realize Baker was slowing down to turn left into a driveway, because the UTV had no functioning turn  signals.

Hoffman swerved to avoid colliding with the UTV, but her car clipped the left front tire of the UTV. Following the collision, the car entered the east ditch and came to rest. Baker was thrown from the UTV and suffered head injuries. She was transported by Medic 1 to the Greater Regional Hospital in Creston. Damage from the collision amounted to an estimated $3,400.

No citations were issued, but the Sheriff’s report noted Alexis Baker failed to signal her intentions as  a contributing factor in the accident.