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Strong winds Thursday sparked a number of farm field fires in northwest Iowa.

More than ten fires were reported in Clay, Palo Alto, O’Brien and Buena Vista Counties with the dry, windy conditions. Media reports out of Spencer had wind gusts reported as high as 50 MPH.

Authorities in northwest Iowa are requesting that all farm activities be temporality suspended. No injuries were reported as a result of the fires.

The winds forecast for today are not expected to be as strong as Thursday.

The new addition to the Atlantic Medical Center opened on Wednesday and CCMH says it served its first patient in the new addition that day.

The addition expands Suite C at the medical center, creating a patient care area to be used primarily for obstetrics and gynecology services provided by Dr. James Brown.

The addition includes two patient exam rooms, one minor procedure room, one office and some storage space, bringing the total number of patient exam rooms in Suite C to eight. Suite C is also the area of AMC that is used for the evening clinic hours from 5 – 7 pm. Patients with evening appointments will come in directly through the new Suite C entrance.

Patients will drive past the north entrance, around the corner to the back of the building, and the Suite C entrance is on the right.

Assistant Administrator for Physician Clinics Sue Marsh says the addition will enhance the care provided by Dr. Brown and also others at the medical center by making more space available for patient care

The AMC addition is the first step to be completed in the Cass County Health System’s current construction and renovation project.

The Southwest Iowa District representative from Congressman Steve King’s Office was at the meeting to give more information about the possible closure of the Post Office and answer questions from residents.

Scott Corrie from Steve King’s office says that if the Cumberland Post Office were to close, the city would be left with a couple options.

The first option would include having the city switch over to a “village post office” system. Village Post Offices are operated by community businesses to provide selected postal products and services, including Forever stamps and Priority Mail Flat Rate packages and envelopes. These retail units may also provide Post Office Boxes either inside or outside the business.

The other option would be what’s known as “cluster boxes”. These would be a group of 16 boxes that would provide a centralized location for mail to be delivered. Corrie noted that these boxes would be placed outdoors meaning they would need someone from the postal service to clear snow and ice. There would also be a 13 oz. limit in which residents would have to go to the nearest post office location to get mail that weighs over 13 oz.

Corrie also notes that if the post office were to close, the city would still be able to keep its own zip code. As for rural delivery, he says the main change would be the delivery times.

Although the Cumberland Post Office is under review for closure, it does not necessarily mean that the post office will close.

Corrie says one of the next steps in the review process is that the postal service will hold a community meeting in Cumberland on November 14^th at 6 PM at the Cumberland Community Building. He says it is important that there be a strong turn out at that meeting to encourage the postal service to keep the Cumberland Post Office open.

Corrie also says Congressman King’s Office believes rural post offices are being unfairly targeted for closure. He notes that rural post offices make up only a small portion of the postal services overall budget.

He says that Congressman King thinks there are other areas where the postal service could cut. He says the Congressmen’s Office is encouraging the postal service to change its policy of funding health care benefits 75 years in advance.

Three southwest Iowa farms will be included in the Iowa Barn Foundation’s all-state barn tour this fall.

The tour across the state will feature historic barns that will be open to the public. The two day tour will be October 15 and 16 from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM both days.

The three barns in southwest Iowa include the Finken barn in Harrison County, located at 3005 335th St. It was built in 1917.

The second barn is the Heflin barn located at 837 Orange Road in Harlan. It was built In 1901 and is said to be the only kind of its barn still remaining.

Also on the tour is the Kochersperger barn, located at 64094 Highway 59 in Mills County. It was built in 1941.

The two day tour is free and is meant to encourage barn preservation in the state.

An attempted burglary has led to the arrest of an Audubon man, while authorities are still looking for another suspect involved in the crime.

On Monday morning at about 11:30, the landowner at a home on County Road F-24 in Shelby County discovered two people attempting to remove property.

The property owner called police as the two suspects fled the scene.

When deputies from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office arrived on the scene they were able to catch one of the two suspects a short distance from the property.

The suspect was identified as 31-year-old Jason Malloy of Audubon. Malloy was taken into the Shelby County jail and held on $5,000 bond. He is being charged with 3^rd degree burglary, a class D felony, and possession of burglary tools, an aggravated misdemeanor.

Authorities are still looking for the second suspect.

The Cass County Board of Supervisors are set to hold a meeting Friday morning.

Included in the agenda is a report from the southern Iowa rural water association. They plan to discuss rural water issues for southwest Cass County.

The board will also receive reports from the Cass County Attorney, the Cass County Engineer on a secondary roads update, and from the Cass County mental Health Coordinator.

The meeting is scheduled for Friday morning at 9:00 at the Cass County Courthouse and is open to the public.

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The Missouri River is now completely open to all traffic.

The US Army Corp of Engineers opened all stretches of the river earlier this week.

The Missouri River had been closed to all traffic when flooding began this spring and summer.

The river had been gradually opening recently until the final stretch that was given the all-clear.

Barge and recreational boaters will now be allowed on the river.

Officials had to evacuate a Council Bluffs neighborhood because of a natural gas leak that was started by a copper thief.

About a dozen houses were evacuated before dawn Thursday morning while officials searched for the source of the gas leak. Residents were allowed to return home around 6:30 a.m.

Council Bluffs police say the gas leak came from a vacant homewhere someone had been trying to steal copper pipe. Officials believe the thief cut the home’s natural gas line and water line while trying to steal the copper.

Police arrested a teen suspect in the theft and recovered the stolen copper.

The affected neighborhood is a couple blocks east of Interstate 29 on the west side of Council Bluffs near 36th and B streets.

–AP