(Radio Iowa) – A survey team from the National Weather Service is looking over the damage from a tornado that touched down in south-central Iowa last (Tuesday) night near Knoxville and Pleasantville. Meteorologist Donna Dubberke, at the Weather Service office in metro Des Moines, says there were multiple reports of funnel clouds and tornadoes in Marion and Warren counties, but it appears it was a single twister that reached the ground. “At this point, we think it’s just one,” Dubberke says. “Once we get out, today is a lot about piecing all those puzzle pieces together to see exactly how it developed and from the video and what we’ve seen, it looks like it was one.”

There are dozens of reports of hail during last night’s storm from locations scattered across a wide section of Iowa, damaging the siding and roofs of houses, smashing windows and ruining vehicles. “Pretty much diagonally, from the southwest corner of the state up to the northeast, there were hail reports,” Dubberke says. “Some of the larger hail reports were up to three inches in diameter which is very large, so baseball size and larger. The Osceola area had quite a bit, Davenport had some reports of that as well.” The Quad Cities reported peak wind gusts of 90 miles an hour, straight-line winds which broke off tree limbs and caused power outages. Despite the wreckage, last night’s storms were not as severe as last Friday’s barrage.

Funnel cloud near Melcher Dallas. Photo by Tim Johnson, submitted to the National Weather Service.

“With widespread areas certainly, for the hail and a lot of several rounds of storms,” she says, “so it was longer-lasting in some ways but did not have quite the intensity that the one on Friday had.” That previous storm spun off at least 16 tornadoes and left 18 Iowa counties declared disaster areas, with at least nine people injured. Dubberke says the storms should be gone for a while now and calmer, springtime weather is ahead. “The rest of this week and into the weekend, it looks nice, a warming trend,” Dubberke says. “Today, it’ll be the coldest day, then warming a little bit each day, and tomorrow and Friday, we should have some nice sunshine. Next chance of rain is on Sunday and as of right now, it doesn’t look all that impactful.”

Temperatures through the weekend are forecast to warm into the 60s and 70s, with 80s likely next week.

RED OAK, IOWA – U.S. Senators Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have announced that their offices will hold joint United States Service Academy Virtual Informational Nights on Monday, May 1 and Tuesday, May 2, for Iowa students interested in applying to one of our nation’s military academies. Every year, Ernst and Grassley each nominate 10 students to the academies.

Academy representatives will be available to answer any questions about the application and nomination process. The five academies are the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and U.S. Air Force Academy.

Attendees must RSVP to receive meeting information. To contact Senator Ernst’s office, please email Brenda_Safranski@ernst.senate.gov or call (515) 284-4272. To contact Senator Grassley’s office, please email academy_nominations@grassley.senate.gov or call (515) 288-1145. Click here to view the Academy Nomination application.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Atlantic School District School Business Official (SBO)/School Board Secretary Sarah Sheeder has announced her resignation. She submitted her resignation on Monday. Sheeder said she has accepted a position at AC/GC schools, as a shared School Business Official.  Her contract was approved by the Guthrie Center Board of Directors Tuesday night. Her resignation letter is shown below. Sheeder is the second person in the ACSD Administration to resign. Superintendent Steve Barber has announced his resignation, effective at the end of the current school year.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A law enforcement officer suffered minor injuries during a residential structure fire Tuesday evening, in Red Oak. Red Oak Fire Chief John Bruce the blaze at 1903 200^th Street was reported at around 6:49-p.m.

The first crews at the scene reported a heavy fire coming from the north side of the residence, with the blaze extending to the first floor. Firefighters conducted defensive exterior ground operations before moving inside the structure to suppress the fire. Three adults and one child evacuated the home without injury.

The law enforcement officer was injured while assisting with a hose hook-up to the fire hydrant. The officer was treated and released from the hospital.

Photo courtesy the Red Oak Fire Dept.

Chief Bruce said the fire begin with wind driven embers from a fire pit located about 10 yards to the north of the residence. Those embers ignited the vegetation along a fence line, and started the northwest portion of the first floor on fire. The blaze eventually breached the first-floor windows, and entered the residence. The home sustained extensive fire, smoke, and water damage.

Mutual aid was requested from the Stanton and Elliott fire departments. Additional entities at the scene included Essex Rescue, Officers with the Red Oak Police Department, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Deputies, MidAmerican Utilities, and the American Red Cross. Montgomery County Communications was also a part of the emergency response.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Officials with the Atlantic Community School District today (Wednesday) announced Superintendent Steve Barber has made the decision to resign as superintendent from the Atlantic Community School District effective June 30, 2023. The Board of Education said in their statement that they “would like to thank Mr. Barber for his years of service and commitment to the District. He has been a dedicated and conscientious leader who was committed to seeking improvement in all aspects of District operations and student achievement.

We wish Mr. Barber well in his future endeavors as we are already considering the next steps in the process of selecting our next superintendent. During this transition, we will seek community input and will keep our staff and the public updated throughout the process.”

No reason was given for Mr. Barber’s decision to resign.

(Carson, Iowa) – Riverside Community School District has announced that Casey Moran, Assistant Director of Special Education for the Council Bluffs Community School District and Dr. Stephanie Anderson, Director of Elementary Education and Student Services, Fort Dodge Community School District have been selected as the finalists for the Riverside Community School District Superintendent position. Stakeholder groups and the School Board will complete final interviews on Wednesday April 5, 2023.

The Board had sixteen applications and interviewed six semifinalists before selecting them for final interviews. Current Riverside Superintendent, Dr. Timothy Mitchell, announced his retirement in January and will be leaving the District at the end of the 2023-2024 school year.

Read more about the finalists HERE.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa D-N-R was recently called to a hotel parking lot in Sioux City to remove a porcupine. D-N-R wildlife biologist Vince Evelsizer, says it’s pretty rare in today’s world to see them, but they do get around one porcupine call every three to five years. He says porcupines are are native to our state and are a species that was nearly wiped out or pretty well wiped out the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s.

Evelsizer says the porcupines were probably killed off because people thought they posed a danger, or they ate them. He says it’s likely porcupine wandered in from a neighboring state. Evelsizer says it’s not true that they can shoot their quills at objects like animals or people.

DNR photo

The quills do pose a problem if a dog or a person comes in contact with a porcupine because they are one way barbs that once they’re lodged in a dog’s mouth are pretty hard to get out.

(Radio Iowa) – One of the state’s largest independent agricultural banks is releasing the results of its annual survey of thousands of farmers, gauging their opinions on a range of topics. Bank Iowa president and C-E-O Jim Plagge says 67-percent of farmers surveyed said they believed the ag economy would be the same or stronger in 2023, while more than 70-percent felt they were in the same shape or better off financially as the prior year. Finding labor was the top concern on last year’s survey, but Plagge says finding ‘qualified labor’ moved to number-one this year.

The survey finds technology is leading the way in terms of investment decisions. In the past two years, the percentage of farmers who say they’re considering investing in ag-tech jumped from 22- to 36-percent.

(Radio Iowa) – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst will be hosting her annual “Roast and Ride” fundraiser on June 3rd and it could be a showcase for some of the G-O-P’s 2024 presidential candidates.  In June of 2015, seven Republican presidential candidates appeared with Ernst at her first “Roast and Ride” fundraiser. A year later, Donald Trump was the event’s main speaker. Six years ago, Mike Pence — who was vice president at the time — rode a Harley down a path to the event’s main stage in Boone.

The Ernst campaign has announced tickets are now on sale for the event this June at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and “special guests” will be announced soon. When Ernst launched her annual “Roast and Ride” event soon after winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, she said her goal was to showcase the party’s top candidates, just as former Senator Tom Harkin had done with his annual “steak fry” for Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Ernst, though, serves up pork rather than beef and hosts a motorcycle ride in the morning before the rallies in the afternoon.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds has issued a disaster proclamation for six more counties in response to last Friday’s storms. The governor’s latest proclamation allows state resources to be utilized to recover from the effects of this severe weather in Appanoose, Davis, Iowa, Jackson, Lucas, and Monroe counties. The proclamation activates the Iowa Individual Assistance Grant Program for qualifying residents, along with the Disaster Case Management Program for those counties.

The Governor already issued disaster proclamations for Cedar, Clinton, Delaware, Des Moines, Dubuque, Grundy, Johnson, Keokuk, Linn, Mahaska, Wapello, and Washington counties for the same storms.