(Radio Iowa) – Reports say at least three-million customers in central Florida are without power after Hurricane Milton slammed ashore last night, bringing heavy rain, flooding and multiple tornadoes. Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy has a 70-member disaster response crew in western North Carolina, which was hit by Hurricane Helene a few weeks ago. MidAmerican’s Tina Hoffman says the Iowa crew is working with Duke Energy to restore power in the Asheville area. “Duke has asked our crews to stay and continue,” Hoffman says, “and we expect them to be there assisting for at least a couple of more weeks. Of course, the conditions can change.”

Many thousands remain without power following Helene and until they’re reassigned, Hoffman says the Iowa team will stay put in the North Carolina mountains. She says Florida will be able to get help elsewhere. “We have a process that we call mutual assistance,” she says, “so when one utility has customers who are outaged by major incidents, like we’re seeing now, this system allows us to work together and share what needs they have.”

Iowa utility workers in North Carolina prepare for their day. (MidAmerican Energy photo)

Reports say some 90,000 homes in Georgia and North Carolina remain without power after the earlier storm.

DES MOINES, Iowa – The Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP) is seeking public comment on the State of Iowa’s application to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance for an estimated $1,800,000 in FY 2024 Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program funding.

ODCP intends to use JAG funding to strategically support drug and crime reduction priorities authorized by federal guidelines and outlined in Iowa’s Drug Control Strategy.  Those eligible to submit JAG grant applications to ODCP include local and state units of government, Indian tribes, and faith based and non-profit organizations that apply in collaboration with government agencies.

The State of Iowa’s JAG application to the U.S. Department of Justice is posted for public viewing on ODCP’s website.  Comments on the application may be sent to:

Office of Drug Control Policy, Pape State Office Building

215 E. 7th Street, 5th Floor

Des Moines, Iowa 50319

You may also email comments to wiggins@dps.state.ia.us.  Public comments will be accepted through November 8, 2024.  Eligible Iowa organizations interested in submitting an application to ODCP for a future JAG grant will also find those instructions at the ODCP website or by calling ODCP during business hours at 515.805.4141.

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – The state of Iowa, where nursing homes have compiled one of the nation’s worst records for staffing-level violations, has joined 19 other states in suing the Biden administration to block the implementation of new staffing requirements. According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, seeks to overturn the nursing home staffing requirements approved earlier this year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In their petition, the 20 states and more than a dozen industry associations argue that the new staffing requirements pose “an existential threat to the nursing home industry as many nursing homes that are already struggling will have no choice but to go out of business. And the main victims will be the patients who will have nowhere else to go.”

The lawsuit is in response to CMS’ decision in April to finalize new minimum staffing standards that will require homes to conduct assessments of their residents’ needs and provide 3.48 hours of direct nursing care per resident, per day. The rule also requires the homes to have a registered nurse available 24 hours per day, seven days a week. Earlier this year it was reported that Iowa nursing homes have the sixth-worst record in the nation for staffing-level violations. Data from CMS show that 14% of the state’s 422 nursing facilities were cited for insufficient staffing in fiscal year 2023. That was more than double the national average, which was 5.9%. Only five other states — Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico and Oregon — had a worse record of compliance with the sufficient-staffing requirement. Des Moines’ Fleur Heights care facility compiled Iowa’s worst record of compliance.

Image from the Association of Healthcare Journalists

Federal data suggest many care facilities already meet the new standards, but industry officials allege nursing homes will need to hire an additional 27,000 full-time registered nurses and 78,000 full-time certified nurse aides, at a cost of more than $7 billion, to meet the requirements. The lawsuit alleges the new requirements, which apply only to homes that accept taxpayer money through Medicaid and Medicare funding for resident care, are “not even close to lawful.” Congress, the lawsuit points out, chose not to take action on complaints regarding the rule on “sufficient” staff.s.

Another point of contention referenced in the lawsuit is the new rule’s lack of recognition for the use of licensed practical nurses. The plaintiffs argue that the rule creates an incentive for facilities to fire LPNs and replace them with less skilled certified nurse aides. The rule “pressures long-term care facilities to replace experienced LPNs” with less-qualified new hires, the lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit seeks a declaration by the court that CMS lacks the authority to impose the new requirements as well as orders vacating and setting aside specific requirements such as the 24/7 requirement for a registered nurse.

The defendants, CMS and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, have yet to file a response to the lawsuit.

JOHNSTON, Iowa — The Iowa National Guard says a large contingency of its soldiers is set to join the effort to help Florida recover from Hurricane Milton. Soldiers from the 1168th Transportation Company are preparing for a hurricane deployment. The company’s soldiers are based in Perry, Audubon, and Marshalltown. The deployment will involve military vehicles capable of driving through flooded roads and communities and assisting in transporting essential supplies.

The number of soldiers being deployed was not immediately released. More details about the deployment are expected to be released today (Thursday).

Iowa National Guard soldiers are already on the ground helping with Hurricane Helene recovery in North Carolina. Among other operations, guard members have been using a Chinook helicopter to deliver food and water to flood victims in western North Carolina.

(Radio Iowa) – Attorney General Brenna Bird says Iowa is part of a multi-state settlement with Marriott International over a long investigation into a data breach of its guest reservation database. Marriott has agreed to strengthen its data security practices, offering its guests new protections. They will pay 52 million dollars to the states — including 594-thousand to Iowa.

(Radio Iowa) – Forecasters say the summer-like weather will have a last hurrah today (Thursday) and tomorrow before we fall headlong into the more seasonable chill of autumn, with a frost and freeze likely early next week. Meteorologist Craig Cogil at the National Weather Service, says Iowans are in for a temperature rollercoaster over the next few days. “We’re going to see highs in the upper 70s to 80s across much of the state as we head into Friday, even near-record highs are expected across portions of central and southern Iowa,” Cogil says, “so certainly unseasonably warm weather as we end out the work week.” Just last weekend, many Iowa communities saw high temps in the mid-90s. This weekend, though, it’ll definitely feel like fall as a cold front is expected to arrive late Friday.

“We’re going to see progressively colder air move into the state through the weekend. It looks like the coldest morning will be Tuesday morning, with lows down in the mid to upper 20s in northern Iowa, to lower 30s in southern Iowa,” Cogil says. “So it does look like widespread frost and freeze conditions across the state and probably the end of the growing season.” Iowa’s first frost is tracking right on target, Cogil says, as next Tuesday is the 15th of October. “In general, a good average is right around the 15th of the month,” Cogil says. “You go up into northern Iowa, it’s usually the first week. If you get down into southeast, south-central Iowa, it’s usually the third or last week of the month. So yeah, it’s about average.”

Cogil says the weather pattern that produced both hurricanes Helene and Milton in the Gulf of Mexico is having a continued impact on Iowa’s climate, too. “One of the biggest effects we’ve seen from that is the fact that it’s keeping a lot of the moisture that might work up into the central part of the United States, it’s keeping it down in the Gulf,” Cogil says. “We’re not really seeing much moisture return, which is leading to a lot of the -at least- dry conditions that we’ve seen recently.”

A new map is due out later this (Thursday) morning from the U-S Drought Monitor. The map from last week shows only about six Iowa counties have no significant moisture problems, while around 70-percent of the state is abnormally dry, with 23-percent of Iowa in moderate drought, and portions of Harrison and Monona counties in western Iowa under severe drought.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa D-O-T has awarded the first round of funding for the National Electric Vehicles Infrastructure program to create a network of electric vehicle charging stations. The EV charging stations include the towns of Percival, Onawa, Shelby, Walnut, Adair, Stuart, DeSoto and Sioux City. The D-O-T’s Deb Arp says the federal program is providing more than seven billion dollars nationwide. “Iowa will be allocated about ten-point-three million ($10.3) per year, totaling over 51 million dollars over the five-year life of the act,” she says. Iowa designated four alternative fuel corridors, Interstates 80, 380, 29, and 35, where the chargers will be installed.

“Seventy-three applications meeting the program requirements were reviewed, requesting over 45-million dollars. Twenty-eight applications have been selected with an intended award amount 16-point-two million dollars and five-point-six million in matching private funds, for total estimated project costs of nearly 22 million dollars,” Arp says. The funding requires the chargers be spaced no more than 50 miles apart and less than one mile from Interstates and highway corridors, and be near restrooms, small businesses, and other amenities.”With just this first cycle, we were able to select projects leaving just a few gaps in the network, remaining toward full build out if all of these sites develop as proposed, our next priority will be to award three to four sites to fill those remaining gaps,” Arp says.

EV charging stations (DOT graphic)

Arp says they can now get started on the planning for the sites. “Our next steps include working with these awardees to execute project agreements and begin the logistics of assisting them through the federal project development process,” Arp says. She says they’ll also conduct some outreach to the remaining gap areas before the next round of funding.

See the list of DOT awards for EV infrastructure sites here: EV-charger-2024-funding-PDF

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak, Wednesday afternoon, arrested a man wanted on two Montgomery County warrants. 40-year-old Michael Scott Stafford was taken into custody at around 4:25-p.m., in the 200 block of N. 4th Street, in Red Oak. Stafford was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a total of $4,000 bond.

WASHINGTON —The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) intercepted 5,028 firearms at airport security checkpoints during the first nine months of 2024. This total represents an average of 18.3 firearms detected per day at TSA checkpoints, more than 93% of which were loaded. According to the TSA, in 2023 there were seven firearms detected at the Des Moines International Airport. As of September 30 there have been 13 firearms detected at TSA checkpoints this year.

Nationally, Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) screened more than 678 million passengers through the first three quarters of 2024, which comprised record-setting summer travel volumes, compared to more than 638 million passengers in the same period of 2023, an increase of nearly 6.3%.

The rate of firearms discoveries at TSA checkpoints during the most recent quarter (July – September) was 7.5 firearms per one million passengers, which is a decrease from the same period in 2023 when officers discovered 8.1 firearms per one million passengers.

TSA encourages airline passengers to #PreparePackDeclare and learn the proper packing procedures before arriving at the airport. Passengers may travel with a firearm, but it must be:

• Secured in their checked baggage.
• Packed unloaded.
• Locked in a hard-sided case.
• Declared to the airline when checking the bag at the airline ticket counter.

Firearms are prohibited at security checkpoints, in the secure area of an airport and in the passenger cabin of an aircraft, even if a passenger has a concealed carry permit or is in a constitutional carry jurisdiction. When traveling internationally, airline passengers are responsible for learning about the firearms laws of their foreign destination, which may prohibit traveling with firearms and carry significant criminal penalties for doing so.

TSA does not confiscate or seize firearms. If a passenger brings a firearm to the security checkpoint on their person or in their carry-on luggage, TSA contacts local law enforcement to safely take possession of the firearm. Depending on local laws, the passenger may be arrested or issued a citation. TSA may also impose a civil penalty of up to $15,000. For a first offense, passengers will lose TSA PreCheck® eligibility for five years. A second offense will result in permanent disqualification from the program, along with additional civil penalties.

For more information on how to properly travel with a firearm, visit the Transporting Firearms and Ammunition page on TSA.gov. To view the complete list of penalties, go to TSA.gov.

Des Moines, Iowa  – The Des Moines City Council, Wednesday, gave its seal of approval to hire Michael McTaggart as the City’s 45^th Police Chief at a special meeting this afternoon. CityManager Scott Sanders said “Michael McTaggart stood out as a candidate not only for his achievements, but also for the relationships he has built in our community over the past 25 years. Chief McTaggart will have big shoes to fill in his new role and I have the utmost confidence that he will be able to rise to the challenge.”

The City Council’s 7-0 vote to approve City Manager Scott Sanders’ recommendation concludes a search for the City’s next police chief that began when current Chief of Police Dana Wingert announced his retirement this spring. The search process included multiple rounds of community engagement and feedback that helped shape the recruitment process, and including giving feedback on the two finalists.

Michael McTaggart began his career as a Police Officer with the Des Moines Police Department 25 years ago before rising to through the ranks to the position of Police Major in 2022. Through the course of his career, McTaggart has spent time in the Patrol Division, Robbery / Homicide Section, Intelligence Unit and the Investigations Division before overseeing the Operations Division as major, the largest division in the DMPD.

Chief Appointee McTaggart (City of Des Moines photo)

McTaggart’s time with the City also includes implementing and growing the C.A.R.E. and Mobile Crisis Response Team and spearheading the downtown safety plan, both of which have seen tremendous success. He possesses a Master of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati, and a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology from the University of Northern Iowa.  He has also completed training at the Senior Management Institute for Police with the Police Executive Research Forum and the School of Police Staff & Command with Northwestern University.

With City Council confirmation of Sanders’ choice for police chief, the City Manager will now finalize details of a plan for DMPD to transition from the leadership of Chief Wingert to Chief McTaggart over the next month.