INDIANOLA, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say an Iowa child care provider left a 1-year-old alone for nearly two hours in a portable crib in a downstairs furnace room before discovering that the child was cold to the touch.

The Des Moines Register reports that a Department of Human Services revoked the license of provider Jenna Dale, of Indianola, last week, following the death in April of Nash Bloem. He strangled on a teething neckless he was wearing, despite federal warnings that such devices shouldn’t be used for infants.

A complaint from the department said Dale had previously been warned about child hazards in the home’s furnace/laundry room. The complaint says Dale placed the child in the area because he was “socially different” and needed to be away from other children.

Dale cried when approached by a reporter and said “Now is not a good time.” Additional attempts to speak to her weren’t successful.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — Hundreds of communities line the Mississippi River on its 2,348-mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico, but Davenport, Iowa, stands out for the simple reason that people there can actually dip their toes in the river without scaling a flood wall, levee or other impediment.

It’s a point of pride in Davenport, a city of 100,000 people that calls itself Iowa’s front porch and which has repeatedly tolerated the floods that have long since convinced all other major riverfront cities to build concrete or dirt walls.

“It’s the personality of the community,” said Kelli Grubbs, who runs a business a few blocks from the nearly half-mile-wide river. “There is just a great love of the river.”
That love is being tested this summer after record-setting floods broke through temporary barriers and for weeks inundated some of Davenport’s trendiest restaurants and shops with foul-smelling water. Now that the river has finally seeped back to its banks, business owners and city officials are confronting a painful question: Can they still remain connected with the river without being overwhelmed by it?

Looming over the discussions is an acknowledgement of what’s likely coming from climate change: heavier rainstorms that, combined with spring snowmelt, will swell the river to ever higher levels. Even as residents scoff at the prospect of a concrete wall or rocky levee replacing the gently sloping lawn that dips down to the river, they wonder if a downtown that has seen roughly $500 million in investment in recent years can survive being awash and cut off from the rest of the city so frequently.

Of the 15 biggest floods in Davenport’s history, seven have occurred since 2008. Davenport owes much of its roughly 200-year-old history to the Mississippi River, which was instrumental in the area’s selection as a fort. The river allowed steamboats to reach the community and later led to bridges that connected people and products to large cities to the east.

That history is one reason that despite repeated flooding in the last 40 years — especially severe in 1969, 1975, 1993 and 2001 — Davenport residents have largely supported a modest containment system that includes a wide strip of grass and Nahant Marsh, a 305-acre wetland.

During more serious flooding, large sand-filled temporary barriers can be placed on River Drive, which runs parallel to the river, to protect the low-lying business district. Most homes are safely perched on the hills rising steeply to the north. But this spring, separate crests repeatedly pressured and finally breached the barriers, causing an estimated $30 million in lost revenue and damage.

Davenport residents couldn’t help but notice that across the river in Rock Island, Illinois — where a permanent floodwall was erected after floods in 1993 — the city stayed almost completely dry. Bettendorf and Moline, Illinois, the other two communities that make up the Quad Cities, also have floodwalls and didn’t flood.

Mayor Frank Klipsch has formed a task force to consider options, which include setting aside more land that could be open for flooding and improving the system of temporary barriers protecting the city’s nine miles of riverfront. Environmentalists support giving the river more room instead of a wall.

Becca Clark said she supports the city’s go-slow approach, even though the flooding forced workers and customers to frantically haul items up a narrow staircase to the second floor of her clothing and jewelry shop. “The city is all about the natural flow of the river and green space. It would ruin that,” said Clark, who grew up in the area.

But, as they settled into a new location a block farther from the river, her business partner Nicole Perez noted, “We fixed our problem. We moved up higher from the river.”

Sheriff’s deputies in Montgomery County this (Sunday) morning, arrested 29-year old Cody Thomas Hoggatt, of Villisca. He was taken into custody at around 4:37-a.m. in Villisca, following an incident at N. 3rd Avenue and E. 3rd Street. Hoggatt was charged with Public Intoxication and transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where his bond was set at $300.

A single-vehicle accident that took place at around 10:30-p.m. Friday in Taylor County, has claimed the life of a 40-year old woman. The Iowa State Patrol reports Anna Michelle Eischeid, of Bedford, died in the crash that happened when the 2003 Ford F-150 pickup she was driving went out of control and rolled several times into a ditch.

The crash occurred as the pickup was traveling north on Forest Avenue and attempting to turn east onto 300th Street. The vehicles skidded across 300th Street before it rolled. The accident report did not indicate if Eischeid was wearing a seat belt.

Taylor County Rescue, the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office and LifeNet Helicopter assisted the State Patrol at the scene.