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The U.S. Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday issued a no-wake advisory for boaters on the Missouri River from mile marker 750 (at Sioux City) through mile marker 498 (at Rulo, Nebraska). The advisory is intended to protect river infrastructure amid ongoing high river levels.
The Missouri River is rising and is expected to crest later this week in western Iowa. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working on repairing some levee breaches and protecting some recent breach repairs, hoping to prevent future flooding.
Matt Krajewski with the Corps said on a conference call yesterday (Monday) that the Corps placed a large sand berm on top of a levee near Pacific Junction and is doing some erosion control.
We don’t expect the increased stages this week to have any effect on that sand levee once we get the riprap and the erosion control matting, that should be ahead of the peak so we should be good there.
River levels are rising by at least two feet in some spots, over the next couple of days.
Gov. Kristi Noem says the storms that have struck South Dakota this year are the "largest natural disaster" the state has ever seen.
Noem said in a Facebook video yesterday that starting with the "bomb cyclone" pummeling South Dakota with snow in March — followed by rain every few weeks — the state has experienced "''a slow-rolling natural disaster of epic proportions."
The Argus Leader reports federal disasters have been declared in 58 of 66 counties and on three reservations in South Dakota so far this year. The state has had one federal disaster declared this year and has three federal disaster requests awaiting approval by President Donald Trump. Noem says those requests total $56 million in damage.
Noem says last week's flooding will likely result in another federal disaster request.
Former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker will headline the annual Woodbury County Republican Party fundraising event in Sioux City on October 18. The event runs from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Sioux City Country Club,
In November 2018, after Trump accepted the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, he appointed Whitaker to serve as acting attorney general. The former Iowa Hawkeye tight end from Ankeny, Iowa, and 2014 U.S. Senate candidate at the time made controversial statements surrounding the probe of Trump by special counsel Robert Mueller. Whitaker also faced recent criticisms over his role as an advisory board member of a company that was investigated by the FBI for fraud. Ultimately, after Willam Barr was confirmed by the Senate and sworn-in in February, Whitaker moved to become a senior counselor in the associate attorney general’s office.
