Tagged: flooding

St. Charles County Executive Vetoes Smoking Ban Proposal

St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann has blocked a countywide smoking ban proposal from going on the November 2012 ballot. Ehlmann said Tuesday that he vetoed the bill because it would have unfairly exempted casinos, cigar bars and certain hotel rooms.

The council in the St. Louis-area county voted 4-2 in favor of putting the ban on the ballot, with one opponent absent. It would take five votes to override the veto.

Levee Break Sends Releases Torrents of Water

Crews are racing to build up a protective wall to keep floodwaters from reaching a small Iowa town after the swollen Missouri River punched a massive hole in the main levee that protects the community.

Two levees in northwest Missouri ruptured yesterday, sending water over rural farmland.

Updated 3:04 p.m. with changed breach size in Holt County.

Authorities in northwest Missouri say a Missouri River levee has breached in Holt County.

The Holt County breach is about 225-feet wide through a levee about five miles west of the town of Big Lake.

Holt County Clerk Kathy Kunkel said the breach is pushing water onto area agricultural land, and there are no current plans to fill the breach because it would not be safe.