The experts are maintaining their prediction for slightly above-normal runoff into the Missouri River reservoir system this spring. Nicolle Shorney, an engineer with the U-S Army Corps of Engineers in Omaha, says little is changing in the latest forecast. “The 2018 calendar year runoff forecast for the Upper Missouri basin above Sioux City, Iowa, is 29-million acre feet which is 115% of average,” Shorney says.

The Corps of Engineers continues to watch the snow pack in the higher elevations of the Missouri River basin, but at this point, Shorney says they expect run off in the lower basin to be closer to average. “For the lower reaches, from Lake Oahe to Sioux City, we’re forecasting near-average runoff for the March through July period based on plains snowpack, soil moisture conditions, precipitation outlooks and current runoff trends.”

Corps officials said they have 16-million-acre feet of flood storage space available above the main stem dams.

(Radio Iowa)

Officials say the state-run database tracking available hospital beds for psychiatric patients soon will be “closer to accurate” with twice-daily updates. Theresa Armstrong is with the Department of Human Services — the state agency that created the database after two of the state’s four Mental Health Institutes were closed in 2015. “The software we use is called ‘Care Match’ and it tracks the available inpatient psychiatric beds at the MHIs as well as the 26 hospitals that have psychiatric services,” Armstrong says.

Those 26 hospitals and the Mental Health Institutes in Cherokee and Independence have been reporting openings. However, there was no state rule for how often the updates were to be made. A new state regulation will require the facilities to update their list of openings for patients who need in-patient psychiatric care twice a day. “It would assure that the information in the system would be closer to accurate,” she says. “Folks, on average, probably stay in a bed for about two days, maybe three days, so there is a lot of turnover and we do see if from morning to afternoon.”

Armstrong says “most” Iowa hospitals with in-patient psychiatric care have been updating the list regularly. “At least, probably, 90 to 95 percent of the hospitals on a daily basis are updating it,” Armstrong says.

The state database is being used by hospital staff as well as local officials helping police and sheriffs’ departments find in-patient care for someone suffering from an acute mental health crisis. Critics have complained the database hasn’t been offering “real time” information about available hospital beds for psychiatric patients. A bill passed by the Iowa legislature LAST YEAR called for twice-a-day updates to this database. A rule implementing that requirement was approved Friday, by a legislative review panel.

(Radio Iowa)

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — It’s time to spring forward again, as the country makes the switch to daylight-saving time. Like those in almost all other states, residents in Nebraska and Iowa will trade an hour of sleep starting Sunday morning for an extra hour of sunlight in the evening. The government expanded daylight-saving time in 2007 in an effort to save energy. It now begins on the second Sunday in March and continues until the first Sunday in November.

The official change occurs at 2 a.m. Sunday, local time, although people often change their clocks before going to bed Saturday night. Daylight-saving time ends Nov. 4.

Nine Iowa cities are splitting more than three-MILLION dollars in federal funding to help finance updates to city sewers and water-related systems. Clinton is getting 600-thousand dollars for its project. Hamburg and Central City are each getting half a million dollars. Portsmouth is planning to dig a new well and install new water mains and is receiving 195-thousand dollars in federal funds for the project. Three-hundred thousand dollar grants are going to Armstrong, Scranton and Shelby.

The communities of Lehigh and Smithland will each receive 242-thousand dollars.

(Radio Iowa)