The Palo Alto County Sheriff’s Office said late Friday afternoon, residents of three households that were evacuated near the site of a train derailment and fire in the northwest Iowa county have been allowed to return home. The department says the three homes were each at least a half-mile from the site, where the ethanol-fueled fire was still burning late Friday afternoon.

The derailment occurred around 1 a.m. Friday near Graettinger. It sent 27 tanker cars, each carrying 25,000 gallons of ethanol, off the tracks. The sheriff’s office says two crew members escaped unharmed. No injuries have been reported.

Iowa DNR Field office supervisor Ken Hessenius said Friday afternoon that “there was a pretty big explosion” around 2:30 p.m. at the site, but that officials expect the fire to have burned out by Saturday, allowing investigators and railroad crews to better assess the damage then.  He says it did not appear any significant amounts of ethanol had spilled into a creek at the derailment site after staff from his agency checked downstream. Hessenius says a water sample from the creek hadn’t yet been lab tested, but said the water appeared uncontaminated after “a smell test.”

Earlier in the day, Friday, the National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending some of a 15-member investigative team from the site of a fatal train collision on the Mississippi coast to rural northwest Iowa, to look into a derailment that caused the ethanol-fueled fire. Some members of the team will be coming from Biloxi, Mississippi, where the agency is investigating a Tuesday crash in which a Texas tour bus was hit by a freight train at a crossing, killing four. Other members of the investigative team heading to Iowa  come from NTSB headquarters in Washington.

Red Oak Police report the arrest Friday afternoon of an Elliott man on an active Montgomery County warrant. 21-year old Devin Michael Thompson was taken into custody at around 3-p.m. on the warrant for a Controlled Substance Violation. Thompson was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $2,000 bond.

A traffic stop in Adams County Friday late morning resulted in the arrest on a drug charge, of a woman from Nebraska. The Adams County Sheriff’s Office says 19-year old Yaasmyn Spivey, of Omaha, was arrested for Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, after her vehicle was pulled over at around 10:37-a.m. and a consent search resulted in the recovery of a marijuana pipe. Spivey was booked into the Adams County Jail, where her bond was set at $300.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A woman has pleaded not guilty to a charge related to a chase and a Sioux City man’s gunfight with a sheriff’s deputy. The Sioux City Journal reports that 27-year-old Brittney Hood, of Sioux City, entered the plea Thursday to a charge of eluding.

Authorities say she was driving a vehicle carrying 24-year-old Melvin Spencer and another man on Feb. 26 when a deputy tried to pull her over. Prosecutors say she sped away but finally stopped and fled on foot into a field, where the deputy caught her.

Authorities say Spencer then drove away in the vehicle and later exchanged shots with another deputy. The other man in the vehicle was wounded. Spencer’s been charged with attempted murder.

Officials with the Cass County Health System (CCHS) said Friday, several scholarships are available to area students through Cass County Health System and its affiliate organizations. CCHS offers a $1,000 scholarship to southwest Iowa students pursuing a four-year degree in a health-related career. The application deadline is April 1st, 2017.

Cass County Memorial Hospital (CCMH) Auxiliary provides Grant-in-Aid scholarships for students pursuing a health-related career. The application deadline is March 31st, 2017.

And the Cass County Memorial Hospital Foundation offers the Louie and Elsie Hansen Memorial scholarships for graduates of a Cass County high school who will be attending a medical or nursing school leading to an MD, RN, or LPN degree. The application deadline is April 3rd, 2017.

Applications are available on the Cass County Health System website, www.casshealth.org, and can be turned in to the Human Resources Office or Cass County High School guidance offices by the respective deadlines listed above.

For more information, contact Sara Nelson, Director of Public Relations, 712-243-7408.

Clarinda Police Chief Keith Brothers, Friday, said one person was taken into custody in connection with the theft of an SUV from Indiana. Officers arrested 22-year old Marshall Muhammed Graham, of South Bend, Indiana, at around 1:45-p.m., for felony theft of a motor vehicle.

Authorities allege Graham was in possession of a White 2000 Ford Expedition that was reported stolen from South Bend, Indiana on Thursday, March 9th.  Graham was taken into custody without incident, and with the assistance of Page County Sheriff’s Deputies, in the parking lot of the Timber Creek Apartments at 1010 N. 16th Street, in Clarinda.  He was booked into the Page County Jail and held on $5,000 bond.

The investigation is on-going.

A 15-member team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) “Go Team” were ordered to the scene of a train derailment this (Friday) morning, in northwest Iowa’s Palo Alto County. The incident involving three locomotives and 101 rail cars, 100 of which were hauling ethanol, resulted in a massive fire that could be seen from about 8-miles away. Palo Alto County Sheriff Lynn Schultes says the accident happened near Graettinger at around 1-a.m.

The ethanol tanker cars had recently been filled at an ethanol plant in Superior, Iowa. Railroad crews were able to unhitch most of the tankers and move them away from the crash site. 27 tanker cars derailed during the incident. Initial reports indicated an unknown amount of ethanol spilled into a nearby creek. There were no reports of injuries or death.

Photo by Ryan Long/KCID in Spencer, via Radio Iowa.

The NTSB says the tanker cars involved in the crash are of a design known to have many vulnerabilities that create the risk of hazardous materials release or flammable liquids when those tanker cars are involved in an accident. Congress has mandated the DOT-111 style tanker cars be cease being used by 2029, and retrofitted, or replaced with a new, more robust DOT-117 standard tanker be used for hauling hazardous or flammable materials.

The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office reports two people were arrested Thursday afternoon following a Theft investigation. 43-year old Laura Vaughn, of Bedford was arrested for having in her possession items allegedly stolen from the Sidney Foods store, in Sidney. Vaughn faces charges that include Theft in the 5th degree and Interference with Official Acts. Her bond was set at $600. 36-year old Casey Lee Baker, also of Bedford, was arrested for Theft in the 5th and Interference with Official Acts, the bond for which was set at $600. Baker was also found to have a warrant for his arrest from the State of Wisconsin and was being held without bond as a Fugitive from Justice.

Casey Lee Baker

Laura Vaughn

Their arrests happened after deputies with the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office were called to Sidney Foods in Sidney at around 4:45-p.m., Thursday, for a report of a theft in progress.  The callers advised that a male and female were observed stealing items from the store and when confronted fled on foot into a nearby trailer park.  Witnesses advised the male was possibly seen running in a field in the area.

Deputies located Laura Vaughn near the intersection of Clay and Nebraska Streets. A K9 was deployed in the area of the of the trailer park located in the 2000 block of Illinois Street, however the male suspect (Baker) was not located at that time. A later search resulted in Baker being found hiding in a trailer home in the area.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – The Sioux City School District’s chief financial officer has been placed on paid administrative leave for reasons the district won’t disclose, just weeks before next year’s school budget is due.

District spokeswoman Alison Benson tells the Sioux City Journal that CFO John Chalstrom was placed on paid administrative leave Feb. 13. Neither she nor school board president Mike Krysl would discuss why, saying it was a personnel matter.

The move comes as Superintendent Paul Gausman is being considered for the superintendent position at Nebraska’s largest school district, Omaha Public Schools.
State law requires Iowa public schools to adopt their budgets by April 15. Recent school board meetings indicate the district is facing a budget shortfall.

NEW YORK (AP) – Author Robert James Waller, whose best-selling, bittersweet 1992 novel “The Bridges of Madison County” was turned into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood and a Broadway musical, has died in Texas, according to his literary agency. He was 77.

Lucy Childs of Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency said Friday that Waller died either Thursday or early Friday. Childs did not know the cause but said the author had been ill. In “Bridges,” which Waller famously wrote in 11 days, a photographer spends four days romancing a war bride from Italy married to a no-nonsense Iowa farmer.

Waller’s novel reached No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list and stayed on it for over three years; the Eastwood-directed 1995 movie grossed $182 million worldwide.