News

Rock Rapids, Iowa — A new hospital is being planned in Rock Rapids. The owner of the current hospital, which is leased to Sanford Health, is the Merrill Pioneer Community Hospital Association.

In January of this year, the association and Avera Health jointly announced that Avera will lease the operations of the Rock Rapids community hospital and clinics beginning in May, 2019.

The Hospital Association Board and Avera have sought financing for a new hospital and clinic to be built in southwest Rock Rapids, hopefully by the time Avera takes over. They established a design team including members from both organizations. The team is seeking community input on the design through focus groups and community meetings, some of which were held recently.

Community and design team members are currently deciding on the look of both the outside and the inside of the building. Community members are suggesting slight changes in the design and floor plan, and the architectural firm chosen for the project, BWBR of St. Paul, Minnesota is taking those ideas to Avera officials.

At this point the color palette is being chosen, and the floor plan is being finalized. Currently the plan is to have two driveways into the hospital campus — one for visitors and one for emergencies and deliveries, both off of an extension of South Tenth Avenue. The plan right now is for the clinic to be on the east side of the building and the hospital on the west, with the two public entrances to the south, and the emergency department on the north.

Board members say that while more senior members of the community have come to the meetings, they are looking to get more input from the younger members of the community, and are actively asking for their opinions.

If you would like more information, MPCH board president Jim Vander Woude encourages you to contact him or another board member. Vander Woude can be reached at 712-348-2442.

Northwest Iowa — Experts tell us that we are past the “peak” tornado season in Iowa — and we have had fewer tornadoes this year than normal.

Phil Schumacher is a meteorologist and serves as the Science and Operations Officer at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Sioux Falls. He says their office has not warned for very many tornadoes this year.

He says considering recent years, that’s much below average.

According to Schumacher, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

He also says that since this is farm country and hail can do a lot of damage to crops, he checked those stats as well, and found there have been fewer reports of large hail in the area this year as well.

He says that while he’s not sure if ocean temperature events like El Niño and La Niña have had any effect, he does have a theory as to why there have been fewer thunderstorms this year, and he explains what we would need for thunderstorm development.

The Weather Service says we’ll have a chance of thunderstorms many days this week, and in the next couple of weeks, we can expect warmer than normal temperatures, and more than the usual precipitation.

Hull, Iowa — A firefighter was taken to the hospital and a barn was destroyed in a fire near Hull on Sunday morning, July 3.

The Sioux County Sheriff’s Office reports that about 10:50 AM, the Hull Fire Department responded to a report of a structure fire at 3418 Ibex Avenue, two miles southeast of Hull.

Emergency responders report that when they got there, they saw a large barn fully engulfed by fire.

A Hull Fire Department firefighter was transported by the Hull Ambulance to the Sioux Center Health Hospital. His injuries were described as “minor.”

The barn had not been occupied by farm animals at the time of the fire, and was completely destroyed. A nearby empty hog confinement on the property sustained minor damage. There is no word on the cause of the fire.

The Hull Fire Department reports that the Hull Ambulance crew, Sioux Center Fire Department, Boyden Fire Department and the Sioux County Sheriff’s Office assisted them.