Mother Nature lit up the night in more ways than one early this morning in the western Iowa community of Atlantic. Firefighters were called out after lightning struck a tree, traveled down its roots, blew a hole in a gas line 30-feet underground, and set fire to the gas that came spewing out of it. Atlantic Fire Chief Mark McNees says they couldn’t believe what they saw as they approached the scene. "It’s just the weirdest thing," he says. "It ignited the gas, of course, and so right in the middle of the yard they had this three-foot flame… This’ll be the talk of the shop for quite a while." Firefighters couldn’t do much until crews from Alliant Energy shut down the gas to the service line. The lightning struck close to the base of the tree. An Atlantic police officer responding to the scene before firefighters arrived thought the tree itself was burning and he was going to try and put it out with a fire extinguisher, but Chief McNees says the first fire department personnel to arrive on the scene told him that wouldn’t have helped. "He said: ‘That’s gas…I don’t think you have a big enough extinguisher,’" McNees says. Mc Nees says it’s extremely rare for lightning to travel through the ground and burst a gas line. He offered an explanation of why the flames didn’t cause any damage to the nearby residence — the rupture let gas leak out of the pipe before it got as far as the house and it kept coming out the break in the pipe, and burning up. He says the hole around the area where the blue, yellow and gold flame was jetting out was about one-foot wide and six-inches deep. It took the energy company crew about an hour to get to the source of the rupture because there were so many tree roots in the area.
Lightning strike ignites gas line
State Science Fair underway in Ames
From studies of the bacteria in a dog’s mouth to the sweetness of sweet corn, some 550 students from across Iowa are showing off their projects to the state science fair, which opened this afternoon in Ames.
Andrea Spencer, director of the 50th annual State Science and Technology Fair of Iowa, says the projects are all over the scientific spectrum, but many are focused on a few particular topics. "They choose in their interest area as to what they really want to develop their science research into, but this year I’m noticing a lot of energy projects, transportation-related or biofuels," she says. "I think you’re seeing that simply because that’s one of the things in Iowa that’s of interest to us as a population."
This year’s projects include "Mouth Bacteria in Canis familiaris," "Ethanol: Friend or Foe," and "The Levels of E-coli in Lee County Creeks." Spencer says there’s also one called "Is Your Sweet Corn Sweetest at Sunrise?"
"They’ve looked at sugar contents in sweet corn at various time periods throughout the day to see if truly our sweet corn is freshest and sweetest when picked early in the morning," Spencer says.
The competitors are from Iowa’s middle and high schools and range from 6th to 12th grade. The students are gunning for more than $60,000 in awards and prizes, including $35,000 in scholarships.
Spencer says she hopes the students come to a new understanding of science, have hands-on experience and get to interact with the judges, who are experts in many fields, doctors, professors and other top Iowa professionals.
The top high school team and the top two high school individuals will win all-expenses-paid trips to the International Science and Engineering Fair in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in May.
The fair is free and open to the public at Iowa State University’s Hilton Coliseum today and Saturday.
Krispy Kreme recalls doughnuts in eastern Iowa
Krispy Kreme has put out a recall of doughnuts in eastern Iowa. Krispy Kreme corporate spokesman Brian Little says a piece of equipment that broke Thursday may have put bits of aluminum into some cake doughnuts made at the company’s Davenport bakery. There was a problem with a mixer, he says, and some people called the company’s national hotline to say they’d found a “foreign substance” in some of their doughnuts.
The franchise store in Davenport provides doughnuts that are sold at convenience stores and wholesale distributors in eastern Iowa. Just two people reported finding metal pieces in food items – one in Davenport and one in Cedar Rapids.
The company is telling people to discard any of the cake doughnuts made by that supplier on Thursday of this week. No one has reported any injuries from the batch of doughnuts, according to Little.
Iowa farmers to plant 10 percent more corn acres in ’07
Iowa farmers are apparently responding to the high demand — and high prices — for corn.
A USDA report issued this morning shows America’s farmers intend to plant 15 percent more ground with corn this season. In Iowa, the nation’s leading corn-growing state, farmers plan to seed nearly 14 million acres with corn. That is a 10 percent increase over last year.
The shift from soybeans to corn is prompted by the high demand the state’s growing ethanol industry has for corn — a demand that has driven the price of corn to a 10-year high.
March: in like a "big cold, wet lion"
March is going out on a mild note and state climatologist Harry Hillaker remembers that it came in — like a big cold, wet lion.
The big blizzard over western Iowa March 1st carried on for a couple days after that, and the first week of the month it was cold — but since that week only a couple days all month have been colder than normal.
After the big storm, it didn’t take things long to warm up. According to Hillaker, so far we’re running about six-and-a-half degrees warmer than usual for March, almost in "top ten territory" for records for this month.
It’s just about normal for precipitation, everywhere in the state. Looking at snowfall in particular, we got seven inches statewide this month, almost all of it in that big blizzard right at the start. It makes this the snowiest March in eight years.
Hillaker says it’s not "super-unusual" but has made for an interesting spring so far.
Teacher pay bill sparks debate
Next week, the Iowa House is scheduled to debate a bill that would raise teacher pay, setting aside millions more for salaries.
In early March, the Iowa Senate voted to give Iowa teachers an average raise of about $2000 in each of the next two years. "By and large, the House and the Senate are in unanimity on the increase in the pay, getting us to 25th in the country," according to House Democratic Leader Kevin McCarthy.
But Republicans say the bill does some damage. House Republican Leader Christopher Rants of Sioux City says school board members are raising concerns that the legislation will "erode" their authority. "This is common with what’s going on this session. The Democrats in the legisalture apparently thought they were running for statewide school board because that’s what they’re doing," Rants says. "They’re passing legislation that takes away school board authority and making all the decisions here in Des Moines."
According to Rants, the bill — as currently drafted — would give teachers in a school district the right to decide when to schedule days off for professional development activities. "They want to take the authority and the ability to make those determinations away from the school board and give it to the teachers," Rants says. "I understand (Democrats) have political debts to pay but when does that debt finally get paid off? I know the school boards don’t have a political action committee, but isn’t it about time that we started listening to our school boards about what this legislation ought to look like?"
Rants also alleges the bill will make it more difficult to get rid of bad teachers. "What does that have to do with raising teacher salaries?" Rants asks. "…If you want to raise teacher salaries, Republicans will be there to help. If you’re going to erode school board authority, you’re going to have resistance to doing that."
The Iowa Senate has already endorsed the teacher pay plan. The bill promises $174 million in new state tax money for Iowa teacher pay over the next two years. That includes a hike in the minimum salary required for beginning teachers.
Former Iowa administrator heads California’s Education Department
A former Mason City school administrator has been named as the Secretary of Education for one of the nation’s largest states. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed David Long to the position this week. Long taught in the Sheffield and Clear Lake school districts before coming to Mason City in 1969. During his time in Mason City, Long was an assistant principal at Mason City High School from 1982 to 1985, becoming the principal at Roosevelt Middle School from 1985 to 1987, then taking an assistant superintendent position that he held until 1989. Since 1999, Long has served as the superintendent for the Riverside County School District in California, where he oversees 23 school districts and more than 400,000 students.
