News

Parson calls in Guard to relieve civilian resources

Governor Mike Parson tells Brownfield he decided to activate the National Guard to help with flood and tornado recovery because of the exhaustion of civilian resources and because of additional weekend levee breaches.

“It’s just tough right now across Missouri with the flooding that’s happening on both sides of the state, then you have the tornadoes on top of that that we’re dealing with over the weekend,” Governor Parson told Brownfield Ag News, “and we really felt the guard would come out and could be very helpful.”

Parson, who activated the National Guard Monday, says local responders and volunteers have worked for months helping with flooding, and now tornado issues. He says they need relief.

“Hopefully the guard can come in behind them, help them a little bit with that, also help with some of the manual labor part of the it as far as sandbagging goes,” said Parson.

Parson says he’s amazed at how individuals, church and civic groups, and even school kids have pitched in to do what needs to be done.

“They’re upbeat, they realize what happened, now it’s the time to clean it up and to fix it and get back with life,” he said.

Guard units have helped with sandbagging a stressed levee near Brunswick, Missouri, and have supported flood response operations in Jefferson City. Brownfield interviewed the governor at Kingsville Livestock where he made his May Beef Month proclamation.