Patoka Township firefighters show how they rescue people in grain bins
PRINCETON, Ind. (WEHT) — Every year, there are a number of farmers who get stuck in grain bins — and some do not make it out alive.
Here in the Tri-State, Patoka Township firefighters are one of the several agencies that have tools to save lives.
Only three people have been rescued from a grain bin in Gibson County within the last 20 years. Patoka firefighters are offering a rescue demonstration on how they save lives when disaster strikes, however.
Outside the USDA-Gibson County Farm Service Agency, Patoka Township firefighters say some farmers are likely to become stuck once grain is wet and cannot feed correctly.
That grain may crust — and if a farmer breaks the top — they will find themselves stuck with nowhere to go. If they struggle, they will only sink themselves deeper, creating a lot more pressure.
'You got extremely large bins at a large number of farms with a lot of grain and a lot of weight. So, the more pressure you put on someone — kind of imagine a hug — someone squeezes you tighter and tighter when they're giving you a hug, it's going to be harder to breathe, harder to move, everything like that,' says Patoka Township Firefighter Sam Hagerty.
Firefighter Dillion Murray demonstrates being waist deep in grain. If the grain were at stomach level, breathing would be incredibly difficult, and he would continue to sink.
That's why time is of the essence.
After getting information like how long the person has been inside, these firefighters will put in a rescue tube and auger to push out the grain, corn or soybeans.
Though Firefighter Murray can pull himself out in knee deep of grain, it's already a tiring task.
To prevent emergencies, Patoka Township Firefighters recommend farmers letting others know that they'll be working on grain bins when going out.
Check out what's new at Holiday World & Splashin' Safari in 2025
Patoka Township firefighters show how they rescue people in grain bins
Henderson County church continues to raise money for youth programs at Tri-Fest
Evansville joins nationwide Celebrate Trails Day initiative
Ascension St. Vincent Indy 500 Princess spreads positivity at the hospital
Eyewitness News. Everywhere you are.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Oasis Social Ministry could close down; monetary donations tanking
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Desperation is looming among the growing homeless population in Hampton Roads as they struggle to find shelter and their next meal, and the problem is only worsening. Meanwhile, a prominent place of feeding in Hampton Roads is on edge as their resources dwindle. Oasis Social Ministry has been feeding the homeless community in Portsmouth and beyond for 54 years, but will it make it to 55? That question remains as the food pantry's executive director, Cathy Davis says they are currently down by 67 percent on monetary donations and have been tanking since February. 'We're looking at are we still going to have our doors open in six months,' she says. The need is undeniably high. Just last month, it's staff of six rolled out 25,000 meals. 'Our homeless numbers are up by 18 percent over two years ago,' says Davis. 'With all the budget rollbacks and cutbacks for the federal funding for USDA feeding programs, SNAP programs, Medicaid programs. But the economic uncertainty with rent prices going up, grocery prices going up, it has created a perfect storm of uncertainty.' Lack of affordable housing, systemic poverty, mental health and addiction, unemployment, and eviction are all driving the numbers, according to the Southeastern Virginia Homeless Coalition. In the state, the SVHC also reports homelessness to have climbed by 15 percent between 2021 and 2023. The data shows Portsmouth to hold one of the highest per capita homeless populations. 'I have consistent daily, multiple times a day, people coming and asking for shelter,' she says. Where did they go for shelter? Who they call for shelter. We have seen what we call our unique visit. So first time visitors ever to a food pantry are up by 50 percent. So those are almost 250 folks a month that are coming to us that have never had to go to a food pantry before in their life.'It's executive director Cathy Davis says — last month the pantry served 25-thousand meals. Oasis Social Ministry receives no city, state or federal funding. However, it does participate in federal food programs like the Commodity Supplemental Feeding Program, which just lost $1.2 billion to funding cuts. To donate to Oasis Social Ministry, click . Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Yahoo
Funding shortfalls hamper North Carolina's program to buy out hog farms in or near floodplains
A hog CAFO in eastern North Carolina. (Photo: Rick Dove) This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. As soon as the skies clear after a hurricane hits eastern North Carolina, Larry Baldwin climbs in the passenger seat of a single-engine plane, usually with his friend and pilot Rick Dove, and surveys the industrialized swine farms inundated with flood water. 'It's almost indescribable. You look down and see that they're either flooded or sides of a lagoon—we call them cesspools—are completely blown out,' said Baldwin, the Waterkeeper Alliance's coordinator for Pure Farms Pure Waters, a nonprofit that advocates for stronger regulations over factory farms. Meteorologists are predicting an above-average hurricane season, which began June 1. If a storm hits eastern North Carolina this year, flooding could jeopardize the structural integrity of hundreds of industrialized hog farms, whose massive open-air waste lagoons are vulnerable to hurricanes and heavy rain, an Inside Climate News analysis of publicly available flood maps and a state permit database shows. As of March, there were 8.1 million hogs in North Carolina concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as CAFOs. Of the 129 permitted swine operations in Bladen County, about 20 percent lie less than 1,000 feet from flood-prone areas. Closer to the coast, in Pender and Craven counties, the figure is 40 percent. Removing farms from the 100-year floodplain is critical for the environment and public health. If lagoons overtop, millions of gallons of urine and feces can contaminate residents' yards, private drinking water wells, rivers, creeks and wetlands with E. coli and other harmful bacteria. But complex USDA requirements, delays related to the COVID pandemic and underfunding have hampered the state in finishing its voluntary swine farm buyout program. The program receives funding from the USDA's National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the state legislature. President Trump has proposed cutting the NRCS budget by 88 percent, from $916 million to $112 million, part of his plan to shrink the federal government. The state Department of Agriculture uses the money to purchase permanent conservation easements on properties within the 100-year floodplain that are currently used for swine production. Farmers bid on an amount they would accept to relinquish their permit to operate a concentrated animal feeding operation, known as a CAFO, in the 100-year floodplain and to allow the state to establish a conservation easement on the property. Applications are ranked based on several criteria: the facility's history of flooding, distance to a water supply or high-quality waters, structural condition of the lagoons and the elevation of the hog barns and lagoon dikes in the 100-year flood plain. If accepted into the program, farmers can still use the land for other agriculture, such as pasture-based beef, row crops, hay and vegetable farming, but it would prohibit using the easement area as a spray field for swine waste. This disposal system sprays liquid waste from the lagoons onto nearby farm fields as fertilizer. The lagoons are also closed when the conservation easements are put in place. Demand for the program has exceeded funding. A total of 149 swine operations have bid in at least one of the five buyout rounds. The state has purchased easements on 45, at a cost of nearly $20 million, according to Department of Agriculture figures. Of that amount, USDA has contributed over $1 million. The purchases total 1,288 acres of easements and represent the removal of 62,300 hogs and 108 lagoons from the floodplain. Will Summer is executive director of the state's Land and Water Fund, which awards grants to the state Agriculture Department for the buyout program. He said 'the timing and availability of federal matching funds have further delayed project implementation.' The USDA did not respond to repeated requests for comment. David Williams, director of the state's Soil and Water Division, who has run the program since its inception, said the USDA has been cooperative, but 'it's been challenging' to make specific conditions at the farms fit with federal requirements. For example, USDA limits the percentage of concrete or asphalt—impervious surface—on a farm that has applied for a buyout. It was difficult for a smaller operation to meet that requirement because it had less acreage, Williams said, so that farm's easement was purchased solely with state funds. The state legislature funded the first round of buyouts in 1999, after North Carolina was hit by a trifecta of strong hurricanes within two months. Hurricane Floyd dropped 17 inches of rain on the eastern part of the state, where floods overtopped waste lagoons and killed at least 100,000 hogs. After four successful buyout rounds, the legislature stopped funding its share of the program in 2007. That stranded dozens of CAFOs in the flood plains and left a backlog of roughly 100 farmers who had applied for a buyout. The value of the program became apparent during the 2016 storm Hurricane Matthew. State agriculture officials reported that 32 farms, accounting for 103 lagoons, would have been inundated had they not been removed from the flood plain. Then came Hurricane Florence in 2018, which inundated eastern North Carolina. Six lagoons were damaged, another 32 overtopped and nine were flooded, state records show. Without a dedicated funding source, the state Department of Agriculture cobbled together $5 million to restart the program. The legislature later kicked in another $5 million. Recently, the state Agriculture Department received two more grants to purchase easements: $2.5 million from USDA and an additional $719,000 from the state's Land and Water Fund. That's only a small portion of the $20 million it would cost to purchase easements on the remaining swine farms that have applied for the program, Williams said. That doesn't include the hundreds more farms located next to the flood zones. Some barns and lagoons are as close to a floodway as the distance between home plate and first base on a Major League Baseball field. The risks also don't account for the enormous poultry operations and the millions of birds that farmers co-locate with their swine operations. 'You see a poultry farm, and right across the field there's a swine farm, and sometimes there are cattle grazing in the same fields,' Baldwin said. With a few exceptions, the location of those poultry farms and their waste disposal sites aren't public record under state law. The only way to locate the poultry CAFOs is to fly over them, consult aerial maps or plow through building permits. 'The poultry issue has become as big, if not a bigger, problem,' Baldwin said. In flood-prone Robeson County, one poultry farm has 48 barns, holding a total of nearly 1.7 million birds. Baldwin said post-storm flooding is significantly problematic. 'Millions of gallons of hog waste, plus poultry waste and in some cases, waste from treatment plants. The water quality is just horrendous,' he said. 'I like to use the term 'petri dish,' because that's what it is.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
The Salvation Army announces officer transition in Henderson
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – The Salvation Army of Henderson has announced an upcoming leadership transition as part of the organization's regular officer appointments. The organization says current officers, Majors Norman and Claire Grainger, will be departing Henderson, with new officers arriving to assume leadership of the local ministry and social service programs. Officials say as part of The Salvation Army's structure, officers, who are ordained ministers, are periodically reassigned to new communities to bring 'fresh perspective and leadership' to different areas of ministry. These moves typically occur every few years and are guided by the organization's leadership based on the needs of both the officers and the communities they serve. South Main Street in Henderson to come to life for Porchfest 'We are deeply grateful to Majors Grainger for their faithful service in Henderson,' said Major Al Newsome, Divisional Commander of The Salvation Army in Kentucky and Tennessee. 'Their dedication to meeting both the spiritual and practical needs of our neighbors has made a meaningful impact in our community.' The Salvation Army says the new officers, Captains Doug and Jane Monroe, will officially begin their service in Henderson on June 22. The community is invited to a special 'Welcome Sunday service' on June 22 at 11 a.m. at The Salvation Army Worship and Community Center, located at 1213 Washington Street, to meet and greet the new leadership team. Officials say Captains Doug and Jane Monroe come to Henderson from Nashville, where they recently served as corps officers at the Madison Corps in North Nashville for several years. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
