Latest news with #MichaelHopkins
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Kansas City Fire Department responds to 23 water rescues during overnight storms
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Fire Department said it has responded to at least 23 water rescues Thursday morning due to a high volume of rain from overnight storms. According to KCFD, in the last 36 hours, the Kansas City metro received between 5 and 8 inches of rain, leaving many low-lying roadways flooded and people trapped in their cars. KCFD said they conducted 23 highwater rescues overnight through 8 a.m. at several locations. The department said most of those incidents involve crews 'simply walking the occupants out.' No injuries have been reported. Overnight storms cause flash flooding, power outages One of those rescues happened at 10th Street and Winner Road. KCFD confirmed the individual was taken out of the car and no one was hurt. Vehicles were also seen stuck in high water near East 14th Street and Jackson Avenue. KCFD Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins said they expect these incidents to continue until the rain stops. A flash flood warning issued by the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill was set to remain in effect until 9 a.m. Thursday for parts of the Kansas City area. 'KCFD would like to remind citizens to never drive into high water. It only takes a few inches of moving water to sweep a vehicle downstream,' KCFD warned in a statement. 'Never walk in high water. Sewer covers easily become dislodged in this case and it will be deadly if you fall into one. Your vehicle will stall, and you will become stranded if the water level is higher than the tailpipe of your vehicle. If you encounter high water on the roadway, find an alternate route. Turn Around, Don't Drown.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
4 days ago
- Climate
- New York Times
Heavy Rain Floods Kansas City Area, Prompting Overnight Rescues
Heavy rain in the Kansas City, Mo., area inundated neighborhoods and highways on Thursday, prompting nearly two dozen rescues of people stranded in their cars. More than eight inches of rain fell in some parts of the metropolitan area overnight, meteorologists said. Firefighters and rescuers waded through water, sometimes up to their waists, to reach cars stuck in floods overnight, said Chief Michael Hopkins, the spokesman for the Kansas City Fire Department, in an interview. They continued working through the morning even as the rain started to taper off. No injuries or deaths have been reported. Emergency workers had rescued people from at least 23 vehicles by early morning, he said, and more rescues were expected as the work commute got underway. Storm drains along Interstate 435, a beltway that encircles most of the Kansas City metropolitan area, were unable to keep up during the deluge, he said, causing the highway to flood. Most of the rescues from vehicles took place at the highway's 23rd St. exit, he said. Areas to the west and north of the city were also overrun with heavy rain. 'It is taking place all over the city,' he said of the rescue effort. 'Multiple roads tend to get overrun with water.' These included low-lying areas or those near hills, such as the East Bottoms area, the Westport bar and restaurant district, and neighborhoods in Northeast Kansas City. More than eight inches of rain had fallen in Olathe, Kan., southwest of Kansas City, since 10 p.m. on Wednesday, said Randall Collier, a meteorologist at the Kansas City office of the National Weather Service. The highest total was 9.81 inches, near Gardner Lake, he said. In Kansas City, the local office of the National Weather Service reported 2.04 inches of rain had already fallen by 6:40 a.m. Thursday. That marked the second consecutive day with more than two inches of rainfall, tying a local record that has occurred only 12 times in the past 137 years. Flash flood warnings for the area expired by 9 a.m. local time, but flood warnings remained in place for several rivers in northwest Kansas and northeast Missouri. Forecasters said storms could keep developing along the same areas over the next couple of days. Forecast risk of excessive rain for Thursday Some Moderate High More than 13,000 customers were without power early on Thursday in the Kansas City area, in both Kansas and Missouri, according to Evergy, a utilities provider. The rain was part of a slow-moving weather system that has unleashed a series of intense thunderstorms across a broad section of the United States on Thursday, from the Central Plains to the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Northeast. Nazaneen Ghaffar contributed reporting.
CBC
29-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Indigenous fire keeper pushes back against searches at London prison
Social Sharing After 27 years of performing pipe ceremonies and providing spiritual counselling for Indigenous inmates at London's Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC), Michael Hopkins says his days of providing the service may be coming to an end. He doesn't want to stop visiting inmates to offer what he sees as crucial support for a population that is notoriously over-represented in Canada's prison system. However, he said a recent move to change the security protocol at EMDC, if it continues, could force him to stop his weekly visits. At issue is what Hopkins said is a new requirement that he be searched upon entry, something he said has never been required in his time working at EMDC. "The last two months I've been going in, they've wanted to look in the pipe bag, and I told them, 'No, you're not touching the bag, you're not looking in it,'" he said. Hopkins said he's opposed to being searched because his bag contains sacred items, which he said should never be touched by anyone other than the person who's entrusted to care for them. "They're not for show and tell to be opened up to whoever is at the front door and doesn't know about them or understand them," said Hopkins, who is also a traditional fire keeper for N'Amerind Friendship Centre. "You can't just look into somebody's sacred items. Nobody touches them. Nobody.'" Access to Indigenous spirituality in jails and prisons is now a well-accepted practice at both the federal and provincial correctional systems. Ontario's Ministry of the Solicitor General has a web page outlining the rules for inmate access to Indigenous spiritual services, which are supposed to be given the same status and protections afforded to faith groups. According to the rules on the web page, visits by an Indigenous elder "are subject to the superintendent's normal control of visits to the institution." The rules also say sacred items such as pipes, drums, and feathers can be temporarily brought into the institution "following clearance by the security manager." However, Hopkins said he'd been allowed to enter EMDC for years without being searched. Hopkins said he underwent security clearance and was issued a photo ID badge by the prison when the visits first began in the late 1990s, which he still has. He said he was even given a key by EMDC staff, allowing him to move between certain areas of the prison to meet with inmates. Hopkins said his weekly visits have never raised a security problem and that EMDC's Native and Indigenous Liaison Officer is with him at all times when he's on the property. CBC News reached out to the Solicitor General's ministry for comment but did not receive a response on Wednesday. Hopkins said he was first told two months ago that all visitors must now be searched, including lawyers and faith leaders who come to visit inmates. Hopkins objected and said he was allowed to continue to visit without searches pending a decision on the matter by the prison's superintendents, which Hopkins said he's expecting to come this week. "They're saying they don't respect or trust me, they don't respect the culture, they don't respect the sacred items," said Hopkins, who plans to raise the issue with Indigenous chiefs in the London area if he isn't allowed to enter without being searched. Lawyer said sacred objects must be respected Katherine Hensel, a lawyer and member of the Indigenous Bar Association, said Hopkins's objection to having people touch the pipes and other sacred objects is not a trivial matter. "These items are sources of safety," said Hensel. "These are pathways to healing. Whether it's a pipe, or an eagle feather, or another sacred item, the people who hold these items have obligations with respect to their care. Some items can only be touched by the person responsible and no one else." Hensel said Hopkins should be given some leeway given his years providing support for inmates. Hopkins said if the visits do stop, it will be a loss to inmates who he said have benefited from taking part in pipe ceremonies. Some people he met as inmates experience personal growth and learning about their Indigenous heritage. Others have worked with him after their release. "They get to smoke that pipe and it calms them, they feel good ... they get the teachings about responsibility and commitment if they want to change their lifestyle," he said.
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
KCFD unveils new robot to help battle fire at recycling center over the weekend
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Over the weekend, the Kansas City Fire Department put its remote-controlled tracked robot into service for the first time. Fire officials say this new resource will save time, resources, and lives. It can produce upwards of 2,500 gallons a minute through multiple supply lines. 'To give you some perspective, a hand line that a firefighter is holding, you're getting about 150 to 170 gallons a minute. So that's quite a bit of water we can float through. It'll help us out in a lot of different ways,' said KCFD Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins. KCFD used the robot on Saturday . Campfire cause of 200-acre grassfire in Douglas County 'We use two-and-a-half-inch hand lines on large fires at eight and a half pounds per gallon. When you're dragging those around, it takes quite a few people. So as soon as we put this into play, we were able to put three companies back in service to service the city in other needs,' Hopkins explained. It's equipped with thermal imaging and multiple cameras. The mounted front blade and tracked mobility came in handy Saturday as firefighters faced mud and piles of debris. 'We deployed this apparatus that was able to drive through all of that with ease and kept our firefighters out of that mud and muck and chemicals and anything that might have been in that debris pile,' Hopkins said. Kansas City is one of only a handful of fire departments nationwide utilizing a remote-controlled tracked robot. 'This allows us to get into places such as underground caves, which we have many here in the City that are commercial use, large industrial areas, or as we saw on Saturday, in an area where we have things burning that are not necessarily good for us to be in, we can deploy this and protect our firefighters,' Hopkins explained. 'We didn't get justice': Family reacts to no charges in IPD shooting deaths Hopkins said the protection and safety it offers firefighters is a big plus. 'There are so many areas that it's not safe to put a firefighter, but we need that water coverage, and this apparatus will give us that opportunity to do that,' he said. The firefighting robot is another resource continuing KCFD's history of leading the way in firefighting technologies. 'If you track our history back to the beginnings. Chief Hale, one of our first Chiefs, was an innovator. A lot of the modern fire appliances and stuff of that time were created here in KCFD. So this, along with our drone program and other things that we're doing, keeps us on that leading edge, something we've been doing our entire history,' Hopkins said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Yahoo
KCFD firefighter recovering after being hit by car
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City, Missouri firefighter is recovering after this past weekend. The incident happened near 85th Street and Main Street on Saturday afternoon. Kansas City Fire Department said the firefighter has a long road to recovery from some of his injuries, but he is expected to recover fully. The KCFD firefighter was struck while directing traffic at a non-injury crash. Deadly vacant Kansas City church fire being investigated as homicide 'Someone passing by the incident came around one of the pumpers that was being used to block the street and struck one of our firefighters, causing some pretty significant injuries,' said KCFD Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins. The firefighter was treated at the scene and then taken to a hospital. 'He's expected to make a full recovery. He was transported in stable condition. He does have a pretty long road to recovery on some of the couple of injuries he sustained, but he is expected to be okay,' Hopkins explained. KCFD reminds drivers to slow down when approaching flashing lights and crash scenes. 'We would just encourage people when you see those flashing lights, whether from emergency vehicles or MoDOT, whoever it is, just to slow down and pay attention,' Hopkins said. 'You never know when somebody is going to step out from that accident scene or from one of those fire trucks or tow trucks or whatever the vehicle may be. So just be cognizant of that. Even if you're going around the accident, just go as slow as possible and make sure you're paying attention.' The incident on Saturday shook people who live nearby. Some neighbors said there have been other safety concerns with 85th Street for years. 'There's a lot of speeding. One of our neighbors clocked someone going 65-66, and the speed limit is 35,' said Genevieve Yim. 'The speeding is out of control, and there is no light, so this turn is super dangerous, especially in last week's snow.' Download the FOX4 News app on iPhone and Android The driver who struck the firefighter stopped and cooperated with the police. KCFD hasn't released the name of the injured firefighter due to privacy reasons. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
