ST. LOUIS — A national training firm has opened a new truck driving school on the north St. Louis riverfront, hoping to capitalize on a driver shortage in the long-haul trucking market.

It is St. Petersburg, Florida-based Roadmaster’s second location in Missouri and one of several it plans to open nationwide this year.

The pandemic increased the demand for cargo, thanks to online marketplaces like Amazon growing faster than ever, and that means an increased demand for truckers. The trucking industry added about 10,000 jobs in the prior two months, according to recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

“We have, in the short run now, an actual shortage of truckers,” said Stephen Burks, an economics professor at the University of Minnesota-Morris and former trucker who specializes in the economics of the trucking industry.

But schools like Roadmaster can be controversial: They both serve to provide the industry with talent and also, critics say, prevent trucker wages from growing. Many companies choose to hire and train new drivers for a lower wage instead of keeping on more experienced drivers and paying them better, Burks said. The average experienced trucker makes about $49,000 per year, according to BLS data, but young drivers can get paid as little as $30,000 per year.

While the pandemic at first curtailed the number of truckers who could be trained, interest in commercial driver’s licenses recovered quickly, said Rene Dulle, senior program manager at St. Louis Community College. Dulle oversees the college’s truck driver training program.

“We were only shut down about a month, and as soon as the state of Missouri started doing their CDL testing again, we were right back to training,” Dulle said. “We recognize, even though everything else stops, transportation did not. People still need toilet paper.”

Even though the community college’s classes are now smaller due to social distancing and other measures, demand stays high, she said. She estimates that demand is about the same as before the pandemic, and now CDL classes have a waitlist to get in.

94% turnover

Since the long-haul trucking market was largely deregulated in the 1980s, wages and benefits have plummeted as trucking firms are forced to cut costs in order to compete with each other. This has created relatively low-wage, high-work jobs that many people aren’t cut out for, Burks said.

The American Trucking Association, a lobbying group that represents trucking companies, estimates the industry will need to hire 1.1 million drivers in the next decade. But claims of a driver shortage are not new, Dulle said.

“I’ve been managing the professional truck driving program at SLCC for six years and it has not gone away since I’ve been involved,” she said.

Burks has seen the same claims of a shortage for decades, he said.

There’s two prevailing viewpoints for why a shortage has been an issue for so long. Groups like the American Trucking Association say not enough people want to be truckers and are pushing for deregulation, like letting 18-year-olds drive cross-country. But organizations that represent truckers often say wages and conditions are too poor to encourage people to stick around in the long-haul industry.

That may be intentional, Burks said. It takes about six months to train a new driver for the road, and the lower wage paid to new drivers makes it worth it to not invest in keeping older drivers around, he said. The average turnover of a long-haul trucking job is 94%, meaning almost all long-haul truckers stay at a job less than a year. A turnover rate that high is nearly unheard of in the rest of the economy, Burks said, and likely plays into the shortage narrative.

“To the hiring managers in this segment, it sure looks like a shortage,” he said. “On the other hand, despite the shortage they perceive, they have been successfully operating their businesses under these conditions for more than 30 years.”

Signing bonuses

The pandemic has changed things some, Burks said. A larger-scale blue-collar worker shortage in all industries has created a greater need for drivers and other workers in the trucking industry. When you add an already tight labor market in trucking to a global pandemic that encourages older workers to retire and makes young ones less eager to go out, you end up exacerbating the driver shortage, he said. It has already raised wages in the short term, according to Burks, and may make lasting change for the tight long-haul market.

“When there’s a short term swing, like this, you see a lot of signing bonuses and retention bonuses which firms don’t pay when things slow down,” Burks said. “When this is sustained enough, you start seeing people raise actual per-mile rates, and that’s been happening.”

The new school is a good sign for transportation logistics in the St. Louis region, according to Steve Johnson, chief business attraction officer at Greater St. Louis Inc. The development group identified transportation and logistics as one of the five industry clusters that have the most potential for growth in the metro area in the next decade.

“St. Louis always has been and always will be a major transportation and logistics hub,” Johnson said. “You look at a map and you realize we have absolutely the location but we also have the infrastructure and the talent to continue to grow that sector.”

The Roadmaster school, at 8000 Hall Street in the North Riverfront neighborhood of St. Louis, is focused on training drivers for the long-haul market. The company sees a need for drivers in the St. Louis region. That is what Roadmaster wants to take advantage of, President Brad Ball said.

“Trucking is an essential industry and truck driving is one of the top-paying positions open to applicants without a college degree,” he said in a statement. “People need jobs, and the nation needs drivers; what we need to do is bring them together. It’s an opportunity on wheels for thousands of soon-to-be-hired truck drivers.”

CHESTERFIELD — Faust Park Historic Village will add a new dimension this year to its portrayal of local history — a 127-year-old, one-room schoolhouse for African American students.

The process to move African School House No. 4, as it is known in the historical record, from its foundation at a private residence on Wild Horse Creek Road to Faust Park began Monday. The schoolhouse was built in 1894 and is the oldest Black schoolhouse standing in Missouri, according to the county parks foundation.

Work to dismantle the 15-by-19-foot log building began Monday. The effort to reassemble it next to the Alt School House at the historic village about 4 miles away will take place in the coming weeks. The parks department expects restoration of the building to be complete by spring. It will broaden the history presented at Faust Park, curator Lori Ritchey said.

“We don’t have any buildings which are purely African American-related. It’s something we’ve always wanted to interpret, but we haven’t been able to,” she said. “This will go right next to the white school, and it shows the African American side of history. That’s not something we’ve been able to do beyond talk about the slaves in the houses we have. It will be an amazing addition.”

Some of the land that became Faust Park was owned by a freed slave, according to Ritchey. Restoring this schoolhouse will help to honor Black history in Chesterfield, she said.

The school was built after Black residents of the area sued in 1893 because there was no school for Black children. The Missouri Constitution required building schools for Black students in every district where there were enough Black families. In its single, tight room, one teacher taught more than a dozen students from first through eighth grade at the same time.

After the school closed, the land was purchased and a home built on the property. At some point, the schoolhouse was remodeled into a garage for the home. Despite the changes, all original logs, some fixtures such as bookshelves and a furnace sill, and even specks of paint from the blackboards are still present.

Doris Frazier, 90, was a substitute teacher at the school in the early 1950s and was later a piano teacher in the area. She still lives in Chesterfield.

“The teacher was named Mrs. McKinney. And when she wasn’t able to come in, they would call me and ask me to come,” she said. “What it’s like seeing this place now is that I think about the lack of privileges that children had then. It wasn’t fair for kids of all ages to come together. You can’t teach a kindergartner what an eighth grader needs to know.”

Frazier moved to the Chesterfield area from Maplewood when she married in 1950. It was a bit of a culture shock, she said.

“What you did is you stayed on the hill,” she said. “That’s all you had. We didn’t have transportation — nobody had a car. I wasn’t used to that because I grew up 20 miles down the road and I never went to a one-room school, so there were very different attitudes in children.

“I could not believe that our children here were not as advanced as we were in Maplewood-Richmond Heights, so I started fighting for education, for kids to go to high school and college,” she said.

Back then, many girls in rural Chesterfield weren’t educated past the eighth grade, she said.

Frazier said the school is representative of the racial difference before desegregation in St. Louis County and across the country.

Black people, she said, “have had the worst time in education and opportunities. It was hard. I couldn’t wait for the day to be over, and they were long days.”

The school also went by the names Chesterfield African American School and Chesterfield School No. 26. It eventually merged with the nearby Orrville School and later became part of the Rockwood School District.

Moving the building will cost about $15,000 and restoration an additional $20,000, said Mark Ohlendorf, president of the St. Louis County Parks Foundation. The parks foundation is raising money for the restoration.

“It’s just of such a great historical value, it’s just incredible,” Ohlendorf said. “We want to restore it so when you walk in you think, ‘This is the original school.’ We’re talking about getting period furniture and everything from when (Frazier) was there.”

St. Louis County Parks officials have been eyeing the property for almost 20 years, said county Parks Director Thomas Ott, but couldn’t come to an agreement with the property owner to move it. The property recently sold and the new owner agreed to preserve the building, he said.

“I was 23 years old when I started working at Faust,” Ritchey said. “I remember driving by and (Ott) saying, ‘We’re getting that building eventually.’ And it took time. It’ll be amazing. Hopefully we can get it back up pretty quickly.”

ST. LOUIS — Dozens of people lined up outside Gateway elementary and middle schools Saturday in the Carr Square neighborhood to attend a back-to-school event as parents warily eye the return of their children to in-person learning.

Organizers with St. Louis Public Schools and the American Federation of Teachers gave away books and backpacks, registered new students and arranged for COVID-19 vaccinations.

Safety, especially given the spreading delta variant of the coronavirus, has been the main concern among parents. It’s also the biggest focus for teachers nationwide, AFT President Randi Weingarten said.

“We are not just going to open schools safely but we are going to have a welcoming and safe year that helps our kids recover, even in the midst of a really dangerous virus surge,” she said.

Nearly 90% of AFT-member teachers say they either were vaccinated or had scheduled a vaccine appointment, Weingarten said. She anticipates that the percentage of vaccinated teachers is even higher now. Similarly, 95% of SLPS principals are vaccinated now, Superintendent Kelvin Adams said. While data for teachers isn’t yet available, he is hoping for a similarly high percentage.

The St. Louis event was one of over a dozen the AFT is putting on nationwide as part of its “Back-to-School for All” tour. The union, one of the largest teacher labor groups in the country, gave $5 million in grants to school districts to throw similar events. District personnel in St. Louis used targeted phone calls to drum up attendance. More than 300 people pre-registered for vaccinations, Adams said.

“We’ve had excellent turnout from the targeted population of families who were disconnected from the district last year,” he said. “We had about 800 to 900 families who were episodic in attendance.”

Beyond just getting students prepared for school, the event helped revitalize parents and advance the city’s fight against the coronavirus, Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed said. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones was scheduled to attend but was exposed to COVID-19 by a staff member on Friday, she said in a statement. Reed attended in her place.

“This influences the whole family. That will lead to more people getting vaccinated all over our city and taking the safety measures they need to take,” Reed said. “See this long line? Each person in this line represents one, two, three families because the people here affect the people that are around them.”

The event was part of the ramp-up to the new school year starting Aug. 23 which will be in-person. For many students, the gathering was their first time in a school since the beginning of the pandemic.

“We’ve always known that in-person learning is vital for our kids,” Weingarten said. “This is about making sure we meet the social, emotional and academic needs of our kids.”

For some first graders, like 6-year-old Amaya Redden, it was their first time in a school. While she could still socialize in online kindergarten, it was difficult to make new friends who weren’t in her neighborhood, she said. While she is excited to attend school in a few weeks, her mother, Heather Hale, has concerns about in-person learning.

“I liked (online school) because I was at home with her and I was able to help her,” Hale said. “I’m a little nervous because of everything that is still going on with COVID. But I explained to her about keeping her mask on and staying safe, so I hope she will do fine.”

Her husband is immunocompromised, she said, so she’s worried about her daughter bringing a virus home with her.

“That’s what makes me more nervous than anything else,” Hale said. “Especially that I’m reading in the news that the age (of people getting COVID) is getting younger and younger. They may not actually get really sick, but they’re still spreading it.”

To Weingarten, the event was a promising sign for the coming school year.

“There’s a fair, a vaccination clinic, it’s a one-stop-shop for families. Just look at the line today and the number of volunteers,” she said. “This was our vision for how to use that grant money, to work together with the district and to help create a safe and welcoming environment for back-to-school this year.”

ST. LOUIS — Dozens of people at a downtown homeless encampment were told to leave Monday as efforts were made to relocate them to a warehouse a few blocks away.

Interco Plaza, at the intersection of Tucker Boulevard and Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, has been home to a few tents put up each summer by homeless people. This summer, the camp had nearly 50 people.

The plaza sits between the St. Patrick Center, a nonprofit offering assistance to the homeless, and the new office for Square. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones early last month committed to removing the encampment within 60 days, but private security took action by placing signs around the plaza saying it would be cleared Monday. Jones’ spokesman Nick Dunne said the city did not support the effort.

“We do have some concerns about people not wanting to leave the plaza, but we will not be forcing anybody out of there,” Dunne said.

Jones said in a statement, “I do not support private sweeps of public property. Thank you to those who have spoken out on behalf of our city’s most vulnerable, and we look forward to continuing this conversation.”

About 10 a.m. Monday, 20 tents were set up in the plaza. A few mattresses were being used as beds and for seating. The city put a canvas-covered chain link fence around the plaza last month. Beyond the condition of the plaza, its safety has been a concern for homeless advocates.

“This came up on its own, and what it’s become is not what we want to provide,” said Amanda Laumeyer, senior director of development at St. Patrick. “There’s no services, it’s not dignified, not clean. It’s not safe. At 3 a.m. anyone can walk up to a tent and open it.”

Laumeyer was concerned for the safety of St. Patrick staff and others in the building due to the proximity to the plaza, she said. Some homeless people carry sticks, poles or bats in order to defend themselves.

The St. Patrick Center has partnered with the city and StarWood Group — a real estate development company led by Square co-founder Jim McKelvey and John Berglund — to create a shelter nearby.

It’s a warehouse owned by StarWood at the corner of Cole Street and 14th Street, about a five-minute walk from Interco Plaza. St. Patrick has filled it with 40 tents placed on wood pallets as well as couches and chairs. The warehouse, now dubbed Camp Cole, has bathroom facilities. St. Patrick staffers were encouraging the homeless to move to the warehouse, promising it was a safer location with more reliable access to resources from St. Patrick, including programs like Alcoholics Anonymous.

“It’s hard for me to look at Interco Plaza and not think that there’s a better solution,” Laumeyer said.

As of 5 p.m., there were about 17 beds still available at the warehouse, said Carly Smale, outreach coordinator at St. Patrick’s Center.

Some residents of the plaza didn’t want to leave. Homeless people have built a community of sorts there, said Timothy, a 46-year-old homeless man who has lived at the plaza for two weeks. He declined to provide his last name. Timothy was forced out of his Dutchtown apartment three weeks ago because he objected to his roommate using meth, he said.

“I like it here. I feel safer here than I do out on the street by myself,” he said. He had a knife and gun pulled on him when he was sleeping on the street, he said, which is why he moved to the plaza. He carries a post from a staircase banister to use as a bat, just in case.

The plan for the warehouse is to provide a transitional place to live until its residents can find permanent housing with the help of St. Patrick, Laumeyer said.

St. Patrick has enough funding to keep the warehouse open for 90 days, she said, but the center hopes city money will become available to keep it operating, or to create a new, similar site. The city has been supportive of St. Patrick’s efforts, Laumeyer said. In addition to providing water service and trash pickup at the warehouse, the city also gave tables, chairs and other supplies. The city is not directly funding the warehouse operation.

KB Doman, a 23-year-old Washington University law student, has volunteered with nonprofits for five years and now works with Tent Mission STL. She’s worried that Camp Cole might not be as successful as St. Patrick hopes.

“It looks like a cool place but any space that people are relocated to has to be optional,” she said. “Forced displacement is never an acceptable option. Especially when there’s not enough spaces (in permanent shelters), especially when not everyone can comply with the rules. Private corporations steamrolling everyone to force them out of public land is never OK.”

Plaza residents who chose not to move to the warehouse will be back on the streets again, she said.

“It’s a cycle. People are moved from one place, they form communities, start watching out for each other, get access to resources, but then there’s another wave of eviction as groups get too big and too self-sufficient,” Doman said. “... We’re really hoping for something new under Mayor Jones.”

CAHOKIA HEIGHTS — The mayor of Cahokia Heights said Thursday that the city will spend nearly $3 million in federal coronavirus relief aid on critical sewer and drainage work that must be done to prevent sewage and foul water from flooding the homes of residents.

High water levels and backed-up utility lines cause sewage to flow into residents’ yards and homes during rainstorms.

“Some of our residents are unable to allow their children to walk outside in their backyard because they believe that they may step in feces,” Mayor Curtis McCall Sr. said at a news conference. “Many of our residents can’t flush their toilets. Many of our residents often have sewage backing up in their face.”

The city, newly formed as a merger of Cahokia, Centreville and Alorton, was denied a $22 million federal grant earlier this year to fix the problems. Some of the neighborhoods are among the poorest in the country.

“If we can’t qualify for a grant, then who in the hell can?” McCall said.

The town just merged with two of its neighbors; the new city is pursuing a large federal grant.

McCall and Aldermen Sheree Jethroe-Franklin, Tiffany Pearce and Demario Weeden pledged “every penny” of the $2.8 million the city will receive from the American Rescue Plan to fix sewer issues. The mayor intends to add an additional $200,000 from the city budget to that figure, he said.

“This issue here has plagued our citizens for many, many years,” McCall said. “When I took office in May, I stated that my No. 1 priority would be to fix the sewer problem. And as I stand before you today, that is still my No. 1 priority.”

The city will also expand its sewer repair crew from three people, which the federal Environmental Protection Agency said was inadequate, up to 16, McCall said.

The sewage and flooding problems have worsened over the past 20 years as heavy industry began leaving the Cahokia Heights area and Metro East, Hurst-Rosche senior engineer Jim Nold said. He explained that companies had pumped groundwater from the area, artificially lowering the water level. Once those companies left, water levels rose and overtook sewer lines, making it difficult for sewers and drainage systems to keep up, he said.

“The river still flows underneath the ground in the sand that constitutes the old riverbed. So even though we can’t see the flooding, the flooding still occurs when the river comes up, even though we’re protected by the levee,” Nold said at the news conference.

Wastewater and flooding are a constant for these residents, who watch as their homes deteriorate while public officials offer only temporary fixes.

The companies had kept the water level as much as 50 feet below where it would be otherwise, Nold said. Now it’s as high as 5 feet below the ground in some places.

The drainage problem is larger than just Cahokia Heights, he said, and it is expensive for communities to combat.

“Centreville, Alorton and Cahokia spent a combined $300,000 a year, every year, to put Band-Aids on this system to make spot repairs, but it isn’t enough to keep up with the damage that occurs,” he said.

Some work has already begun to relieve drainage. The Illinois Department of Transportation is clearing out the canal under Lake Drive near Illinois Route 157. Workers are removing trees and debris from the canal as well as making it wider and deeper, work that may be necess

ST. LOUIS — Washington University announced on Wednesday a grant to fund a genetically engineered “kill switch” to prevent pollution-eating microbes from running rampant in the environment.

The grant, $744,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency, is one of five to universities across the country for research into the environmental impact of bioremediation, or the use of microorganisms to “eat” pollutants such as plastic, oil or other toxins in water or soil.

“These microbes act like Pac-Man, cruising through toxic spills or hazardous waste storage tanks and chomping through the chemicals they are designed to destroy,” said Ed Chu, EPA region 7 acting administrator. “And the research you do here is a switch that causes the microbe to self-destruct, like a tape for Ethan Hunt in ‘Mission Impossible.’”

Chu presented the grant to Washington U. professors Tae Seok Moon and Kim Parker. Moon’s team developed the kill switch and Parker’s specializes in the effect of pollutants on water and soil systems. They will together test the switch’s effect on the environment.

Parker and Moon said the research is focused on making sure the microbes are used safely and don’t have unintended impacts.

“These are genetically engineered, so we don’t know the consequences of the bacteria in the environment,” Moon said. “And my work is to make sure that bacteria cannot survive in the environment where we don’t want it to.”

Moon said the bio-engineered microbe and kill switch technologies can have an impact on a wide range of environmental science.

“The big thing is carbon dioxide reduction, of course,” he said. “But at the end of the day, (genetically engineered microbes) can do anything.”

For instance, he said, some engineered microorganisms can light up, called biosensing, when they come into contact with specific substances. Others can eat plastic and garbage, reducing the need for incinerators or other carbon-emitting trash disposal.

The EPA grant is for $3 million in total. Other universities involved include Georgia Tech, University of California San Diego, University of Colorado Boulder and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

“What’s so good about this grant, and much of the work that we do here, is that it brings together faculty to do things they couldn’t do on their own,” said Aaron Bobick, dean of the Washington University engineering school.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Political opposition to a new mask mandate in St. Louis and St. Louis County appears to be building, with several state and local elected officials vowing to stop the public health orders set to go into effect on Monday.

The new orders — a response to the resurgence of COVID-19 cases and pleas from area hospital officials — will require most people, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, to wear masks in indoor spaces and on public transportation. People in the city and county also will be urged, but not required, to wear masks outdoors, especially in group settings.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, Wildwood Mayor Jim Bowlin, and St. Louis County Councilmen Tim Fitch, R-3rd District, and Mark Harder, R-7th District, are among officials politicians voicing opposition to the new orders.

Fitch said he wants County Executive Sam Page’s administration to explain the reasoning for the proposed mandate, and he said he is prepared to ask the council to rescind the public health order.

“The Council can act as soon as Tuesday to terminate the County Executive’s new health mandate,” Fitch said on Twitter on Friday. “He still has not communicated to us his reasons for the mandate, as required in the new statute.”

Harder also signaled support on Saturday for council action.

“Many bipartisan state representatives and senators in the region feel the same way. That is why they passed House Bill 271 to give councils like ours the ability to push back on these health orders,” Harder said in an email to the Post-Dispatch.

HB 271, which was signed last month by Gov. Mike Parson, limits the time frame local health orders can be in effect without approval from local elected officials.

Schmitt, who is running for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, announced Friday that he plans to file a lawsuit on Monday to block the city and county from enforcing the renewed mandate.

He implied that the mandate is a violation of his freedoms and encouraged people to fight against it.

“If the last six months have taught us anything it’s that when it comes to expansive, authoritative executive action we have to fight back with everything we’ve got — all the time,” he said on Twitter on Saturday. “Wherever we see it — fight the fight. Our freedoms are on the line.”

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones on Saturday responded to Schmitt, saying via Twitter: “Our top priority is protecting the health, safety, and wellbeing of the people of St. Louis City and County. Nobody is surprised that the Attorney General plans to file yet another frivolous lawsuit to serve his own political ambitions.”

Bowlin, the Wildwood mayor, also pledged to stop the mandate, saying he would use his own executive action to prevent enforcement of the mandate in the large west St. Louis County suburb. His executive action will also allow business and other gathering places to use parking lots and other adjacent spaces to do business to accommodate people without masks outside, he said on Facebook.

While some politicians are saying they’ll fight the mask order, at least one of the region’s biggest employers intends to comply. Schnucks said Friday that it will require staff and customers to wear masks at all 45 of its stores in St. Louis and St. Louis County; the 65 Schnucks stores in other counties are not affected.

St. Louis is among the first regions in the country to bring back a mask mandate, following Los Angeles, which reinstated its mandate on July 19. Page and St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones will hold a news conference Monday to provide details about the city and county orders.

Local officials have cited a recent increase in COVID-19 cases in the St. Louis region, driven in part by the fast-spreading delta variant of the coronavirus.

Missouri on Saturday recorded 2,906 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and eight deaths.

ST. LOUIS — The wildfires burning in the Pacific Northwest have created plumes of smoke that cover most of the U.S., including St. Louis.

And as a heat wave kicks in this weekend, that smoke is picking up while the air quality is dropping: A service run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said St. Louis on Friday had the worst air of any major city in the country.

Those with health conditions such as asthma and lung disease have been warned about poor air quality in the St. Louis area, which is not expected to get much better in the coming days, according to the National Weather Service.

“These fires are going to be burning all summer,” University of Washington wildfire smoke expert Dan Jaffe said in an AP interview. “In terms of bad air quality, everywhere in the country is going to be worse than average this year.”

Locally, the smoke has been noticeable, creating a haze in the sky and making the sun appear more reddish when it is low on the horizon. That haze can be dangerous to some as air pollutants settle over time.

AirNow, an air quality service run by the EPA, reported that St. Louis had an air quality index score of 137 at a Blair Street meter in north city on Friday, which is “unhealthy for sensitive groups.” A “good” index score would be under 50.

That’s the worst index score of any major city in the country, edging out Spokane, Washington, for the title of worst air as of Friday, according to AirNow. Spokane is just 100 miles from a nearby wildfire, while St. Louis is almost 2,000 miles away.

“What’s underappreciated about air pollution is the distances it can travel,” said Jay Turner, vice dean of education at Washington University in St. Louis, an air pollution expert. “For a few days every summer we even get high dust readings from storms in the Sahara Desert. That’s how far some of these pollutants can travel.”

Air quality warnings have hit cities across the country from Chicago to Atlanta as global wind patterns take smoke from wildfires in Washington, Idaho and California and blow it east. Turner, who currently is in Boston, could even see its effects there.

Eastern Missouri and southwest Illinois are in what Turner called a hot spot for smoke pollutants in the current weather system. Large-scale wind patterns are bringing the smoke to the region. However, where smoke ends up settling from a fire is difficult to predict, he said.

“Fires in the Flint Hills in Kansas sometimes have smoke settling in central Missouri, sometimes in St. Louis, sometimes it skips over the entire state and settles in southwest Illinois,” he said.

That’s because in addition to moving horizontally across the country, such as this plume from Washington to Missouri, the smoke also is moving vertically in the sky, he said.

To minimize risk in hazardous air conditions, experts recommend people use face masks and limit time outside. However, the type of face mask matters, said Chris Cappa, an environmental engineer and professor at the University of California at Davis.

“Really, it becomes now quite important to have a higher-quality mask,” he told The Washington Post. That’s because of the small particles found in wildfire smoke and other air pollution.

“The particles that we’re most worried about in the COVID context tend to be quite a bit bigger than those that we’re concerned about for things like wildfires, and so masks, generally speaking, are going to have lower efficiency for wildfire particles than they will for the COVID-related particles,” Cappa said.

Cloth masks, especially, do not provide much protection from smoke, he said.

In addition to risks from the more dangerous smoke particles, the increased mass of particles overall when smoke settles is another risk factor, Turner said.

Private air quality service Plume Labs recommends St. Louisans avoid outdoor sports, keep small children inside and avoid eating outside.

This spate of poor air quality also coincides with a heat wave that has triggered an advisory from the NWS. “Feels like” temperatures will reach up to 105 degrees on Saturday afternoon, the organization said.

Temperatures will be in the mid- to high 90s throughout the coming week, climbing back up after anticipated thunderstorms Sunday night, according to the NWS. The average temperature for this time of year is 90 degrees.

As the country faces another harsh wildfire season, Turner said he doesn’t expect things to get better soon.

“I have no doubt that this won’t change,” he said. “What we’re seeing a lot more of now, globally, is climate variability. Weather is getting more extreme.

ST. LOUIS — Longtime Harris-Stowe State University President Henry Givens Jr. died Tuesday morning at 90, the university announced.

Givens became Harris-Stowe’s president in 1979 and served in that role until his retirement in 2011, the longest tenure of any Missouri public university president. He oversaw the growth of the campus from a one-building, one-degree teachers college into a full state college and later a university.

He was president emeritus of the university following his retirement.

“America has lost a champion for education,” former U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay said Tuesday, “and I have lost a dear friend.”

Clay said Givens had “transformed the landscape of midtown St. Louis, and opened up the doors of higher education to thousands of African American students who would have never attended college without him.”

A St. Louis native, Givens started his career as a teacher and administrator in the Webster Groves School District in St. Louis County. He was later Missouri’s first Black assistant commissioner of education, where he served for five years. While he was Harris-Stowe’s president, he also briefly served in 1987 as interim president of his alma mater, Lincoln University in Jefferson City, as it was going through a financial crisis.

“I thought the world of him, not just because he was my father but because of who he was as a person,” his daughter, Stacey Woolfolk, said. “He was such a caring person, and people respected him.”

Givens led Harris-Stowe to be designated a historically Black college or university, or HBCU, by the federal government in the late 1980s. The school was originally two segregated schools — Harris Teachers College for white students and Stowe Teachers College for Black students — which merged in 1954.

There have been four Harris-Stowe presidents since Givens retired in 2011, the most recent serving in the position for just one year.

Over the years, the university has seen poor academic performance, with low graduation and freshman retention rates. But the university’s open admissions policy means many of its students are less prepared than those at other schools. That’s an intentional choice, Givens said in a 2011 interview.

“Yes, we are worried about our graduation rates,” he said. “But if we were not here, 80% of the students who attend Harris-Stowe would not be in school.”

Givens received more than 125 national, state and local awards and recognitions, Harris-Stowe said, including honorary doctorate degrees from St. Louis University, Lincoln University and Washington University.

An elementary school in the Webster Groves School District where Givens taught was renamed in his honor in 2018.

Since Givens became president of Harris-Stowe in 1979, its student population has tripled, its degree offerings increased from one to 14, and the college has added numerous buildings, dorms and other facilities, the university said.

“Harris-Stowe was everything to him,” his daughter said.

Givens is survived by his wife, Belma, of Creve Coeur; daughter Stacey Woolfolk of St. Louis; son Keith Givens of Tracy, California, and three grandchildren.

ST. LOUIS — The Mississippi River has lost one of its storied navigators. Capt. William “Bill” Streckfus died last week after a long career traversing the river from New Orleans to St. Louis and beyond. He was 87.

Streckfus was the president of Streckfus Steamers Corp. in the 1960s and ’70s, and the captain of the popular Admiral during its 1960s heyday through its move onshore in 1979. He later worked for the National Museum of Transportation and the Casino Queen in East St. Louis.

“We grew up on the Admiral,” said daughter Lisa Streckfus, a steamboat captain herself. Lisa and her brother William Streckfus Jr., also a captain, both started working with their father on the Admiral when they were 9- and 10-years-old. They did everything from small jobs to piloting the ship themselves.

“The Admiral was our playground,” Lisa Streckfus said. “I wouldn’t say we took it for granted, but it was just normal for us.”

Bill Streckfus was born and reared in New Orleans, the grandson of St. Louis riverboat Capt. John “The Commodore” Streckfus, founder of Streckfus Steamer Corp. He began working on the family’s boats at the age of 5.

Following service in the Korean War, he became the master of the riverboat President in New Orleans. He came to St. Louis in 1960 to become master of the Admiral, the world’s largest excursion riverboat at the time. The Admiral was St. Louis’ biggest attraction before the Gateway Arch, sporting five decks, a unique art-deco style and an eye-catching silver paint job.

Streckfus was responsible for the popularity of the Admiral, according to his son.

“He is the one that made the Admiral less formal and turned it into an entertainment venue,” he said. “Before him, you needed a tie just to enter the ballroom. He added a disco and rock acts and made the Admiral a destination on the riverfront.”

The Admiral was permanently docked in 1979 because of structural issues in its 1907 hull. Streckfus was its last captain before it became a riverfront casino, and was scrapped in 2011.

“Everybody loved him,” Lisa Streckfus said. “He was a disciplinarian, coming from a German family, but a good man, and that’s what makes a good captain.”

He was also responsible for the construction and popularity of “T-Class” vessels, smaller 100-200 person boats made for 1-2 hour sightseeing tours.

“He told the (Streckfus Steamer) board that he believed in these boats, but they didn’t want to build them,” his son said. “He threatened to quit and start his own company to build them, and that’s the only reason they existed at all, because the company didn’t want to lose him.”

Four of the smaller boats were built — the Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Samuel Clemens — and they were a success, William Streckfus said.

Streckfus retired for the first time in 1979 following the docking of the Admiral, but couldn’t be kept from the riverboat business for long. He oversaw the National Museum of Transportation for 13 years before being drawn back to the Mississippi.

In 1993 he piloted the Casino Queen to East St. Louis and worked on the vessel overseeing marine operations until his third and final retirement in 2001. His son worked alongside him as captain of the Casino Queen.

He had a love for horses and fox hunting, Lisa said. The family would often travel on horseback between their home in Ladue and St. Louis Country Club to watch polo games.

“If he wasn’t on the water, he was on horseback,” she said.

Growing up on the Admiral led Lisa and William Streckfus to become steamboat captains — Lisa of the Delta Queen in New Orleans and William of the Casino Queen. Lisa moved to a job with Norwegian Cruise Lines in the 2000s. William retired from boating to become a middle school math teacher in 1999, seeing a downturn of the riverboat industry on the horizon.

In addition to his children Lisa, of Miami, Florida, and William, of Orange County, California, Streckfus is survived by his wife of 62 years, Betty; a daughter, Sharon Streckfus Lazzaro of Chesterfield; and four grandchildren.

A memorial gathering is set for 3-7 p.m. Tuesday at Schrader Funeral Home, 14960 Manchester Road in Ballwin.

“We’re so proud of him and what he did for St. Louis riverboating,” William said, “but it’s just so sad to see the industry slowly go away.”

ST. LOUIS — Organizers of an expanded bicycle route through the city held an open house Wednesday to explain the plans for a two-lane path stretching 1.4 miles along Tower Grove Avenue and Vandeventer Avenue into the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood of St. Louis.

Planning for the Tower Grove Connector began in 2016, and its construction is scheduled to begin in early 2023.

“The Tower Grove Connector serves as a key entryway from the south part of St. Louis across major highways and railroads,” said Taylor March, director of policy at Trailnet, a St. Louis nonprofit that advocates on behalf of bicyclists and pedestrians. “This is one of the only ways to get into the center of the city in a low-stress way.”

Wednesday’s gathering was held at the Piper Palm House in Tower Grove Park, where organizers collected feedback on the project design from residents and showed off renderings and planning documents.

The connector will narrow sidewalks and traffic lanes to provide separated bike lanes but will avoid removing parking spots where possible. Parking has been a concern among residents, March said. The design keeps 91% of parking on Tower Grove Avenue and 53% on Vandeventer Avenue.

Along with the separated bike lanes, the project will add bike traffic signals, various crosswalks, improved access to sidewalks for disabled people and the repaving of Tower Grove Avenue.

The connector path is already a popular route, March said.

“We did a study on bike routes and Tower Grove is the second-most popular in the entire city, second only to Forest Park,” he said. “And what we’ve seen in other cities is that when you add a protected cycle track, ridership increases.”

On-street bike lanes were added to Tower Grove Avenue in 2015, and bicycle traffic doubled following their addition, March said. He expects another similar increase when the connector is completed.

“What we’re trying to accomplish with the Tower Grove Connector and our other projects is to cater to people who don’t currently ride bikes or they currently aren’t comfortable on the bike lanes,” he said. “People who would be riding on sidewalks, if they’re riding at all.”

The project is estimated to cost $9 million, and about $5.6 million has already been funded through federal grants. The remaining money will come from the city and private donations.

The three aldermen whose wards the connector transects “have all committed some board capital funding, which is incredible. We’re really grateful for that,” said Sarah Arnosky, vice president of Greater St. Louis Inc.

A second phase of the connector has been proposed but not funded. That section would run from the intersection of Vandeventer Avenue and Sarah Street to the Cortex MetroLink station. That would connect Tower Grove Park with the larger Brickline Greenway project proposed by Great Rivers Greenway in 2017. Organizers intend to complete the extension through Sarah Street when money becomes available, Arnosky said.

March has led Trailnet’s efforts to receive community feedback on the connector and other projects. Trailnet’s 2018 bike route survey collected more than 4,000 responses to better plan where new routes should be placed, he said.

“It showed us that with a strategic investment of 12 miles of improved infrastructure, we can make St. Louis a great city for biking and connecting people to destinations they want to go,” he said.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Parts of St. Louis County were still without power Monday, more than two days since severe thunderstorms brought down trees, triggered flash flooding and led to the death of a 12-year-old girl.

Joe Kolk, of University City, lost power at 12:50 a.m. Saturday and was still without it on Monday afternoon. He and his family were cooking meals on their gas grill.

The Kolks were among 3,300 Ameren Missouri customers without power Monday. Overall, 60,000 customers lost power over the weekend. About 400 customers were still without power in Illinois.

“When I woke up (Saturday) and things weren’t working, I thought it was just one of those things,” Kolk said. “But when the light came up I saw the limbs in my back yard and a broken telephone pole.”

This isn’t his first experience with a storm-related outage — his family lost power for three days after a 2006 storm.

Kolk said he began to comprehend the damage from this storm when he walked to get breakfast Saturday. “It just got worse and worse and worse and worse,” he said. “I knew it would be a few days” before electricity returned.

The city of Kirkwood’s public utility had more than 3,000 residents without power after the storm, utility director Mark Petty said. Kirkwood crews worked around the clock to help reconnect residents, and reduced the number of residents without power to 225 by 9 p.m. Saturday.

“We had crews doing damage assessment, working 16-hour shifts,” he said.

Petty decided to stop attempting to reconnect power Saturday night and wait until morning because of the danger.

“It’s tough. Yards are wooded with varying grades and live wires,” he said. “You just have to be careful. Even experienced workers can be injured or even killed by live wires, especially when it’s dark.”

Kirkwood Electric had reconnected all but 25 residents by Sunday evening and nearly all others Monday.

Kirkwood and University City were among the areas that got the worst of the storm, county department of public works spokesman David Wrone said. There were 65 reports of downed trees in county roadways and 55 of those were in western areas of the county, he said.

Flash flooding near St. Louis Lambert International Airport contributed to the death of 12-year-old Aaleya Carter. The car she was in early Saturday was swept into a large concrete storm drain. She was pulled away as she attempted to exit the car. Her body was found by searchers hours later.

The St. Louis area was drenched in 3.31 inches of rain over the weekend, with wind gusts topping out at 70 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

For the Kolks in University City, they were just trying to find the silver lining.

“There are no devices, so the kids aren’t totally happy,” Kolk said. “But now they’re finally getting started on their summer reading, so there are some unexpected benefits.”

ST. LOUIS — One man was killed and two others were wounded Thursday in a shooting at O’Fallon Park in north St. Louis, police said.

Police received a call just before 2 p.m. for multiple shots fired in the 2000 block of Harris Avenue, on the southern edge of O’Fallon Park, and found the three men. One of the wounded men was conscious but in critical condition, and the other was in stable condition

St. Louis police chief John Hayden briefs the press at the scene where three people were shot along Harris Avenue near O’Fallon Park on Thursday, July 8, 2021. Video by David Carson

The victim in stable condition is believed to be a bystander, police Chief John Hayden said at the scene.

Police were still investigating and had few details about what may have led to the shooting. One of the victims was driving a vehicle when he was shot, Hayden said.

The chief said residents were surprised by the shooting, explaining that there is little violent crime in the O’Fallon Park area during the daytime.

Yolanda Nelson, 49, lives nearby and was in the park with a group of about 10 family members and friends when the shooting occurred.

“I couldn’t see what happened because when we heard the shots, we got down, we hid,” she said.

Nelson said a gunshot hit a tree near the group, only yards from where they were sitting in the park. She spends most of her free time at the park, she said, and is upset about the shooting.

“I’m pissed off that it’s here because these are our people, these dumb kids running around and shooting each other,” she said. “We’re out here every day, fishing and enjoying the weather, and these dumb (expletive) start shooting and putting everyone in danger. Thank god we are all OK,” Nelson said.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Park rangers in St. Louis County aren’t really law enforcement officers, Kevin Sears said.

Sears, a county ranger himself, kept repeating the claim recently as he wore a green ballistic vest and a uniform much like one worn by police.

Sears understands the similarity — he worked as a police officer for both the county and the city of St. Louis for 15 years before joining the rangers. But he was clear: Park rangers don’t chase down offenders or respond to violent crime, they talk to people.

The 40-year-old Sears became a ranger in 2019, a welcome change after working for years as a patrolman who scrambled from one call to another, always playing catch-up.

But he’s finding that this summer isn’t leaving him much opportunity to catch his breath, particularly with the arrival of the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Sears helps patrol more than 40 county parks with only a few other rangers who are contending with swarms of crowds looking to put pandemic-related restrictions behind them and beat the heat along county lakes and rivers.

A result of the crowded waterways was a deadly month of June in Missouri in which at least 17 people drowned or died in boating accidents, more than any previous June in the last decade. At least two of those deaths occurred in St. Louis County parks, where swimming is prohibited.

Public safety officials in the St. Louis region have expressed alarm over the rash of deaths, but Sears isn’t sure the warnings are helping.

“I could walk down the (Creve Coeur Lake) beach and clear it of swimmers, and when I’m done I could go back to the other end and start all over again because it’s filled up,” he said. “It’s not that these people don’t know they can’t swim. It’s that they don’t care about the rules.”

It’s more difficult for rangers to complete their patrols when parks are busy. The county parks department splits its ranger patrols into six areas: two each for the north, west and south sections of the county. There should be, in theory, at least six rangers on patrol at a time so one ranger can patrol each area, but Sears said that is often not the case. The county has 20 full-time rangers, often with only a handful working at a time.

“Today we have five rangers on patrol duty, but this is a good day,” Sears said. “A lot of the time it’s four or even three rangers on patrol, depending on what’s going on. I’ve even seen two rangers patrol the whole county a few times.”

There are far fewer St. Louis County rangers than there used to be. In its heyday, decades ago, the department had 50 rangers, a dozen horses and even a boat, Sears said. Now the group is smaller than the one working for the city of St. Louis. The city employs 25 rangers.

Tread carefully

Illegal swimming in county parks has increased dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic. As municipalities closed public pools, St. Louisans flocked to waterways like Creve Coeur Lake and the Meramec River at rates seldom seen. With pools opening again this summer, many don’t want to go back to them, not understanding the danger of rivers and lakes, public safety officials say.

“People go into the water expecting a nice little swim, but they can’t see what’s in that water,” Sears said. “There’s debris from flooding, pollution and currents that make it very, very dangerous to swim. Lots of people just don’t get it.”

It can take as much as a half hour for a ranger to travel between parks in any given area of the county. But when rangers are covering multiple areas at a time, that travel time can easily double and some parks can be missed, Sears said.

He tries to visit each of the parks on his patrol at least twice a day, but when the department is stretched thin, he may be forced to skip some parks entirely. And it doesn’t take much to pull rangers off patrol. It can be a scheduled event like the Faust Park concert series, training parks department personnel or teaching kids archery at a camp.

St. Louis County rangers respond to about 55 calls a week, but for the month of June they received about 300 calls. That’s nearly a third of the 978 calls rangers received in the first six months of the year.

A solution is more complex than just hiring more rangers, Sears said.

“People want rangers at every park all the time, and that’s just not possible, not with the manpower we have,” he said. “But even if we did have the manpower, 99% of the time it wouldn’t be worth it.”

To Sears, hiring more rangers to cover the busiest times just isn’t worth having too many the rest of the time, such as the colder months when the parks aren’t as busy.

A talk, not a ticket

Most of his days are spent in his assigned parks, talking to people. Instead of sitting in his patrol truck, he’ll walk trails, looking for fallen trees to report to park maintenance, or dead animals. On the sometimes lengthy drives between parks, he listens to the radio and podcasts about the paranormal, a far cry from his days as a police officer.

“It’s refreshing as a human being. Especially after years seeing homicides, child abuse, the worst ways we treat each other,” he said. “Seeing trees, nature, smiles on people’s faces, that’s why I do it.”

The worst cases he most often sees now are late-night drunken parties and loose dogs.

Because swimming is prohibited in St. Louis County parks, Sears can write tickets and a court summons for people who decide to take a dip. But his law enforcement experience taught him that the strategy often is not effective.

“I don’t think dropping a charge on you is going to help,” he said. “If I give a ticket, that’s 30 minutes writing a report. If I give out 50 tickets, that’s time I can’t spend talking to people, telling them that what they’re doing is dangerous.”

But people don’t often heed his warnings. A more effective message, he’s found, is telling swimmers about pollutants in the water around Creve Coeur Lake.

“I wouldn’t swim in there,” he said. “With the runoff from the surrounding farms to all the debris and other pollution from the flooding, I wouldn’t want to be in there at all. People tend to listen when I tell them that.”

Sears is only one of three county park rangers who has prior law enforcement experience. He’s not surprised and thinks it’s a good thing.

“Different jobs attract different kinds of people,” he said. “We’re not police, even though we look like it. Our job isn’t that interesting.”

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS — For years, Greg Hosp spent nights in his squad car on the lookout for drunken drivers.

“In my mind, DUI enforcement is the most important thing a patrol officer could do. It’s about potentially saving a life,” he said.

Hosp this week hit a milestone in his 25-year law enforcement career when he recorded his 700th DUI arrest. The mark comes in the same month that he was promoted to sergeant for the Fairview Heights police force.

For Hosp, though, number 700 was just the same as No. 1.

“I don’t care about how many DUI arrests I’ve made,” he said Wednesday. “What number I want is how many lives have been saved by getting impaired drivers off the street. That’s what matters to me.”

Hosp joined the Fairview Heights department in 2011, after a year in Centerville and 14 with the Caseyville force.

A lot has changed since he started patrolling in 1996. There’s fewer impaired drivers on the road now, he said, but some trends are troubling.

“Early in my career, you couldn’t throw a stone, unfortunately, without hitting an impaired driver,” he said. “Now, the type of impairment is changing. With the legalization of marijuana and the opioid epidemic, it’s not all drunk drivers anymore.”

There have been other changes that have helped bring down the number of people driving under the influence, he said.

“New services like Uber have seriously decreased DUI numbers. It’s still a problem but it’s nothing like it was back then,” Hosp said.

Police Lt. Wade Gummerseimer described his colleague as a “hard charger” and “true professional.”

“He acted as a mentor to younger officers and still does,” Gummerseimer said. “When he came in we were a department of a lot of younger officers. Even though he was new, as a veteran officer the young guys looked up to him.”

Hosp left Fairview Heights to work in the Metro East for the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2015, and returned this year. He also worked another stint with the DEA while in Caseyville. Hosp was only a few arrests short of 700 when he left Fairview Heights, something others kept an eye on.

“We all thought he would get 700 years ago,” Gummerseimer said. “I had a 700 pin in my drawer and when he came back I told him, ‘That pin has been waiting for six years. Go get it.’”

EUREKA — Crowds are flocking to Missouri’s waterways as summer heats up and people are no longer confined to their homes by the pandemic.

And that trend is too often turning deadly this year.

At least 10 people have drowned so far this month in Missouri and an additional six have died in boating accidents. That’s more than what was recorded in all of June 2019, the most recent year with comparable monthly data, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol. None of the 16 who have died this month was wearing a life jacket.

“We’ve had an alarming number of emergencies already this year,” said Greg Brown, chief of the Eureka Fire Protection District, who asked people taking to the water to use more caution.

So far this year, at least 39 people have either drowned or died in boating accidents across the state. At least seven were children.

The mounting deaths prompted Brown and other public safety officials to gather Monday at a Eureka fire station to give a primary message: Be smart in the water.

The news conference came after three people drowned in the St. Louis area in the last week: one in the Meramec River, one in the Big River and another at Creve Coeur Lake.

Eleven of the deaths this year have happened in the highway patrol’s Troop C, which includes Jefferson, Washington, Franklin and St. Louis counties. There were 12 water deaths in Troop C in all of 2020, said patrol Cpl. Juston Wheetley. There were 14 deaths in 2019 and 11 deaths in 2018, he said.

“With our guys on the waterways, we’re trying to promote safety,” Wheetley said. “What we’ve seen is a lot of risky behavior — alcohol is a major factor in this — as well as not wearing life jackets and people overestimating their swimming abilities.”

Officials with the St. Louis County Park Rangers, St. Louis County police, highway patrol and 20 fire and ambulance departments attended Monday’s gathering, packing the garage of the Eureka fire station.

Wheetley and other speakers emphasized the dangers of swimming in rivers.

“Rivers are relentless. They do not discriminate, they don’t care who you are,” he said.

More and more Missourians are flocking to the water as the temperature rises. St. Louis County’s parks, once quiet, are now frequent destinations for people looking to cool off, Park Ranger Sgt. Cheryl Fechter said.

“Typically we respond to very crowded parks, especially after COVID a lot of people found our out-of-the-way parks which weren’t terribly popular,” Fechter said. “With the closing of the pools last year, people started to come out to the rivers more.”

Sherman Beach Park, along the Meramec River east of Eureka, where a man drowned last week, is now 10 times more popular than it was before the pandemic, she said.

“Usually the parking lot, which only holds 11 cars, didn’t fill throughout the summer. Now we have been turning away hundreds of cars from this park in order to avoid overcrowding,” she said.

An eagerness to leave behind pandemic lockdowns and restrictions has led to an abundance of people on the water, Kirkwood fire Chief Jim Silvernail said.

“People are getting out. They’re taking chances now that they’re not locked inside with COVID and everything. There’s not a whole lot else to do in this area,” Silvernail said. “This is a recreation that really has no boundaries. We try to create boundaries but how do you lock people away from a river?”

Swimming is prohibited at St. Louis County park streams, ponds and lakes, and it can be dangerous, Fechter said.

“We like to tell people the rivers are not like a pool. It’s not clear, you can’t see the bottom and the current is always changing,” she said. “A river might be a couple inches deep and then the next foot it goes down to 10 to 15 feet deep.”

Fechter said there is no shoreline of any river in St. Louis County where she considers it safe to swim. For those who choose to swim in rivers despite the risk, interim Fenton fire Chief Ramona Kaminski recommends life jackets, even for adults who consider themselves strong swimmers.

“Just like CPR, car seats and seat belts, life jackets save lives,” she said. “When you’re getting ready for an activity on the water, life jackets should be just as important as sunscreen.”

The speakers emphasized the necessity of life jackets and awareness because by the time a rescue team arrives on a scene, it’s often too late. None of the departments at the news conference has successfully rescued anyone from drowning this summer.

“We would love it if we had more rescues, but timing being what it is, it’s less likely to happen,” said Mike Krause, chief of the Metro West Fire Protection District. “There are some cases in cold water where you can rescue someone and they’d be a viable patient maybe, but in most cases, especially this time of year, the responses we have are often recoveries.”

He said rivers in the region can look peaceful, but they’re deceiving.

“A drowning person is not like in Hollywood, splashing and yelling for help,” Krause said. “The reality is that drowning in its last moments is a very silent event because your body needs to breathe, so you have no time to yell.”

EDWARDSVILLE — The Madison County Board on Wednesday approved $163,000 in funding for new cybersecurity software in an effort to combat potential ransomware attacks.

Ransomware, which hackers use to gain access to private data belonging to a company or government and threaten to release it unless a ransom is paid, is an increasingly common digital crime.

Such attacks gained national attention in May, when Colonial Pipeline‘s data was held for ransom and the company shuttered operations, causing gas prices to rise on the East Coast. Colonial paid those hackers approximately $5 million in ransom, some of which has been recovered by federal investigators.

Locally, separate ransomware attacks have hit the governments of Alton, Berkeley and St. Clair County so far this year. Each government website was shut down for days as cybersecurity experts attempted to secure them. It is unclear if any of the local governments paid a ransom. School districts are also common targets — an attack forced the closure of Affton School District in February.

Madison County will enter into contracts for multifactor authentication software and cybersecurity monitoring software.

The multifactor authentication, a service from Cisco Duo, forces users to confirm logins to websites using a second confirmation like a text or phone call. Arctic Wolf software will monitor the county’s web systems for cybersecurity threats so they can respond quickly before harm is done.

Madison County will pay for the cybersecurity services using federal funding it received through the American Rescue Plan Act. It’s the first time the county has tapped its $51 million in relief funding. Cybersecurity was already a priority when federal funding became available, board Chairman Kurt Prenzler said.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Sherman Beach Park is a favorite hangout for local high school students in southwest St. Louis County. Its railroad bridge over the Meramec River also acts as one of the county’s most dangerous, and illegal, diving boards.

On Wednesday, search and rescue crews recovered the body of a man believed to have jumped off the bridge, east of Eureka, Tuesday evening. A witness told authorities that the man, Tarence L. Johnson, was swimming in the river with friends and surfaced after jumping off the bridge, but was then lost underwater.

Johnson, 34, lived in Logan County, Illinois, about 150 miles north of St. Louis.

Johnson’s death was the 11th water-related fatality statewide in the first two weeks of June, more than the entirety of June 2019, the most recent comparable data available. Six of those deaths come from the Missouri Highway Patrol’s Troop C, which includes St. Louis and surrounding counties. At least six of the deaths are classified as swimmers who drowned, including Monica Boyer, 67, of Cadet, Missouri, who slipped while wading in the Big River at Washington State Park on Tuesday.

“This has been a difficult week for us with the incidents that we’ve had,” said St. Louis County Parks Ranger Sgt. Cheryl Fechter. “I would say last year we got really lucky that we really didn’t have much in the way of incidents.”

Highway Patrol did not have 2020 data immediately available, but in June 2018, there was one fatal boating crash and nine drownings. In June 2017, there were three fatal boating crashes and nine drownings. And in June 2016, there were two fatal boating crashes and nine drownings.

Search and rescue crews converged on Sherman Beach Park on Tuesday night in an effort to find Johnson’s body. The Highway Patrol closed the entrances to the park and the park’s public trails when the search began.

Early Wednesday, Highway Patrol announced it believed a search team had found Johnson, using sonar. Highway Patrol and West Metro Fire Protection District search crews were both at the scene.

Johnson’s family, which declined comment, waited outside the police line all day Wednesday for news. About 3:30 p.m., Highway Patrol officers led the family down to the riverside.

Locals say that jumping off the railroad bridge is recreation for daring teens, sometimes emboldened by alcohol. The bridge is actively used by the Missouri Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads, adding to the danger. Water depths vary throughout the river and depending on the weather, meaning landing in the wrong part of the river, or at the wrong time, may mean a broken arm, or worse.

Andrew Messina works at the nearby Sunny Street Cafe in Wildwood. He graduated from Marquette High School in Clarkson Valley earlier this year, and he knows multiple people from Marquette who have jumped off the bridge. But he said he wouldn’t risk it himself. Messina and his friends are content with hanging by the shores of the river on the beach.

“I’m not surprised that someone died jumping off that bridge,” he said. “It’s so dangerous.”

Bob Loeffel, 72, lives next door to the park, and has for his entire life, only moving from the unincorporated St. Louis County neighborhood while serving in the Vietnam War.

He said young people pack the park on the weekends, filling nearby streets.

“I remember early last summer, something like 100 cars lined all the streets around here,” he said.

That day, a boy broke his shoulder after jumping off the bridge, Loeffel said. “When the ambulance came to get the kid, it had to back all the way out because it couldn’t turn around,” he said.

Fechter, the parks department spokesperson, said the park has been 10 times more popular this summer than in previous years. “We’ve had days where we have to turn away 100 cars because of overcrowding,” she said. She said the parking lot holds just 11 cars.

Loeffel blames the hot weather and the recent start of summer break for teens. The park closes at just after sunset and parking is now prohibited on nearby roads, but that hasn’t helped much, he said.

“If kids want to go somewhere, you can’t stop them,” he said.

Swimming is prohibited in St. Louis County Parks streams, ponds and lakes, and is very dangerous, Fechter said.

“We like to tell people the rivers are not like a pool. It’s not clear, you can’t see the bottom, and the current is always changing,” she said. “A river might be a couple inches deep and then the next foot it goes down to 10-15 feet deep.”

Debris in rivers is also a serious safety concern, Fechter said, especially after flooding.

“We never know what’s under there,” she said. “It could be refrigerators, huge things that we can’t see under the water. You can hit rocks, parts of the bridge structure, it’s just so unpredictable.”

Fechter said there is no shoreline of any river in St. Louis County where she considers it safe to swim.

ST. LOUIS — A corrections officer opened a jail cell at the City Justice Center to allow two men to beat a fellow inmate in March, according to surveillance video released this week and earlier police records.

Corrections officer Demeria Thomas, 38, opened the cell door apparently at the request of the two inmates, a St. Louis police incident report said. In the video, Thomas can be seen watching the beating and then breaking it up shortly after it began.

Other inmates walked toward the cell and Thomas can be heard telling them not to approach.

The attack occurred March 22 and Thomas was charged four days later with third-degree assault. The two inmates, Antonio Holt, 39, and Kevin Moore, 39, were also charged with third-degree assault.

Holt was being held on a 2020 robbery charge. Moore was jailed on robbery charges filed in 2019.

Thomas did not report the assault or allow the victim to receive medical attention, according to the incident report. The victim’s injuries were discovered two days later by another corrections officer. He was then transported to a hospital and treated for a broken jaw and concussion, the incident report said.

Thomas’ lawyer, Terry Niehoff, told the Post-Dispatch in March that Thomas did not watch the assault and said she broke it up as soon as she realized what was happening.

The victim’s lawyer, Mark Pedroli, said he was disturbed by the incident.

“There can be no bigger breach of trust between government and citizenry than when agents of the government, entrusted with your care, conspire to assault, commit battery and deliberately deprive you of your constitutional rights,” he said Tuesday.

The incident occurred in the section of the justice center designated for inmates with mental health needs.

ST. LOUIS — Immediately after Ruben Sanchez Fuentes was naturalized Monday as a U.S. citizen, he did what many other Americans do and stepped into a line to wait.

The line formed at the visitors center at the Gateway Arch to fill out a registration card allowing Fuentes and others to vote.

Fuentes works as an IT consultant and moved to the U.S. 11 years ago from Spain to be with his now-wife, a U.S. citizen and St. Louis resident.

“I met her on a trip through some common friends and we started traveling back and forth between Spain and St. Louis,” Fuentes said. “One day we decided that we wanted to share our lives, so somebody needed to move. I spoke English and could work here, so it was me.”

Fuentes was one of 30 people from 18 countries who became citizens after swearing an oath delivered by U.S. District Judge Noelle C. Collins.

“I was dragging my feet for a long time, there’s a lot of paperwork involved,” Fuentes said. “I finally did it because I wanted to be a part of the community and one country. I want to vote as well, be a part of the whole thing.”

The U.S. saw a sharp decline in the number of people who became naturalized citizens during the COVID-19 outbreak, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. There were 625,400 people who were naturalized nationally in 2020, the lowest number since 2010 and lower than the 16-year annual average of 730,000.

St. Louis Community College student Khady Diane is an accounting major and moved to the U.S. seven years ago from the West African country of Côte d’Ivoire, also known as the Ivory Coast. COVID-19 didn’t deter her from petitioning for citizenship, but did make the process more arduous.

“It took forever for the interview to get in, due to social distancing and everything,” Diane said.

The group of 30 sat with their families and friends in the Arch visitors center Monday to listen to the ceremony, which included remarks by U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-St. Louis.

“I know that many of you have waited years, or even decades, for this day to come. I know it has not been easy getting here,” Bush said. “At times you may have felt lonely, stressed. You may have felt chronic stress, exhaustion, anxiety, anguish. But you made it.”

Two children pulled on Sireesha Yalamanchili’s sleeves as she stood among the chairs with her husband after taking the oath. Yalamanchili’s smile stretched wide as she tried to settle her two boys, who were eager to leave. The couple came from India a decade ago on a work visa and decided they wanted to stay.

In this week’s Chat Room, Post-Dispatch columnists Tony Messenger and Aisha Sultan discuss the need to attract more immigrants to St. Louis.

While Yalamanchili loves India, she said the peace and orderly nature of the U.S. is a benefit to her kids. She hopes that her citizenship will open the door to new business opportunities, and she looks forward to “making this place home.”

There were 47,900 Indian people who immigrated to the U.S. in 2020, the second highest number by country. Mexico made up the largest share at 82,700 immigrants, followed by the Philippines (33,100), Cuba (31,000) and China (23,000).

Those who were naturalized Monday included people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Peru, Bhutan and the United Kingdom.

Tarona Armstrong, the acting superintendent of Gateway Arch National Park, gave opening remarks at the ceremony, the first time she has done so.

“I was so overjoyed and got teary-eyed,” Armstrong said. “Looking out into the crowd, 30 new faces that will be a part of our country, that will add to our great country. They are bringing who they are from their native homes to their new home.”

Armstrong was “ecstatic” to make a connection with those receiving citizenship and said appreciation of diversity and inclusion is central to her job with the National Park Service.

Bush said the new citizens will play an essential role in the region.

“I know that this is a tremendous group of people we have here. Thirty people from all of these countries have the ability and the heart to help move us forward,” she said. “We need your experience. We need your ideas. We need your community. We need you.”

ST. LOUIS COUNTY — St. Louis Lambert International Airport announced Thursday that three airlines, including a new carrier, will add routes later this year.

American Airlines will fly to Austin, Texas; Southwest Airlines to Puerto Rico; and new carrier Boutique Air will service Tennessee.

Five airlines have added or announced 14 new routes from Lambert in the last month. Two of those airlines are new to Lambert. That signals optimism from airlines about summer travel post-coronavirus, Lambert Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge said.

“The thing that’s really encouraging about it is they’re responding very much to the markets that are leisure-driven,” she said. “That’s clearly a response to the pent-up demand as a result of COVID and people just wanting to get back and do things again.”

In May, United Airlines and new carrier Spirit announced new routes as well. Many of the airlines cited increased demand from St. Louis travelers as the reason for their expansion plans.

“We’ve seen new demand all around,” Hamm-Niebruegge said. “We’re seeing people that normally might travel for vacation once or twice a year travel more. The pent-up demand for leisure, I think, is actually stronger than it was in 2019.”

Hamm-Niebruegge noted that 2019 was Lambert’s strongest year in the last 15 years for travel.

American will operate daily direct flights to Austin, beginning in September, with additional flights starting Oct. 7. Southwest Airlines will start weekly flights to San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Nov. 13.

Most of the new routes are to vacation destinations — among them San Juan, Puerto Rico, Hilton Head, South Carolina, and Orlando, Florida — but Hamm-Niebruegge said business travel is also slowly recovering, which is the core of the airport’s customer base.

“It’s going to recover and it’s going to take a little longer,” she said. “I flew out this week for business and the airplane I was on was 100% full, both coming and going. Every day, we see more and more of the business travel coming back, but it’s certainly a piece of the pie that’s not 100% yet.”

New carrier Boutique Air will fly daily to Jackson, Tennessee, a large town between Memphis and Nashville in West Tennessee. Passengers can also connect to Atlanta through Jackson.

Boutique Air uses small Pilatus PC12 aircraft with only eight seats for passengers. The small planes allow passengers to “truly experience flying private for the cost of commercial,” a Boutique spokesman said.

Boutique becomes the 14th airline to fly out of Lambert after Spirit began operations last month.

The increased interest from airlines and travelers alike paints a good picture for the future of Lambert, which is owned by the city of St. Louis, Hamm-Niebruegge said. Airport privatization has been a political topic for years, and Lambert has been saddled with significant debt.

“We have proven in recent years our ability to manage through crisis and to get where we were a few years ago as a very high-cost airport to a very competitive-cost airport,” she said. “Our debt continues to go down, and in upcoming years we will have significant reductions.”

Hamm-Niebruegge was especially encouraged by American Airlines’ expansion, because its new flights to Austin, Texas, and Boston, announced in April, show that it views Lambert as a bigger player, she said.

“We actually this summer have more destinations now than we did in 2019,” she said.

EDWARDSVILLE — Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Haine said Thursday that the Cross-River Crime Task Force, first announced in April, will begin law enforcement efforts this month.

At a news conference, Haine was short on specifics as he offered an outline of task force operations and intentions in the coming months.

Law enforcement officers will use license plate reader technology to find and track suspects and criminals with active warrants in Madison County.

“It is the mission of the Cross-River Crime Task Force to use joint county-wide operations to reduce crime flows into and through Madison County,” the group’s charter says.

“It’s a tragedy that St. Louis, which is a wonderful city, is undergoing a historic crime wave,” Haine said. “Madison County is doing whatever it can to make sure that criminals do not cause problems in Madison County and in order to prevent that crime wave from sweeping into our community.”

It’s not clear where the license plate readers will be placed in the county, such as along Interstates 64 and 255 leading from St. Louis.

The task force has over a dozen members made up of law enforcement leaders from the county. Haine and Madison County Sheriff John Lakin will select a commander for the task force in the coming weeks, Haine said.

He did not go into detail on what specifically the task force will do to deter criminal behavior by those who come into the county, noting that the task force commander will conduct the group’s day-to-day operations. He noted that the task force envisions “monthly, proactive patrols” of the county using the license plate reader technology.

He said the license plate readers are not the same as a red light camera, and will not be used to ticket traffic violations. Privacy is a high priority, he said.

The task force has not contacted law enforcement agencies in Missouri, including St. Louis and St. Louis County police, but Haine is open to collaborating in the future.

“We were elected by Madison County citizens so we can do exactly nothing about crime in St. Louis, sadly. That’s St. Louis’ issue,” Haine said. “All we can do is respond to the needs of the citizens of Madison County. So we’re getting our communities coordinated and able to operate in a proactive way and in an aggressive, fair way. If coordination with St. Louis authorities proves to be helpful in that effort, we envision that occurring in the future.”

When asked about the task force and its focus on criminal behavior by those from Missouri, a spokeswoman for the St. Louis circuit attorney’s office said in a statement only that the “CAO is not involved” in the task force efforts.

Haine said the task force differentiates itself from normal police activity because of its structure.

“It’s different in the sense that it’s unified and it’s proactive across the entire county,” he said. “We hope to learn lessens every month or so when we do these kinds of patrols and get better and better.”

ST. LOUIS — During his 38 years with St. Louis police, Capt. David Dorn was known for putting in extra effort: He volunteered for difficult calls and wasn’t afraid to chase down a suspect on foot. That’s one reason why he and his partner led all other officers in arrests in the early 1980s, former colleagues said.

Dorn was remembered by a crowd of nearly 100 people on Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of his death, as part of a ceremony at the World’s Fair Pavilion in Forest Park.

“To know David Dorn was to know what real help looked like, helping a neighbor, helping a friend, or helping a younger officer on the force,” Ethical Society of Police President Sgt. Donnell Walters said. “When you are helping somebody, you are truly doing Capt. Dorn justice.”

The Ethical Society of Police hosted a memorial luncheon for retired police Capt. David Dorn at the World's Fair Pavilion in Forest Park on Wednesday, June 2, 2021. Dorn was killed by looters one year ago when he went to check an alarm at a pawn shop.

Dorn was a member of the ethical society, which hosted the ceremony and is an organization that lobbies for racial equity in the St. Louis and St. Louis County police departments.

Dorn, 77, was fatally shot while attempting to stop the looting of a pawn shop in the 4100 block of Martin Luther King Drive in The Ville neighborhood on June 2, 2020, following protests related to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Two men were arrested and charged with Dorn’s murder, both are awaiting trial. Two other men were charged with robbery related to looting the shop.

Dorn worked for the St. Louis police department from 1969 until his retirement in 2007. He was later the Moline Acres police chief for six years.

Dorn’s death drew the national spotlight when a day later President Donald Trump tweeted about it.

“Our highest respect to the family of David Dorn, a Great Police Captain from St. Louis, who was viciously shot and killed by despicable looters last night. We honor our police officers, perhaps more than ever before. Thank you!” Trump tweeted.

His widow, St. Louis police Sgt. Ann Dorn, spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention where she condemned the Black Lives Matter movement. Two of David Dorn’s daughters later criticized her, saying she politicized their father’s death.

“(David) has always been a huge police supporter,” Dorn said Wednesday prior to the start of the ceremony, in response to a reporter’s question. “He did not believe in what Black Lives Matter stood for and he was a big supporter of We Back the Blue.”

Several spoke at the event, including St. Louis police Chief John Hayden, former O’Fallon police Chief Roy Joachimsthaler and St. Louis public safety Director Daniel Isom. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones was also in attendance.

They shared stories of Dorn throughout his career, from when he crashed his patrol car not long after he joined the force to his time as a respected captain who many saw as a father figure and role model.

“Dave taught me and always insisted that his officers apprehended people and that we showed them dignity while being arrested,” said retired Lt. Col. Reggie Harris, who served under Dorn early in his career. Harris and Joachimsthaler later joked about using nightsticks on those who didn’t comply with police orders and resisted arrest, which drew a laugh from the crowd.

Many in the department modeled themselves after Dorn, adopting the same polished look and chrome-plated .357 Magnum handgun to emulate him, Harris said. He was known for his dedication to law enforcement, both while on the job and while working secondary security work, common for police officers.

“The first I heard of Capt. Dorn was this pursuit outside of Famous (-Barr) after a burglary suspect,” Isom said. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘This is a lieutenant, a sergeant, who is chasing someone on secondary?’ Secondary is a job where you want to make a little extra cash and relax, but that wasn’t David Dorn. He was a protector, he was a police officer. And no matter whether he was on duty or off duty, as we know, it was his job and his oath to protect people.”

Joachimsthaler later remarked that the burglary suspect had apparently stolen only a pair of sunglasses.

The section of Martin Luther King Drive in front of Lee’s Pawn and Jewelry, where Dorn was killed, will be named in his honor. A section of Interstate 70 will also be renamed the Capt. David Dorn Memorial Highway. State Sen. Steven Roberts Jr. and state Rep. Shamed Dogan sponsored the legislation to rename the roadways and were in attendance to present the new signs.

“He was a mentor and an encouragement to his subordinates, his peers and even his superiors. On a personal note, Capt. Dorn was a person who younger African American officers looked up to and emulated,” Chief Hayden said. “Although he retired from our department some 13 years prior, he remained a police officer, in action and in heart, until the very end.”

ST. LOUIS COUNTY — The first Spirit Airlines flight out of St. Louis Lambert International Airport departed for Los Angeles a few minutes after its 10:55 a.m. scheduled time on Thursday.

Spirit will be running nonstop flights from St. Louis to nine destinations. Service started Thursday to Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, Florida. Flights to Pensacola, Florida, will start June 10.

Flights to the four other destinations will begin later this year: Phoenix, plus Fort Myers and Tampa, Florida, starting Nov. 17; and Cancun, Mexico, beginning Dec. 22.

The arrival of Spirit Airlines to Lambert is good news for the airport, which struggled during the coronavirus pandemic but was on the upswing before the virus hit. Spirit’s arrival will bring jobs in gate staff and likely others.

“This is one of the strongest publicly owned assets in the region,” Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said on Thursday. “This has been a really rough year for everybody in our airport. This is definitely one of the many signals we’ll see as we go into recovery.”

The airline hopes to expand to even more destinations next year, said Lania Rittenhouse, Spirit vice president of guest experience and brand.

“Our goal is to make a significant investment and be there long term,” she said. “We want to grow with the community. We want to grow with the airport. We want to provide amazing destinations for your community members to travel to.”

Spirit is currently assigned one gate, C30, the last in Terminal 1. But Rittenhouse said Spirit is selling more tickets than it expected, and the airline hopes to add gates. Flights leaving Lambert are between 85% and 97% full, which is high for a new location, she said.

Spirit pitches itself as a budget airline — its stock exchange ticker is SAVE — and spokesman Erik Hofmeyer said low prices could attract new travelers.

“We are a demand-generating airline. People see $30, $50 tickets and want to go travel,” he said.

That may also bring down prices of competing airlines in Lambert, something Hofmeyer calls the “Spirit effect.”

Still, Kynadi Hyde, a 19-year-old Florissant resident departing Lambert on Thursday for a Los Angeles fashion internship, warned of hidden costs.

“The bag fees really caught me up,” she said.

Hyde had to pay a $55 fee for her carry-on bag, and another $55 when she discovered her bag was 6 pounds overweight, she said — doubling the cost of her original $111 ticket.

Spirit’s first arrival to St. Louis came in an hour before its first departure. An Airbus A319 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was piloted by St. Louis native Larry Daniels, who was picked specifically for the flight. The veteran pilot, who has flown since 1983 and has been with Spirit since 1998, was never able to fly into his hometown with the airline before Thursday.

“A lot of things had to be aligned in the right way so I could do this,” he said, wearing a Cardinals mask. “My boss had to pull some strings to make it happen.”

Passengers were not told that their flight was special, so some departing passengers were shocked when they were greeted with roaring applause from Lambert’s new Spirit employees, and others.

Spirit handed out branded sunglasses, hand sanitizer, water bottles and cookies to passengers on the arriving and departing flights.

ST. LOUIS — St. Louis-area health departments are bringing COVID-19 vaccines to churches, libraries and farmers markets in the hopes of reaching residents who are not yet immunized.

In the first few months of the year, mass vaccination events in convention centers and gymnasiums regularly drew thousands of people, many driving from hours away. Now, demand at many of the large-scale sites has slowed, and health officials say they are focusing more on targeted, smaller events.

Steve Montgomery, 41, was vaccinated Wednesday at the Lewis & Clark Library in Moline Acres, the first in a series of clinics planned at St. Louis County library branches over the summer.

Montgomery said he has been worried about COVID-19 because he has multiple sclerosis. He said he doesn’t mind wearing a mask, but never wanted to risk getting sick. He’s tried to get a COVID-19 vaccine for weeks.

“I wanted one when (my caretaker) got one, but it wasn’t available to me yet,” Montgomery said. “And I wasn’t sure how it would react to the MS drug I am on. I got the OK from my doctor today so we went looking for a vaccine site.”

Health officials say many of the most eager residents — and those with the ability to sign up online, take time off work and drive to regional clinics — have been vaccinated.

“The age of the mass vaccination event is pretty much over,” said Christopher Ave, spokesman for the St. Louis County health department. “It’s not enough to just throw out some vaccine in a huge space and tell people to come. We need to bring the vaccine to neighborhoods, to areas where people can get it quickly and easily.”

As of Wednesday, 41.2% of Missourians had received at least one dose of vaccine, and 34.1% were fully vaccinated, according to state data.

Smaller clinics are more resource-intensive, said Sara Evers, acting director of the St. Charles County health department. But they also allow for more one-on-one time between patients and staff, and can be less intimidating for patients than the mass events.

Evers said the county planned to administer around 275 second doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday at the Family Arena — a site that, in the past, offered thousands of doses per day. The health department has planned a series of clinics, including at the YMCA in St. Peters, the Beale Street Market at the Streets of St. Charles, and St. Charles Borromeo Church near the St. Charles Historic District.

The Jefferson County Health Department has also shifted toward smaller events, and has been using mobile vans to bring vaccines to food pantries and businesses. Those events typically see 20 to 100 doses administered, compared with the larger, 1,500-dose events the county ran earlier in the year.

“It’s still 20 to 50 to 100 people that weren’t vaccinated before,” said health department spokeswoman Brianne Zwiener.

At the library in Moline Acres on Wednesday, 25 people were lined up to get vaccines as the event started.

Kristen Sorth, director of St. Louis County Libraries, said there are branches in many county neighborhoods with low vaccination rates.

“I think it just makes sense to continue to offer these, because they’re convenient, and people can check out books and use the computers while they’re here as well,” Sorth said.

Plus, the program takes advantage of the library’s established role in the community.

“We know that this is a trusted space in the community and it’s really convenient. When we started talking with the public health department we knew it was a win-win for the community and we really just pulled it together really quickly,” Sorth said. “We’ve got a great meeting room, we’re back open to the public and we pulled it together in like a week.”

Organizers brought other attractions to encourage vaccinations, including a DJ and the St. Louis Metro Market, which visits the library every week. The Metro Market is a nonprofit, mobile market run out of a retrofitted city bus and sells fresh produce in areas with little easy access to grocery stores.

“Getting the vaccine wasn’t as bad as I thought. I didn’t even feel it,” said 19-year-old Willeyia Ingram. “I was excited because I want to go around my older family members, and they’re more susceptible. So I wanted to make sure I was vaccinated to keep everyone safe.”

There will be a second library vaccination event Wednesday at the grand opening of the Eureka Hills Branch library. The vaccine site will be open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 500 Workman Road in Eureka, in west St. Louis County.