“We rented this old house at first,” Gram said, “then the old coot, I forget his name, came by for the rent one day. ...”
“We rented this old house at first,” Gram said, “then the old coot, I forget his name, came by for the rent one day. He lived way off over in Osage County somewhere. When we paid him the rent, he said, ‘why don’t you all just buy this old place?’ We ain’t never owned nothin’ our whole life, but for 20 dollars a month, we owned this house right here.” “We are now receiving reports that there is six to eight inches of water going over the dam on the lower Piankashaw. Logan Creek is starting to flood and evacuations are underway. We are forecasting that the Piankashaw River will crest at twenty feet at Highway K. The flood stage is eight feet and the record is nineteen feet. Circle Drive in Pine Bluff is starting to flood and a flash flood warning for Piankashaw County has been issued.” “For those of you who are just tuning in the Piankashaw Dam failed at 5:32am this morning. Within fifteen minutes, a Missouri Department of Transportation engineer was on site. Currently, N highway and K highway are shut down so that the road department can clear the mud and debris left on the road after the flood waters rush through. A team of investigators from American Electric and government agencies are currently assessing the situation. So far, no official word is available on that, but Thomas Rice, a spokesman for American Electric, stressed there was no evidence of equipment failure or foul play. It was just last year that the company repaired the liner in the upper reservoir to stop leaks, but Rice says there is no information yet as to whether that had something to do with the breach.” “Senator Moses, on his way to Jefferson City this morning, said he would be meeting with the governor concerning the dam breakage.” “We are still evaluating the situation at this point” Moses said, “I was on the phone with the Governor just after the dam broke, and he said the Missouri State Department of Transportation and various other governmental agencies would be responding to the crisis. Before we respond in any other way, we need Piankashaw County to tell us what they need.” Senator Moses was doing everything he could to appear competent. Ever since I left the Piankashaw Valley, I carried a subscription to The Piankashaw Journal – our weekly newspaper. We have been plagued by political corruption for the last several years. It all got started when the newspaper broke the story that the Mayor of Piankashaw Valley had been using city workers to maintain his yard and plow up his garden. Everyone thought that was a scandal until they found out that The Presiding County Commissioner was working for a hospital management company and that same company got the contract to administer our county hospital. Our State Representative, Brad Thomlinson, did him one better by running over David Marler on New Year’s Eve.