Serving the Steuben County 101 lakes area since 1857
Siblings keep tabs on one another living in same senior complex Page A2
Weather Chance of snow with bitter cold. Highs and lows expected below zero. Page A6 MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 2014
Angola, Indiana
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Country bracing for deep freeze
GOOD MORNING Weather forces Cameron to close certain services ANGOLA — Cameron Memorial Community Hospital announces the following changes due to the winter storm occurring in the tri-state area. • Urgent Care Center closed at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday and will remain closed today. The center tentatively plans to reopen on Tuesday. • The Cameron Counseling Center will be closed today. • The Cameron Rehab Center will be closed Monday. • All surgeries scheduled for Monday at Cameron Hospital are canceled. • The new employee orientation scheduled for today is canceled and will be rescheduled. “Decisions are being made to protect the safety of Cameron patients and staff during this weather emergency,” said Michelle Walter, Cameron Senior Nursing Director. “Patients currently in the facility are being well care for by an adequate number of well-trained staff.” For more information, call 665-2141.
General Assembly opening postponed INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana General Assembly has decided to postpone the opening of its 2014 session because of bad weather. The Indiana House and Senate were scheduled to being the legislative session on Monday but have decided to postpone that because of expected extreme low temperatures and snow. The National Weather Service is predicting heavy snow Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis with 6 inches or more of snow expected by Sunday night. The weather service also is predicting temperatures in the Indianapolis area to hit a high of about 11 below today.
CHAD KLINE
Heavy snow falls Sunday afternoon as a couple walk near downtown Kendallville.
Snow chokes area Counties declare ‘Red’ emergencies in 4-counties FROM STAFF REPORTS
Across northeast Indiana, activity ground to a slow crawl if not a complete halt due to about a foot of snow that fell Sunday. LaGrange, DeKalb, Steuben and Noble counties issued Red Level 1 travel warning emergency declarations, meaning that travel there was restricted to emergency management personnel only, taking effect Sunday. LaGrange County’s was issued at 4:38 p.m. Sunday, Steuben’s at 6:10 p.m., DeKalb’s at 6:43 p.m., and Noble’s at 7:02 p.m., the Indiana Department of Homeland Security’s website said. Mayor Tonya Hoeffel announced the city of Garrett was placed under a Level 1 snow emergency effective 7 p.m. Sunday night until further notice. Travel is restricted to emergency vehicles only. Kendallville
declared a Level 1 emergency after 8 p.m. Sunday. The Noble and Steuben county Level 1 emergencies are effective until noon today. DeKalb’s, LaGrange’s, Kendallville’s and Garrett’s were indefinite as of Sunday at 7:30 p.m. The cities of Ligonier declared an Orange Level 2 watch emergency, as of 6 p.m. Sunday. Under an Orange level travel watch emergency, only necessary travel is recommended. A watch emergency recommends people should travel only in such cases as emergencies or to get to and from work. Travel in Noble County was extremely hazardous, said Noble County Emergency Management Agency executive director Michael Newton, adding, “It’s treacherous out there.” Noble County Highway Depart-
ment crews had labored to keep roads open all day, but were unable to keep up with the falling and blowing snow, Newton said. “Every report is, the roads are just getting worse,” he said. The county ordered road crews to stop for a few hours of sleep Sunday evening and expected to have them back on the roads by 4-5 a.m. today, Newton said. The situation was similar in DeKalb County, where highway superintendent Eric Patton was driving a snowplow on C.R. 427 just after 5 p.m. Sunday, before the red warning emergency was declared. He described the road’s condition as “not too bad,” but added, “In another hour, it’ll be closed if the wind keeps up like it is.” Patton said the wind picked up SEE WEATHER, PAGE A6
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Index • Classified.............................................. B7-B8 Life.................................................................A5 Obituaries.....................................................A4 Opinion ........................................................B4 Sports.................................................... B1-B3 Weather........................................................A6 TV/Comics ..................................................B6 Vol. 157 No. 5
CHICAGO (AP) — Snow-covered roads and high winds created treacherous driving Sunday from the Dakotas to Michigan and Missouri as residents braced for the next round of bad weather: dangerously cold temperatures that could break records across much of the nation. Temperatures were being suppressed by a “polar vortex,” a counterclockwise-rotating pool of cold, dense air that will affect more than half of the continental U.S. throughout Sunday and into Monday and Tuesday, with wind chill warnings stretching from Montana to Alabama. The forecast is extreme: 25 below zero in Fargo, N.D., minus 31 in International Falls, Minn., and 15 below in Indianapolis and Chicago. Wind chills — what it feels like outside when high winds are factored into the temperature — could drop into the negative 50s and 60s. Northeastern Montana was warned Sunday of wind chills up to 59 below zero. “It’s just a dangerous cold,” National Weather Service meteorologist Butch Dye in Missouri said. Several Midwestern states were walloped by up to a foot of new snow on Sunday. Five to 9 inches fell in the Chicago area by Sunday afternoon, while the St. Louis area had about a foot of snow and northern Indiana had at least 8 inches. Central Illinois was bracing for 8 to 10 inches, and southern Michigan could see up to 15 inches. Officials closed several Illinois SEE FREEZE, PAGE A6
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PATRICK REDMOND
Viola Brodbeck, an 89-year-old client at The Arc of LaGrange County, works some small devices designed to keep her fingers nimble and her
mind sharp. Brodbeck has been with program since the mid-1980s and has not missed a single day of “work.”
Keeping on the go Woman, 89, stays active through Arc of LaGrange BY PATRICK REDMOND predmond@kpcmedia.com
LAGRANGE — No one at The Arc of LaGrange County can remember a day when 89-year-old Viola Brodbeck, an Arc client, didn’t make it in to “work.” Sitting at a classroom table, working to thread nuts to a set of bolts — an exercise designed to keep the woman’s fingers nimble while at the same time, stimulating her mind — Viola has a simple answer to the question of why she never takes a day off. “I like to work,” she said, continuing her task, barely looking away as she answers. Technically, Viola is retired, and has been ever since she first arrived at Arc of LaGrange in
NEIGHBORS LAGRANGE COUNTY
1985. Arc is a LaGrange County institution, a part of the local landscape since 1966. According to CEO Deb Seman, The Arc of LaGrange County’s mission is “to protect and support individuals with disabilities and to develop their potential within our unique community.” Viola has a mild disability, explained Seman, and her speech is a little difficult to understand for anyone who doesn’t know her. But that does nothing to tarnish her
Learn more about Viola See Viola Brodbeck at work and learn more about her in video at kpcnews.com. Scan the QR code to watch it on your tablet or smartphone.
remarkable work ethic or to slow down her drive to remain busy. According to Sue Hankinson, one of Viola’s supervisors at Arc as well as a longtime friend and supporter, Viola is always on the go. SEE VIOLA, PAGE A6
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Increasingly inside the Statehouse, “short session” is no longer a term to be confused with an inconsequential gathering of the state’s lawmakers. When lawmakers return for the start of 2014’s “short session” this week, they are set to take up two high-profile measures — one to write the state’s gay marriage ban into the constitution and another that would eliminate the personal property tax paid by businesses. Lawmakers began adding a second annual meeting to each two-year term — just like Congress’ — more than four decades ago as a means to deal with minor budget fixes that could not wait. But that budget-fixing mechanism has evolved in recent years into sessions in which elected leaders tackle some of the most high-profile and contentious measures. The precursor to this year’s business tax cut proposal came during the short session of 2008, when lawmakers (and ultimately voters) placed property tax caps into the state constitution. The Indiana Chamber of Commerce, among others, has argued that the cuts unfairly placed the burden of local property taxes on businesses and left homeowners largely unscathed. Top Republican leaders, including Gov. Mike Pence and House Speaker Brian Bosma, want to eliminate the tax, along SEE SESSION, PAGE A6