Author: KMIZ

Mitchell Kaminski

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

After Mid-Missouri was blanketed with 5-9 inches of snow this past weekend, Columbia road crews faced challenges clearing streets because of frigid temperatures early Monday.

A spokesperson for Columbia Public Works told ABC 17 News temperatures dropped to minus 8 degrees Monday morning, preventing much of the salt from effectively reacting with the snow and ice.

By 2:30 p.m., pavement temperatures were still below freezing, but the sunlight helped the salt react as crews plowed and treated the roads. 

Columbia residents can track where snowplow crews have been and where they’re headed next using the city’s snow-clearing progress viewer. The online map shows which streets have already been plowed and which ones are still waiting to be cleared.

The city’s main focus has been its first- and second-priority roads, which include Vandiver Drive, North and South Providence Road, Creasy Springs Road, Clark Lane and downtown Columbia, though residential plowing was announced on Monday afternoon.

Despite efforts to clear downtown Columbia, many main roads remained covered in snow and slush, with conditions worst in parts of the University of Missouri campus. The area between Rollins and Rogers streets remained listed as a high-priority neighborhood for crews to clear.

By 7 p.m., several neighborhoods remained on the city’s priority list for clearing, including areas near Shorham Court and Medford Drive, just off Chapel Hill Road near Limestone Avenue, as well as Marble Cedars Drive and the neighborhood surrounding Crabapple Drive.

ABC 17 News spoke to a resident in the Crabapple Drive neighborhood who said that city crews did come through the area, but were limited in what they were able to clear due to cars being parked on the street.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Around 10 people gathered on Monday near the Harry S Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital in Columbia to honor a man who was killed on Saturday by federal agents in Minneapolis.

Candles were present, one person waved a flag that read “Defend Democracy,” another held up a photo of a man, while another accompanied it with a sign with the name “Alex Pretti.”

Pretti — who worked as an Intensive Care Unit nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center for around five years — was identified as the victim in Saturday’s shooting by federal agents.

Catherine Porter, of Columbia, is a veteran who goes to the Truman VA hospital and attended Monday afternoon’s memorial.

“There’s no real point to this [vigil] other than to honor him [Pretti],” Porter said. “I can’t speak for other people, but I’ve been… this past year has been very difficult for me. I don’t believe our country’s going anywhere in the right direction. It needs to be turned around and I hope people are seeing that now. We don’t want the Gestapo in the streets. Nobody wants that.”

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Haley Swaino

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Some Mid-Missouri plumbers are seeing more frozen pipes in unconditioned spaces than usual.

MasterTech Plumbing, Heating and Cooling in Columbia says it received about 80 emergency overnight calls through the weekend — about double what they would typically — and continued to respond to calls for frozen pipes on Monday.

“Unconditioned spaces are the big issue we’ve seen because it doesn’t always stay this cold for so long,” manager Nate Duker said.

After 5-9 inches of snow blanketed Mid-Missouri throughout the weekend, the ABC 17 Stormtrack Weather Team tracked wind chills as cold as minus 30° Monday morning. That dangerous cold can freeze your pipes in just six hours.

“This is definitely the coldest it’s been for the longest period of time so far this year. And so we just had a wave of people who have frozen pipes or burst pipes,” Duker said.

Plumbers are seeing pipes freeze in poorly-insulated areas like crawl spaces and garages.

“We view that [frozen pipes] as an emergency when people don’t have access to water” Duker said.

If pipes freeze, he said to be careful while trying to unthaw them.

“Definitely know where your main water shut off is or where a shut off is to the pipes that you’re warming up because you could be kind of inducing a leak,” Duker said. “There’s a chance that they’ve already burst and that just the frozen water is blocking the pipe from actively leaking.”

And even if it seems no pipes inside the home have frozen, there could be a big problem waiting in the spring. Duker said people may not be aware of a leak until the weather warms up, especially with outdoor spigots. A quick test could help determine if a spigot’s pipe has sprung a leak.

“What you want to do is you can have just a very slow dribble of water. It doesn’t have to be much and you can put your thumb on it,” Duker said.

If the water pressure builds up and sprays out between your finger and the spigot, that’s a good thing, according to Duker.

“This means that the faucet is good or that there is not a hole in the faucet,” Duker said.

If water is able to be held back with the thumb test, that means there must be a hole somewhere in the pipes. In that case, it should be shut off and a plumber should be called.

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Nia Hinson

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Growing up in St. Louis in the ’90s for Lonnie Lockhart Bey wasn’t easy.

He was met with challenges and hardships that led him down a path he hadn’t planned. That adversity eventually led to him becoming affiliated with a gang.

Lockhart Bey says the word “affiliated” is key.

“One of the misconceptions is that children just join gangs,” Lockhart Bey said. “It’s something traumatic, something overall sinister about that child’s life that happened that causes them to drift away from the encouragement where they feel alone, and they find themselves in this space with other people who, too, feel alone.”

Those long days quickly turned into even longer nights, where Lockhart Bey said he stayed up listening to the sound of electric fences humming all night. Those sounds were coming from a bunk after being in the gang landed him a prison sentence.

Years later, he began using his personal story as a way to motivate others from going down the same road through the Critical Change Gang Prevention Program. Lockhart Bey is the executive director of Destiny of H.O.P.E, a non-profit organization that focuses on helping at-risk youth.

Lockhart Bey started his work using a “boots on the ground” approach in August 2021. In 2023, the group was awarded $320,000 of the City of Columbia’s $25.2 million American Rescue Plan Act funding.

Spokesman Austin Krohn with the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services said Destiny of H.O.P.E is contracted to receive a total of $428,333.33 through city ARPA funds and has spent 74% ($335,057.29) to date.

The group received the additional funds through the Columbia City Council in October 2024, Krohn said.

A portion of that funding is being used toward the Critical Change Gang Prevention program run through Lockhart Bey’s company, called Boyz2 Men Consulting LLC.

Lockhart Bey said his objective is to help teenagers see the potential outcomes of joining a gang, rather than telling them not to join one.

“I would never tell them that because I joined a gang, but I would give them the flip side, and I would help them understand what’s happening on the flip side of it,” Lockhart Bey said. “Because what you’re not accounting for is death, or the Missouri Department of Corrections.”

Lockhart Bey said those options aren’t the worst outcomes, noting he has friends who are in wheelchairs because of gang violence.

“I have one that’s a great guy, but now all he can do is sit in that chair. Who wants that, right? You’re at the mercy of everybody that’s around you,” Lockhart Bey said. “And it’s not just about talk, it’s actually about us being able to help them understand that life in and of itself is composed of many things and most of those things you don’t have control over, so why are you making it your fault?”

The program uses a hands-on approach, with staff going to various neighborhoods in the Columbia area and talking with teenagers. They work to address the trauma, lack of feeling loved and abandonment issues that Lockhart Bey says can ultimately lead to children becoming victims of bad behavior.

Lockhart Bey said his personal experiences allow him to understand pain and abandonment.

The work doesn’t just stop after one conversation. Lockhart Bey said Destiny of H.O.P.E. works to stay in contact with the people they talk to and build relationships and bonds. He said they haven’t received much pushback.

An ARPA form submitted to the City of Columbia from Destiny of H.O.P.E states that the program has been more instrumental to the city than originally thought. The program also received additional funding from Boone County Children’s Services to conduct additional gang prevention programming, documents show.

Lockhart Bey said he initially thought they would connect with a couple of teenagers, but the need for these services quickly became evident.

Lockhart Bey said he also works to talk with boys in his group called “Heat Squad” about affiliation and peer pressure, something he said only gets more sophisticated with age.

When asked if he believed there are gangs in Columbia, Lockhart Bey said there are gangs in every city across the United States. He said it’s hard to know what the antidote is, but said he believes the underlying cause is socioeconomic.

He said he believes that until the problem of young men not feeling loved and heard is fixed, there will always be the problem of gangs. However, he said it’s also important to note that people are working to make a better life for themselves.

“There are young men who are doing the right thing, who are in the midst of these things and not participating,” Lockhart Bey said. “There are young men who went down that road and made some bad decisions and have turned the corner and are doing what they need to do, and I think that should be a part of the conversation as well.”

Lockhart Bey said the money awarded to the group has allowed the group to acquire the PEACE and HOPE center — located on Providence Road — and to continue to grow. Destiny of H.O.P.E. is building a teen center located in the basement of the building, open Monday through Saturday, that aims to keep teenagers from going downtown on the weekends.

The center will have a music studio, live DJ, concession stand and lounge area. Lockhart Bey said they plan to have it open sometime in February.

Lockhart Bey said through the PEACE and HOPE center, they’ve been able to introduce youth to a different mentality that helps them understand that education is a key component to success in life.

“That’s why education is front and center to everything that we do. Even when they come in, you give up your phone, and you do your homework,” Lockhart Bey said. “We do some sort of group activity, and then you can have fun, but you can’t just come in here and have fun. If you’re doing bad at school, you’re really not just gonna come in here and have fun, and so it’s a give and take, and everything in here is incentivized.”

New coalition looks to fight gun violence in Columbia

Columbia ARPA funds spent on community violence preventionInfogram

Destiny of H.O.P.E. is part of a coalition of groups trying to reduce gun violence in Columbia.

The Coalition Against Community Violence is made up of several Columbia organizations, including Destiny of HOPE, PEACE, Dream Tree Academy, Columbia Supreme, Moms Demand Action, Love Columbia and The Beacon of Hope Foundation.

Moms Demand Action Volunteer Leader Kristin Bowen said the Missouri chapter became involved in the coalition following interest from the Missouri Foundation for Health. Bowen said the foundation began holding meetings last summer, specifically aimed at getting serious about creating a coalition.

Bowen said Moms Demand Action started attending firearm injury-related meetings alongside the other organizations in July 2024. The goal was to come together and think of ways to build relationships and identify key stakeholders, inventory the work that’s already being done, and build together to get more efficient in identifying the needs of the community. The group meets weekly.

“I think one of the things that was identified was that we all have our different parts to play and we need to sort of build understanding about our capacity, build understanding about where our strengths are, and then figure out how to work together in ways to talk to our community members — the people who know even better than we do- – what’s needed and what’s not happening in Columbia that would help prevent gun violence,” Bowen said.

Bowen said the coalition hopes to collect qualitative and quantitative data and information from people in the community who are affected by gun violence. The coalition also began a pre-planning initiative from the Missouri Foundation for Health to take a closer look at each ward in Columbia and all of Boone County.

The $70,000 pre-planning initiative grant will last for about a year and will be used to fund town halls and community outreach events.

The coalition plans to have its first town hall in a couple of weeks, Bowen said.

Columbia Supreme Executive Director Anthony Johnson said Columbia Supreme’s decision to join the coalition was sparked by seeing incidents occurring in the city and feeling like the group needed to be part of the solution.

Columbia Supreme is a youth nonprofit organization that is mostly for youth sports, but also focuses on financial literacy and other programs. Johnson said his desire to get involved in creating solutions is personal.

“I’m from Columbia. I’ve been here kindergarten through 12th grade. I see myself in these youth, my kids live here,” Johnson said. “My kids are going to the schools here, so I want everybody to thrive, I want everybody to be safe. I want this to be a place that I can enjoy and for my friends and family to be able to live here safely and thrive.”

About three years ago, Johnson said he got with Dream Tree Academy to discuss how the two could work together. He said eventually, they talked with Destiny of H.O.P.E. and Peace, who were working on something similar, and that merged into the coalition.

“The meetings are good, they’re productive. We’re just really focused on finding the root causes,” Johnson said. “I think that’s the main issue, we don’t actually get things at the root, so we can take care of a symptom, but things just keep reoccurring as long as we don’t address the root cause.”

Johnson said he believes the town halls will allow the coalition to have a community-led movement. He also said that he thinks attacking social determinants of health and ensuring that people have their basic needs met can go a long way in reducing crime.

Bowen said Office of Violence Prevention leader D’Markus Thomas-Brown is a stakeholder and has attended events. The coalition hopes to have connections with other stakeholders in the city, including the Columbia Police Department and Columbia Public Schools.

Bowen said the coalition is still in the planning phase, but has the ultimate goal of being in every ward and parts of Boone County to talk to people about the things that put people into crisis. She said they want to have an accurate picture of what’s causing gun violence in all forms, including in the home, as well as firearm suicide.

The coalition is also exploring the idea of deeper-dive focus groups, one-on-one conversations and knocking on doors in critical Columbia neighborhoods.

Bowen said recent gun violence in Columbia, including a deadly shooting on Clark Lane that killed 21-year-old Brianna Hawkins, of Fulton, as well as a shots-fired and carjacking incident at Dick’s Sporting Goods, emphasizes the sense of urgency to find solutions.

“I can’t look my kids in the eye and say I’m OK with our leaders doing nothing and the status quo, so I decided to get off the sidelines and get involved,” Bowen said.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Ice skating is now open at Stephens Lake Park, according to a Monday social media post from Columbia Parks and Recreation.

Ice skating opens at the lake when the depth of the ice is measured at least 4 inches, the post says. The post says Cosmo-Bethel Lake on the south side of town is not open for ice fishing because it is not at a 4-inch depth for ice yet.

“Ice depth is checked by drilling holes through the ice at several locations beginning from the shoreline and working toward the center. Our staff will monitor conditions and we will close the lakes once the ice depth changes,” the post says.

Ice is not checked on weekends. Parks and Rec also included safety tips, including making sure you never ice skate or ice fish alone; do not gather in large groups in one spot; not skating after dark (which isn’t allowed); bring a rope, ladder or pole in case of an emergency; be aware that ice thickness is not consistent; stay away from submerged objects and not allow children on the ice without supervision.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

With below-average cold inhibiting snow removal and more extreme cold expected Tuesday morning, Mid-Missouri school districts began to cancel Tuesday classes on Monday afternoon.

Fulton, South Callaway and New Bloomfield were among the districts that decided to call off Tuesday classes as the sun was still shining Monday. In the case of New Bloomfield, students will learn from home instead.

The Jefferson City School District announced on Monday that it would not hold in-person class and would instead hold its second day of alternative methods of instruction on Tuesday.

“JC Schools will be CLOSED TUES 1/27/26 due to inclement weather & potentially unsafe travel conditions. This will be AMI Day #2,” the post says.

LINK: School closings and delays

Temperatures on Monday in Columbia were in the teens, with a wind chill below 0 degrees. It isn’t expected to get much warmer until after sunrise on Tuesday.

The weekend storm dumped about 5 inches of snow on Columbia. Localized totals varied.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Friday night house fire in Mexico, Missouri, was likely caused by an overloaded electrical circuit, according to a news release.

The fire led to heavy damage in the attic of a home in the 500 block of West Robinson Street, the Mexico Department of Public Safety wrote in the release. The call came in at about 11:35 p.m. Friday after the resident reported being awakened by smoke detectors.

The home had minor smoke damage throughout, in addition to the fire damage in the attic.

Mexico Public Safety said the fire was likely caused by multiple space heater plugged in and running that overloaded the electrical circuit.

MPSD Chief Brice Mesko told ABC 17 News the fire stirred up an important conversation around space heater safety, especially during the colder months of the year.

“Using an actual space heater is not something where you’re trying to convince people not to do,” Mesko said. “That being said, you should always use it in a way that it is supposed to be used and how it’s designed.”

Mesko said along with not overloading circuits in your home, it’s important to be mindful of using extension cords.

“Sometimes we’ll see people cover those cords up with rugs just so they don’t trip over them, or sometimes just throw household items on the cords or on the space heater and then that’s a fire risk,” Mesko said.

The Missouri Department of Fire Safety reports space heaters are responsible for about 80% of home heating fire deaths and about 1/3 of home heating fires.

Mesko said a safer option to keep your home warm this winter comes with some preparation ahead of time. 

“Put plastic over windows and stuff like that to kind of help the heat stay trapped in,” Mesko said.

Modern heating options also have special safety features in place to prevent fire hazards, according to Mesko.

“Some of the newer space heaters have a little switch inside them or on them some way where if it falls over it shuts off,” Mesko said. “Some space heaters also have maybe a timer where after they’ve run for a while they shut off, or if they get too hot they shut off.”

The official cause of the fire Friday is still under investigation.

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Nia Hinson

MOBERLY, Mo. (KMIZ)

No one was injured, but a duplex is believed to be a total loss after a fire in Moberly Saturday night.

According to Cory Putnam with the Moberly Fire Department, crews were called to the 600 block of Allen Street and found heavy fire and smoke coming from the attic. The fire was contained to the attic of the home, but the home sustained heavy damage and is believed to be a total loss, Putnam said.

People inside of the building were evacuated and no injuries were reported.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

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Alison Patton

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Many schools in mid-Missouri have already canceled class for Monday ahead of dangerously cold temperatures.

The ABC 17 Stormtrack Weather team is tracking temperatures below zero, following a snowstorm over the weekend.

Assistant Chief of the Boone County Fire Protection District Gale Blomenkamp said these temperatures could leave some people vulnerable to frostbite, a condition where exposed skin freezes.

“When you’re talking below zero temperatures, frostbite can set in 10 to 15 minutes on exposed skin,” Blomenkamp said. “It’s very dangerous for people to be trapped or stranded outside or outdoors, and so people…if they don’t need to be out in those frigid temperatures, they should just stay home.”

Blomenkamp said that includes keeping kids inside instead of outside playing in the snow.

“When it’s below zero, it’s just miserable for them. They’re not going to understand how cold they are until it’s probably too late,” Blomenkamp said. “People need to find something for the kids to do in the house and there’ll be another time to play in the snow later this week.”

He said children and older people are at a greater risk for frostbite.

If traveling or being outside is necessary, Blomenkamp said to dress appropriately in layers and even keep extra supplies in the car for emergencies.

Paul and Vona Scheiter took their 3-year-old daughter sledding on Sunday, despite the temperature being in the teens around 5 p.m.

“We’re not going to be here too long, but we wanted to hit it while it’s nice and fresh,” Vona Scheiter said.

The Scheiter family said frostbite isn’t a concern for them because of their cold-weather gear.

“We’re aware of things to look out for, and we’re moving around really quickly, so our bodies are warmed up,” Vona Scheiter said.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A winter storm that buried Mid-Missouri in 5 inches or more of snow, depending on location, has now caused some area schools to call off Monday classes, including the biggest.

Columbia Public Schools called off Monday classes a little before 2 p.m. Sunday. The Jefferson City School District told students they would learn from home on Monday, instead of a regular snow day.

Southern Boone, Centralia and Mexico were among the other schools to cancel by early afternoon Sunday. About 15 districts had already called off classes by 1 p.m. Other cancellations will be posted on the ABC 17 News closings page.

Roads around the area stayed snow-covered into Sunday afternoon, with extremely low temperatures making removal more difficult. The temperature in Columbia was around 10 degrees on Sunday afternoon, with the mercury set to dip below zero overnight.

The MoDOT traveler information map showed most state highways south of Interstate 70 were still covered in snow Sunday afternoon.

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