LTE

"A sound nation is built of individuals sound in body and mind and spirit. Government dares not ignore the individual citizen."-- Dwight D. Eisenhower It could be said that we're all defrosting and thawing out from the recent snowstorm that hit our little neck of the woods. And while the storm left us with a winter scene that looks like it came off of a Hallmark Christmas card. It also revealed how fragile our infrastructure, particularly, our power grid is. At one point, Howell-Oregon reported that over 13,000 members were without power in their service at one point. That may not seem like a big number compared to our region's population size, but that's not counting the rest of the co-ops throughout the region's numbers either. In fact, most of the entire Congressional District 8 (Southeast/South Central Missouri) was lit up like a "Christmas tree" on the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives outage map. Our little county being one of the hardest hit by the snowstorm. It could be argued that our Governor Mike Parson could have activated the National Guard by declaring a "State of Emergency" and sending some troops down to help our struggling linemen and co-ops as Jay Nixon did in 2009. But did Governor Parson do that? Well..Parson did issue a state of emergency 23-02 two days before the storm hit, but it's only limited to the Nation Guard assisting with "local authorities" with accidents and keeping the roads clear so Gygr-gas could get their liquid propane delivered. Of course, Parson lack of focus or shift in priorities -left thousands here in our little part of the world without power for days. There's no doubt our struggling linemen and co-ops could have used the extra help in getting one of our most basic utilities online. This is the kind of stuff our elected from county to federal elected officials are supposed to advocate and earmark money for. But the reality is that hasn't happened for years. Jason Smith even went so far as to vote "no" on the Infrastructure bill last year. So, are these people trying to govern? No, not when they keep ignoring the basic needs of their constituents. With all that said, try not to be angry with our co-ops guys. They did their best with what resources they had on hand. Which is pretty impressive--given the circumstances. Sincerely, J. Stewart Willow Springs, mo