Local News

Rev. Larry Rice Recalls Helping People Who Lost Housing in the 1993 Flood | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

August 9, 2023

[ad_1]

COURTESY OF MISSOURI STATE ARCHIVES Cedar City, Missouri, was completely destroyed in the flood.
When the floods initially hit St. Louis, Reverend Larry Rice was in Russia with his daughters.“We were helping orphans,” he says. It was early July, and the flooding in St. Louis was so bad it made the world news.“You really started noticing it on July 3 when it broke through the levee in Wentzville, Missouri,” he says. “And as days passed things kept getting worse.”Rice is director of the New Life Evangelistic Center, which offers resources for the unhoused, including job training. The city shuttered his shelter in Downtown West in 2017, though he still has a center in Overland and a farm and training center in New Bloomfield, Missouri, as well as other locations. At the time of the flood, his nonprofit also owned the TV stations KNLC (channel 24) and KLNJ (channel 25), which broadcast shows such as Bonanza, Focus on Faith and shows featuring Rice himself.Rice was known for his made-for-the-media activism (to believers) or stunts (to the cynical). He once took a group of people into the then-abandoned City Hospital as part of a demonstration to persuade the city to let him turn it into a shelter. He and his 10-year-old son slept outside on cardboard. He put up crosses on the lawn of City Hall and the state Capitol to draw attention to unhoused people, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.The flood was making thousands more people in Missouri homeless, so Rice sprang into action.He remembers one woman who fled her house with just a few necessities, including a large-print Bible and a photo of her mother. “After the flood swallowed her home, she felt totally lost,” Rice says. “The days that followed were some of the loneliest she ever had.”To help, he used his TV channels. “We’d go on the air, and we’d try to raise money for flood victims. We’d try to provide rent- and housing-assistance grants to flood-victim families. A lot of people were staying with relatives or friends or at a hotel. They were trying to survive at their own expense. You know, the river stayed above flood stage for 147 days,” he says. “We made available to flood victims free vacation tickets to Worlds of Fun in Kansas City or the Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and different places like that to help them get into a different environment outside this crisis that had dominated their life.”He remembers some of the worst devastation he saw was in Cedar City, Missouri, outside Jefferson City, where the Missouri River overran its banks and destroyed almost all 120 houses.“If you go there now, what you’ll find is three or four homes. Everyone else got washed out,” he says. The city is now a park. Rice offered the Cedar City residents and anyone else who had lost their home in the flood land near his property in New Bloomfield, near Jefferson City. His organization had to build a septic system for them and offered one-third acre lots. He told reporters at the time it was an opportunity for “homesteading,” and called the people building “New Cedar City” settlers. He estimates about half a dozen households settled there.On top of that, Rice was still helping the unhoused and low-income populations he considered his life’s work. He recalls drawing energy from prayer. “Then the adrenaline would kick in,” he says. “We were constantly praying to find a way to provide for the emergency needs and come up with long-term solutions.”But New Cedar City never became the homestead the televangelist dreamt of. FEMA money soon helped the remaining residents of Cedar City move on, and Rice eventually sold New Cedar City to a developer, who took on the work of expanding the septic system and building the development. “As the flood waters went down, we saw a big need to help with cleaning supplies,” Rice recalls. “People would go to a shelter for a few days in the beginning, but they really wanted to return home.”This story is part of a series about the Great Flood of 1993. Read more here. Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

[ad_2]

Source link