Your five-minute catch-up for Friday, July 31. Here’s what matters on our stretch of the river today.
Around the Counties
Boone County’s blood supply just hit a one-day low. The American Red Cross declared its second-ever national blood crisis this week — extreme heat and a wave of summer illness kept donors home, and Type O positive is critically short here right along with the rest of the country. Jade Poe, who runs the Red Cross of Central and Northern Missouri, says the shortage could delay surgeries and postpone cancer treatment if it doesn’t turn around. Boone Health says its own supply is holding for now, but donation sites in Columbia, Jefferson City, and Fort Leonard Wood need appointments — find one at redcrossblood.org or call 1-800-733-2767. (KOMU 8)
Two Columbia council candidates are now neck and neck in fundraising. With the Aug. 4 election a week out, Ward 4 hopeful Sharon Jones closed the gap on longtime frontrunner David Sorrell after a $10,000 PAC donation landed July 10; a third candidate, Ryan King, trails both. It’s a seat that helps decide how Columbia — the city most of our mail, our doctors, and our Saturday errands run through — spends its next budget. (ABC 17 News)
Columbia’s asking voters for a bigger police-and-fire budget. At Thursday’s fourth budget town hall, City Manager De’Carlon Seewood laid out what Proposition 1’s proposed 1% public-safety sales tax would mean: roughly $38 million a year on top of the $60 million the city already puts toward police and fire, pushing that budget past $98 million. If you drive into Columbia for the hospital, the DMV, or back-to-school shopping, this is the tax that funds who shows up when something goes wrong there. Voters decide in the August election. (KOMU 8)
A new bus and a real home base for GoCOMO. Columbia’s transit system cleared the way this week for federal funding toward a 35-foot natural-gas bus and design work on its first dedicated operations building — a $400,000 planning phase the city will help cover. It won’t change routes overnight, but it’s the kind of infrastructure that decides whether the bus that gets area commuters into Columbia jobs keeps running reliably. (ABC 17 News)
Boone County’s new overnight shelter is already nearly full. Two weeks after opening, the 150-bed Waypoint Shelter at Columbia’s Opportunity Campus is running 85-90% full most nights, housing upward of 125 people plus another 15 in an overflow cooling area. Shelter director Jessica McNear, working alongside the Voluntary Action Center and roughly 30 partner nonprofits under one roof, says the shared space is already getting people into housing. (ABC 17 News)
Happening Soon
Right in Rocheport tonight, Joe Devoy plays piano at The Rocheport Winery starting at 7 p.m.; Rayce Kendrick takes the same stage Saturday evening. In Columbia, it’s the last weekend of COMO Restaurant Week, and Third Fridays brings an open mic to Fretboard Coffee at 6 p.m.
Outdoors & River
The Missouri River at Boonville is sitting steady at 7.51 feet, no flood in sight — good paddling water if you’re out on it this weekend. Just don’t skip the life jacket: the Highway Patrol says Missouri drownings are up 80% over last year, and of 30 water deaths so far in 2026, only one victim was wearing a flotation device. (KOMU 8)
Roads & I-70
Heading into Columbia, plan around two new closures: the St. Charles Road ramps at Exit 131 close overnight Aug. 5-6 westbound and Aug. 6-7 eastbound for resurfacing — though the St. Charles Road overpass itself is reopening more than a month early, Aug. 14, with wider lanes and more left-turn room, thanks to a dry stretch of construction weather. (MoDOT, KOMU 8) Farther east, MoDOT shifts westbound I-70 back onto the new lanes near Kingdom City the night of Aug. 5, then moves eastbound traffic into median lanes on Aug. 10 for the next phase of the Improve I-70 project — expect a 55 mph limit and no lane changes between mile markers 144-149 for the next couple of months. (MoDOT)
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