From Register-Mail.com:
Monmouth Police Sgt. Jerry Kinney has gone to Louisiana to help secure the hurricane-ravaged area, after the IL Law Enforcement Alarm System (ILEAS) called for volunteers to head south.
We're already a little short-staffed in law enforcement, due to 2 of our officers having shipped out to Iraq, but I don't think anybody here is going to complain -- at least not the rational folks, rare though they are -- about the shift in staffing. Besides, Kinney is being temporarily replaced by off-duty officers who know the ropes, & the ILEAS is paying the city for them...
I reckon Kinney will come back with some good info on how to deal with the chaos of post-disaster stresses. It ought to be useful in the weeks following the departure of the Prime Beef Festival and high school & college homecoming weekends... That's about the biggest real trouble this community has seen, over the past generation or two (okay, the last time a tornado passed thru Monmouth, they tell me, was 1959. That was probably the biggest disaster to hit us here, knock wood, and it only leveled a dozen houses, or so). We've been very blessed in this community. We have good people, good weather (even the drought isn't life-threatening, here), and, for all that the town has seen decades of business struggles, we still have good humor. And, it seems, everybody around here is eager to give, where they can.
Godspeed, Sgt. Kinney!
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