Politics & Government

Jefferson Barracks Center Heading Flood Relief Missions

The 70th Troop Command is serving in southeast Missouri.

The Missouri National Guard base at Jefferson Barracks has been serving as the nerve center for flood relief operations in the southeastern part of the state.

Gov. Jay Nixon April 25 when the waters in Butler, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Scott and Stoddard counties continued to rise.

"We've had sand-bagging operations, security missions at traffic control points; we're helping out with emergency and precautionary evacuations and we've also been doing levee patrols and levee security," said 1st Lt. Matt Knoderer in a release. Knoderer is the operations center battle captain.

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The missions are conducted out of the base’s new Joint Armed Forces Reserve Center.

"The new facility gives us excellent resources—state of the art communications and displays," Knoderer said. "We have the latest weather and hydrology reports, we track flood stages and mission statuses. We even track media reports and Facebook postings for good situational awareness. But even with all that you have to have a great staff, which we do. These soldiers have good organizational and multi-tasking skills. In that regard we are blessed."

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The Guard has an operation centers in Sikeston and use a mission tracking board to  relay mission progress to Jefferson Barracks.

Soldiers have been sandbagging, carrying out evacuation support, heading traffic control and performing door-to-door safety checks.

The center at Jefferson Barracks has issued orders for more than 145 missions that include 760 soldiers in eight countries since its existence.


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