Blaine County

Since flooding in 2017, the Blaine County community has begun to re-think controlling the river.

The Blaine County Sheriff is issuing a mandatory evacuation order for parts of Hailey.

The county is holding three meetings this week to help people understand the risk and what to do to prepare – from getting sandbags to following evacuation protocols.

Luis Campos is a lawyer who has worked for the past several years along the U.S.-Mexico Border. But more recently, he’s been spending a week every month in the Wood River Valley.

Dick Fosbury, a Blaine County Commissioner and USA Track & Field Olympian, died at the age of 76 on Sunday after a recurrence of cancer, according to his Instagram profile.

The organizations have been working to move people from unsafe housing situations, sometimes without heat and running water, to hotel rooms, where the families would pay a portion of the cost. But, they knew those rooms would be occupied intermittently over the course of the winter ski season.

Nonprofits that noticed an uptick in people needing food and shelter last fall are continuing to sound the alarm, as winter temperatures and the heart of the tourism season force people into sometimes unsafe housing situations.

Ketchum officials said the $50,000 contract with NeuroMediation Group LLC — the cost of which was split by the city and Blaine County — could help about 90 households avoid displacement or hardships that come along with eviction proceedings.

For more than 40 years in a row, the legislature has had a Democratic senator from the district including the Wood River Valley.

Both counties' election offices said those numbers are about on par with the 2018 election — the last general election without a presidential race.