2023: A year in review

2023 was a year full of stories, good and bad, and a new year of news is on the horizon.

Here is a roundup of some of the biggest stories the Havre Daily News covered this in 2023, as the year draws to a close.

Suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down

Early this year an apparent Chinese spy balloon was spotted over Montana, and later shot down off the coast of South Carolina, prompting outcry from local, state and national officials, directed at China and the federal government which some say didn’t act fast enough.

The Pentagon has said the balloon was trying to fly over Montana missile fields, but that it had limited value in terms of actual intelligence gathering.

The incident led to tense exchanges between the U.S. and China, with the latter claiming the balloon was not for spying, but research and had strayed into U.S. airspace by accident.

Congress condemned the balloon’s presence in U.S. airspace while China said shooting it down was indiscriminate use of force and an attack on their sovereignty.

The intense scrutiny of airspace seen after the incident later led to the air space over Havre being shut down a few weeks later due to an unidentified flying object, which later was found to be benign.

Long-missing Arizona teen turns up in Havre

Alicia Navarro, 18, who went missing from Glendale, Arizona, as a 14-year-old in 2019, was found to be living in Havre with a man who is now being charged in state District Court with crimes related to sexual child imagery found on his cellphone.

Navarro went to the Havre Police station earlier this year saying she wanted to be taken off the missing persons list after which officers contacted the Glendale Police Department and the FBI and confirmed her identity shortly after.

Three days later, when a search warrant was executed, the cellphone containing the child abuse imagery was found.

When Navarro answered the door, court documents say, officers observed Edmund Davis, 36, in the kitchen behind her throwing a cellphone in the trash and placing items on top of the phone as if to hide it.

Court documents said that Davis had been seen in the presence of Navarro before she had gone to the Havre Police Department and was later identified as her boyfriend.

Davis would be charged with two felony counts of sexual abuse of children and is still being held in the Hill County Detention Center on $1 million bond.

The first charge, for possessing electronic communication images of a child or children 12 or younger, carries a minimum 100-year prison sentence, 25 of which may not be suspended or deferred, and the second charge, for possessing images of children younger than 16, can result in imprisonment for life with a minimum sentence of four years.

The release says dozens of images of suspected child sex abuse material were found on the phone, and a review of the images by medical professionals determined the individuals depicted to be younger than 13, with two images of children younger than 5.

Davis entered a plea of not guilty in November.

Hawley named among 2023 Top 10 CNN Heroes

A Fort Belknap woman, Tescha Hawley, founder and executive director of Day Eagle Hope Project, was announced by CNN as one of its Top 10 CNN Heroes last month.

Hawley’s Day Eagle Hope Project started off providing services for breast cancer patients and survivors in Fort Belknap but since then has expanded to provide assistance with all kinds of cancer, providing education, patient navigation and culturally sensitive support for patients on the reservation, as well as food to people in need in the wider area, with ambitions to expand even further.

Hawley, a member of the Gros Ventre tribe, received a breast cancer diagnosis at age 46, and the life-saving treatment she needed several times a month was at a hospital a three-hour drive away.

Hawley has two master’s degrees, yet the challenges she had to navigate to receive the care she needed were daunting, she said.

That experience motivated her to set up an organization that can help people like her, but it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.

CNN had written a story about Hawley earlier this year, but almost immediately after that a series of events, including a serious car breakdown and the closure of a building her organization used, set back her efforts significantly.

The warehouse she used to store the food her organization distributes, a building owned by the tribe and used by its commodities program, was found to have black mold and electrical problems, forcing them to vacate and leaving them without a place to store food. That same day, Hawley said, the retired police vehicle the tribe donated to her organization, which she used to distribute food throughout the community, also broke down.

“Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong,” she said in an interview at the time.

Hawley said, the national attention she gained brought a significant burst of donations, to help her get her organization back on its feet, but they want to set up a new facility that can eventually become a regional food distribution center that helps feed people not just in Fort Belknap, but throughout the region.

She said so many people in the region live in a food desert, an area where getting the variety of food necessary for a balanced diet is prohibitively difficult, and she wants to help fix that.

Hawley said she was humbled by CNN’s nomination and she hopes to use that opportunity to send a message of hope to her community, especially young people.

“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude; this has been a journey for me,” she said.

City Council member Josh Miller dies

Unfortunately, one of the biggest stories of the year was the unexpected death of Josh Miller, a member of the Havre City Council and an integral part of the Hill County Weed and Mosquito District, at the age of 32.

After his death, Miller’s sister, Jennifer Tilleman, said his death was an incredible loss for his family and the community he served.

“Whether or not people agreed with him, there was always an underlying respect and admiration for his strength and character. I’m afraid Josh is irreplaceable, he’s left enormous shoes to fill,” she said. “Our hearts are heavy.”

Havre Mayor Doug Kaercher said his death was great loss to the city and his absence left his colleagues shocked and saddened.

Miller was also a member of the Hill County Mosquito Control District under his supervisor, Terry Turner, who said his loss was devastating on a personal and professional level, especially since he died so young.

He said Miller caught West Nile Virus in high school, which permanently damaged his immune system and caused serious health problems for the rest of his life.

This event went on to inspire him to work in mosquito control, becoming an integral part of Hill County’s district.

“If I can prevent someone else from getting sick like that, I’ll do it,” Miller said of his work.

Indeed, in the wake of Miller’s death, the district had to reorganize to address his loss, setting back their operations significantly.

“You can’t replace someone with that kind of talent,” Turner said.

Turner said Miller created the district’s drone pilot program, having put in hundreds of hours of training with the Department of Homeland Security to get his license and become the district’s drone pilot.

Turner said integrating a drone into the district’s operations has made them far more efficient, allowing them to survey an area in less than 30 minutes with just one drone — something that would otherwise take a team of four nearly a full day’s work.

He said it also made their work safer, as they no longer had to physically venture into the problem areas, which were typically very swampy, which is a very easy environment to sustain an injury in, even when making active efforts to be careful.

He said Miller was so good with the drone that he was in the running for awards on the national level and had written safety manuals for other pilots.

Multiple train derailments this summer

After a deadly train derailment in 2021 that killed three and injured 49 others, the Havre area saw two more derailments this year, though neither caused any deaths or injuries.

The more dramatic of the two was in July, when a freight train left the tracks east of Havre, throwing cars off the tracks and spilling their contents across the area around the tracks.

Eleven cars derailed and 25 were damaged, but all of them were freight, and while one car contained hazardous paint thinner, it stayed intact and didn’t leak.

Other cars weren’t as lucky. Metal shipping containers, many twisted or broken open by the force of the crash, spilling their contents across the grass, could be seen scattered along the south side of the railroad tracks that evening as train wheels littered the area next to the nearby U.S. Highway 2.

Crews worked through the night to get the cars cleaned up and the rails repaired and by afternoon of the next day the rail was open again.

Three days later, the area saw another derailment, albeit a far less dramatic one.

Empire Builder Train 8, traveling eastbound from Seattle and Portland to Chicago, was delayed by three-and-a-half hours after one set of wheels on one of its 10 cars lost contact with the track as it approached the station in Havre that day near Patrick Construction.

An ambulance and fire engine responded to the derailment treating two people with minor injuries, who decided to stay on the train.

The damage was relatively minor and caused a three-hour delay for trains that day.

This year also saw the release of a final report on what caused the Joplin derailment in 2021, a report which led to new calls for improved safety features on trains and an improvement in safety culture at BNSF, with the condition of the rail being found as the primary cause of the crash.

A contributing factor to the conditions being missed was found to be the inspector’s unreasonable workload.

Even working an average of 13 hours a day, there was just too much track for one person to inspect, as the investigation found that the last time a walking inspection had been done in that area was two years before the incident.

The poor track conditions included a worn rail, vertical track deflection, misalignment and instability in the rail bed, the report found.

The report says that the conditions should have been flagged by a freight railroad company’s inspectors, but Amtrak’s lack of seatbelts and weak windows, which didn’t prevent the ejection of multiple passengers during the crash, made the situation far worse.

Post-winter flooding

Many were desperate to get winter over with earlier this year, with cold temperatures and icy conditions persisting well into the year, but when the heat came and melted the snow and ice, the area saw a massive amount of flooding damage in April.

The flooding caused major damage to roads, bridges and other local infrastructure as well as businesses and residences, damage that the county had no way of covering.

Hill County, as well as Liberty, Blaine, Meagher, Valley, Daniels and Park counties, along with Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, and Fort Peck Indian Reservation, also declared emergencies or disasters.

The towns of Glasgow and Nashua declared disasters as well.

The areas that declared states of emergency requested the state follow suit, which it did the next month, with Gov. Greg Gianforte saying that all of the entities that declared emergencies saw such extensive damage to critical infrastructure to include roads, bridges and culverts, that assistance from the state and federal government was needed.

This disaster declaration authorized the governor to expend state funds to meet contingencies and needs arising from these conditions.

The federal government would also declare an emergency a few months later, making federal funding and assistance available to state, tribal and eligible local governments and certain non-profit organizations for the flooding in the affected counties.

In the aftermath of the flooding Hill County and FEMA personnel have been assessing the damage and cataloging information for big projects, while road workers did as much as possible to keep the roads safe.

Hill County officials have said that just cataloging the damage has taken a tremendous amount of work.

Havre Beneath the Streets gets massive investment

Among the businesses that were affected by flooding this year was Havre Beneath the Streets, which is on track to a major restoration that’s been years in the making.

A substantial area of the subterranean museum, a display of a motor services shop in its own basement and the attraction’s main entrance until 2017, has been closed to the public for years after deterioration of the area became a serious problem.

But after receiving an almost $360,000 grant from the Montana Legislature, it, and the sidewalk above it, are on track to be completely repaired.

Since the area’s closure, Havre Beneath the Streets has slowly but surely raised more and more money to restore it, and the $72,000 they raised was used as the 20 percent match for this Montana Historic Preservation Grant, one that was awarded by the Legislature through House Bill 12, along with a donation of $20,000 for grant administration from Bear Paw Development Corp.

Work paid for by the grant should address all structural needs of Havre Beneath the Streets, as well as the broken sidewalk above it, including the attraction’s handicap accessible ramp and its original entrance.

Museum management has said there are some things the grant won’t pay for, like new shelving units, lights and display cases, so there will be a few aesthetic compromises, but all the structural and safety issues will be covered.

Havre Beneath the Streets Office Manager Christy Owens said having to rope off a substantial chunk of the area has been a detriment to the attraction, and though they have moved much of the display items into useable rooms, it makes for a slightly more disjointed tour that guides have to explain.

And, of course, she said, not having their handicap ramp has been a huge deal for people with disabilities and that is always something they are concerned about.

Owens said she was hoping to have shovels in the ground this fall, but that was an ambitious goal, and work will definitely begin this coming spring.

The road to getting the grant was a long one, with the initial application being submitted to the state in February of 2022, but that road saw the project get a lot of support locally and otherwise.

After submitting the application, it was ranked very highly on the state’s priority list for project funding by the Montana Department of Commerce, but the museum still had to make a case to the Legislature to follow through on the department’s recommendation.

Ultimately, this didn’t appear to be a heavy lift, as the project was almost immediately recognized as one of importance to the area and the state.

Montana Rep. Paul Tuss, D-Havre, who is also the executive director of Bear Paw Development, said it didn’t take much coaxing for his fellows in the Long-Range Planning Subcommittee to get on board, especially with the help of his Republican colleague Montana Sen. Mike Lang of Malta, who was also a huge advocate for the project.

“It was not a hard sell,” Tuss said.

This year’s flooding made the museum expand the projects’ scope to include flood prevention, which will come with an added cost and there is always a chance that they may encounter complications that require some extra funding, but overages on projects like this are the rule rather than the exception.

COVID-19 remains dangerous, but less present in 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to recede this year, but health officials are still asking people to take the virus seriously, as it can cause severe, sometimes long-term symptoms, and can still be deadly in the worst cases.

This year, Blaine County reported three people who died due to COVID-19, all in May, bringing the number of dead from the virus in the county to 37.

Hill County has had 79 deaths.

However, the severity of COVID-19 has appeared to keep falling through the year, with 65,000 deaths this year, less than half the number last year.

In spring COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations hit their lowest levels since the start of the pandemic, and the federal government lifted its public health emergency declaration in May, but the virus has had regional surges since then and the U.S. rate of updated vaccinations remains very low, with only 20 percent of adults fully up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines.

Health officials have warned that this could lead to a surge of serious illness, as scientists around the world continue to try to find ways to treat patients of long-COVID, and protect the immune-compromised, many of whom remain at serious risk from the virus.

Officials have also said that people report symptoms and act on them far less than they used to, leading to less reliable data and tracking.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped collecting data on new infections earlier this year, and has adopted a new model using the number of COVID-19 related hospitalizations and deaths.

Increasingly, health officials are also using wastewater surveillance, which can collect data that can point to the prevalence of COVID-19, as well as many other diseases, in communities.