One pedestrian is dead and another critically injured after a crash yesterday afternoon on Jonathan Moore Pike.

35-year-old Stacy Hardy, of Columbus was taken to Columbus Regional Hospital where she was pronounced dead according to Bartholomew County Coroner Clayton Nolting. He said the cause of death was massive head and chest trauma.

Columbus police say that at shortly before 1:30 p.m. yesterday Hardy and 28-year-old Jackson Coe of Columbus were crossing State Road 46 near Two Mile House Road, when they were struck by an SUV driven by 49-year-old Amanda Caldwell of Columbus.

Coe was flown by IU Health Lifeline to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and remains in critical condition.

The accident remains under investigation.

State Road 11 will be closing in Jackson County this weekend, after road work was rained out last weekend.

INDOT says that the work will be done between 9 tonight and 6 a.m. Monday morning this weekend and next. Crews will be resurfacing the 2 and a half mile section of the highway between Rockford and Interstate 65. After patching the concrete, crews will install permanent striping and install raised pavement markers.

This weekend’s work is dependent on the weather.

INDOT asks that you slow down, use extra caution and drive without distractions through all work zones.

Several area communities will be receiving a share of $15 million in grants from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs.

Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch announced the awards to improve water infrastructure for 24 communities around the state.

Helmsburg in Brown County is being awarded $600,000 for flood drainage improvements. The town will be replacing old storm sewers along Helmsburg Road, Main Street and First Street. The town will also be extending storm sewers along North Street and improving drainage ditches.

Shelbyville is also receiving $600,000 to construct a relief sewer for the undersized storm sewer main that runs through the city. This will help to reduce residential and street flooding.

Crothersville was awarded $700,000 for an improvement project that will include a new wet weather overflow main and modifying existing plant surge basins with concrete wall cores, along with other improvements.

Bartholomew Consolidated Schools are still on track to open to students on Monday.

According to the indicators being tracked by the school district, the community is still seeing a moderate spread of COVID-19, with most of the indicators showing a yellow status. THe district shows a decrease in the per capita positive rate trend and COVID-19 hospitalizations are at 7, which remains below the moderate/minimal spread dividing line of 10 hospitalizations.

The school district yesterday announced that teachers are back in the buildings, on what would have been the first day of the school year, preparing for Monday’s opening to students.

You can find more information on the school district plans and current indicator tracking at bcscschools.org.

Bartholomew County Coroner Clayton Nolting says his office is on track to hit a record high number of cases this year, led by an increase in drug overdose deaths.

In the first six months of this year, there have been 96 death investigation cases compared to 66 cases in the same period in 2019. The number of overdose deaths have more than doubled with 20 so far this year, compared to 9 at this point last year. In all of last year, there were only 24 overdose deaths, and only 19 in 2018.

Nolting said that methamphetamine and fentanyl have both appeared in nine deaths this year.

There have also been four homicides already in Bartholomew County this year. That compares to two homicides in all of last year, none in 2019 and a single homicide in 2017.

Nolting said that child deaths are down this year and suicides are on par with last year.

Overall, the county’s death investigations are on pace to come close to 200 this year, which would be a new record, Nolting said.

Nolting also noted that his office has not been handling any of the county’s deaths from COVID-19. He said that most of the patients who have died of COVID-19 were under the care of a doctor and the cause of their death is known, which doesn’t require an investigation.

According to the Indiana State Department of Health, Bartholomew County has had 47 deaths from COVID-19.