Missouri Governor Mike Parson visited Joplin and Webb City on Thursday. He first toured Crowder College’s Advanced Training Center in Joplin before stopping at Joplin High School’s Franklin Tech Center and Eugene Fields Elementary in Webb City.

The latest map from the National Drought Monitor was also released on Thursday, showing that over 12.5% of Missouri is now in extreme drought. An increase of over 7% in the last week. Parson speaking Thursday, did not rule out shifting water to farmers in southwest Missouri.

“But the bottom line. I’ve been in this business a long time. You know, mother nature just takes its course sometimes, and we just have to fight our way through it and try to get there. So we’re going to do everything we can on the state level to help provide. If that means more water resources, we’ll try to do that. If we can figure out ways to get the hay in there, more land that we’ll be able to cut and we able to produce that we will. It’s just unfortunate right now that this is a hard-hit area.”

Nearly 94% of Missouri is considered to be one of the five drought classifications. St. Louis and the surrounding counties in Eastern Missouri are the only part of the state that have avoided the drought.