Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 8, 1993 TAG: 9307080194
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Levees on smaller rivers failed in Iowa and Illinois, forcing more than 1,000 people from their homes.
Flooding on the Mississippi and its tributaries has been blamed for 15 deaths and billions of dollars in damage to property and crops. Federal officials pledged comprehensive assistance for the Midwest.
Still more waves of thunderstorms pummeled the region with heavy rain. Federal officials estimated that crop damage alone across the upper Midwest would be about $1 billion.
Northwest of St. Louis, up to 2,000 families living on flood plains along the Missouri River were ordered to leave their homes late Wednesday.
"The river has been rising so much, it's getting out of hand," said Mark Echele, a St. Charles County emergency management agency spokesman.
"With the continued rain, we're going to reach very serious stages higher than in the last 20 years or better and we want to give these people as much time as we can," Echele said.
Elsewhere in the county, workers began a controlled release of the Mississippi to prevent a levee from blowing out. Some residents ignored the order to get out.
In Illinois, most of Pontoosuc was under water and few people were left in town, officials said. And the Illinois and Mississippi rivers combined to flood Grafton; the city operated a boat shuttle service to the only major road out.
Rain helped collapse part of a bridge in Nebraska.
Hundreds of National Guardsmen were on duty in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri to help with sandbagging and evacuations. Illinois also had mobilized 400 prison inmates.
In Keithsburg, Ill., flood waters broke through a sandbag barrier atop a levee Wednesday afternoon, sending a cascade into town and forcing evacuation of the business district and many homes. Later, the water broke through the levee.
by CNB