Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 9, 1993 TAG: 9307090131
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WAPELLO, IOWA LENGTH: Medium
For 48 hours, an exhausted crew of 200 farmers, workmen and Army reservists have done their best to keep floodwaters from cascading into these two towns wedged between the bloated Mississippi River and the Iowa River, newly roiled by3 inches of rainfall.
Up and down the Mississippi and its tributaries, in scores of flood-threatened river towns, the levee watch goes on - a tense drama whose outcome depends on the earthen levees' durability, the water's power and, with a little bit of luck, the labors of volunteer sandbag crews.
Rain kept on coming Thursday in the Midwest, placing further stress on levees weakened by the raging Mississippi River and chasing away diehard residents who had vowed not to evacuate.
The heaviest rain was in portions of Nebraska and Iowa, where up to 3 inches fell. In Iowa, the river hit a record high of 22 1/2 feet at Davenport. Flood stage is 15 feet and the previous record was 22.48 feet set in 1965.
Further downstream, the land north of Wapello was a lost cause Thursday afternoon. The flooding had already forced the evacuation of 500 residents and submerged 5,000 acres of farmland north of the town, high enough in some areas to submerge the first floors of farmhouses.
The flooding has left 16 people dead and federal officials estimate it has caused more than $1 billion in damage so far to property and crops.
In Oakville, most of the town was still dry. But there were eight holes in the town's levee against the Iowa River, each one a potential gash that could let the flood in.
"It's a total loss for everybody if we lose the levee," said Steve Metcalfe, the town's volunteer fire chief. "We're gonna need a lot of prayin'."
The levee was so porous in some spots that the ground bounced like a trampoline as monitors walked on it.
A line of water that suddenly becomes visible in an earthen levee indicates a hole. Clear water means no erosion, but a stream of dirty water means that a hole is widening and taking the earth with it - and had better be shored up before it bursts open.
If the Klaxon at the Oakville firehouse goes off, signaling that the levee has broken, it could prove ruinous for the town's tiny commercial strip and many of the 450 residents who live nearby.
Most of Oakville's houses have not been sandbagged. The town's women and children are almost all gone to stay with relatives and friends out of harm's way. The husbands and fathers who remain have been too busy sandbagging the levee and moving their possessions to worry about keeping the water away from their houses.
Protecting homes "is pretty much a lost cause," said Ken Seitz, 29, a metal-shop worker at a plant that makes spark plugs.
Nursing a Coke, Seitz said he and his wife have packed off their three children to stay with relatives. But they refuse to leave, convinced that the levee will hold.
"When the National Guard decides they've had enough and they got to go, everybody has to go," Seitz said. "We're just waiting to see what happens."
If the water comes, he said, "it'll be a sinking feeling. Then it'll be real to me."
Associated Press supplied some information for this story.
by CNB