Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 21, 1993 TAG: 9307210177
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Workers were trying to repair one breach when the wall gave way on either side of them. "Pretty soon, they were up to their necks in water," said David Weman, a St. Louis fire battalion chief. The workers were rescued by boat.
"We don't know how many homes have been inundated. But things are pretty bad. We're trying to get people out. It's severe," said Candy Green, spokeswoman for the city's emergency management operation.
Military vehicles were needed to get through the deep water.
"The city is rushing in with heavy equipment trying to dump stones, sandbags and sand to plug it up," said Bill Groth of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The neighborhood already was flooded because sandbags had washed off the levee Sunday, and much of that water remained when more of the sandbags gave way.
Police Lt. Tim Murphy said there were four or five new breaks in the levee within a mile.
About 1,200 people had been ordered to evacuate over the weekend, but some remained. Earlier Tuesday, emergency workers with bullhorns drove through the neighborhood, urging the holdouts to flee. It couldn't be determined immediately how many people remained when the levee burst.
Two bridges were closed in the area, though one later reopened. Water service had been turned off earlier in the day after six water-main breaks.
The River Des Peres is a concrete-lined drainage ditch that has been flooded by Mississippi backwash. Workers had lined sandbags along it to try to keep floodwaters out.
The collapse came as the Mississippi, which had reached one record crest of 46.9 feet Sunday night before dropping slightly, hit 47.1 feet, Groth said. A line of strong thunderstorms was moving through the area.
"As high as the river is, almost anything's going to have some impact," Groth said.
Parts of the St. Louis area received up to 1 1/2 inches of rain in an hour, said Todd Shea, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
Other parts of the Midwest also faced new complications in trying to recover from more than 1 1/2 months of record flooding:
Thunderstorms raised the danger of new floods in parts of Kansas and Nebraska. More than 5,000 people were urged to evacuate in and near Manhattan, Kan., and Prairie Dog Creek in Colby spilled over its banks.
"I thought the worst was over," said Kansas City, Kan., Mayor Joe Steineger. "It's not over. If the predictions were right, we will have major flooding."
Showers in much of Iowa and parts of Missouri made it harder for people to get on with drying out their homes and businesses and scrubbing away the reeking muck the floods left behind.
"It smells like fish, and there's only one way to get rid of the smell: bleach, Pine-Sol and lots of elbow grease," said Dorothy McKinzie, owner of an auto repair shop in downtown Davenport, Iowa. Her business was coated with about a quarter-inch of Mississippi River bottom.
After some businesses flushed toilets and opened faucets before the Des Moines, Iowa, water system was completely refilled, officials pushed back by a day their timetable for restoring running water to 250,000 people. The water has been out since flooding forced a water plant to close on July 11.
Flooding since the start of June in 10 Midwestern states has caused at least 31 deaths and $10 billion in damage, left 16,000 square miles of farmland under water and damaged more than 22,000 homes.
In Washington, the House Appropriations Committee approved $2.98 billion in disaster aid Tuesday. The full House is scheduled to take up the bill Thursday, after which it must go to the Senate.
Offers of help came from far away. The foreign minister of Bangladesh, where hundreds die in monsoon floods every year, offered to send tea and jute sacks.
by CNB