8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2009
WEATHER
Missouri residents worry about upcoming flood season
BY JIM SUHR AND JIM SALTER
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS - With the spring flood season fast approaching, the Army Corps of Engineers insists the earthen levees that were overwhelmed by the Mississippi River last summer are rebuilt and ready. Some people who depend on the levees aren't so sure.
It was nearly nine months ago that the river neared and, in some cases, exceeded the record levels that were reached in the Great Flood of 1993, something many Midwesterners figured they'd never see again. The Mississippi and its tributaries pummeled levees protecting towns and farmland from Iowa south through St. Louis, breaching or overflowing dozens of the earthen structures.
Adams County Emergency Management director John Simon, right, tours the flooded area near Meyer, Ill., with unidentified workers from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. The area was devastated when the Mississippi River breached a levee near the town earlier in June 2016. With the prospect of another season of spring flooding fast approaching, the Army Corps of Engineers insisted the earthen flood levees outmatched by the Mississippi River last summer were rebuilt and ready. Not everyone's sure
Corps officials said holes in the levees had been fixed. The Corps has spent some $64 million so far to fix breaches in about 70 leaves in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri.
"It should give them (people protected by levees) a certain level of confidence," said Alan Dooley, a spokesman for the Corps' St. Louis district.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
and most flood-prone time of the year. Local levee officials in the hardest hit states — Iowa, Illinois and Missouri — believe the Corps is moving too slowly to fix the infrastructure.
That's little comfort for the local officials worried about whether the repairs go far enough, especially since early spring is the rainiest
"We're very concerned," said Stan Rolf, president of the levee district at Winfield, Mo., where a burrowing muskrat caused a breach that eventually flooded 100 homes and damaged nearly 2,000 acres of farmland. "Every farmer
is concerned about it. It's our livelihood."
At least for now, the weather outlook appears far more favorable than a year ago, when there was "the perfect setup" for big trouble, according to Bob Holmes, national flood specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
always the disclaimer. If we have a big (rainfall) event we could always see significant flooding."
"We're very concerned. Every farmer is concerned about it. It's our livelihood."
One of the local officials still worried about that possibility is Marty Lafary, the board chairman of Henderson County in northwest Illinois. The Mississippi broke one of the levees in the county last June, swamping the tiny village of Gulfport. Water submerged tens of thousands of acres of farmland and one-third of the county's tax base.
That winter's melooff from huge snowstorms filled the Mississippi and its tributaries and persistent rain saturated the soil. Then a storm in June dumped more than 10 inches of rain on parts of Iowa and Wisconsin.
STAN ROLF President of the levee district at Winfield, Mo.
"We're not looking at nearly the potential of flooding this year," said Mark Fuchs, a National Weather Service hydrologist. "But there's
Lafary argued that the earthen wall ruptured because it was unstable, but Corps officials said the river was to blame, that water simply rose over its top and eroded it.
Although the
Although the Corps has repaired the gap, Lafary is still leery about the basic stability of the wall, built decades ago atop an old railroad bed. He said he was afraid high water could shift old railroad ties buried inside the levee, catastrophically weakening the wall.
But Dooley, the Corps spokesman, said the agency was authorized to repair compromised levers only to their previous levels of
protection. He said it needed congressional approval and funding to rebuild levees bigger and wider.
About 45 miles south of Gulfport, in Adams County, III, the Mississippi overwhelmed two levees, submerging tens of thousands of acres of farmland and devastating Meyer, a hamlet of a few dozen people. Repairs are expected to be completed this month on one of those levers, in the Indian Grave Drainage District north of Quincy.
"It's not going to be better than it was before the last two floods we had" in 1993 and last year, "and I
think that's a huge mistake," said David Shafter, the levee district's commissioner. "If the government would just get busy and get a project going to where they build everybody's levees up to withstand these high-water events, everybody would be better off."
CRIME
Kansas teachers charged with sexually assaulting children
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WICHITA - A case involving a former assistant principal in the Wichita school district accused of raping a 6-year-old girl has put the spotlight on teacher abuse involving young children.
More than half of the 76 teachers in Kansas who have lost their licenses this decade had inappropriate relationships with children, state records show, but just three of the cases involved charges of
sexually molesting grade-school-age children.
Earlier this month, a former assistant principal of Cloud Elementary School, Robert C. Baker, was charged with rape and aggravated indecent liberties. Baker, 59, is free on $250,000 bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 18.
Baker, an employee of the Wichita school district since 1974, told a judge during his first court appearance last week that he was retired.
Kansas has more than 70,000
licensed teachers.
"I promise you, that's just the tip of the iceberg," Bob Shoop, a Kansas State University education professor who specializes in studying student abuse, said. "Most cases don't get reported."
Those that are reported don't always lead to criminal charges, he added.
"In many cases, the parents don't want to see their child become the poster kid for being abused," he said.
John Shehan, director of the
exploited child division of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., noted that teachers fell into the category of people most likely to molest children: People the children know and often trust.
"Normally, people who have a sexual interest in children are going put themselves around children," he said.
Just three Kansas teachers since 2000 have lost their teaching licenses for incidents involving children in
grade school.
One was Anthony Baker,' a 37-year-old librarian at Muncie Elementary School in Leavenworth when he was arrested in 2007 on federal pornography charges for images found on his computer. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison on the pornography charge.
Scott A. Habegger, 36, was the principal at Prairie Center Elementary School in Olathe when he was arrested in 2006 and charged
with sexually assaulting a fourth-grade boy while student-teaching at a Lincoln, Neb., grade school in 1995. He is serving an eight- to 20-year sentence at the Nebraska State Penitentiary.
Michael G. Lambdin, 38, was an English teacher at Liberal High School until he was arrested in May 2006 and charged with molesting two young girls. He is serving time at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility and will be eligible for parole in 2024.
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