Sunny day.
PLEASANT
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
The University of Kansas
KANSAN
Lawrence, Kansas
Wednesday September 14, 1977
Vol. 88, No.12
19 dead, 3,000 homeless after KC flood
moment of rest
History: Keynes Club policemen rest under a bridge on the Country Club Plaza next to the remains of two cars washed onto the banks of Brush Creek Monday night. Police surrounded the Plaza to keep sightseers away.
ALTHOUGH NO official damage estimates have been compiled, Kansas City, Mo., itself has incurred at least $4 to $7 million in damages and cleanup costs.
Hardest hit in Kansas City was the historic Country Club Plaza, in Kansas City, Mo. Yesterday it was the site of death and a tragic loss. People from Brush Creek ravaged the shop area.
The bodies of 19 victims had been discovered by last night, and authorities fear the total may increase today. Police recovered 11 bodies in Kansas City, Mt. two in Independence, Mo., and one in Blue Springs, Mo., where a 16-year-old boy was recovered from 5-Mile Creek in the southwestern part of the city. In Leawood, a family of four drowned when
Brush Creek, Blue River and other creeks and streams in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri overflowed their banks Monday night, destroying property and sweeping cars and their passengers off streets and into swift current waters.
"We've been assured that there isn't any question but that the government will respond," Robert Kipp, Kansas City, Mo., city manager said yesterday.
KC residents stunned by Plaza wreckage
Aid sought for victims of disaster
See FLOOD page nine
From Staff and Wire Reports
Thousands of Kansas City area residents began returning to their mud-covered homes last night in the wake of a flash flood that left at least 19 persons dead and 3,000
By DAVE TOPLIKAR and VENNIE WHITE
Requests for federal disaster aid have been forwarded to President Jimmy Carter by both Kansas Gov. Robert Bennett and Missouri Gov. Joseph Teadleas.
Staff Writers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — At noon on an ordinary day, shopmers, sightseers and shop employees on their lunch breaks crowd the Country Club Plaza.
Yesterday, at the same hour, in drizzling rain, fireman, policemen, Kansas City Power and Light and city employees filled the streets, cleaning up debris left by flooding and explosions and looking for bodies.
Weather officials said yesterday that the flood was the worst disaster in the area since the flood of 1501, which caused $1 billion damages.
"It's unreal," said a passerby.
"The death statistics don't hit home until you actually see one of the bodies," he said.
"I've never seen anything like it," said his companion.
One witness said he saw a crushed car with a body in it pulled out at about noon yesterday from Brush Creek, where the trouble began.
Nineteen persons were reported dead yesterday as a result of heavy rains Sunday and Monday. The rains chased creeks and streams, and caused flooding in Kansas and northwestern Missouri. Hardest hit by walls of water six feet deep were the Brush Creek area and the Country Club Plaza, which traditionally is known for its various shops, fountains and Christmas lights.
More flood stories, photos page nine
"WE'RE ALL IN a state of shock," Mona Saunards said today, looking out the door of her daughter's quilt shop and fighting tears.
The shop, Quilt Country, is next door to the Baskin-Robins store that was destroyed by a gas explosion caused by flooding early yesterday morning.
"When I heard about the explosion, I thought there be nothing left," she said.
But handmade quilts still hung on the walls of the shop.
"How we escaped the fire defies explanation. 'Saunders said.'
Baskin-Robbins was a blackened shell, beaked with resembles to the brightly colored shop window.
In her shop, Margaret Robinson reached
out of glassware, to pick up another
piece of glassware.
Saunders said she was told a fire wall between the shop and Baskin-Robbins may have been the reason her daughter's shop still was standing.
QUILTS and quilting supplies were
worn by 6000 migrants and flood
waters damaged 30,000 homes.
At Wildfire Art, Tom Archembeau,
Kansas City, Mo., graduate student, swept
back in the 1980s.
Walls of any other Plaza shops along J. Nichols Drive were covered as high as six feet.
"I didn't know Brush Creek could be that savage," she said. She said she had never been afraid of her people.
and woodcarvings that had not been carried away by the flood.
Archeambeau, a framer at the shop, said he had been cleaning the shop since 6 a.m.
"THE WHOLE PLACE is pretty much a loss." he said.
Many original prints, wood carvings and frames were lost and many bronze pieces were ruined, he said. He estimated the damage to be at least six weeks before the shop reopened.
Much of the clothing at Caldwell's dress shop was damaged and very little could be salvaged, according to Jody Caldwell Luthi, a graduate, and daughter of the shop owner.
"The whole Plaza scene leaves me with a sick feeling," she said.
Children's books of ABC's and nursery
romans. Published by Bennett
Cornell University Press.
Floors were ruined and plate glass was gone at Fireside on the Plaza, a gift shop. Frances Bertoncini said it would take 30 days to get the shop back into shape. She said she was not covered by flood insurance and no one she knew had it.
"We'll probably run a water sale when thins get cleaned up," she said.
J. R. FLINN, owner of the store, said most of the stock was stained. His basement was also stained.
Flinn said he did have some flood insurance.
"But it's not near enough to cover the damage," he said.
Lanterns dangled from the charred
cabin of House to Toy, a Chinese
restaurant.
Workers leaned against the front of the rafters, their yellow raincoats, taking a short step.
Albert Montell, Kansas City Power and Light employ, arrived at the Plaza at 8 a.m. He had been up all night taking care of power problems in another area, he said.
"People were working when I got here," he said. "They're cleaning things up in a hurry. They are dump trucks, tow trucks, you name it," he said.
HE SAID WATER was being pumped out of manholes so that electricity could be shut off, allowing business people to go to their flooded basements to begin the cleanup.
Montell and other workers lined up for hot coffee, sandwiches and doughnuts provided
Vici White, with Kansas City, Mo., police parking services, stopped by the booth for some hot chocolate. She said she had been working all morning located stalled cars and having them towed from the area to the Plaza Theatre lot.
"People think we're out giving tickets, but we're just trying to help," she said.
See PLAZA page nine
Debate airs IHP's faults, merits
By STEVEN STINGLEY
Participants in a debate agreed last night that charges of religious "brutalism" were valid.
Staff Writer
Housing opens
Students waiting for rooms in University of Kansas residence halls now can be provided with temporary housing in the halls in ironing rooms and triple-occupancy rooms, Fred McElhene, associate dean of men, said yesterday.
McEllenbie said people on the waiting list must notify the Dean of Men's Office, 228 Strong Hall, if they wish to wish to be on campus. Students from the list who have found housing elsewhere also should notify the Dean of Men's Office.
The adjusted rate required of late-comers will vary with each hall and will be determined individually, McElhenie said.
Most of the debate, which drew a crowd of about 400, consisted of the discussion of specific merits and shortcomings of IHP between the participants, Dennis Quinn, a professor of English and director of IHP, and Arthur Kidmore, assistant professor of philosophy.
However, during the question and answer period following the debate, a spokesman for the Committee for Academic and Religious Liberties, an organization of parents protesting the IHP, called the debate, a "whitewash of the most serious
(HP) at the University of Kansas were unmistakied.
The spokesman, Vern Barnet, a Unitarian minister in Shawnee Mission, said the debate "was unfair because there was no real opposition presented."
Barnet represented a group of Kansas Citians who have charged that IHP professors try to convert students to Roman Catholicism through class lectures.
Quinn said he was not going to answer allegations that the IHP tried to convert its students to Catholicism because the program was protected by the right of academic freedom and because he resented defending the program.
SKIDMORE SAID the charges of religious indoctrination were "propagators," but the charges against it were not.
of Liberal Arts and Sciences was better qualified to teach the humanities.
Both Skidmore and Quinn said HIP was approved by the College faculty and any changes would be the faculty's responsibility.
The primary difference between Skidmore's and Quinn's arguments centered on IHP's ability to properly teach students a variety of disciplines with only three professors.
THE IRP IS a freshman-sophomore program for studying great philosophical, literary and historical works of Western civilization.
Skidmore now the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was better qualified to teach students the humanities because it offered them a range of disciplines. Students should learn history
from historians, he be said, and philosophy
members specifically trained in
philosophy.
Quinn, Franklyn Neilck, professor of English, and John Senior, professor of classics, are the only faculty members on the IHP program.
Quinn argued that the program's primary objective was to provide stimulus for students to become interested in the nature of education. Students do not need specialized training at the IHP's level, Quinn said.
BOTH QUINN AND Skidmore defended the program against charges that the professors of the IHP were brainwashing its students.
"There is no papist conspiracy," he said. Quinn said the persons accusing the IHP of converting students to Catholicism did not know anything about the program.
Skidmore said it was impossible for religious indoctrination to take place in a classroom situation. "Students are not puppets," he said, but "have a will of their parents."
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Capsules From the Associated Press, United Press International
Schneider denies improprieties
TOPEKA-Atty. Gen. Curt Schnetler, a front-runner for the 1978 Democratic nomination for governor, had his chances jolted yesterday with the disclosure that outdoor pictures were taken of him and a woman near a Joplin motel last month.
Schneider said the woman was a longtime family friend, and he had returned to Topeka after having dinner with her. He denied any impropriety, said he had done nothing to impair his ability to serve in office and implied to reporters that he thought he had been victimized by political blackmail.
Senate defeats gasoline rationing
As senators worked on the conservation measure last night, the President's natural gas price control plan was left in limbo by a deadlocked Senate Energy Committee. That committee voted to send the bill to the Senate floor without recommendation.
WASHINGTON - The Senate overwhelmingly defeated three attempts at gasoline rationing yesterday and strengthened some of the provisions of a proposed fuel bill.
Carter's natural gas plan would extend the federal controls, now on interstate sales of气 to sales within the producing states, but under a new, higher
Leopold Stokowski dead at 95
LONDON—Leopold Stokaski, the white-maned maestro who used his graceful hands instead of a baton, died yesterday at age 95, while sleeping at his home in a Hampshire village.
The untiring musician was working until the end. Marty Wargo, his agent in Britain, said Skokowski, who was preparing for a recording session this fall, had made more than 100 recordings and had been contracted in a contract that would have kept him busy until he was 100.
Stokwisk was known for his love of experimentation, and won acclaim as one of the world's great conductors.
Jaworski likely to go to Seoul
WASHINGTON—The House Ethics Committee may send special counsel Leon Jaworski to Seed to testify inquires against Quinn Park for the investigation into the killing of Derek Chauvin.
Ethicism chairman John Flynt, D-Ga., refused to deny or confirm that his committee was considering the trip, but he said. "We are determined to take it." He added:
Earlier in Seoul, foreign minister Park Tong-ki jindicated that his government might invite Jaworski to visit South Korea to talk with Park. But he said his government still was unwilling to force Park to return to Washington to face a 36-count federal indictment on charges of bribery and other felonies.
Locally . . .
Fighters announced yesterday they would accept new wage agreements with the City of Lawrence, but they said they would not take any official action in the matter until police have agreed to accept similar agreements. Firemen had said last week that they could not release their deceased wives not acquired enough votes to justify the tortious agreement, however no more votes were received yesterday than had been cast last week. See story page two