THE UNIVERSITY DARY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2007
NEWS 7A
NATURAL DISASTER
Flooding wreaks havoc on Midwest towns
Keith Wilson, with 17-month-old son Noah Wilson looking on, works with others to fill sandbags along the Katy Trail on Tuesday during efforts to hold back floodwaters in Rocheport, Mo.
Dan Gill/ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AGENCY, Mo. — As residents in central Missouri prepared for flooding from rain-choked rivers, levees along the Missouri River gave way, flooding the tiny town of Big Lake on Tuesday.
Mark Sitherwood, presiding commissioner of Holt County, said five major levees along the Missouri River south of Big Lake broke Monday. The water from those breaks reached Big Lake, a town of about 300 residents in northwest Missouri, on Tuesday.
"The town and lake are completely under water," Sitherwood said.
"The town is a loss. At this time, we don't know, but it looks like that's what's going to happen."
Across northwest Missouri rivers and streams overran their banks. On Monday, Gov. Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency and signed an executive order authorizing the mobilization of Missouri National Guard troops. Voluntary evacuations were under way in several western Missouri counties.
No injuries were reported. Big Lake, which is located about two miles from the Missouri River, is about 35 miles northwest of St. Joseph.
"Once we've dealt with the entire flood across the state, we'll begin to evaluate the damage and find out what kind of assistance might be available to compensate or help people impacted by the damage," Blunt said Tuesday at a news conference in St. Joseph.
Most Big Lake residents evacuated Monday but a handful of residents were rescued by boat from their homes Tuesday, Sitherwood said.
The city of Craig was also being threatened north of Big Lake because of another levee break on the Big Tarkio River, Sitherwood said. And the rising water from the Big Lake
area was also threatening the town of Fortescue.
Meanwhile, St. Joseph was spared flooding when the Missouri River crested about four feet lower than had been predicted, said Matt Dux, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. More rain had been predicted for this week but when that didn't happen, water levels crested lower than predicted in feeder streams and the Missouri River, Dux said.
"We're very, very blessed," said Bill Brinton, emergency management director for Buchanan County. "The river didn't crest as high as it was supposed to, and all the leves held. We did about 70,000 sandbags that we didn't need."
But most residents evacuated Agency, a town of about 100 east of St. Joseph that is surrounded on three sides by the Platte River and was hit hard by the Flood of 1993, one of the most costly and devastating floods in U.S. history.
By midday Tuesday, a few Agency homes were partially submerged, as were nearby roads and a cemetery.
"It itt as bad as 1993," said Pauline Gibson, 71, who did not evacuate her Agency trailer home but had everything packed if she had to leave quickly. "But it's working on it. We don't want it like '93, but they say more rain is coming and that's not good."
Tom Hutsler, Parkville resident and business owner, had several trucks on hand Tuesday to move merchandise and belongings.
In Parkville, a town of about 4,000 along the Missouri River 10 miles north of Kansas City. 18 businesses were shuttered Tuesday after a mandatory evacuation was ordered for the section of town closest to the river.
Farther east, the Boone County Fire Protection District and the Columbia/Boone County Office of Emergency Management put out a call for volunteers to begin sandbaggging Tuesday along the Missouri River, beginning in Rocheport and moving south toward Huntsdale, McBaine and Hartsburg.
"One thing we learned in the flood of '93 is water is going to go where it wants to go, and sandbagging is fruitless," Hutsler said.
And in Jefferson City, officials began evacuating the municipal airport Tuesday as the capital began preparing for flooding expected to hit Wednesday or Thursday.
After floods in 1993 and 1995, Jefferson City raised the elevation of its riverside sewage treatment plant, and the federal government bought
out scores of homes on the north shore of the river. But proposals for a super levee never materialized, leaving the airport and remaining businesses vulnerable any time the river stage exceeds 30 feet.
Attorney Tom Rost was tending his vegetables Tuesday but feared they would be lost — along with the
sprouting crops of nearby farms.
"I think it's going to be serious," Rost said, offering free lettuce to passerboy.
The National Weather Service predicted that the river would crest at 34 feet in Boonville by Friday evening, or about 13 feet above flood stage.
》 TORNADO
Greensburg residents begin long cleanup effort
The streets of Greensburg, Kan. are a flutter of activity as cleanup crews and residents sift through the debris Tuesday, May 8, 2007. A mounstrous tornado killed nine people and destroyed more than 90 percent of the town Friday night.
Travis Heving/The Wiclaita Eagle
BY JOHN HANNA ASSOCIATED PRESS
GREENSBURG — Amid the downed utility poles, stripped trees and rubble the massive tornado left behind, the county courthouse and the Southern Plains Co-op's grain elevator, the tallest building here, still stand.
With nine people dead and more than 90 percent of this south-central Kansas community destroyed, residents picked through pile after pile of debris Tuesday and talked about rebuilding. Although he had to sleep in a friend's pickup, Mayor Lonnie McCollum was talking about heartily about the future, envisioning a town that would look more like a new suburb outside a big city.
While outsiders wondered whether too little remains intact for that kind of comback, they also acknowledged Greensburg's status as the Kiowa County seat and a regional economic hub for area farmers make its survival plausible.
"I don't see this mess. I see what it's going to be," McCollum said, a sea of severed trees, crumpled vehicles and wrecked buildings behind him. "Who wouldn't want to live in a brand new town? Who wouldn't want to have a business in a whole new town?"
Still, McCollum couldn't predict when basic services such as sewer, water or electricity would be restored, and officials were trying to find a place for mobile homes sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Danny McLarty, the location manager for the Southern Plains Co-op, and his employees were working Tuesday to salvage what they could, clean the mess and count their losses. Although the grain elevator was still standing, all that was left of its business office was about half of its outer shell, its roof stripped off and a pile of wood and stone where part of the building once stood.
Posted signs said. "Construction under progress," and McLarty said he was keeping all 14 employees on the payroll.
Before the storm hit, Greensburg had been facing the problem of an aging and declining population, mirroring Midwestern trends. The 2000 Census said more than a quarter of its residents were 65 or older; its population peaked at nearly 2,000 in 1960 and has declined to about 1,400.
buy their supplies," McLarty said. "We will be here for them — that is what a farming community is all about."
"This is a farm community. The elevator has to be here. Farmers have to have a place to
How much Greensburg recovers depends on the energy its leaders show and the networks — church, social and business — residents have formed, said Bruce Weber, director of Oregon State University's rural
"You could probably make a place that both the desire and the resources are there and the town serves an economic function for the region," Weber said. "An external trauma often gives energy to where you wouldn't have seen it before."
studies program.
For customer Clorene Smith, it was important because she fled her tornado-ravaged house without identification. But the small town bank knows her.
Greensburg State Bank set up two tents on the sidewalk outside the remains of its building so residents could do business.
"It is kind of nice I can write a check and get cash," she said.
DUCK KILLING
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WICHITA — The Humane Society of the United States is asking that a sixth-grader who stabbed three ducks to death be charged with animal cruelty.
The Wilber Middle School student allegedly used a pencil last week to kill a mother duck and two ducklings that had nested near the school.
The Humane Society said it did not want the 11-year-old to be jailed, but it wants to be sure he receives "the intervention crucial to preventing future recurrences of violence," said Mary Lou Randour, the group's professional outreach coordinator and a Maryland-based psychologist.
"A conviction of animal cruelty would not only convey to the student the serious nature of his alleged crime," Randour said, "but would also help ensure that he remains under psychological counseling and observation"
District Attorney Nola Foulston said Monday that her office was investigating the case.
"It is incumbent upon us to dig deeper, not only out of concern for the welfare of animals but for the welfare of our children," Foulston said.
An animal cruelty charge, she said, wasn't the only way to ensure the boy gets counseling or treatment.
The boy was suspended last Wednesday, and school officials said
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Foulston said the case could be filed as a "child in need of care" case, but that depended on what the investigation reveals about the student's actions, behavior and home life. Generally, child in need cases involve children abandoned, neglected or abused by a parent. "With these cases you need to look not only at the alleged act itself but at the underlying problems that may have led to that act," Foulston said.
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