6A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2007
>> SEVERE WEATHER
Kansans evacuate after flash floods
BY JOHN HANN ASSOCIATED PRES
TOPEKA — Flash flooding and high water forced hundreds of Kansans from their homes early Monday and shut down streets and highways around the state.
Authorities had rescued more than 500 people around Topeka, many along Shunanguanga and Soldier creeks, said Dave Bevans, a spokesman for Shawnee County emergency operations. Most were pulled from flooded homes starting around 2 a.m. An additional 18 people were rescued from rooftops in Wakarusa. He said he had no reports of injuries.
At a news conference late Monday morning, Bevans said rescues had stopped and the water was receding.
"It looks like it is going to dry up" he said. "We have finished rescuing all the folks."
The weather service reported widespread flooding of creeks, streams and low-lying areas
throughout northeast and east-central Kansas.
Officials said the Kansas River in Topeka and Lawrence was expected to continue to rise throughout the day before cresting.
Bill Gargan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka, said some isolated areas had received 8 inches to 9 inches of rain but 3 inches to 5 inches were more common. He said heavy rainfall was reported in the southwest, central and eastern sections of the state.
Several schools in the Topeka area were closed for the day, and evacuation centers were set up on the Washburn University campus and the Kansas Expo Center.
Rainfall amounts for the 24 hours that ended at 7 a.m. included 6.73 inches in Topeka, 5.06 inches in Emporia, 6.65 inches in Miller, 6.15 inches in Lebo and 5.06 inches in Neosho Rapids.
The weather service said much of Kansas can expect more rain for the next few days.
Steven Herrold rides his bike through swollen Shunga Creek where it flooded a neighborhood in Topeka on Monday. The area received more than six inches of rain overnight and more was in the forecast.
Charlie Riedel/ASSOCIATED PRESS
SCIENCE
Kansas, Missouri compete for killer germ research lab
WASHINGTON — A dozen states including Kansas and Missouri, are competing for a government research lab full of killer germs like anthrax, avian flu and foot-and-mouth disease.
The states are bidding for a proposed 520,000-square-foot National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility that will cost at least $450 million to build. It would replace an aging, smaller lab at Plum Island, N.Y., where security lapses after the 2001 terrorist attacks drew scrutiny from Congress and government investigators.
The Homeland Security Depart ment facility promises at least 300 lab-related jobs, and more in
construction. Congress provided money for the $47 million design and architecture, but no money has been appropriated yet for construction or operations.
States' written bids have not been made public. However, they were required to make available at least 30 acres of land.
Kansas has launched one of the most aggressive bids. The state is offering two sites — in Manhattan and Leavenworth — and touting its location in the heartland of the nation's agricultural economy.
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a democrat, formed a state task force to land the lab while U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan), has taken the lead in lobbying Homeland Security officials. The state has also included former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman on its team.
"We have the total support of the state for this facility," Roberts said Monday in a telephone interview from Boston, where he was heading a group of more than 100 Kansas officials at an annual biotechnology convention. "It would put us on the map as THE bioscience center, not only in the United States but in the world."
The competition intensified last month as federal officials began visits to 17 potential sites. The government has said it would take into account offers of roads, cheap water supplies and discounted utilities, and states are dangling their premier scientific expertise and community treasures as bait.
Associated Press
GREENSBURG TORNADO
One found alive, two others dead
BY ROXANA HEGEMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
GREENSBURG — Two more bodies have been recovered in Greensburg, authorities said Monday, raising to 10 the number of dead from Friday's powerful tornado that obliterated the tiny southwest Kansas town.
Little remained standing in the town of 1,500 residents but the grain elevator. The tornado demolished every business on the main street. Churches lost their steeples, trees were stripped of their branches and neighborhoods were flattened. Officials estimate as much as 95 percent of the town was destroyed.
The massive tornado, an enhanced F-5 with wind estimated at 205 mph, was part of a weekend of violent storms across the Plains that killed at least 12 people, all of them in Kansas. Authorities have not identified any of the victims.
One of the latest two victims was found under structural rubble in the middle of town, City Administrator Steve Hewitt said. The other body was pulled from a lake outside of town.
Earlier Monday, officials said one person had been found alive in the rubble, bringing some good news to residents making a grim return to their destroyed homes.
There remained plenty of caution about what the rubble might reveal
in the coming days. There remained plenty of caution about what the rubble might reveal in the coming days. Since the tornado hit Friday night, emergency responders have had little indication of how many people in this central Kansas town of 1,500 may be safely staying with friends or relatives, rather than in shelters.
"We've been over the town twice now — all of our partners around the state, the experts from cities with technical search-and-rescue," Maj. Gen. Todd Bunting, the state's adjutant general, told CNN Monday morning. "We've done everything we can.
"Some of this rubble is 20 (feet), 30 feet deep. That's where we've spent all our efforts, and we'll do it again today."
izer by farmers — began leaking, prompting officials to evacuate the northeast part of the town.
Residents
By midmorning, the sun was starting to break through, interrupting nearly three days of constant rain and overcast. A line of vehicles nearly two miles long snaked outside the city limits on U.S. 54. Residents,
Law enforcement officials will be checking identification and compiling a list of people whose whereabouts still haven't been determined. Residents must leave again by 6 p.m.
"Some of this rubble is 20 (feet), 30 feet deep. That's where we've spent all our efforts, and we'll do it again today."
MAJ. GEN. TODD BUNTING State adjutant general
of the tornado-ravaged community were being allowed back home Monday to sift through their wrecked homes, giving rescues a better idea of whether any of the people still missing might be buried somewhere under the rubble. But some of the efforts were stalled at midday when a tank holding anhydrous ammonia — a toxic substance as fertil-
power crews from other cities and hazardous materials workers were all waiting to get in.
A scene near downtown typified the misery residents were experiencing in their grim march back to town. A woman
supported by two other women as they walked along U.S. 54 had to stop frequently, breaking down in sobs.
Fresh search and rescue dogs were brought in Monday from Missouri as the hunt for possible survivors and bodies continued across a landscape dotted with mounds of debris, some as deep as 30 feet.