Thousands flee rising flood waters
By United Press International
By United Press International Thousands of persons streamed out of Minot, N.D., and other flood-harried communities in the upper Midwest yesterday as snow-gorged rivers struggled to burst their bonds.
Authorities said 9,500 of Minot's 34,000 residents would be out of their homes and safe on higher ground by last night ahead of a new crest expected to surge down the normally placid Mouse River.
22 KANSAN Apr. 16 1969
The swollen Mississippi River neared an expected crest at St. Paul, Minn., and residents of the Minnesota capital city—where hundreds of suburban residents already were refugees—braced for three days of battle with Old Man River.
Downriver from St. Paul, lowland residents stepped up evacuations in Wisconsin riverside cities. Police took over milk delivery in one section of Prairie du Chien, Wis., and the mayor of La Crosse, Wis., asked for a National Guard patrol of dikes.
The orderly moveout of the thousands at Minot boosted to
North Dakota counted 12,000 persons left temporarily homeless by high waters. More than 4,000 had been ousted from homes in South Dakota, more than 3,000 in Minnesota, some 700 in Iowa a and 600 in Wisconsin.
more than 20,000 the number of persons who have been routed from their homes in the spring floods.
By yesterday, thousands had returned to their homes—the flooding or danger of flooding over. For others, the worst was yet to come.
Guardsmen, college and high school youngsters and other volunteers carried sandbags or otherwise worked to strengthen dikes.
At scores of cities and towns, civil defense workers, National
Volunteers from as far away as Crookston, Minn., were among the hundreds who toiled at Minot. Sixty-six dirt trucks rumbled along an improvised 6-foot-high dirt road atop U.S. 83 which runs north-south through the city.
Schools still untouched by floodwaters were turned into refugee shelters. Residents whose homes were high and dry turned their garages into storage
places for belongings of less fortunate persons.
At Fargo, N.D., where the rampaging Red River of the North apparently crested Monday night, hundreds of persons—most of them teenagers-worked on dikes. Michelson Field, a baseball stadium, was under 20 feet of water. Part of a fashionable residential section was flooded. Across the Red River in Moorhead, Minn., civil defense officials said 300 homes were affected by flooding.
Make Church A Part Of Your Relays Weekend...
Worship this Sunday at one of these Lawrence churches:
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
Rev. M. C. Allen, minister; 9:45 a.m. Sunday Church School; 11 a.m. Morning Worship; 6:15 p.m. Baptist Evening Fellowship.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
2415 W. 23 (west of the Holiday Inn)
Rev. Harold M. Mallett—pastor;
Rev. Forest Link—asst. pastor; 9:00
and 11:00 a.m. Sunday Services;
Free bus for second service starting
at 10:30 a.m. from Corbin Hall
down Jayhawk Blvd. to Daisy Hill
down Naismith Dr. and Stewart
Dr. to the church.
FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 946 Vermont
Rev. Ronald L. Sundbye—pastor;
Rev. R. Dennis Bowers—associate pastor; Sunday Worship 9:30 and
11:00 a.m.; Church School 9:20
and 10:50 a.m.
Plymouth Congregational Church United Church of Christ 925 Vermont
Dr. John Felible—minister; Rev.
Guy Stone—asst. minister; 10:00
a m. Sunday Service and 11:00 a.m.
Fellowship Coffee
IMMANUEL LUTHERAN CHURCH 17th and Vermont Rev. Walter H. Lutz; Sunday Worship Services 8:30 and 11:00 a.m.
FIRST SOUTHERN BAPTIST CHURCH
19th and Naismith Drive
Clint Dunagan—pastor; Sunday
Services 8:30 and 11:00 a.m.;
Sunday School 9:45 a.m.; Nursery
Available.
TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH
1245 New Hampshire
Rev. Harold Hamilton—pastor;
Rev. James D. Little—asst. pastor;
Sunday Services 9:00 and
11:00 a.m.