Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 2, 1993 TAG: 9307020070
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Larry Kapinus would like to work in his fields. But the corn is knee-high - and the water is chest-high.
Along the upper Mississippi, there's water, water everywhere it shouldn't be - from basements to baseball diamonds, factory floors to farm fields. Crops are destroyed, businesses closed and barge traffic stopped. The worst flooding since 1965 promises to leave a painful legacy: hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
"It's shut down a very large portion of the transportation system of the country," said a frustrated Buddy Compton, chairman of the River Industry Action Committee, a St. Louis-based barge operator's group. "We have to sit until the water comes down, but it keeps raining."
"The people in the city don't realize it's going to cost them," said Kapinus, a farmer near waterlogged Prairie du Chien, Wis. "Pretty soon it'll have to be passed on. There's a lot of pain out there."
The unusual summer flood has halted commercial traffic on a 400-mile stretch of river from southern Minnesota to St. Louis - the main Midwest route for hundreds of thousands of tons of grain, petroleum products, coal and other cargo each week.
Compton has estimated the industry is losing $1 million a day. The Army Corps of Engineers says it could be two more weeks before the water recedes to levels where all locks on the Mississippi can be reopened.
The flood has forced evacuations, sidelined cruise boats and pushed some July Fourth riverfront activities in St. Louis to higher ground.
In Davenport, Iowa, where there was sunshine Thursday, the river is expected to crest Saturday at 22.3 feet, more than 7 feet above flood level but short of a record. More National Guard troops also were activated, bringing the total to near 300. The post office has relocated, the minor league baseball team has temporarily moved out of town and businesses - some located on River Drive - are trying to stay afloat in waist-high water.
"We'll stay open as long as we can get trucks in and out," said Peterson, who owns a paper company. He has a canoe to ferry workers and materials and has gone barefoot because the water is above his boots.
"I had a tetanus shot a couple of weeks ago," he jokes, "so I'm safe."
More wet weather soaked parts of the Midwest on Wednesday night. Quincy, Ill., was drenched with 6.06 inches of rain, and the Army Corps reported Thursday that Keithsburg, Ill., and Burlington, Iowa, had record river levels.
But there was relief, too. In Prairie du Chien, the river dropped 6 inches Wednesday night. And locks in Minnesota have opened.
President Clinton will tour flooded eastern Iowa in a brief visit Sunday, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin announced. On Thursday, Clinton said he will ask Congress for money to assist suffering farmers, a decision that came a day after Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy toured four soaked states.
"It's a very, very serious thing for the farmers," Clinton said. "It is the most rain they've had in over a hundred years."
by CNB