Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 12, 1993 TAG: 9307120106
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DES MOINES, IOWA LENGTH: Medium
Flooding on the Raccoon River around Des Moines left 45,000 people without power and inundated the water plant. A dike on the Mississippi failed in Burlington.
The Mississippi also threatened to cut a new channel to join the Missouri River near St. Louis.
The rivers "are going to claim what is theirs, regardless of what we do. And we can try to get out of the way or we're going to get wet," said Bill Diefenbach of the Missouri Conservation Department on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley."
"And a lot of people unfortunately are getting wet," he said.
Flooding along the Mississippi and its tributaries had forced more than 30,000 people from their homes by Saturday and caused 16 deaths. Officials estimate crop and property damage at more than $2 billion in South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri.
The White House extended federal disaster relief to 44 more counties in Missouri, Vice President Al Gore said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Gore said he would visit the St. Louis area today.
A change in the weather was expected, after weeks of heavy rain, said National Weather Service director Elbert Joe Friday Jr.
"The good news is that the weather pattern seems to be returning more to the normal, which means that we expect a lessening of the rains in the upper Midwest," he said on CBS' "Face The Nation."
But he said so much rain has already fallen that flooding could continue to the end of August.
It could be days or even weeks before the Des Moines water plant can resume operation, said L.D. McMullen, Des Moines Water Works general manager.
by CNB