Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 13, 1993 TAG: 9307130189
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The ban on shipping on the Mississippi was extended south to the mouth of the Ohio River at Cairo, Ill.
Damage from flooding along the Mississippi and many of its tributaries across the upper Midwest will far exceed the $1.2 billion aid package announced by President Clinton, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday.
"I know of no area that has been totally spared," Branstad said, adding that he will ask the federal government to declare all 99 Iowa counties disaster areas. Twelve counties have been designated.
Vice President Al Gore visited Lemay, Mo., and Grafton, Ill., where the water was so high he had to duck when his boat passed under power lines.
He also took a helicopter tour, and said in wonder, "You can't even tell where the Mississippi begins and the farmland ends."
Gore talked to Clinton late in the day by telephone and then assured local residents there would be a "forceful, coordinated response."
"I haven't even had time to go the unemployment office," said Pam Bick, whose house Gore visited. She lost her job when the flood closed the local restaurant.
The American Red Cross estimated that more than 7,600 homes were damaged or destroyed by flooding in Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois. It said it had 52 shelters open.
Millions of sandbags were shipped into the region, along with water for central Iowa.
Water poured through a quarter-mile break in a levee south of Quincy, Ill., threatening 9,000 acres of farmland and rural homes.
And, in a turnaround from aid sent by Midwesterners after Hurricane Andrew last year, a farm group lent the Florida Jaycees two trailers to haul fresh water to Iowa.
The Mississippi had covered so much land in Missouri that it lapped at the back side of a levee built to control the Missouri River. The rivers normally converge about 20 miles to the east, just above St. Louis. The flooding threatened to cut off a peninsula between the two rivers, making it an island.
by CNB