
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 16, 1993                   TAG: 9307160246
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RIVERS' MEETING FEARED

Several hundred Missouri residents still living on a narrow peninsula between the swollen Mississippi and Missouri rivers were ordered to leave Thursday when officials warned that a levee wouldn't keep the waterways apart.

About 7,000 residents were ordered to leave the peninsula in St. Charles County north of St. Louis, but some defied the evacuation orders.

Drenching thunderstorms continued to bear down on the area Thursday, increasing fears that the rivers, swollen for more than a month, would converge 20 miles upstream of where they normally do.

President Clinton, who has stopped in flood-stricken Iowa twice in two weeks, will tour the St. Louis area Saturday, the White House announced. The Mississippi reached a record height of 43.3 feet at St. Louis on Thursday and is expected to crest there Monday at more than 15 feet over flood stage.

Clinton sought Thursday to quell any hopes that the federal government might provide relief for all the damage caused by the Midwestern floods.

As his administration's own estimates of the damage swelled to $8 billion, Clinton said he might have to seek an increase in the $2.5 billion in immediate assistance he had requested from Congress on Wednesday. But he made it clear that he was not contemplating aid on a wider scale.

"The federal government has never compensated natural disasters dollar for dollar for every kind of disaster loss," the president said Thursday afternoon. He said some costs would have to be borne by local governments, private sources and the victims themselves.

Upriver, water percolated up through the ground in East Carondolet, Ill., buckling streets and bursting water mains, as the powerful Mississippi forced the water table above street level and muscled through levees.

In other parts of the Midwest, people began cleanup efforts.

Des Moines, Iowa, officials delayed by another day their projected date when 250,000 people will get back running water, knocked out early Sunday when flood waters spilled into the Des Moines Water Works.

Water won't flow from taps until Monday because 20 million gallons must first fill the maze of pipes and tanks in the water system. The water won't be fit to drink for at least a month.

The New York Times contributed to this report.

by CNB