Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 20, 1993 TAG: 9312200038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL VOGRIN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: KEITHSBURG, ILL. LENGTH: Medium
\ Santa Claus is driving a black pickup this year, passing abandoned, water-stained houses to deliver decorations and gifts donated by Pennsylvania firefighters and New Jersey Girl Scouts.
Santa is one of the few signs of Christmas in the aftermath of the summer's devastating Mississippi River flood.
"It's real important this year that we have Christmas in Keithsburg," said the truck-driving Santa, Pam Heath. "We've got to get people going again."
"A lot of people lost everything in the flood," she said. "Memories are the only thing they have left."
The river breached a levee, inundating homes and businesses in water up to 10 feet deep for more than a month. About 80 homes were ruined and 70 others were damaged.
"I'd like to skip Christmas this year. Christmas morning will be hard," said Heath's mother, Bertha Finch, 60, a lifelong Keithsburg resident whose home was wrecked. She and her husband, Albert, are living in a government-supplied mobile home.
"We're not buying nothing. That's the hard thing," Bertha Finch said. "This time of year, every closet, nook and cranny would be stuffed full of Christmas presents."
Tears flow at the thought of disappointing 15 grandchildren, and at the idea of living indefinitely in the trailer.
"People say I'm lucky to have this trailer," Finch said, her voice rising. "I'm not lucky. I had a home. It was furnished and remodeled. I was going to die in my home.
"It's nice to have a trailer. We appreciate it. But we're not lucky."
The two-story house where the Finches raised four daughters is destined for demolition. A brown smudge circles the house about 10 feet above ground, marking the flood's crest.
Neighbor Bette Chenault also is living in a government trailer. She's not sure where she'll put the 20 relatives who traditionally come to her house for the holidays. They won't be crowded by gifts because couldn't Chenault buy any.
Like many flood victims, Chenault, 68, is on a fixed income and with little savings and no flood insurance. Plans for an $8.5 million subdivision don't comfort her because she can't afford a new house on her $800-a-month income from Social Security and a pension.
"I owned my house 23 years. It was paid for. . . . I have no savings. I can't build a new home. I could build a wigwam, maybe," she said.
Sharon and Clarence Reason's home was spared, but their downtown hotel was ravaged. Flood insurance only covered about 25 percent of their estimated $45,000 loss. So they borrowed $30,000 from the Small Business Administration and started renovations.
"We don't have any pensions," Sharon Reason said. "This was going to be our retirement income. We have no choice but to borrow and rebuild."
Albert Finch still visits his house each day. Sitting in his garage, he seems oblivious to activity around him as Federal Emergency Management Agency inspectors appraise property, contractors pour concrete and workers pile sand on nearby levees.
"Every time I come down here I get so disgusted I cuss, and the wife bawls," said Finch, 67, who is retired from a Deere & Co. factory in Moline.
"This is the first time the kids aren't going to come home for Christmas. But at least we'll be together. It has to be a happy Christmas."
by CNB