Another Water Plant Out, Levees Break in Midwest

FLOODING and storm damage continued in the Midwest.

About 80,000 residents of St. Joseph, Mo., remained without water yesterday after Missouri River flood waters knocked out the city's only water-treatment plant. It could be mid-week before the plant is restarted, officials said. St. Joseph residents had stood for hours Sunday at water-distribution sites. People also scrambled for bottled water in Brownville, Neb., where flooding shut down water service for about 200 residents.

In DeWitt, Neb., a village of 650 people 75 miles southwest of Omaha, tornadoes Saturday crumpled 20 grain silos, popped windows out of buildings, snapped old trees near the roots, and knocked out power throughout town. The residents had just begun cleaning up when flood waters poured in on the town Sunday. The death toll in the six-week floods rose to 41 with the deaths Saturday of an Illinois woman and a Kansas man.

South of St. Louis, flood waters from the Mississippi broke through a northern section of the 54-mile Sny Island levee, flooding 44,000 acres of farmland. The levee begins about 12 miles south of Quincy, Ill. Levee breaks were also reported in Randolph County, Ill. and in Perryville, Mo.

"We have more than a disaster, we have a calamity," Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy said after touring the region around St. Louis over the weekend.

Flood damage was so extensive that the administration will ask Congress for $5 billion in aid - double the previous request - but that still will not be enough, he said. Damage is now estimated to be at least $12 billion, and estimates of the economic impact are growing quickly.