! No Looting or Rioting; Losses Rise as Waters Recede in Midwest

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/midwest_flooding_business/2008/06/29/108412.html

Losses Rise as Waters Recede in Midwest

Sunday, June 29, 2008

WINFIELD, Missouri - Farmhouses appear to float on lakes, and farmers
use boats to get to their barns. Businesses are shuttered as flooded
roadways cut off customers. Rail lines, factories, river locks are
shut down. Homeowners, who watched and waited and prayed, have seen
dreams drowned.

After weeks of flooding through Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and
Wisconsin, billions of dollars in damage are adding up from dozens of
flooded towns, shaky bridges, overwhelmed utilities, and thousands of
evacuees.

But the misery index from the Great Flood of 2008 has only started to
sink in.

"We're just mentally and physically exhausted," said Winfield resident
Carol Broseman, who fled her low-lying home for a shelter in this
Missouri town on Saturday after flood waters engulfed her
neighborhood. "I've cried all I can cry."

A levee break on Friday outside this town of about 800 people north of
St. Louis sent a rush of muddy water across 3,000 acres of surrounding
fields and prompted frantic efforts to hold back more water.

But the efforts failed shortly before dawn on Saturday as the river
pushed through a six-foot- (1.8-metre-)high barrier of sandbags that
stretched 2,000 feet along the community's eastern edge.

"I've got a lot of money tied up in that little house," said
59-year-old Karl Broseman, who had no insurance on the two-bedroom,
now-flooded home he shares with his wife Carol. "I can rebuild. I'm
going to get started as soon as I can."

"We really have no where else to go," said 65-year-old Gilbert
Navarro, a retired laborer who said he spent the last two weeks
praying his home would be spared only to see it hit with several feet
of water on Saturday.

"We still have to make house payments, even if we don't have a house.
If a disaster hits, you rebuild."

LOSSES BEYOND CITY LIMITS

Midwest storms and torrential rains have killed at least 24 people
since late May. More than 38,000 people have been driven from their
homes, mostly in Iowa where 83 of 99 counties have been declared
disaster areas.

Flooded homes will take months to clean and rebuild, for those who
choose to rebuild. Sewage-filled streets and contaminated wells must
be cleaned up, levees restored, and damaged roads and bridges rebuilt.
But the losses have spread far beyond the city limits of the hundreds
of towns around flooded rivers. For farmers, millions of acres of
prime crop land have been ruined. Much of that will be a total loss as
it is too late to replant.

"It is a devastating loss. It really sets you back," said Stan Rolf,
who had soybeans and corn planted on 1,500 acres in Lincoln County in
northeast Missouri, most of which were under several feet of water by
Sunday.

Rolf, his family and friends spent days helping sandbag and shore up a
levee protecting his and other farms. But the efforts failed when the
Mississippi River on Friday broke through that barrier, one of three
dozen levees breached since the flooding began a month ago.

"We sandbagged and thought we could hold the water back," Rolf said.
"We fought a pretty good fight here."

President George W. Bush has asked Congress for at least $1.8 billion
in aid. A tax relief measure for residents in nine Midwestern states
is under consideration as well.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has promised aid, state
officials are letting flood victims camp for free in state parks, and
clean-up plans are under way in coordinated efforts between local,
state and federal officials.

But flooded-out victims said help cannot come fast enough.

"This is bad. We're pleading with the governor. We need assistance,"
said 88-year-old *** Whiteside, whose farmland is under water and who
has spent his days volunteering at an American Red Cross shelter in
Winfield.
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