COMMERCE, CAPE PROCEED WITH FLOOD BUYOUT PLANS

As flood buyouts in Cape Girardeau and Commerce proceed, officials predict some property owners might have their checks in hand as soon as January. Demolition work could be under way by February.

Cape Girardeau city officials hope to have flood-prone homes appraised, bought and demolished by April, although the program might extend into the summer.

Both cities plan to hire buyout administrators and hold public meetings in the next several weeks to explain the buyout program to affected property owners.

The Cape Girardeau City Council must rank the properties affected in the buyout.

Those residential properties in Cape Girardeau that have been damaged most by the floods of 1993 and 1995 would be bought out first, said Ken Eftink, the city's development services coordinator.

Cape Girardeau will receive $742,000 in federal and state funds to purchase and demolish homes in the Red Star and Smelterville neighborhoods. A Community Development Block Grant of $450,000 will be used to help homeowners and renters find new homes.

The city has identified about 50 homes in the Smelterville, Red Star and Highway 177 areas that could qualify for the buyout.

Eftink said the city would buy both buildings and vacant lots.

"We will go as far as we can with the money available," he said.

Commerce will receive $1.75 million in buyout funds, including more than $1 million from the Federal Emergency Management agency.

The owners of about 72 houses and vacant lots in the small Scott County town qualify for the buyout.

In all, about 53 houses or buildings could be demolished under the buyout. "You could hardly call some of them houses anymore. They are about to fall down," said Roy Jones, who heads Commerce's town board.

Missouri Emergency Management Agency officials met with Commerce town officials Tuesday and with Cape Girardeau city staff on Wednesday.

Buck Katt, assistant director of the state agency, told Cape city staff that it is important to move ahead as quickly as possible with the buyout effort.

So far funding is approved, but little else has happened.

"Until the homeowner gets a check, everything we have done is just overhead and bureaucracy," Katt said.

Flood victims are waiting to get their lives back in order, he said.

But the buyout won't help residents of the Meadowbrook area.

Flood problems in that neighborhood haven't been as severe as in the Red Star and Smelterville areas.