RIVER BEGINS TO FALL

~Correction: RIVER CRESTED SUNDAY AT 41.9 FEET

Contrasting scenes told the tale of the capricious hand of Mother Nature Sunday, turning the ebb and flow of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers into alternate paths of peril and peace.

Residents of Cape Girardeau, who held their collective breath throughout a week of flood-like forecasts, were able to draw a sigh of relief upon learning that the river had crested at 41.6 feet Sunday morning.

Cape City Manager J. Ronald Fischer was among those grateful the river crested at a level that would keep damage to a minimum. "We had some streets closed, and we shut the gate at the waste-water plant, but we're just tickled that the river has finally crested at a safe level," said Fischer.

"I think the thing that hurt Illinois so bad was the levee near Miller City breaking. It could have been made weak by the flood of 1993. At any rate, we're just glad we don't have to use the sand bags that were prepared for an emergency."

The forecast on Wednesday had the Mississippi cresting at 42.5 by Saturday. On Tuesday it was expected to crest at 44 feet.

The next three days the Mississippi is expected to follow a descending pattern of 41.3, 40 and 38.3.

Some homes have been affected by scant flooding on North Main in Cape Girardeau's Red Star area. But homeowners and renters living along the flood plain were dealt a more cruel blow during the flood of 1993.

The Mississippi, Ohio and other rivers have not been so kind to Illinois residents. Seven Illinois counties -- Alexander, Cass, DeWitt, Douglass, Calhoun, Greene and Jersey -- have been declared state disaster areas.

That entitles flood victims to seek property-tax adjustments to reflect the damage. Residents can also receive low-interest loans to help replace or mitigate their losses.

Personnel from Command Coast Guard forces from Paducah, Ky., are continuing flood relief operations in and around Olive Branch and Alexander County in Illinois.

According to Lt. Com. David Conklin, commander of Coast Guard Forces and Paducah operations officer, an on-the-scene command post has been established at the Alexander County Highway Department.

Said Conklin, "The Coast Guard personnel are on the scene to conduct a campaign of community outreach and to continue its protective assistance of local, state and federal disaster response organizations. One Coast Guard disaster response unit was deployed to Alexander County on Friday, and another is on standby for immediate deployment if needed."

In addition to the Disaster Response units already in place, a Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter from a Coast Guard air station in Chicago is scheduled to arrive today.

The helicopter and crew will be temporarily assigned to commander Coast Guard forces of Paducah as an additional platform to accomplish the Coast Guard's mission in the area.

Those missions include search and rescue, evacuations, safety zone enforcement, environmental response, infrastructure protection and to provide inter-agency assistance.

Since responding to the region's latest round of flooding, Coast Guard forces representing active duty, reserve and auxiliary units have conducted sorties involving a variety of missions.

Over the weekend at least six sorties were launched from disaster response unit "flood punts" while Coast Guard Auxiliary aircraft accounted for two more.

A team of federal and state officials continued their tour of affected counties to assess damage and decide whether to request help from Washington, said Tom Zimmerman, an Illinois Emergency Management Agency spokesman.

The damage team's travels should end early next week and will entail work in about 25 counties, Zimmerman said.

Steve Hollinger, an agricultural meteorologist with the Illinois Water Survey, said last week's storm was a slow-moving warm front with heavy rains that soaked an area from St. Louis to Kankakee.

"In east-central Illinois, the average rainfall was 3.82 inches," said Hollinger. "When you get that amount of rainfall over that large of an area, with soil moisture normal to above-normal, you're going to have flooding."

The National Weather Service on Sunday warned that many rivers are still at high levels, with the potential for flooding should it rain again. Without additional rain all Illinois rivers should begin dropping by Wednesday, the weather service reported.