Tracking the nature of natural disasters

Cape Girardeau has been pummeled, drowned and buried by the weather.

The Southeast Missourian captured several natural disasters in print over the last century. A few stand out: the 1927, 1993 and 1995 floods; the 1986 flash flood; the 1949 tornado; and the blizzard of 1979.

Because of the nature of the disasters, the newspaper covered each differently. For example, the floods grew gradually, and the coverage built to a crescendo as the river rose. For the tornado, the blizzard and the flash flood, the Southeast Missourian wrote with an air of immediacy.

At the time, the 1949 tornado was perhaps the biggest local story reported by the newspaper, which was then an afternoon daily. The twister prompted just the second "extra" edition in the paper's history. (The first was for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.)

A day before the Big One, the Missourian reported a tornado that struck Parma, Mo., and killed an 11-year-old boy. On Saturday, tragedy struck Cape Girardeau.

In bold, 2-inch letters in the five-cent Sunday-morning copy, a headline read: "15 DIE IN CAPE TORNADO."

The extra edition on the morning of May 22 listed the people who died, including a 6-year-old girl, and a list of people who were treated at hospitals.

The lead story of the paper reported the following:

"Fifteen persons were killed and 112 were injured by a tornado which early Saturday night ripped through the city with a 350-yard swath extending from the west city limits to the Mississippi River.

"Hospitals were jammed with injured and cots were set up in hallways to accommodate the overflow."

The paper reported that a gasoline pump had been hit and was spewing gasoline. Two cars were picked up and tossed across a ditch. Power and water systems had been hit. Homeless shelters were set up. The Red Cross recruited workers, and the National Guard was called to action.

In all, the news staff churned out six stories for the extra edition, published Monday morning. By the next day's evening edition, the death toll had climbed to 21. The writers reported more specifics about where the worst damage had occurred. Eight of the 21 died in a 150-yard vicinity of Johnson and Rand streets at the east side of the Red Star area.

Two brothers, Jack and Luther Welker, and Luther Welker's son, Marvin, were killed, while Mrs. Luther Welker and three daughters were injured.

Eight photos on Page 12 showed the devastation. Aerial shots taken of Red Star show a wiped-out neighborhood. Another photo shows a woman in a Red Cross uniform taking notes from a woman whose head was wrapped in a bandage. By Wednesday evening, the death toll reached 22.

A new yardstick

By the time the famous blizzard of 1979 blew into town, the look of the newspaper had changed. Multicolumn headlines were written throughout the paper, not just on the top of the front page. Bylines had been added too.

The blizzard headline on the Feb. 27 issue was 3/4 inches tall and read: "New yardstick, blizzard of 1979."

The entire front page was blizzard coverage.

Missourian executive editor John Blue captured the essence of the disaster in just a few sentences:

"Say nothing more about the snow of 1917-1918," he wrote. "Hereafter the yardstick will be the Great Blizzard of Feb. 25, 1979.

"Researchers and reporters, delving into the weather records hereafter will use this as their reference point -- and what a point it is.

"Never, at least in recorded city history, has there been anything like it.

"Cape Girardeau is paralyzed. Nothing moves but emergency vehicles and a few with four-wheel drives authorized by police. All others are subject to arrest.

"Grocery stores, doing a rush of walk-in business, are running out of bread, milk and other staples. Businesses are shut down. There are no burials -- the bodies are being held until the weather moderates.

"Everywhere there are snowdrifts, man-made or nature-made. The man-made ones are a canyon down the streets, allowing one-way traffic for police and other emergency vehicles. The nature-made ones are drifts six and eight feet high. Cars are buried."

In the week or so following the natural disaster, the newspaper published 29 stories about it.

The storm was so bad, the Missourian didn't publish on the Monday of the blizzard. In the following days, a traffic ban delayed the delivery of the paper in Cape Girardeau, although residents in Jackson and Illinois were able to get their papers.

The storm was responsible for two deaths. Robert Whitefield, 57, suffered a fatal heart attack about 100 feet from his home while trudging back from a grocery store. Herbert Reeder, 51, died when his car slid into an oncoming truck near Millersville.

Deadlier than blizzard

May 16, 1986, isn't remembered in the same lore with some of the other disasters. It doesn't have the ring of "The Great Flood of 1993" or "The '49 Tornado."

But not only was the 1986 storm more deadly than the '79 blizzard (the storm resulted in four deaths), it also changed Cape Girardeau.

A tornado took a life in Sikeston and another in Vanduser, and flash floods swept away two Cape Girardeau residents, killing them both. As much as 10 inches of rain fell in 24 hours in some places. Cape Girardeau saw 6.64 inches.

"Tornadoes, flooding leave 4 dead," the headline read in the May 16 edition. The front page included five storm stories, including one by Peggy Scott that described the unfortunate fate of the Cape Girardeau victims.

"Two Cape Girardeau residents who died in the wake of Thursday's flooding were apparently just feet from safety when rushing water pulled them down the street to their deaths," she wrote.

The deaths occurred near the intersection of South Henderson Avenue and College Street. The bodies of Maude W. Dantzler, 76, and Samuel Jones, 56, were found in a drainage ditch.

The flood damaged Cape Girardeau to the tune of $15 million. Millions of dollars worth of merchandise and building materials were destroyed at Town Plaza. The deluge prompted the city to overhaul its storm-water system, which was periodically improved until the total project was dedicated this spring. Flash flooding is no longer an issue in the Town Plaza area.

Two weeks after the disaster, the Missourian printed a special section to commemorate the storm. Several businesses advertised a flood-damage sale -- as much as 70 percent off at Riverside Home Center. The story on the back of the section told how city officials were already talking about putting a bond issue before voters.

Three floods

But Cape Girardeau is a river town on the banks of the Mississippi that has seen its fair share of floods. Big floods.

A major one happened in 1927, before the newspaper printed photographs with any regularity. The third of the three major floods occurred in 1995, when the paper published color photographs every day.

The 1927 flood coverage began with a story on the front page of the April 1 edition: "Rain brings new danger to district."

The story turned more serious two weeks later when headline read: "River here rises to 37 feet; may go to 39 feet by Sunday." It was the highest the river had been in 83 years.

Two days later, on April 16, another headline told readers that levees broke at two points in the Cape Girardeau area.

"Towns in peril; thousands of acres flooded," the headline said.

Factories on the south side and homes were inundated. Trains were halted and three cars derailed. The Missourian detailed the fights to save levees, how New Madrid residents fled, how the river climbed to 40 feet.

By April 25, the shoe factory opened again. Levees farther south continued to break.

The river reached higher levels between 1927 and 1993, several times in fact, but Many historians call the '27 flood the worst natural disaster in the country's history. In all, more than 16 million acres were flooded. About 162,000 homes were damaged, and 9,000 homes were lost. It has been estimated that about 1,000 people up and down the river died as a result of the floods, though only 276 deaths were confirmed. Certainly the river would have gone higher here had not so many levees broken farther south.

The flood of 1993, known affectionately by some as "The Big Daddy," is the grandest weather event in the lives of the current generation in Cape Girardeau, at least in terms of the national picture. The river rose and fell, rose and fell, beginning its long ascent in June. The river steadily climbed through July and finally crested at an all-time record of 47.9 feet on Aug. 6. National telecasts led off with flood coverage from up and down the Mississippi.

Sam Blackwell, a Southeast Missourian reporter, wrote about a family that lost a business and home to the flood. The LeGrand family, armed with sand bags, fought valiantly to save the house, but the river was too strong.

A photo taken by Fred Lynch shows a man standing next to a marquee sign that read: "Commerce, Mo. Founded 1970; drowned 1993." Lawrence Benefield, a Southern Illinois resident, told reporter B. Ray Owen, "You better have a boat. It doesn't have to be fancy, but if you want to get to town, a boat is the only means of transportation."

Hundreds of National Guardsmen and volunteers flocked to the area to help homeowners build sand walls to protect their property.

As with the storm in 1986, the Southeast Missourian ran a special section to commemorate the event. It was a 26-page, two-part section this time, much larger than the 1986 section. Lynch's aerial photos on the back page capture the scope of the disaster.

Little did anyone know at the time that the river would rise to historical heights two years later. Two years was barely enough time for towns like Miller City and Ste. Genevieve to build new levees after the old ones broke in the '93 flood.

During a two-week span in late may, the river rose 10 feet. It was much different from 1993, when the river rose over a matter of months.

The 1995 flood didn't bring the agonizing, long-term stress of 1993. And it didn't grab as many national headlines because the area that was affected was much smaller this time.

But as Missourian editor Joe Sullivan wrote in an editorial, the 1995 version was a disaster just the same.

"With memories of the Great Flood of 1993 still so fresh, there weren't many thoughts at the beginning of May that the Mississippi River and its tributaries would go on another tear so soon," Sullivan wrote. "After all, 500-year floods ought to come about every half a millennium, right?

"For those whose homes and businesses and fields have been quickly covered with the stinking, brown floodwaters, however, the Flood of 1993 is just as real and heartbreaking as two years ago. Added to the flow toward the Gulf of Mexico have been the tears of those who battle and watch day by day. Some have already lost the war."