Out of the past 4/17/14

1989

Armed with a battering ram, explosives, tear gas and semi-automatic weapons, members of Cape Girardeau's SWAT unit storm a building in South Cape to rescue a hostage; it is a training scenario for the city's five-member Special Response Team.

Five of the 45 water fountains in Cape Girardeau School District buildings are believed to contain unsafe lead levels; water from the coolers, which bear model numbers of those which may contain the toxic metal, is being tested; all five coolers have been disconnected.

1964

A high-school level student-exchange program is adopted by the District 609 Rotary Conference being held at Jackson; the program will allow any of the 39 individual clubs in the district to host a foreign pupil in their local high school and to send a local pupil to a foreign country.

It is learned that construction of the new Cape Girardeau post office at Frederick and Bellevue streets will begin within 30 days.

1939

General heavy rainstorms over Southeast Missouri and the remainder of the state during the weekend bring the first major flood threat of the year to the Mississippi River and its tributaries; the St. Francis and Black rivers are rampaging; the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau is expected to go into flood stage within 24 hours.

McClure, Ill., and the lowlands east of Cape Girardeau are placed in immediate flood danger when 40 feet of the levee of the Clearwater Drainage District goes out under the force of Mississippi River backwater one mile east of McClure; 150 men are immediately dispatched by the WPA to the scene, but the current is so swift little can be done.

1914

Joe Skeggs, a bridge worker on the Cape Girardeau Northern, fell from the high Apple Creek trestle to the ground yesterday and sustained several severe bruises; several small bones were also broken in the fall; Skeggs had been working for the CGN only four days when he was hurt.

Standard Oil Co. has its plant at Jackson about completed; it is on the right of way of the Iron Mountain Railroad north of Main Street; two monster steel tanks have been installed, and a neat frame building will house the drums and barrels of oil, gasoline and other products.

-- Sharon K. Sanders