Out of the past: May 18

1995

Residents are picking up the pieces after a line of thunderstorms, with winds up to 74 mph, raced through the Cape Girardeau area early yesterday, downing power lines, uprooting trees and damaging homes; the storm struck Cape Girardeau around 6 a.m.; hardest hit was the Brookwood and Dennis Scivally parks areas just off Cape Rock Drive, where 70- to 100-foot-tall trees were toppled, their roots holding giant balls of rain-soaked soil.

The rising Mississippi River and barricades on several Cape Girardeau streets, along with rain storms that keep coming, bring echoes of the 1993 flood that devastated Missouri; Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan declared a statewide emergency yesterday because of floods and storms; the river here is at 38.2 feet, on its way to a projected crest of 42.5 feet Tuesday.

1970

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- One person was killed and 23 were injured early yesterday morning when a car and a bus sideswiped on the north edge of a bridge on Highway 61 two miles south of Perryville; the impact caused the bus to crash into a bridge railing and the car to hit an oncoming automobile head on, killing its driver, Steven W. Meyer, 21, of Perryville; the bus was carrying members of the University of Alabama at Huntsville rowing crew.

After an illness of several months, Mabel L. Graden Erlbacher, 54, of Cape Girardeau died of cancer Saturday morning; she was married to the late Robert W. Erlbacher in 1942, and they had been partners as owners and operators of Missouri Barge Line Co. and Missouri Dry Dock and Repair Co.

1945

The Cape Girardeau Board of Education is proceeding with its purchase of a site for a proposed high school on the Haas tract south of Broadway and west of Caruthers Avenue; although no lots have actually been paid for, the board has sent notices to owners of the many optioned lots in the 30-acre plot that the options will be exercised.

Harry W. Nicholas of Cape Girardeau, seaman first class, whom the Navy Department reported April 14 as missing in action in the Pacific, was presumably aboard the USS Franklin, a 27,000-ton carrier, which was dive-bombed by Japanese in an attack March 15 a short distance off the Japanese mainland; his wife, Wanda V. Nichols, has had no additional word as to her husband's fate.

1920

From every section of the county and surrounding area come reports of unprecedented floods in the last few days; railroad communications have been interrupted, and the mails delayed; Whitewater River, in the western part of Cape Girardeau County, is higher than it has been in the memory of the oldest inhabitants; all its tributaries are at flood stage, washing away bridges and wooden culverts, and filling the highways with drift and debris.

Gladys Lesem, who was graduated from the Morse School of Expression in St. Louis last week, arrives home to spend a few weeks with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. M.E. Lesem; she plans to go into Chautauqua and lyceum work.

-- Sharon K. Sanders