St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 11

BUSINESS SECTION SUNDAY, JULY 25, 1993 THE FLOOD OF '93 On The Farm Main's Damage Goes Beyond Crops In Field i 'i By Jerri Stroud Of the Post-Dispatch Staff ick Rehmeier figures the vf Missouri River has washed away crops worth $250,000 on land he farms near Augusta. All but 90 of 1,100 acres he planted are under water. Another 200 to 300 acres never got planted because of wet weather. Flood water blocks the road to one of his hog buildings. In a way, Rehmeier is lucky.

His home, grain bins and hog barns are high and dry. Other farmers have seen the water creep up and over their land, then rise into their barns, homes and grain bins. Flooding has killed about a fourth of Missouri's corn crop already. About 20 percent of the soybean crop has drowned. And some fields never got planted at all because the soil didn't dry out in the spring.

Illinois officials say the flood or standing water has wiped out nearly 736,000 acres of crops 4 percent of the state's crop land. Rehmeier says high water is one of the hazards of farming in the flood plain. He expects to recover from this flood as he did from the deluge in 1973. "The farm land is bad, but the people who are displaced are the worst," Rehmeier said. He spent Economics columnist David Nicklaiis is on vacation.

most of Wednesday helping friends salvage their belongings by boat after a levee burst and sent three feet of water into their house and barn. Agriculture officials estimate Missouri's crop losses at $700 million. Illinois crop losses stand at about $350 million. But the figures available now are only estimates. The next official crop forecast comes out Aug.

11. Farmers have until Friday to file government reports on flooded acreage. "We don't know where it's going to end," said Charles Chadwell, a production specialist with the Illinois state office of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service. The agency administers government farm programs, including disaster assistance. In addition to crop losses, some farmers have lost their homes, barns and grain storage bins.

Farmers who had enough time and resources have moved stored grain and livestock to higher ground. But others had no alternatives or too little time to move the grain or stock. Not Just Flood Damage Outside the flood plain, crops are suffering from excessive rainfall. Some crops are rotting because of rain water standing in fields. Diseases, insects and weeds have flourished in the damp soil and moist air.

"The upland crops are showing signs of stress," said John Saunders, Missouri's agriculture director. Some corn is turning yellow because excessive rainfall has leached fertiliz- This farmyard in north St. Charles County south of the Mississippi River was surrounded by flood Wayne CrosslinPost-Dispatch water earlier this month. Wiebold, an extension agronomist for the University of Missouri Extension Service. "Many farmers are looking at a total loss of income for 1993," Wiebold said.

The loss of income can be doubly tough for farmers who face loan payments this fall on their land, machinery or production costs. "There are cases all over the state cause of poor quality. In some fields, the grain is sprouting. In others, the seed heads have shattered, scattering kernels on the ground, Saunders said. Some farmers may decide the damaged grain isn't worth harvesting.

"This has been probably the greatest stress time for many of our farmers in their whole careers," said Bill where not only have farmers lost the 1993 crop, but in some cases the 1992 harvest is stored in grain elevators that now are threatened by the flood," said Charles E. Kruse, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau. Kruse said he thinks the flood is worse than the drought of 1988, even though the flood affects a much On The Job In Hannibal, They're Flying To The Office By Christopher Carey Of the Post-Dispatch Staff QUINCY, 111. I eth Knight ducked out of a Cessna 421 I at Quincy Municipal Airport and dashed to a waiting car for the 15-minute drive 0 i er from the soil, depriving crops of vital nutrients. "A lot of our wheat crop is going to be lost," Saunders said.

Muddy fields have kept combines out of the fields. Farmers usually harvest wheat in late June or early July, but wet weather delayed ripening this year. Even if farmers can harvest the wheat, elevators may dock them be the Mississippi River to Quincy, iii of the Mississippi and work on the other have endured a week of economic or physical hardship to keep their employers in business and themselves on the payroll. Some, like Knight, Bob Finnigan and Janet Andres, are using the air shuttle service. Finnigan, who manages the Hannibal branch of Wiese Planning Engineering considers the short hops across the river a convenient alternative to his regular 30-minute drive.

"I just live a mile from the airport, so it's great for me," he said. Andres, a dental hygienist who splits her 1 work weeks between Quincy and Palmyra, wishes the wait for seats was as short as the flights themselves. "When I was in Hannibal Tuesday night, I was number 76 on the list to get out," she said. But Andres adds: "You get a really beautiful view of the river. You can see everything." Other people whose lives are split between Missouri and Illinois are renting hotel and motel rooms, staying with friends and relatives or living at Red Cross shelters to avoid commuting.

Still others are driving more than 40 miles north to Keokuk, Iowa, to get across the river. The roundabout trip from Hannibal to Quincy, mostly on two-lane roads, can take 2Vi hours. See JOBS, Page 8 I into town. Knight, who sells advertising, paid $25 Thursday for round-trip shuttle service from Hannibal, to Quincy just as she had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Because of bad weather, the charter company that has been running the flights was behind schedule, and Knight was more than an hour late for work.

But since a levee break July 16 forced the closing of the two bridges that link Hannibal and Quincy, employers have been understanding about transportation troubles. Unlike the St. Louis area, where many homes and businesses are partially submerged by floodwaters, most of Quincy is high and dry. The main problems for companies in the city, an agricultural and trade center with roughly 40,000 residents, have been the logistical nightmares posed by the closing of the bridges over the Mississippi River, and an accompanying drop in retail traffic. Several thousand people who live on one side 9 0 Cir Passengers at the Hannibal airport wait to board a plane to cross On The River Losses Are Mounting By The Hour For Stranded Barges By Robert Manor Of the Post-Dispatch Staff For the barges and towboats stranded on the banks of the Mississippi River, the flood is a clock ticking away thousands of dollars an hour.

i Barge executives and the Army Corps of Engineers say the flood, which has paralyzed the nation's inland river shipping for a month, is starting to run up a huge bill. At least 2,000 barges and 50 tow-boats are frozen in place between Cairo, 111., and Dubuque, Iowa, by high water. Their crews scrape paint, play cards and wish they were elsewhere. A towboat, its barges and cargo have a fixed expense hundreds of dollars an hour whether they are rolling on the river or tied off at a dock. AP last Monday.

ducah, operates 1,700 barges and 60 towboats. Of those, 30 barges and five towboats are stranded. Tinkey and others say the towboat crews spend their time catching up on painting and maintenance, watching television and talking on their cellular phones. MWWfc Thousands of other barges are idle on rivers from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma and Chicago to New Orleans because they cannot reach the flooded ports of the upper and central Midwest. At worst, the nation's 800 barge operators, many of them mom-and-pop businesses with heavy debt, must pay to keep crews aboard their stranded tugs while continuing to make payments to their lenders.

At best, the barge companies are missing out on business. And ocean-going freighters are riding at anchor in the Gulf of Mexico because the coal they would carry is stuck in St. Louis, or the chemicals they would deliver can't get through to Davenport. Life On The River Despite a flood of Biblical dimension, there are no reports of any towboat crews dying from high water. But there are rumors of crews, stranded since late June, bathing in the river to conserve their diminishing reserves of drinking water.

Barge executives say some workers are cleaning off with dollar-a-gallon bottled water and one crew begged a small-townimayor to run a fire hose The towboat Cooperative Venture of Chicago was waiting for the water level to drop last week on Robert LaRouchePost-Dispatch the Illinois River north of Grafton. a flood is boring. For a barge operator, it is expensive. The Cost of Sitting Idle Estimates vary, but industry analysts say it can easily cost thousands See RIVER, Page 8 to their boat. Life on the river may be more uncomfortable than dangerous.

"Mostly it's just boring," said Jerry Tinkey, a vice president of the Ingram Barge third largest in the nation. Ingram, with headquarters in Pa- Some barge companies have laid workers off Ingram not among them and are manning vessels with skeleton crews. The towboats and barges cannot be abandoned, however, and someone must be aboard at all times. For a $10-a-hour deckhand, life in American Exchange 5 Exchange Rate 5 Mutual Funds 4 NASDAQ 6 New York Stocks 2 i i-.