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American Morning
Mississippi Crested at Davenport
Aired April 25, 2001 - 11:14 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, after more than a week of sandbagging, folks in Davenport, Iowa, watched the Mississippi River crest early this morning. But, in Davenport and other areas along that swollen river, the battle against the floodwaters is far from over.
CNN's Jeff Flock joins us now from Pleasant Valley, Iowa, which is just upstream from Davenport. You see a big difference there, Jeff?
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, no, the crest is staying and holding on here, too, Leon. We're trying to give you a little boat tour this morning, see what folks are really dealing with, and Ron Luntz (ph) is one of the homeowners back here that's been riding to his house on board ship here over the last several days.
How is it here? This -- you're still at crest, aren't you?
RON LUNTZ, HOMEOWNER: Yeah, we're still at crest. We will be until probably about midnight or sometime early in the morning.
FLOCK: Now you're the former deputy fire chief in here. Now you've lived here for some years.
LUNTZ: Well, actually, I was deputy fire chief in Davenport, and so I've lived out here since 1980.
FLOCK: You like it out here. When you look at this water in here -- you're getting these floods every few years now, aren't you?
LUNTZ: Yes, we're -- we're getting them about every four years now. A major flood.
FLOCK: Now you know -- heard what the FEMA director said, which is, you know, put a flood wall up or get out of the doggone way of the flood. How do you feel about that?
LUNTZ: Well, I mean, we'd be glad to do something like that if we -- it was feasible to do out here. We're out in a rural area. It's not really feasible to build a flood wall that would -- that would protect it. So we -- so we just have to deal with the flood as it comes.
FLOCK: Now do you take federal money to help you out, or do you just plan for this?
LUNTZ: Well, we try to plan for it. We try not to take any federal money or any insurance money if we can possibly -- you know, we'll just absorb all the costs that we possibly can.
FLOCK: And you're paying for flood insurance, right? You pay pretty...
LUNTZ: Oh -- oh, absolutely.
FLOCK: ... hefty premiums. What kind of premiums are you looking at?
LUNTZ: Well, we're looking at probably right around $400 a year, $400 or $500 a year, something like that.
FLOCK: Now all down this street here -- Rick (ph), I don't know if you're able to see it -- but you've got homes that all have got -- all got water off in there.
LUNTZ: Yes. Yes. They're -- and all those folks are boating in and out, also.
FLOCK: How much longer do you imagine this water's going to be here before you can get in and start cleaning up?
LUNTZ: Well, they're saying by Sunday at midnight it will drop about a foot, but it's going to be up for a long time. It's going to be up for a long time. It's going to have to drop 3-1/2 feet out of my basement, out of my upper basement, before I can start cleaning up, and substantially more out of some of the other places. So I -- I'm guessing probably a couple of weeks before we get down to where we can actually do -- start doing any significant cleanup.
FLOCK: Yeah. Ron Luntz, I appreciate the tour. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.
LUNTZ: You're welcome.
FLOCK: All right, sir.
LUNTZ: Come back in July.
FLOCK: I was going to say it's nicer weather then.
LUNTZ: Yeah. Absolutely!
FLOCK: We're going to try to do it. It's -- as you can see right now, still a lot ahead of them here in terms of cleanup, and at least they're at the -- at the peak of how bad it is and headed down from here, we hope. That's the latest, Leon. Back to you.
HARRIS: All right. Good deal. Thanks, Jeff.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Even a good attitude. Come back in July. Chad, what do you think? It will improve a lot by then, hopefully.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It certainly will. The rivers will be down. Had a little bit of rainfall last night, light showers over Davenport but really didn't put really any significant water into the river. Those showers are gone now, and the next chance of any rain doesn't come in until Tuesday. Great news for the folks there.
All of this weather will be moving on from the West to the East, and everything is dry to the west of Des Moines, to the west of Omaha, to the west of Sioux Falls. There's no more rain expected in the basin whatsoever. All of the crestings now will begin to come down, and that's great news for the folks there. At least they can begin to clean up.
I'll have more coming up the next half-hour. Back to both of you.
HARRIS: All right. Good deal. Thanks, Chad. We'll see you then.
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