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CNN Saturday Morning News

Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri Rivers at Flood Stage

Aired May 18, 2002 - 07:10   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Drier -- that forecast has residents in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana breathing sighs of relief. After days of rain, the Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers are at flood stage or above. Many smaller rivers and tributaries are also over their banks.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim is on the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The mighty Mississippi is getting mightier and potentially more dangerous because of this. Rain is swelling this artery of water, surrounding houses, submerging cars and motorcycles.

A close view of this pickup truck might make you wonder how it got stuck. A wide view explains the entire road has been submerged.

The conditions forced the proprietor of this hotel to move everything out of his basement.

JEFF LORTON, HOTEL OWNER: Yes, that's an inconvenience, but I've got a lot of family, and we just loaded her up, and we did it in about two hours.

OPPENHEIM: Grafton, a low-lying town of just 650 people, is used to flooding.

MAYOR RICHARD MOSBY, GRAFTON, ILLINOIS: We've been constantly rerouting traffic either around our town or through our town as the water comes up.

OPPENHEIM: The hope, though, is the water has come up about as far as it will go.

The outlook is similar in Crystal City, Missouri, where teenagers nonchalantly fish in -- that's right, in -- the downtown streets that are completely under water. A few get through the main intersection by boat.

BILL SHANE, CRYSTAL CITY RESIDENT: The Forway's (ph) always flooded ever since I can remember. It's been flooding forever. One of these days maybe they'll fix it. OPPENHEIM: Indeed. Hard to get away from something so picturesque that every few years transforms a beautiful area into a disaster area.

(on camera): Keep in mind, nine people in the region died due to incidents related to the floods. But the good news, better weather in the weekend forecast. That's the possible relief residents here very much need.

Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Grafton, Illinois.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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