Many Flee or Sandbag Homes as Midwest Floods Spread

Residents of Chicago suburbs stacked sandbags around their homes Friday and floodwaters isolated towns in Oklahoma and Kansas as more rain prolonged the weeks-long deluge of the Midwest.

Torrential overnight rains sent streams over their banks from Oklahoma and eastern Kansas to northern Illinois and Michigan, closing roads and highways and forcing further evacuations, authorities said.

In northeastern Illinois, where floods have already forced about 13,000 people to evacuate, from one to three inches of rain fell overnight.

“It’s looking more and more like we’ve seen the worst of this,” said Tom Dietrich of the National Weather Service, but flash-flood watches were in effect for the Chicago area, Rockford, Moline, Galesburg, Peoria and Bloomington.

Estimates of Damage

The state estimates damage from the floods at between $30 million and $40 million, and Gov. James R. Thompson has declared Lake and McHenry counties and parts of Cook County to be disaster areas.

“The demand for (sand)bags is incredible, but the people who really need them are getting them,” said Gregg Durham, a spokesman for the state Emergency Services and Disaster Agency.

Durham said more evacuations are likely, and “some real serious problems” are expected in the suburbs of North Riverside, River Forest and Schiller Park.

In western Illinois, the weather service said the Mississippi River topped its previous fall flood record and will likely continue to rise.

A new round of thunderstorms deluged Oklahoma on Friday, dropping up to nine inches of rain in some places.

Floodgates Opened

Near Bartlesville in northeast Oklahoma, authorities were forced to open 10 dam floodgates, sending water five feet deep through four communities and driving more than 10,000 people from their homes.

Up to 25 inches of rain that has fallen in the last five days filled Copan Lake and Hula Lake, forcing the Army Corps of Engineers to open the floodgates on the reservoirs simultaneously, corps spokesman Carroll Scoggins said.

The water rushed into the Caney River, which splits Bartlesville in two.

Water five feet deep flooded 1,200 to 1,500 homes in Bartlesville, Hulah, Copan and Dewey, said Jim Williford, Bartlesville civil defense director. He predicted that water would spread over about one-fourth of Bartlesville during the night.

Flood Splits Town

Evacuations were also ordered in Guthrie after the town was split by Cottonwood Creek, which was expected to crest four feet above its 23.5-foot flood stage, police said.

“West Guthrie is cut off from East Guthrie--it’s totally isolated,” Civil Defense Director Jim Dixon said. “We just closed the last street connecting the two.”

In Kansas, the Marmaton River, which rose 18 inches in 45 minutes Friday, neared its 1915 record crest and isolated the community of Fort Scott, near the Missouri line.

“The only way you can get out of Fort Scott is by boat,” Police Chief Dale Ogran said.