The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 1

tm 68 Pages Louisville, Wednesday, April 6, 1977 Copyright 1977, The Courier-Journal Home delivery: Metro 70c week other 75c week Newsstand 15c floods sweep East Kentucky Stories detailing the effects of the Eastern Kentucky flooding, Page A picture page, A 5. Property damages also were sketchy, but a preliminary estimate was $100 million in Kentucky alone. The National Weather Service was promising no relief. By late yesterday, the forecast was for temperatures in the 30s with a chance of snow. Gov.

Julian Carroll reacted by declaring 10 counties disaster areas, and he called on the federal government for the same classification, thus opening up the region to federal assistance programs. The state's two U.S. senators Walter (Dee) Huddleston and Wendell Ford sent a telegram to President Carter saying "there is no doubt that an emer Methodist Hospital was surrounded by water, and emergency patients had to be ferried in by boat. The little West Virginia town of Matewan, just across from Kentucky's Pike County on the swollen Tug Fork of the Big Sandy, was reported completely abandoned, with only a few two-story houses still peaking above the water. What it all meant In terms of human lives and injuries, no one knew for sure.

The known dead in Kentucky had risen to five by late yesterday, with a count of at least four other flood victims in the rest of the Appalachian area. gency situation does exist." They asked the White House for federal aid. The 10 counties named by Carroll are Harlan, Pike, Bell, Knox, Whitley, Floyd, Johnson, Martin, Perry and Leslie. Huddleston, Ford and U.S. Reps.

Tim Lee Carter and Carl Perkins planned to fly to the area today with Walter Kal-laur, White House liaison for the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration. The problems were by no means confined to just the three large rivers. Flash-flooding was said to be widespread on smaller streams. Salyersville on the Licking River and Clay City on the Red River both were battling high water, with crests expected late yesterday. At Hazard, residents spent yesterday cleaning up after the North Fork of the Kentucky River rose 12 feet above flood stage to 32.1 feet early in the morning.

Hazard City Manager Leslie Combs said the homes of 600 to 700 people in Perry County were affected by the high water, and that four elementary schools in the county had to be turned into Red Cross shelters. Roads leading into Hazard were See RECORD Back page, col. 5, this section By MIKE BROWN Courier-Journal Staff Writer Leaping across at least one municipal floodwall and sweeping over countless homes, three main rivers in Eastern Kentucky brought record-breaking water levels and untold destruction to the state's mountain region yesterday. The Cumberland, Big Sandy and Kentucky all raging after about five inches of spring rain had by late yesterday left part of Appalachia with the heaviest flood damage in a generation. "I'd say it's the worst in 40 years," said a Red Cross official in Louisville.

"Hundreds of people are being taken to shelters; thousands of people are out of their homes." "This will be the highest flood ever recorded on the upper Cumberland," added a National Weather Service spokesman. Williamsburg, Harlan, Pineville, Pres-tonsburg, Barbourville, Pikeville, Louisa, South Williamson all were either bracing for or in the grips of flood crests by late yesterday. At Pikeville, the water was so high the 1977 The Courier-Journal Staff Photo by Billy Davis Water from the Cumberland River flows out of its banks and over the town of Pineville, blocking approaches from Middlesboro and Corbin. The Ohio River: Floods column six, Flood control: one way, pollution other Gas spill treated like the disaster it could have been t4iWF irnnn "i i By HOWARD FINEMAN Courier-Journal Staff Writer The Ohio River, its lower reaches already beset by chemicals and raw sewage from Louisville's sewers, was expected to reach flood stage at upstream cities from Ashland to Maysville, by tomorrow or early Friday. The National Weather Service also reported that flood stage wouM be reached Sunday at Tell City and Newburgh, about 10 miles upstream from Evansville.

Ind. A Weather Service spokesman at Louisville said the flood stage expected at various cities along the Ohio wouldn't result in "serious flooding problems." In general, the Ohio was not expected to reach flood stage in Louisville or below, according to Russell Durham, a Weather Service hydrologist. But the rising river was threatening to complicate the situation in Louisville, where 110 million gallons of "waste water," most of it untreated, is flowing directly into the Ohio each day. The material has been moving into the river assisted only by gravity since March 28, when officials announced the discovery of highly toxic chemicals in the city's main sewage-treatment plant. The plant, the largest on the Ohio aside from those at Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, was closed at that time because of the chemical threat to workers' health.

If the river reaches flood stage at Louisville, officials of the sewer district said, it could force them to start using special flood pumps to make the sewage flow. Some of those pumps could then become contaminated or corroded by See THE OHIO PAGE 4, col. 3, this section An llth-hour meeting of the minds has brought All-Star third baseman Pete Rose and the Cincinnati Reds together on a two-year contract, ending an acrimonious dispute on the eve of today's opener against San Diego Page 1. Accent 1-14 Deaths 6 Financial 18-20 Movies, entertainment 3-5 Opinion page A 14 Racing entries 5 Sports 1-5 TV, radio 2 Vol. 344, No.

By JIM ADAMS Courier-Journal Staff Writer The scene bore all the urgency and signs of the major disaster officials said it could have been. Six firemen donned bulky, silvery, "aluminized" suits with hoods that made them look like astronauts, suits that would let them stand in a fire and feel only 150 degrees of it. They sprayed two chemical foams at a fuel-laden barge that had been locked onto a Portland Canal wall since early morning, leaking 80,000 gallons of gasoline into the Ohio River. Dams do little when waters go on rampage By WARD SINCLAIR Courier-Journal Staff Writer WASHINGTON Five years ago, in what now appears to be a major overstatement, a Courier-Journal headline proclaimed: "Battle Against Flooding Appears Won by Harlan." The subject of the accompanying article was approval of a new flood-control dam it's now nearly complete on Martins Fork to protect the Southeast Kentucky coal city. Waters were receding yesterday, but according to reports from Harlan, 98 per cent of the city had been flooded.

Harlan, clearly, has not won the battle. Over the years, similar headlines have proclaimed similar conquests of the threat of ravaging streams and rampant waters in the state's mountainous Appalachian region. But events of the past several days again point up just how defenseless! Kentucky's mountain communitied are when the rains come; how the" big dams built by the Army CorpJ See DASIS PAGE 4, coL 1, this sectioi The firemen sprayed, and like the white of a frying egg salted viciously at times by a wind-whipped April snow the foam floated in a circle around the ruptured front end of the barge. The wind made the water choppy, and the waves broke the foamy eggs. So the firemen sprayed again.

Traffic came to a forced standstill for hours on 1-64 downtown, on railroad tracks and a railroad bridge, and on the Ohio River. No machine of any kind not a pump, not even a towboat that could speed the recovery effort was allowed near the leaking gasoline. A spark from a machine, said Louisville Fire Chief Thomas Kuster, and "it could go up like a bomb. There's not a whole lot of desirable alternatives." When it was all over early yesterday afternoon, when enough fuel had been pumped from the heavy barge to allow it to float gently out into the water on its own, Kuster said, "There's nothing that can take the place of luck." In an accident blamed in part on the high water in the Ohio River, three barges being pushed by the Bowling Green-based towboat James R. Hines ran aground as the tow entered the Louisville Portland Canal near the foot of 13th Street about 6:30 a.m.

yesterday. The two front barges in the tow carried more than 2 million gallons of re-See BARGE Survivor describes elevator falling Clearly cold National Weather Service lOUISVILLE area Mostly sunny and cold today, becoming clear and warmer tonight; mostly sunny and warmer tomorrow. High today, upper 40s; tomorrow, low 60s. Low tonight, upper 30s. KENTUCKY Mostly sunny and cold today, becoming clear and warmer tonight; mostly sunny and warmer tomorrow.

Highs today, low 40s to near 50; tomorrow, 60s. lows tonight, mid-30s to low 40s. High yesterday, 46; low, 35. Year ago yesterday; High 64; low 31. Sun: Rises, sets, 7:10.

Moont Rises, 10:25 p.m.; sets, 8:04 a.m. Weather map and details. Page 17. By DICK KAUKAS Courier-Journal Staff Writer He lay under a sheet in the first bed on the right wall of Ward 4-B at General Hospital; lay there motionless, as if he were asleep. His right leg was elevated and braced.

His eyelids, purple with bruises, were shut tight. He opened them when he heard his name, tried to smile, grimaced when he moved to shake hands. He would not forego shaking hands. It was just after 1 p.m. yesterday, and Jerry Pryor, 36, seriously injured in the elevator crash that killed a coworker in the Kentucky Home Life Building on Monday, was talking, slowly, about what he remembered, how it had happened.

He said at one point that he thought the elevator was at the fifth floor when metal weights slammed into the top of the cab, driving it to the basement. A little later, he said he thought it might have been the third floor. His version of what happened seemed similar to what the company he worked for, Armor Elevator, said had caused the accident. Armor's president, E. Gill, said yesterday that "metal failure" in a frame holding the elevator counterweights caused the weights to drop onto the cab, shoving it to the basement of the building.

In an effort to make sure something like that couldn't happen again, the three undamaged elevators in the Kentucky Home Life Building were tested yesterday, and all of them passed. As Pryor lay in his bed, he said that "I don't- know exactly what happened. I haven't heard the particulars. But it See SURVIVOR Back page, col. 1, this section Back page, col.

1, this section.