St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page A008

A8 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 1 MONDAY 06.07.2010 Voters get their chance The strength of the Tea Party will be tested in Tuesday's primaries. Storms kill 7, shut down nuclear plant Tornado near Toledo, Ohio, hits emergency services building. BY MICHAEL R. BLOOD Associated Press LOS ANGELES How angry are Americans? People primed for change will vote in 12 states Tuesday in contests that will decide the fate of two endangered Washington incumbents a two-term senator in Arkansas and a six-term congressman in South Carolina while setting the stage for some of the races that could determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill.

In Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln could fall to fellow Democrat Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who says "the only way to change Washington is to change who we send there." South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis is trying to fend off primary challengers who have made the race a referendum on his vote to bail out the banking industry.

The political strength of the Tea Party movement faces tests in several states, particularly in Nevada, where three Republicans are in a bruising fight for the chance to take on Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, in November. Three longtime incumbents already have lost: Sens. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Arlen Specter, and Rep. Alan Mol-lohan, D-WVa. "I've become frightened over what our government is doing," says Roxanne Blum, 57, a Republican from Pahrump, Nev.

She's alarmed by the soaring debt and has seen firsthand, through her work in the mortgage industry, the damage caused by Nevada's high foreclosure rate. Once excited by Reid's ascendancy in Washington leadership, she now sees him as out of touch with his economically troubled home state. "When he comes here, he does lip service," she says. Earlier congressional contests have shown that incumbency can be a yoke and that voter discontent is running through both parties, even though the Democrats who control Congress have the most at risk in November. With President Barack Obama's popularity slipping, issues from the health care overhaul law to taxes are defining races.

In north Georgia, Tom Graves hopes his involvement with the Atlanta Tea Party Patriots will help him defeat Lee Hawkins, another conservative, in a runoff to fill a vacant House seat in a heavily Republican district. Maine voters will choose nominees for governor in a wide-open race to replace Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, who's completing his second four -year term. A seven-way Republican primary includes Tea Party favorite Paul LePage. Candidates have been talking about jobs and cutting government regulation.

J.D. POOLEY Sentinel-Tribune Scott Swartz walks down his basement stairs Sunday where he, his wife and son, 12, made it to safety before a tornado destroyed their home in Millbury, Ohio. A tornado ripped a roof from a school gymnasium where graduation was to be held Sunday. BY JOHN SEEWER AND MEGHAN BARR Associated Press For Congress, it's not easy Members must balance priority funding, calls to limit spending. BY DAVID LIGHTMAN McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON When Congress returns today from a 10-day break, it will struggle to try to meet an impatient public's demands for it to fund, among other things, an extension of unemployment benefits that have expired, summer jobs for at-risk youths and fair fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients.

The list of things that desperately need fresh funding also includes the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and help for strapped state budgets. However, Congress' task is tough, because the same public that wants these things paid for also is growing increasingly uneasy over driving the federal government deeper in debt to do it, adding to a budget deficit that's already expected to reach $1.5 trillion this year. Usually, Congress manages to find ways to fund emergencies well before it leaves Washington for long holiday breaks. Not this time. Legislators went home for their Memorial Day recess May 28 without taking final action on any of these priorities, even though funding for extended unemployment benefits expired Wednesday, the highly regarded summer jobs for at-risk youths program has no money, and Medicare payments to doctors were scheduled for a big cut June 1.

Why didn't Congress get it done? The key reason: Five months before congressional elections, moderate lawmakers especially Democrats are having trouble processing the mixed message they're getting from their constituents: Take care of pressing business, but do it responsibly. "For 10 years, Democrats and Republicans have told people we can have anything we want and didn't have to really pay for it," said Rep. Allen Boyd, a moderate. "Now people realize that we do have to pay, and it's difficult." "One of the No. 1 concerns I hear about back home is deficit spending," said Rep.

Jason Altmire, another centrist. People "are sending us clear signals: They want us to control spending," said Sen. Russ Feingold, a liberal. The bottom line: Getting even emergency spending through Congress will be hard. hospitals, but he did not have details.

One of the victims was the father of Lake High School's valedictorian, said Tim Krugh, president of the school district's board. Krugh said the school had rescheduled graduation for Tuesday eve -ning at a Toledo community college. At least 17 people in the Toledo area were hospitalized, including two adults and two children in critical condition, Mercy hospital system spokeswoman Gloria Enksaid. In southeastern Michigan, severe storms and high wind ripped siding off a building at the Fermi 2 nuclear plant, causing it to shut down automatically, said Dan Smith, the public information officer for Monroe County. Investigators were inspecting the nuclear plant on the shore of Lake Erie on Sunday morning, and the plant was expected to go back into operation, Smith said.

About 35,000 people were without power but it wasn't clear whether that was directly related to the nuclear plant's shutdown or because of damage to power lines in the area, Smith said. Eleven people with minor injuries were taken to hospitals from Dundee, where the weather service was looking into reports of a tornado touching down. Tornadoes also were reported in Illinois. More than a dozen people were injured in Dwight, 111., where about 40 mobile homes and 10 other homes were destroyed, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency said. The roof of a movie theater collapsed in Elmwood, 111., about 30 miles west of Peoria.

State Trooper Dustin Pierce said 150 to 200 people had been inside, but they had been evacuated to the basement and no one was hurt. The storms left a trail of damaged homes in northern Indiana and a tornado sighting was reported, but no one was injured. In eastern Iowa, buildings were damaged and one person was hurt when a tornado touched down in Maquoketa. On Sunday, residents of the Toledo area were searching fields looking for anything salvageable. The storm destroyed Ronald Johns' house and barn and flung his cast-iron bath tub into a wheat field, but his wife managed to find a wristwatch, still working, amid the scattered bits of their rural home near Millbury.

On Saturday night, Johns looked out the window and couldn't see the barn directly across the road. The chimney fell through the first floor as soon as the retired couple made it to the basement, pinning Johns, 74, with bricks until his wife, Jan, managed to free him. Ronald Johns, 74, said they were lucky. "We didn't get down there five seconds too fast," he said. MILLBURY, OHIO A tornado unleashed a "war zone" of destruction in northwestern Ohio, destroying dozens of homes and an emergency services building as a line of storms killed at least seven people and threatened to do more damage Sunday as it hit the Northeast.

Storms collapsed the roof of a movie theater in Illinois and ripped siding off a building at a Michigan nuclear plant, forcing a shutdown. But most of the worst was reserved for a loo-yard-wide, 7-mile -long strip southeast of Toledo, Ohio, that became littered with wrecked vehicles, splintered wood and family possessions. The tornado ripped the roof and back wall off Lake High School's gymnasium about p.m. Saturday, several hours before the graduation ceremony was supposed to begin there. The school board president said the father of the class valedictorian was killed.

Lake Township Police Chief Mark Hummer flew over the damaged area and said at least 50 homes were destroyed and another 50 severely damaged, as well as six commercial buildings. The storm fell over an area of farm fields and light industry, narrowly missing the heavily populated suburbs on the southern edge of Toledo. "It's a war zone," Hummer said. "It's pretty disheartening." Rescue officials were searchingthrough homes Sunday and couldn't say whether anyone else was missing, Lake Township Fire Chief Todd Walters said. The tornado turned a township police and emergency medical services building into a mishmash of 2 -by-4 framing and pink insulation.

Hummer was talking to a police dispatcher by phone when the storm hit. "She started saying, 'The building is and then another dispatcher came on and said, 'The roof just blew he said. The storm ripped off most of the building's back half and wrapped part of the metal roof around a tree. At least six police vehicles half the township's fleet were destroyed, and one car was tossed into the spot where the building once stood. The stormknocked out emergency services for a short time, and all the emergency dispatchers and 911 operators were moved to a nearby town.

"When the people who are supposed to help you are victims of the storm, it does take you a minute to catch your breath," Hummer said. Those killed included a person outside the police department and a motorist, Hummer said. He said a young child and two other victims were from nearby Mill-bury, a bedroom community of roughly 1,200 about 10 miles southeast of Toledo. Hummer said two other people died at WEI COMFORT SYSTEMS Servicing your heating and cooling needs in St. Louis for over 30 years Visit our website at www.weiscomfort.com (636) 343-8440 Lennox knows you don't compromise.

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