Argus-Leader from Sioux Falls, South Dakota • Page 5

Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Saturday, March 29, 1997 FLOOD WATCH 7 Aberdeen Flooding on the Vermillion River Flooding on the Big Sioux River Levee break leaves Davis under a foot Flooding on the James River Friday Change from Flood Projected Town level Thursday stage crest Change from Thursday 2.9 ft. Projected crest 13.5 ft. 5 Projected crest Flood stage Friday level 10.6 ft. 14.6 Flood stage 9 ft. .12 14 I i Wakonda 16.9 .2 Change from Thursday 2.1 ft.

.6 .2 Town Brookings Dell Rapids Highway 38A at Sioux Falls Friday Town level Forestburg 13.5 iMitchell ,15.8 Scotland 16.2 Near crest now 4 i Brookings! i 16 12 11.5 .6 11 fl 18.5 12 17 15 13 Small increases next 7 days Huron North Cliff Ave. at Sioux Falls .15.3 Hawarden 17.3 Akron 18.1 T1 Watertown Estellinee Brookingsl Flandreau if Dell Rapids II Sioux FallslpLJ Canton Hudson S.D. 1 Hawarden Missouri River I (Til An ..20.5 20 '20 2.2 1 16 15 16 Foresthi irn 9 Mitchell I Madison Parker 1l Chancellor Davis Centerville Cm MEB S.D. Yankton Wakonda Missouri Riverm IL VermillioliSfOv By OENISE D. TUCKER Vgus Leader Staff DAVIS A levee north of here washed out early Friday, leaving parts of the town under a foot of water.

Dean Erickson, the Turner County Civil Defense director, said the Vermillion River gauging station IVi mile south of Davis reached 15 feet Friday. That's 4 feet above flood stage, but 9 inches shy of the record set in 1969 and matched in 1993 and 1995. Traffic on Highway 18 moved slowly through downtown Davis as the Turner County Sheriff's Department monitored motorists passing through the floodwaters, which covered about a city block. As water flowed toward the Davis Elevator, business carried on as usual. The National Weather Service has issued flood warnings for eastern South Dakota creeks and rivers.

Flood warnings are in effect for: The James River from Columbia downstream; the entire Vermillion River; the Big Sioux River from Brookings County downstream to north of Sioux City; and Split Rock Creek in southeastern South Dakota. Rock River in northwest Iowa near crest Friday. Milltown Olivet) Missouri River Scotland Mission Hill NEB. YanktonW Source: National Weather Service Argus Leader graphic James River: Many expect, prepare for annual flooding "We're sitting up high enough," Continued from 1A said elevator manager Dave Bob-zien. "I'm not worried.

If we get in trouble at the elevator here, the whole town will be in deep trouble." Erickson said a few farmers Flooded roads Flooding on Friday closed two spots along South Dakota Highway 19, at 2Vz and 6 miles south of Highway 46. Locations where water is over the highway, but traffic is maintained: US 14, in and 1 mile east of Blunt. SD 15, south of Milbank. SD 20, 3 miles west of SD 1 5 and at Timber Lake. SD 26, 4 miles west of US 281.

SD 45, 6Vj miles north of SD 10 and 5 miles north of US 12. SD 47, 4 miles north of SD 20. US 81, 8 miles west of Madison. US 83, 1 mile north of Onida and 6 miles south of Onida. SD 1 30, 5 miles east of Selby.

SD 1 58, 4 Vi miles east of SD 15. US 281, 8 miles south of Redfield. SD 1804, 8V2 miles north of Oahe Dam and 6 miles south of US 212. US 18 at Davis. US 212, 7 miles west of Redfield.

Larson has lived near Forestburg for the last 42 years. He has never seen Sand Creek, which empties into the James just above town, as high as it was last week. The rising creek cut off a road at the north end of Forestburg and forced the owner of one home to move out, Larson said. "That wasn't the river's fault. Sand Creek was just emptying too fast for the Jim to take it all." Larson took the precaution last week of placing sandbags around the foundation of his cabin, but the creek didn't reach his yard.

He's skeptical the Jim will go as crazy as some people predict. "It might, and you have to be prepared," he said. "But that old river will take a lot of water before it really gets high around here." Kleinsasser, who has lived in Beadle County near the river all his life, would like to believe that. He can't, even though the recent weather's combination of melting days followed by chilly weather has helped control the runoff. "All the bottom land is covered with water, and there's still an unbelievable amount of snow up north.

I just have to believe it's going to break all records." soaking wet for five straight years. Even calling the land around the river a valley is misleading, said Paul Larson, who lives in a log house in the Sand Creek bottom northwest of Forestburg. "So much of the James valley is flat, that once it tops its bank, it can spread for miles," Larson said. "It doesn't always get too deep, but it covers a whole lot of land area." Geological measurements support Larson's observation, showing that the river has an average gradient of 4 inches per mile. It would take from three weeks to as much as two months for a drop of water to travel the length of the James in South Dakota.

"That's not much more slope than a tabletop," Damgaard said. A series of four glaciers, massive slabs of ice more than a mile high, covered eastern South Dakota and carved the James River valley. The Missouri River valley marks the western edge of those glaciers, which receded gradually and left behind a rocky, flat landscape. All that happened during the Pleistocene epoch 20,000 to 200,000 years ago. year isn't good." Some of that feeling comes from the knowledge that the land along the northern half of the river is still snowpacked, needing only a string of warm days to produce record amounts of water.

Another reason can be read in a chart Gov. Bill Janklow shows visitors to his office whenever the talk turns to flooding. The chart shows the average annual flow of the James River at Huron from 1943 through 1996. "What it shows is that, before 1993, every year that the river had above-average flows, that year was preceded and followed by a year or more of below-normal flows," said Marshal Damgaard, a Janklow staff member. "But when you look at 1997, which is above normal, you don't see that dry period.

Instead, every year back to 1992 has been above normal. There's never been a time in the last five years when the land could dry out and be in shape to take more water." Damgaard likens the land along the James River to a sponge. Dry, it can hold a lot of water Wet, it can only let the water run off. The James River valley has been north of Huron. Even though the river is officially flooding, Hofer's classrooms and other buildings were dry.

"We've been fighting the runoff from the surrounding fields and down the small streams behind us, instead of the river in front," Hofer said. "For the most part, the James itself is still frozen, still one big chunk of ice." Up and down the slow-moving river, known to locals as "The Jim" sentiment is the same. "People have taken the precautions they can, I think," said Mel Youngerman, Beadle County's emergency management director. "If you live along the Jim, you know it's going to be at flood stage sometime nearly every year." This year, though, the river could be above flood stage longer and the water could climb higher than most years on record. "I've watched it a long time, and when I used to irrigate from it, I flew over it time and again," said Beadle County farmer Leland Kleinsasser.

"You kind of get a feel for the river, and the feeling this had left their homes, but for the most part, people were staying put. Loretta Trenerry's yard in town was turned into a marsh after the floodwaters flowed by. Her basement had a small stream going through it. Trenerry, 49, had three sump pumps working in her basement. "Once it gets to this point, there's nothing to do but monitor the situation," she said.

Bobzien, 34, said his home had water in the basement, too. "We're in the flood plain," he said. "Everybody does." The Davis, Hurley and Volga fire departments handed out sandbags earlier in the week. Trenerry had several around her home. Looking out across the flooded downtown area, Erickson said, "It's kind of interesting.

I didn't think it would come through town this year." Thomas: 'Answer is getting more elusive1 for woman who was told infant died after birth Continued from 1A DNA from Thomas' blood. That maternity test confirmed the remains could not be that of Thomas' offspring. She and Heidepriem plan to wait for new leads. "We hope someone with knowledge will come forth and tell this mother what happened to her daughter in Worthington, many years ago," he said. Heidepriem is not charging Thomas for his legal help.

Minnehaha County Coroner Dr. Brad Randall donated his time to last fall's exhumation, as did two grave-digging experts from Minnesota. The DNA lab charged $300. "It's been a volunteer effort by a bunch of people who want to get an answer for this lady," Heidepriem said. "And the answer is getting more elusive." The area In St.

Mary's Cemetery in question is called "baby-land," where infants were buried. "It may have been a newborn infant born 100 years ago," Heidepriem said. "We just don't know. We do know it wasn't Mary Agnes Gross." Not surprised It took Heidepriem several years to obtain permission to exhume the grave where Mary Agnes' headstone rests. Numerous bone fragments were recovered last November from the site.

A forensic anthropologist in Kansas determined the skeleton was that of a newborn girl. The tibia from the left leg was sent to a North Carolina lab. There, deoxyribonucleic acid from the bone was compared to the "remote possibility" the bone that was tested is from another child. But "we're told by experts in the mortuary business who say that is unlikely," Heidepriem said. One of those newborn infants, Pamela Rae Dickey, is buried next to Mary Agnes' grave.

It could be the infants were buried in each other's grave. "We think tha.t is also unlikely," Heidepriem said. One quick way to learn would be to compare DNA in the leg bone to that of Pamela Rae's mother, Margaret Dickey of Worthington. Her lawyer, Harris Darling of Worthington, said Friday that he would ask his client if she would provide a blood sample. If the bone belongs to neither baby, it came from someone else.

conflict. Mary Agnes' birth certificate states she was born at 6:23 p.m., June 12, 1962. The death certificate lists the time of death as 6:30 p.m. However, the doctor's handwritten note on the death certificate states the baby died at 6:20 p.m. three minutes before her official birth.

Three months after Thomas left the hospital, she was living with her mother in Bigelow, and received a blue envelope containing a family photo. Thomas did not know the people, but the baby in the picture had dark hair. "The baby looked like my husband, and I thought that was really strange," she said. Other possibilities Besides the possibility that Mary Agnes was taken from Thomas and put up for adoption, Heidepriem suggested other explanations to the mystery. Two other babies died within hours of Mary Agnes' birth at the hospital.

If Mary Agnes were buried in the same casket, there is Heidepriem said Thomas does not seek money. "I ha ve no evidence of any ill will or any malicious motive on the part of any doctor or any nurse in Worthington," Heidepriem said. "But having said that, I also have no evidence of what happened to Mary Agnes Gross. There is a paper trail that suggests death and burial. There is no confirmation of burial.

In fact, we have excluded the possibility of the baby being buried where the cemetery says she is." Since the first report of Thomas' story, media attention has increased. The national program "Dateline NBC" plans to run a story, Heidepriem said. Conflicting records Besides memories that raise suspicion, several other issues made Thomas question whether Mary Agnes died, among them: Hospital records indicate the baby was healthy at birth, but the death certificate states she didn't breathe at all. The times of birth and death A nurse on duty that night, Francis Loosbrock, said Friday that she has no recollection of anything unusual at the hospital, nor does she think someone would have taken a baby. "Man a living, there was never anything.

I never felt when I worked there of any insecure things going on and believed wholeheartedly in the doctors and had my own children there," said Loosbrock, 66, of Wilmont, Minn. "It amazes me my name was on the records." One of two doctors who delivered Mary Agnes Gross, pediatrician Dr. John Stam, retired to Hill City in the Black Hills. When contacted two years ago, he remembered nothing unusual. "All I can tell you is I worked with honest guys.

If I certified a baby was dead, that would be on my honor," Stam told the Argus Leader in January 1995. He could not be reached Friday for comment. The other physician on duty, Dr. F.L. Shade, died in 1993.

There's so much aoina I (III SI Ml( HII It Ml Ml III! tl MIVAI Hit UNI Ml Hit SI I SKI lilt It MIS lift HMIMI flit SI Ml SHI HI StMISHI I My Little Girl Is Growing Up ML Yin The pre-teen years of a girls life are filled with questions, joys and concerns. Learn about the physical and emotional changes of these years at this free seminar with Dr. Sandra Smith, Family Practice Physician at McGrecvy Clinic, on Thursday, April 3 at 7:00 p.m. in the on atAugustana College during the summer, you won't believe take a look, see what's up the opportunities for learning are limitless! fjtl lev Jiht j-fCit Over 70 courses and 62 workshops in the following areas: Computers Counseling Social Issues Science Education Business Humanities The Arts Summer Science Institute Full Term: June 9-August 1 1st Half Term June 9-July 3 2nd Half Term July 7 -August 1 A program designed for pre-meds, pre-dents, and other health science majors with courses in freshman chemistry I and II, organic chemistry I II, pre-calculus and calculus, computer science, and physics I II. Technology Camp for Teachers -(Tech Camp '97)-June I6-20 Now in its 4th year, this camp is designed for teachers, administrators, school staff and college students to learn new technology in hands-on sessions in a relaxed, camp-like atmosphere.

Summer Scholars -June 23-26. and June 30-July 3 (2nd week optional) A long-standing program, now in its 14th year, designed for high achieving students in grades 1-6 who have been nominated by their teachers. Classes offered are in the areas of computers, foreign languages, sign language, creative drama, science, electronic music, and art College for Kids July 14-24 This two week program of morning enrichment classes for students who have completed fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth grade, provides an opportunity for exploration of interests, development of new skills, new friendships, and stimulation in a college setting. For more information or for a brochure, can 336-41 26 McKennan Hospital Auditorium. Mothers, fathers and daughters are encouraged to attend together.

Call Ask-A-Nurse at 322-6877 or 1-800-658-3535 to pre-register. McKennan Hospital (JiikiivHsGetikr Caringforlife nit smitti utt nrt iimimi mi stisi mi sumi rut simimi titt iiwsii mi sihimi mi itmsu 1001 Vxth summit atouc Ska full, south Dakota my?.