Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 12

TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1992 5B Blood stain discovered at torched church DEATHS TIMES AmocWwI Prut ALLAN JONES, 84, who starred in the original film of the I Jerome Kern musical classic Show Boat, died i Saturday New York City. Mr. Jones, who also appeared in two Marx Brothers films, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, died of lung just three hours before the fire at Grace United on Friday morning, and has been ruled suspicious but of undetermined origin, Darnell said. Holy Trinity's sanctuary had been demolished in a $l-million arson in January 1991. The damage this time was more than $500,000.

Task force members determined Sunday that the fire at Grace United was the work of an arsonist. Investigators had fewer clues to work with from the Holy Trinity fire, Darnell said. "The magnitude of the damage from the fire and the extensive nature of it just makes a difference," Darnell said. After finishing a search through the charred remains of Holy Trinity's Fellowship Hall Monday morning, investigators sent samples from the two fires to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's laboratory in Jacksonville. Darnell said lab analysis may help in determining whether the fires are linked and if the fire at Holy Trinity was intentionally set.

Authorities have not linked the two fires to one suspect, Darnell said. cancer, said family friends and the hospital. In the film The Firefly (1937) opposite Jeanette GAINESVILLE Investigators said Monday they hope a blood stain found at the scene of a deliberately set church fire will lead them to the arsonist. The blood was found at Grace United Methodist Church, which sustained $400,000 in fire damage, said Sadie Darnell, spokeswoman for a multi-agency arson task force. If police arrest a suspect, the blood could be key evidence linking him or her to the scene of the fire, Darnell said.

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church was torched MacDonald, Mr. Jones sang Kudolf nml Donkey Serenade, which became his greatest hit and one of RCA Records' all-time best sellers. He is survived Flee from 1B Bartow Buckling up is up Safety-belt use has tripled in the past eight years while the traffic death rate has gone down by 27 percent. Traffic Safety Now, a group representing the major carmakers, attributes the higher use of safety belts to tougher laws and better education of drivers. Bayyyi Manatee 2 If Bradentorr 79 1 A 17 Safety-belt uu I 64 I 19 4S ir by his son, the singer Jack Jones, who will recreate his father's role in a touring company of Man of La Mancha later this year.

MIKHAIL TAL, 55, a former world chess champion who was one of the most exciting and popular players in the history of the game, died Sunday in Moscow after a long illness, Itar-Tass news agency said. Mr. Tal, known for his flamboyant attacking style, held the championship from 1960 to 1961 one in a long line of Soviet chess superstars to win the world crown. DONALD W. WOODS, 34, the head of an AIDS education organization and a former public affairs director of the Brooklyn Children's Museum, died Thursday in New York City.

He died of cardiac arrest, his family said. Mr. Woods, the executive director of AIDS Films, was one of several authors of Tongues Untied, a documentary by Marlon T. Riggs about black gay men that was shown on PBS. JAN JAKOB SMULEWICZ, 69, who escaped a Nazi death sentence by outsmarting concentration-camp guards, died Friday in New York City.

He died of heart failure, his family said. The sole member of his Jewish family to survive the Holocaust, he was imprisoned as a teenager in a succession of slave labor camps, where he worked as a medic and nurse. Three times he was ordered to be killed. Twice the guards changed their minds. On the third occasion he escaped death by switching his numbered prison uniform with that of an inmate who had just died of typhus.

After the war he served as radiology chief at three New York City hospitals. JOHN PIPER, 88, a versatile British artist and designer, died Sunday in London after a long illness. He was Britain's official war artist from 1940-42, turning his strong feeling for architecture to the task of showing the damage done by Nazi bombings. Some of his most lasting work is of bombed country houses. In 1941, he was commissioned by Queen Mother Elizabeth to paint a series of watercolors of Windsor Castle that now hang in Clarence House, her London residence.

SarasotaO wis Gulf of Mexico Venice 1984 1992 Englewood North Port) Death rate 2.6 I Death rate per 100-million vehicle miles jmmmmmmm 1.9 I Wisconsin. I've never gone through this," said Irene Murray, 70, who lives in the hardest-hit inland area in the North Port neighborhood. A sudden surge of water on the Coco Plum Waterway, which runs into the Myakka, had city officials convinced the flood-control dam in the waterway had collapsed. They scrambled at 8:30 a.m. Monday to shore up a downtown flood device that spans the waterway, then cut an emergency bypass ditch alongside the canal, and prepared for a disaster, Lovett said.

They later discovered that the dams had held, leaving them unable to account for the sudden water surge. In rural DeSoto County, about 100 homes remained isolated by floodwaters as Horse Creek began to subside Monday, said emergency management coordinator Cathy Furr.The creek crested Sunday night at 17.8 feet, just shy of the August 1960 record of 17.9 feet. Flood level for Horse Creek is 12 feet. Some of those homes may have been demolished by the high waters, Furr said, but no one has been able to get close enough to assess the damage. Along the Peace River just north of Arcadia in DeSoto, the water level hit 12.5, 2V feet above flood stage and was lapping at the doors of several dozen homes.

Homeowners in Venice and two central Sarasota subdivisions began moving back into flood damaged homes late Sunday and Monday, but voluntary evacuation restrictions remained in North Port, where 147 people remained in a shelter at North Port Elementary School, Feagans said. Some homeowners who returned before the warnings were lifted found front lawns submerged; wilted plants turned brown from the flooding; fetid, mildewed carpets; and damaged furniture. Mary and Kenneth Hutton fled their North Port home Saturday at the urging of sheriff's deputies after high water made their street almost impassable and chunks of their ceiling collapsed from the rain. "I went to look at it, and the whole thing dropped. Boom! It was like a bomb," said Mrs.

Hutton, 41. She returned early to care for her 11 cats and a dog and discovered about $7,000 in damage to her roof, carpets and furniture. "This is the first home I've ever owned, and last night I thought I was going to lose it all," she said. The Hutton house is insured except, she discovered, for roof damage. Many trailer owners along the Myakka River said they were not covered by flood insurance and could lose everything.

1984 1991 Source: Traffic Safety Now National Highway Traffic Safely Administration Timet art Buckling from IB KST Times art County officials said they will seek federal assistance in the form of Small Business Administration loans to homeowners. Locally, a "cleanup hot line" (366-6000) was opened to help residents with problems including mosquito control, financial assistance, transportation problems and water-well contamination. As floodwaters drained from inland canals and streets Monday, the Myakka River was overflowing its banks and filling lowland areas north of North Port. At the Myrtle J. Riverside Retreat, trailer owners frantically pulled out homes that had been in place up to 14 years.

They tore down lattice-trimmed porches and lugged patio furniture up the steep 50-foot road to U.S. 41. Water streamed into the park, flushing snakes out of the ground and submerging live power lines, turning them into invisible traps. Paul Moehle lost part of his floor to the fast-rising water before he could pull his mobile home to the main road. He will move it back to the river's edge when the water subsides.

"I love it here. If you came out here at night and looked at the night through my eyes you would understand. This is a beautiful place." aafcT I CLEARWATER COIN SHOW Sponsored by: THE CLEARWATER COIN CLUB, INC. Quality Dealers with Outstanding Merchandise COINS BOUGHT, SOLO AND APPRAISED SHOW OPEN TO PUBLIC JULY 2-5 1992 10-6 SHERATON SAND KEY HOTEL 1 160 Quil Hwy. 899, Clearwater Beach .1 Ridge is rain's road to Florida Quality Jewelry Repair Costs No More! By MARK BOURGEOIS Timet Correspondent chance of rain for Wednesday, mainly in the afternoon.

Areas south of Tampa Bay were deluged and those north simply soaked was simple luck, Humble said. RING SIZING ONE SIZE UP REG. 15. NOW 7.50. (14K LADIES' ONLY) PRICES MAY VARY ON PIATINUM, GENTS' HEAVIER RINGS also: DIAMOND SETTING CUSTOM DESIGN CHAIN REPAIR STONE REPLACING All Repair Prices Posted In Stores tween Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula, said Ron Humble, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin.

The ridge is expected to move into Central Florida on Thursday or Friday, Humble said. When that happens, Suncoast weather should revert to its normal pattern of widely scattered, afternoon thun-dershowers. Meanwhile, rains for the area will be above normal for a few more days. The National Weather Service says Tampa Bay and the flooded areas of Sarasota, DeSoto and Manatee counties could get rain anytime today. There is a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms during the day, dropping to 40 percent tonight.

Forecasters predicted a 60 percent TAMPA To understand why monsoons have interrupted the Florida west coast's normal weather pattern, first imagine a giant pinwheel whirring over the southern part of the state, whipping moist tropical air from the Caribbean basin to our shores. The pinwheel, which actually is shaped like a narrow oval, is a high-pressure ridge. The ridge is responsible for a wind shift that has moved the humid air, which, when "cooked" over warm land or water, produces thunderstorms. Normally, the summer wind comes out of the east, but thanks to the ridge, winds generally have been from the southwest and west, drawing up humid air from be ALL I ZES FL OS EDIA MONDS A VA I A I SPECIAL OFFER! I I FREE! RING SIZING! WITH COUPON! ONE SIZE DOWN. UP SIZING 50 OFF.

SAVE ON ALL 14K MOUNTINGS INCLUDING ENGAGEMENT RINGS, FREEFORM, MEN'S, DIAMONDS, ETC breaking another law. Traffic Safety Now and other safety groups would like that changed so motorists could be stopped if a police officer sees they are not wearing seat belts. Randy Bly, traffic safety director for AAA Auto Club South in Tampa, said the change would "put some teeth" in the law. Violators of the current statute pay a $27 fine, the Florida Highway Patrol said. Traffic Safety Now was created in 1984 to urge state legislatures to pass laws requiring people to wear safety belts.

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia now have those laws, although all but nine can't stop motorists just for not wearing a seat belt, Spil-man said. Safety belts improve your odds cf surviving a crash by 45 percent, Spilman said. The poll of 10 medium-sized metropolitan areas found that seat-belt use in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area where 66 percent of people surveyed said they always wear belts is roughly the same as the national average. San Diego had the highest rate, 76 percent, and Columbus, Ohio, had the lowest, 49 percent.

The wide range among metro areas is a reflection of laws and enforcement, Spilman said. Some areas have tougher laws, and some police departments write more tickets. If motorists are afraid they will get a ticket, they will be more likely to wear a belt. Another reason for greater compliance with safety-belt laws is that many cars now have automatic restraint systems. Other findings from the poll: Sixty-nine percent of women said they always wear belts, compared with 58 percent of men.

Nearly half the people surveyed said that when they're a passenger in a car, they suggest the driver and other passengers wear belts. Eighty-five percent said they favor laws requiring safety belts, up from 74 percent in 1984. Some people interviewed for the poll may have exaggerated how often they buckle up, Spilman said. But overall patterns from his polls in 1984 and 1992 are consistent with national studies that observed drivers on the highway to see how many were wearing belts. The new poll of 3,000 U.

S. adults has a 2 percent margin of error. The margin for the metro areas is 5 percent. The Florida Highway Patrol, which last year wrote nearly 69,000 tickets for seat-belt violations around the state, is campaigning to get drivers to wear belts. Many state troopers' cars have decals in the back window that say "Safety belt enforcement unit." That doesn't change the duties of the trooper driving the car, said Highway Patrol spokesman Maj.

Mike Boles, but "it's a reminder that we do enforce safety-belt laws." Hold beck rain dirt j-f 1 1 I Slides Mjly-j, Ji I 4 UN mi a is, Citrus industry may be biggest loser 9 Baker Vinyl Panels Avsragtcott 10 IS AMAA 2-iiMtMWainicot lilt (it Memory) Ira Groves in Manatee and Sarasota counties appear to have suffered most, but the extent of damage may not be known for months. Or, convert to a. Baker Glass Room with HORIZONTAL ROLLERS Call 525-1148 4590 62nd Ave. N. Sarasota Hudson Tampa 1-800-330-1150 ST.

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19 ACROSS FROM GUIEVIEWSQ MAll I ALSO SARASOTA A TAMPA PHOTOSCNIAIGED OUANTITIESIIMIUD 4 By MARK BOURGEOIS Thiii Coffwpooctont Baker Industries Florida I Urges! Menuttctum Porch enclosures, Screen Rooms tnd Vinyl Panels. Founded I9S9 JCHCOWMt will not be able to tell the full extent of the damage for several weeks to a couple of months." In the four-county flood area south of Tampa Bay, Manatee County and Sarasota County groves may have borne most of the damage, according to preliminary assessments by agriculture extension agents. Agents in neighboring Hardee and DeSoto counties reported no serious problems. Travis Seawright, an extension agent in Manatee County, said that on Sunday he saw "several groves totally underwater. It's worse than 1988 and 1979 as far as total erosion washout." Mike Holsinger, director of the extension service for Sarasota County, said agriculture could take a big hit from the rain.

"There's no question that there's significant potential damage in the agricultural sector," Holsinger said. Citrus trees, mainly oranges, occupy about 20,000 acres in Manatee and about 2,100 acres in Sarasota County. Hardee and DeSoto counties have about 50,000 acres each of citrus trees. For the 1990-91 growing season, the on-tree value of citrus in those four counties amounted to $282-million. Southwest Florida's citrus industry could be one victim of the recent rains, citrus experts said Monday.

Citrus trees are prone to "drowning" if standing water covers their roots for at least four consecutive days, said Cooperative Extension Service agent Steve Futch. Impassable roads have prevented Futch from checking groves in the four-county area hit by high water in recent days, he said. Extension agents said Monday that it was much too early to predict how much damage, if any, the rains have caused. Root-damaged trees may look fine until September, the start of the dry season, Futch said. "There's still water in some groves so you really can't see what's going on," he said.

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