The Star-Democrat from Easton, Maryland • Page 3

Tuesday, January 23. 1996, Pog 3A Maryland MOCKAT Mi flood Port Deposit res inspect damage leaving a reservoir near Smithsburg as the sole source of water for the area's 75,000 customers, Mayor Steve Sager" said. "This is a major problem," Sager said, "our normal water use is 10 million gallons per day By JOHN IIENDREN Associated Press Writer PORT DEPOSIT (AP) As residents of Port Deposit returned Monday to survey the remains ol their flood-damaged homes, thousands of Washington County residents were left without drinking water in the aftermath of one of the state's worst floods. "This is heartbreaking. We can't live in there," said carpenter Matthew Huffman, who found waterlogged wedding presents and power tools stored in the basement of his Port Deposit home.

"I hope you can do something," he told Gov. Parris Glendening, who toured the area Monday. -The Susquehanna River-waters surged over their banks Saturday after gates on the Conowingo Dam were opened. Glendening, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, and Rep.

Wayne Gilchrest, toured the town, culling information to back their requests for aid from the federal Emergency Management Assistance Agency. Last weekend floods were among the highest ever recorded in Maryland, according to Robert James head of the regional stream-gauging program for the United States Geological Survey. The Susquehanna had its second-highest flow with a peak stage of 34.18 feet, surpassed only by the 36.83-foot peak stage during Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Glendening and Mikulski, who is vice chair of the Senate subcommittee that approves funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said they hoped to have emergency funding approved by Wednesday. "It's difficult, but I think with the federal, state and local (governments) working together, we're going to be OK," Glendening said.

At least 650 of Port Deposit's 700 residents were evacuated, many complaining that the onrush of heavy- rain and melting-snow-overran the river so quickly that they hardly had time to leave town. More than 100 businesses and homes were damaged, i according to Gilchrest. PECO Energy the dam operator, said it was forced to open 39 of 52 floodgates near the town, about four miles from where the Susquehanna flows into the Chesapeake Bay. An hour afterward the flood started, Huffman drove his pickup truck out of town in water that splashed over the hood. joined Cecil, Frederick; Garrett, and Allegany counties on Glendening's state disaster area list.

Cecil County damage mirrored that of Western Maryland, Glendening said. In Allegany County, 268 homes were seriously damaged, only 3 percent of them insured for flood damage, he said. Seventy percent of the damaged homes were owned by low-income residents who can ill-afford to go without' reimbursement, Glendening said. Some 32 Allegany businesses and two dozen water or sewage treatment plants also suffered flood damage. In Washington County, floods that swept away a water treatment plant left 5,000 to 10,000 residents without drinking water.

National Guard troops were sent to area with emergency supplies. The city of Hagerstown on Monday banned all water use except for dire emergencies due to flooding Saturday at the city's water treatment plant near Williamsburg along the Potomac River. Residents were urged to avoid showering and flushing their toilets. A reservoir in the city's West End was depleted Monday, Glendenin German finds GI he $200 million to roads projects ana tor uie next tnree or tour days we've got 4 million." The restriction prompted a run on bottled water at area grocery lirt'-4 siures. wasningion uuniy schools were closed Monday.

Water was restored on Sunday to La Vale in Allegany County after workers repaired a water main swept away Friday. Area schools and restaurants remained closed Monday to allow water lines to be flushed and reservoirs filled. The State Highway Administration Kepi me Maryland Route 68 bridge in Williamsport closed Monday morning because of possible structural problems stemming from flooding on the Potomac River. Cleanup work continued in Hancock, where residents measured the damage by past floods. Water climbed 5'i feet, up the side of 87-year-old Rintha Trail's home.

"It didn't leave the amount of mud that it did in 1985," said her daughter, Jean Powers. engineers, highway contractors and union officials issued a statement "ing the governor's announcement "important, first steps in relieving congestion and helping spur economic development in some areas of the state. But Robert Latham, director of Marylanders for Efficient and Safe Highways, said the additional $200 million announced Monday will pay for only 10 percent of the highway construction projects that are planned but have not been funded in previous years. He mentioned projects such as widening of the Baltimore Beltway, construction of an inter-county connector in the Washington suburbs and bypasses at Salisbury and St. Michael's as projects that will remain largely unfunded even with additional spending.

Latham said it would be hard to increase the gasoline tax this year, "but we think the need is now." Questioned about spending money to build roads to serve a new stadium Jack Kent Cooke will build with his own money, Glendening said the expenditure is justified because "we have a $160 million private development here." The governor pointed out he has added money to improve access in two other areas where road improvements are needed because of economic development projects. He is setting aside $14.1 million for an interchange on Interstate 70 in Washington County that is needed to serve a new corporate headquarters for Allegany Power Systems. And he included $21.6 million for planning and rights-of-way for highway improvements that will be needed in St. Mary's County, where 5,000 jobs will be added at Patuxent River Naval Station. adds FREDERICK (AP) For 51 years, Fritz Vincken looked forward to the day he would find the American soldiers he and his mother fed and sheltered on Christmas Eve in 1944 as the Battle of the Bulge raged around them.

His quest ended in a Frederick nursing home on Saturday when Vincken located at least one of the soldiers: 76-year-old Ralph Blank, a former who he had last seen leaving his cabin in the Ardennes Forest in Germany to find his unit. 64, located Blank at the Northampton Manor Nursing Home after its chaplain recognized his story as the same one he had heard from Blank. "Let me look," Vincken said as he put a Hawaiian lei around Blank neck. "The same eyes. How ya been, Blank said.

"You're not a little boy any more." The reunion was sparked by a letter Vincken wrote to the television show "Unsolved Mysteries," which broadcast the story, but originally turned up no leads. 4 pageant board members retire HAGERSTOWN (AP) Following a troublesome year for the Miss Maryland pageant, the contest's executive board announced the retirement of four of its members. The executive board released a statement Sunday saying it "regretfully" announced the retirement of Charles Skinner, executive director; Patricia Ske beck, president; Lynn Moreland, executive vice president; and Beverly Skinner, associate board member. "A resolution was passed unanimously thanking them and commending them for their many years ot dedication, service and leadership to the ideals of the Miss Maryland and Miss America organization," the statement said. The board is taking steps to fill the positions and plans are underway for the pageant's 25th anniversary in June, the statement said.

The pageant last year faced several scandals, including allegations by a contestant that the contest was rigged so she could not win. The 1995 runner-up, Linda Yuen, claimed pageant officials, after last minute ques tions about her eligibility, tarn pered with the judging and made it impossible for her to win. Then the executive board was criticized when local pageant directors questioned the handling of finances. Divorced mother of six wins $9.5 million Lotto BALTIMORE (AP) A divorced mother of six became $9.5 million richer Monday when she turned in one of two winning Lotto tickets from Saturday's $19 million drawing. The other ticket was not turned in Monday.

Deborah Jackson, 43, of Oxon Hill was working at Washington Hospital Center Sunday when her oldest son brought the ticket and narvr to show her she nan won "I was a little excited and went back to work," Ms. Jack son, a food service worker. Ms. Jackson purchased the (mlrAV nf- srnmrftrtnrrn ctArn in Oxon Hill because the jackpot had gotten higher than usual. It was the third highest jackpot since Lotto started in 1983, said spokesman Carroll Hynson Jr.

The winning numbers were 2 5-6-7-22-37. The winners picked them randomly using computer. The other winning ticket must be turned in within six months or the mnnev returns to the nrize fund. Ms. Jackson, who said she has never won a lottery prize before, plans to quit her job, buy a house and put away money for her grandchildren's education.

ti a 1 a aa 'i mii x- v. She will be paid about $475,000 before taxes, for the next 20 years. Braugher auditions youths for workshop BALTIMORE (AP) Andre Braugher, star of the critically acclaimed television drama "Homicide: Life on the Street," was in Baltimore coaching young actors on Shakespeare. Braugher is a classically trained thespian who has spent much of his career performing Shakespeare. On Sunday, he auditioned 28 youths for a two-day workshop called the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, scheduled for next month.

The teens competed for the workshop's 14 spots and a chance to learn from the man some crit ics have called television's best actor. "The moment that I realized that these were not just people saying flowery words but people with emotions and thoughts like me, that's when I wanted to take Shakespeare on the page, praugner saia. "I could've climbed out of my window and into my boat," he said, With no heat, his wife and 5-month-old baby remained at his mother-in-law's home across town. Just across railroad tracks that border the river, sheets of river ice lay on the hoods of cars abandoned in a Main Street parking lot in the rush out of town. A sparse peppering of residents walked along the town's mud-covered Main Street Monday, sidestepping sheets of ice.

A floating dock off the riverside Tome's Landing housing development lay, partially crunched on- the water, a half-dozen boats still moored to it." A nearly million offshore:" breakwater cut the waves' crest, leaving the riverfront houses more protected than many across the railroad tracks into town. If President Clinton approves Glendening's request to have the worst-affected counties declared disaster areas, residents will be eligible to apply Jor reimbursement on a sliding scale, with low-income residents receiving larger grants for similar damage. Washington County on Monday sheltered said. Vincken viewed the Americans as liberators and from that point, became fascinated with everything American. "The Americans seemed like demigods to me," he said.

In 1959, Vincken left Germany for America, eventually settling in Hawaii and opening a bakery there in 1971. He decided he wanted to find the soldiers with whom he shared Christmas in 1944. But years, of searching turned up few leads. Then, after "Unsolved Mysteries" broadcast his story in October, Vincken got a call from Eld-ridgie Ward, the nursing home chaplain. Ward told him he knew of a retired Frederick bricklayer whose story matched his.

"Unsolved Mysteries" helped set up the reunion, which the show plans to broadcast in a few weeks. "It is not only a story, it is a message," said Vincken. "We're unimportant. It was the happening that made the moment." approved a 250-page environmental impact statement for the St. Charles development, Baird said.

It was only later, in the late 1980s, when the debate over what constituted a wetland really heated up, that pressure was applied to Interstate General, Baird said. From the start, federal agencies knew environmentally-sensitive marshy areas were at stake, but decided the public interest was better served by allowing the huge development to go forward, Baird said. The $100 million-development is half complete and when finished will provide homes for 80,000 people. "Every step IGC took was with approval right and eft," Baird said. "Nobody was hiding what they were doing here." Garden Center, Inc.

and Trim-a-Trec Shop Vincken, now an American citizen living in Hawaii, was 12 when he met Blank and two fellow soldiers who had gotten lost in the snowy woods and had all but given up on living when they spotted smoke rising from -the Vincken's little cabin. Frostbitten and hungry, the trio knocked on the door and asked for help. Vincken and his mother had just made chicken stew. They invited the soldiers in and bffered to share what they had. 1 Just as they were about to eat, four German soldiers arrived at the door, also seeking shelter from the cold night.

Mrs. Vincken told them they were welcome, as Jong! as they accepted he other guests. All seven soldiers slept overnight on the floor, not far from the front lines of the Battle of the Bulge. In the morning, the Germans gave the Americans directions back to their camp and even passed them a compass, which Blank still has. "I kept it as a souvenir," he land was wetlands.

A lawyer for the company said during his opening statements that the company did fill in wetlands but did nothing illegal. The land in question is not wetlands under the definition set forth in the federal Clean Water Act, said Bruce A. Baird, the attorney. "This is a real stretch to call any land in this Case a wetland," Baird said. Baird said the reason the lands weren't protected by federal regulations is that they weren't anywhere near navigable water.

But prosecutors contend that all land in question eventually drains into the Potomac River the Chesapeake Bay's second-largest tributary. In 1976, three different federal agencies the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency ANNAPOLIS (AP) The Glendening administration will use money officials say was saved by cost-cutting measures at the Department of Transportation to add about $200 million in new projects to the state transportation program. Combined with more than $200 million in additional work already proposed for next year and about $100 million in additional construction planned by the Mass Transit Administration, the new projects will increase Maryland's transportation program by $511 million next year. Gov. Parris Glendening said.

"We were able to do this without raising the gasoline tax," the governor said. He repeated his pledge not to increase the tax during his current term, and said money will be available to maintain an adequate construction program for the next three years. "Because we are in extremely difficult times, we were not able to do everything we wanted to do," Glendening said. But he said every area of the state will benefit from money added to the transportation program. The two biggest new items are" $48 million in road improvements to serve the proposed Washington Redskins stadium in Prince George's County and $42.3 million for Canal Parkway, a 1.78 mile highway from the West Virginia border to Route 51 in Cumberland intended to provide better access to downtown Cumberland.

David Winstead, state transportation secretary, said with the new projects and transportation firojects already in the pipeline rom earlier years, the state will have $1.3 billion to spend next year on roads, highways, bridges, mass transit, airports- and ports. He said that is the largest capital budget ever for his department. An organization representing Developer's lawyer acknowledges wetlands were filled, says it had government approval GREENBELT (AP) The developer of a huge planned community in Charles County knowingly filled in federally-protected wetlands and refused to get permits despite repeated warnings, prosecutors said Interstate General chairman James J. Wilson and an investment firm have been charged in an eight-count indictment with illegally filling 70-acres of wetlands at St. Charles, a 9, 100-acre planned community near Waldorf.

The U.S. Army "Corps of Engineers on March 14, 1990 sent a cease-and-desist order to Interstate General telling them to develop no further on a specific area of the property without the necessary permits, said Assistant U.S. Attorney James Howard. Despite the warning, the company knowingly ignored the letter, according to the prosecutor. "They got specific advice from experts, they needed to get wetlands permits," Howard said.

"They knew in spades and rejected all the advice and warning they received." Howard said the company tool the tactic of tellingi the workers whatever they -wai hear to appease them, but going so far as to sell in 1993 a piece of land they had developed even after three experts told them the WW i lieu io BLIZZARD jj sy? STOREWIDE WINTER CLEARANCE SAVINGS UP TO BRE-INVENTORY TAX SALE! ro; nJVJU KJJJ SAVE ON-Lights Balls Candles Novelties Garland More! Savings In Every Department! Dresses, Sportswear, Sleepwear, Sweaters, Geiger Collection, Accessories In the of Hlitorlc 81. Michaels, MJ Open Daily 208 Talbot St. Phon: 745-3377 822-1451 St. MIchatH.MD 21663-1166 1-600-426-4317 'TRIM-A-TREE ITEMS ONLY.