DISASTERS: Men Against the River

From Sioux City downstream 100 miles to Omaha, men fought a desperate battle against the mighty, muddy Missouri River. Like a huge inland tidal wave, 20 miles long and moving at a speed of nine miles an hour, the flood crest smashed at banks and levees, swallowed up great stretches of fertile farmland and laid siege to half-empty towns and cities, holding out behind their sandbag barricades (see NEWS IN PICTURES). The critical point last week came at the narrow channel between Omaha and Council Bluffs, where a levee and flood wall system was designed to keep the river...

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