Mayor urges calm despite city water jam
By Jeff Zeleny
Senior Reporter
Water could become scarce
in Lincoln, but Mayor
Mike Johanns said the
water level was still normal, and he ?
urged residents not to stockpile sup
plies.
- “The water supply in place is the
same water supply we’vealways had,”
Johanns said at a Tuesday press con
ference. “(There’s) absolutely no
health hazard whatsoever.”
Two water pipes near Ashland that
supply the majority of Lincoln’s wa
ter were partially destroyed late Sun
day by massive floods that rerouted
the Platte River.
The city’s main source of water, a
36-inch pipe, remains intact, but it is
in possible danger of collapse.
Lincoln officials are trying now to
divert the flood water by opening up
Thomas Lake in Saunders County,
which would send the waters back to
the Platte River. This process is being
hampered by an ice jam over 1.5 miles
long.
Diverting the water supply back to
the Platte River hopefully will get
water to flow underneath the ice jam,
Johanns said, but it will be only a
temporary solution.
“We cannot do that and pack up
our bags and leave,” he said.
By Friday, the diversion process
should be completed at a cost of more
than $2.5 million, Johanns said.
Sarpy County officials attempted
to solve the problem by blasting
through the ice jam with dynamite
Tuesday afternoon. A sheriff s offi
cial said late Tuesday the ice jam
would be blasted again today.
Lincoln officials said they were
skeptical of the blasting’s chances of
success and would rather wait and see
if the diversion process worked be
fore trying to blow up the ice jam.
“It seems like a lot of material to
blow away somewhere,” Johanns said.
Jerry Obrist, Lincoln water system
chief engineer, agreed.
“What we are trying to do really
operates independently of what they
are trying to dynamite with the ice
jam,” he said. ‘‘(But) anything that
moves the ice jam solves the prob
lem.”
In addition to diverting the water
around Thomas Lake, city officials
also are trying to restore the 48-inch
water main. Engineers expect the pro
cess, which can’t be started until the
flood waters go down, to take a mini
mum of two weeks.
Johanns issued an emergency dec
laration as a preventative measure in
See FLOOD on 6
.— ■ ■■■■—■--1
International students
balance both worlds
By Rebecca Ottmans
Staff Reporter;
It’s hard to try and walk both
worlds,” said Melani Delilkan,
an international studentatUNL.
Like many foreign students,
Delilkan said she often was tom be
tween trying to blend in with the
mainstream of American students on
campus or sticking to her own culture.
Delilkan, a senior advertising and
broadcasting major, came to the Uni
versity of Nebraska-Lincoln in the
fall of 1990 from a college in Malay
sia affiliated with UNL.
She said she was luckier than many
foreign students, because there are
nearly 400 ocher Malaysian students
at UNL, making it the largest interna
tional group on campus.
But Delilkan said the large number
of people from her native country had
both positive and negative aspects.
When foreign students first leave
home, they miss family and friends
and want to find people they can
relate to. That’s the biggest reason
international students tend to stick
together, Delilkan said.
"But that starts a vicious cycle,”
Delilkan said. "American students
sometimes stick together and don’t
get to know us, but when we in turn
stick together and stop making an
effort to know them, the cycle goes
round and round.”
However, the more Americanized
international students’ native coun
tries are, the less problem they seem
to have with this cycle of separation.
Few Melanie Dodd, a freshman fine
arts major from Sydney, Australia,
coming to school at UNL was "no
problem at all.”
Dodd said her country was "be
coming so Americanized that it wasn’t
hard for me at first or now. The big
gest difference is just that there are so
many more opportunities here.”
One thing, Dodd said, which made
the transition easier, was that she came
to UNL on a swimming scholarship.
She said many international students,
including a few fellow Australians,
were also on the swim team.
Judy Wendorff, an international
student adviser, said having a pre
built social group made the transition
easier. Graduate students have a so
cial group with professors and stu
dents in their own field, she said, but
undergraduates are more on their own.
The social lives of American un
dergraduates, especially regarding
alcohol use, are very different from
what many international students are
used to.
Delilkan said the problem of trying
to fit in would not seem so large if
American students would take more
of an interest in what makes interna
tional students different. ~
-it
The biggest difference
is just that there are so
many more opportuni
ties here.
-Dodd
freshman fine arts major
--*f -
Delilkan said misconceptions and
lack of interest in foreign students’
cultures were the two biggest reasons
that international and American stu
dents have a hard time relating to each
other.
If initial efforts to get to know
American students fail, many inter
national students try to become more
like American students.
Delilkan said that many interna
tional students think those who
switched over did the right thing and
imitate them, but others don’t react
that way.
“It offends me,” Delilkan said. “I
feel like they are trying to get as far
away from being like me as possible,
and that's insulting.
“There is good and bad in both
cultures and they should try to pick
the best of both.”
COLORADO
IMc $156 to Wtatar Put
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Travis Heying/DN
Winter Wheat
Benjamin Moreno-SevHIa, a graduate student in agronomy and a greenhouse technolo
gist, waters wheat samples m an East Campus greenhouse Tuesday afternoon.
Vacation getaways still possible
Trips planned late
are more costly,
travel agents say
By Lori Witte
Staff Reporter
It is not too late to plan a trip over
spring break.
Transportation space is lim
ited, and travel may cost more, but
escape to the beaches and slopes still
is possible.
South Padre Island is the place to
be for University of Nebraska-Lin
:oln students this year, several Lin
coln travel agents said.
“The most popular spot among
students this year has been South Pa
dre Island. ltrs a lot cheaper because
you can cram so many people into the
pondos down there,” said Cheri Crist
of Good Life Tour & Travel.
Transportation to the island is avail
able. The cheapest airfares are out of
Kansas City, Mo., and no advance
reservation is required. Tickets cur
rently are two for the price of one at
$298.
Some flights may be booked, but if
a departure time of 2 a.m. is not a
problem, the possibility still exists,
she said.
Flights from Omaha to Harlingen,
Texas, about 11 miles from South
Padre Island, would cost about $800
per person without a seven-day ad
vance reservation.
The cheapest form of travel is bus.
Greyhound is having a special on
tickets for $99 each way if the desti
nation is farther away than 500 miles.
Lodging in the Padre area is scarce.
Sunchase Tours Inc. has beachfront
lodging available. There are four-per
son units open for the dates of March
20 to March 25 at $159 per person.
Groups smaller than four people may
still be able to be set up with room
mates through Sunchase.
Off-the-beach lodging should cost
about $150. said Laurie Clark, Four
Seasons travel agent.
Clark said beachfront lodging still
might be possible at Pompano Beach,
15 miles from Padre.
Many UNL students who prefer
hitting the slopes to hitting the beach
are headed for Colorado.
Sunchase Tours Inc., has packages
available for Steamboat Ski Resort
for the weekend of March 26-28.
See BREAK on 3
