By The
Associated Press
Edited by Jennifer Mlratsky
Wednesday, January 11,1995 Page 2
California still flooding;
thousands evacuated
LOS ANGELES—The worst rain
fall in nearly a decade continued its
deadly assault across the state Tues
day, forcing the evacuation of 5,000
residents in Sacramento County and
sending waves of mud into Southern
California homes. At least six deaths
were blamed on the storm.
Five thousand residents of Rio
Linda, 15 miles north of Sacramento,
were ordered evacuated when Dry
Creek, a tributary of the American
River, spilled over its banks. Hun
dreds of people were sent to shelters
in elementary schools and churches.
“Water is almost to the top of street
signs in some locations,” said sheriffs
spokeswoman Sharon Telles.
Gov. Pete Wilson declared states
of emergency in 18 counties after a
week of Pacific storms that dumped
the most rainfall on the state since
1986, when tens of thousands of
people were driven from their homes
in widespread flooding.
Army National Guard Chinook
helicopters plucked residents out of
hard-hit Guemeville, about 60 miles
north of San Francisco, as the Rus
sian River crested at 17 feet above
flood stage.
Brothers Brian and Dave Ridley
were on one of the first flights out,
both of them cold and hungry.
“Our house is gone,” Dave said.
“I’ve been inside my truck for three
days.
At least six deaths were blamed on
the storm over the past two days, five
in Northern California and one in
southwestern Oregon.
In Southern California, a body was
found in the raging Ventura River but
it wasn’t immediately known if it was
that of a homeless man reported miss
ing.
Nearly 200,000 utility customers
“Our house is gone. I’ve
been inside my truck for
three days. ”
Dave Ridley
flood victim.
were reported to be without power
across the state, and repairs were
often difficult.
“A lot of times they’re under wa
ter, and mudslides and landslides are
blocking the way,” said Diana Gapuz
of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
In Southern California, at least 33
people were pulled from the Ventura
and Santa Clara rivers, some by heli
copter; three were hospitalized for
hypothermia, authorities said.
Many of those rescued were resi
dents ofhomeless encampments along
the river bed. They had been warned
on Monday to move to higher ground,
but few listened.
“I was coming close to dying,”
said George Struck, draped in a blan
ket and shaking violently after he was
pulled from the water. “I felt it. I felt
it.”
In Santa Barbara, 43 residents of a
convalescent home were evacuated to
a hospital as runoff waters invaded
their home before dawn, said police
Sgt. Brian Abbott.
In the Hollywood Hills, an elderly
couple were sleeping when a wall of
mud and a tree hit their home.
“The tree came right into the bed
room, hit them in the bed,” said Bob
Grebb, whose 71-year-old father,
Harry, and 72-year-old mother,
Amelia, were in good condition at a
hospital.
“It sealed shut the door to the
bedroom that leads into the hallway,
and I couldn’t get to them.”
The rainfall turned Los Angeles’
morning and evening commutes into
even more of a nightmare, flooding
intersections and littering freeways
with fender-bender accidents,
spinouts and overturned vehicles.
Ninety miles of railroad track be
tween Los Angeles and San Luis
Obispo were submerged, forcing can
cellation of Amtrak service.
Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu
was closed because of a thick coating
of mud and rock. At Las Flores Can
yon, motorists abandoned vehicles as
they filled with water.
In Northern California, the storm
sent 10-foot boulders hurtling down
onto Highway 17, preventing Santa
Cruz residents from reaching jobs
over the mountains in San Jose and
the Silicon Valley.
Commuters who made it to San
Jose found the downtown a maze of
detours as creeks and rivers over
flowed and flooded streets and major
highways.
“This was a 500-year rain event,”
said Gary Ryan of the National
Weather Service.
More than 12 1/2 inches of rain
fell at Matilija Creek in Ventura
County, and wind gusted up to 93
mph atop Black Mountain near
Templeton, 220 miles northwest of
Los Angeles.
“Most locations have had more
than half their annual rainfall in the
last seven days,” said the weather
service’s Tim McClung.
Rain was forecast through the
weekend.
Food stamp fraud increasing
DETROIT — Scores of shivering
•poor squeeze into the warmth of a tiny
gray building to collect their food
stamps, the precious first allotment of
the new year.
Then they walk outside and quickly
sell the little coupons at a discount to
organized rings of cocky street hawk
ers and crooked grocers, who will
redeem the stamps at full value for a
neat profit from the U.S. government.
“I see 20-25 percent of the people
who come out of there sell their
stamps,” said Michigan State Police
Lt. Lewis Langham, head of a state
and federal task force on food stamp
fraud. The going rate is 50 cents to 70
cents cash on the dollar.
Since the food stamp program be
gan as an experiment under President
Kennedy in 1961, fraud has grown
bigger and better organized almost
every year. The Secret Service esti
mates $2 billion of the $24 billion in
food stamps-issued annually are re
deemed illegally.
It has also become a motley form
of organized crime, with the scams as
diverse and complex as local Ameri
can cultures. The Detroit racket,
played out around an east side distri
bution center, is just one variety in a
garden of deceit.
In Akron, Ohio, a ring of grocers
systematically laundered hundreds of
thousands of dollars in food stamps.
In Albuquerque, N.M., con artists
canvass the destitute at homeless shel
ters, offering to buy their benefits on
the cheap.
Restaurants aren’t permitted to
take food stamps for payment, but in
New York City, Chinese takeout res
taurants often accept them routinely.
Federal; state and local investiga
tors say virtually every U.S. city has
an underground system to divert food
stamps, and there is evidence that
millions of dollars in food stamp prof
its have disappeared overseas.
“We’re finding million-dollar
cases,” said Craig Beauchamp, in
spector general of the Food and Con
Food stamp scams
As the number of
Americans using food
stamps has increased,
so has fraudulent use. U.
Investigators say most
cities have underground networks for
at
discount rates.
Number of people participating
(in millions):
Source: U.S. Department AP/C. Sanderson
of Agriculture
sumer Service of the U.S. Depart
ment of Agriculture, which runs the
food stamp program. “There are more
crooks in the program, real crooks.”
The Chinese takeout scheme has
spread from New York’s Chinatown
to nearby states, said Joseph Yarrish,
a USDA regional inspector general.
The restaurants use the discounted
stamps to buy meat, vegetables and
other supplies from Chinese grocers.
The grocers then redeem the coupons
at full value or pass them on to whole
salers for supplies. Everybody gets a
cut; nobody pays sales taxes.
“That seems to be the hot thing,”
Yarrish said. “It looks like the Chi
nese takeouts are out of control, just
blatantly taking food stamps.”
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Grozny cease-nre violated
GROZNY, Russia — Chechen
rebels scrambled Tuesday tobury com
rades* white-shrouded corpses and
reinforce their presidential palace
during a cease-fire that collapsed in
hours, heraldingmore fighting ahead.
The proposed 48-hour truce, an
nounced by Moscow early Tuesday,
was designed to allow both sides to
gather dead and wounded while civil
ians fled Grozny.
But it proved a fleeting pause in
the battle for the Chechen capital,
devastated by a month-long siege and
11 days of a Russian ground attack
launched to quell a secessionist up
rising.
Sniper fire sounded throughout the
truce, which crumbled after four hours
when salvos of Russian artillery
slammed into the city center. Each
side immediately blamed the other.
Chechen officials, rejecting
Moscow’s cease-fire terms as an ulti
matum, again insisted on a Russian
withdrawal before they would lay
down their arms.
The bloodshed showed no sign of
abating. Dozens of heavily armed
Chechen fighters sheltered in the rav
aged palace, where fighting has fo
cused for days, ruled out peace or
compromise.
Hundreds of Chechen fighters held
positions around the gutted palace
and other key locations. Russian forces
pressed them from three sides with
artillery and tank fire.
Troops from both sides clearly vio
lated the cease-fire not long after it
took effect at 8 a.m.
In proposing it, the Russian gov
ernment reiterated demands that the
Chechens lay down their arms and
return captured Russian soldiers. The
Chechens refused, saying some pris
oners were held in the palace.
The Russian news agency RIA re
ported that Chechen President
Dzhokhar Dudayev had welcomed
the truce offer but wanted several new
clauses, including opening corridors
for food supplies and humanitarian
aid. Crucial help for tens of thou
sands of people who fled the fighting
in Chechnya being delayed by Rus
sian officials, who for 10 days kept a
team of experts from the area, the
U.N.’srefugee agency said in Geneva.
Thousands of Soldiers and civilians
have been killed since Russia began
its offensive on Dec. 11 to restore
Kremlin authority to the indepen
dence-minded, mostly Muslim region
in the Caucasus Mountains, 1,000
miles south of Moscow.
Nebraskan
■ Editor Jeff Zolwiy Night Nows Editors Rondo Vlnin
472*1766 Jamio Karl
ManagingEditor Jaff Robb Damon Loo
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