May 10, 2007
By Roger Petterson
AP

NEW YORK – Nature's fury made life miserable Wednesday from one end of the nation to the other, with people forced out of their homes by wildfires near both coasts and the Canadian border and by major flooding in the Midwest.

Photo: Nature's Fury Opens Flood Gates — This week, nature has unleashed floods, fires and tornadoes, coast to coast. While firefighters continue to battle early season forest fires, residents in the Midwest are hopeful that floodwaters will begin to recede. Heavy weekend rainfalls and broken levees sent water pouring into areas all over the Midwest. At left, the normally tranquil Medicine Creek is shown May 9, 2007, in Medicine Park, Okla. Torrential rains Tuesday night and the opening of nearby Lake Lawtonka's floodgates sent water rushing through the creek. (Michael D. Pope, The Lawton Constitution/AP)

And although the calendar still said spring, the first named storm of the year was whipping up surf on the beaches of the Southeast.

“It's a major flood,” National Weather Service meteorologist Suzanne Fortin said Wednesday of the flooding in Missouri. “It won't be a record breaker, but it will be in the top three.”

However, a three-week-old fire in southern Georgia had become that state's biggest on record after charring 167 square miles of forest and swamp.

Smoke and a dusting of ashes filled the air through much of Florida and southeastern Georgia. The haze over most of Florida even closed several highways and sent people with breathing problems indoors.

The flooding was produced by the drenching weekend thunderstorms across the Plains states that also devastated Greensburg, Kan. In addition to 11 tornado deaths, two drowning deaths were blamed on the storms, one each in Oklahoma and Kansas.

High water had poured over the tops of at least 20 levees along the Missouri River and other streams in the state, authorities said Wednesday.

Missouri National Guard troops were helping. And Highway Patrol troopers were working 24-hour shifts near Big Lake, a village town of about 150 permanent residents in the state's northwest corner, which was inundated by five levee breaks along the Missouri River and four smaller ones on other streams, said patrol Lt. John Hotz.

Photo: Los Angeles on Fire — Smoke continues to billow from Griffith Park, the nation's largest urban park, as a new day begins on May 9, 2007, in Los Angeles. The Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles Zoo, Travel Town and various other park features were threatened but did not burn in the wildfire that broke out Tuesday afternoon and forced nearby residents to evacuate their homes later that night. Meanwhile, fires continue to rage along the Florida-Georgia border, including a blaze in Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, which is being called the worst fire in Georgia's history. In northeast Minnesota a fire has burned 25 square miles and is spreading into Canada. Rescue crews had already met their match with floods and the twister in Kansas before this onslaught of blazes. (David McNew/Getty Images)

No injuries were reported. Big Lake, some two miles from the Missouri River, is about 35 miles northwest of St. Joseph.

In Missouri's Jackson County, authorities evacuated 300 to 400 residents of Levasy on Wednesday. At least a dozen homes were partially under water from the Missouri River, a dispatcher said.

In central Missouri, the state capital, Jefferson City, was preparing for flooding. After floods in 1993 and 1995, the city raised the elevation of its riverside sewage treatment plant, and the federal government bought out scores of homes on the north shore of the river, but the airport and businesses are still vulnerable.

On the West Coast, in view of many Los Angeles residents, a blaze had covered more than 800 acres in the city's sprawling Griffith Park behind the iconic Griffith Observatory.

The danger to homes south of the park had eased Wednesday and many of the hundreds of residents evacuated overnight were allowed to return. However, fire officials warned that conditions could change.

“The canyons and those erratic winds are dangerous,” said fire Capt. Carlos Calvillo.

The fire appeared to have been accidental, said Battalion chief John Miller, who oversees arson investigations.

In the Southeast, a wildfire in northern Florida's Bradford County had forced the evacuation of about 250 homes, said Annaleasa Winter, a state forestry spokeswoman. That fire had blackened 16,000 to 18,000 acres and was 20 percent contained.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said the state had more than 200 active fires Wednesday that had charred a total of 78 square miles.

Photo: Smoke from a wildfire rises over Avalon on the California resort island of Catalina on Thursday, May 10, 2007. The 400-acre wildfire erupted on Thursday, forcing evacuations just as firefighters were mopping up a blaze at another Southern California playground, Los Angeles' sprawling Griffith Park. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)

Officials in southeastern Georgia issued a mandatory evacuation Wednesday for an area including the town of Moniac, saying that by early Thursday it may be in the path of a 107,000-acre blaze in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, the largest recorded blaze in Georgia history.

Another fire that started in Georgia crossed into Florida and threatened the small town of Taylor, but Baker County Sheriff Joey Dobson said Wednesday that the wind appeared to have moved the blaze past the town. “We are not out of the woods yet,” Dobson cautioned.

Smoke from those fires was spreading across wide areas of Florida as wind circulated around Subtropical Storm Andrea, centered about 100 miles off the Georgia coast with top sustained wind around 45 mph. Andrea didn't seem to be much of a threat, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

It didn't appear that Andrea's wind would hinder firefighting efforts, said Jim Harrell, a spokesman for Florida's Division of Forestry. However, firefighters also weren't likely to get much help soon as meteorologists said no significant downpours were expected over land through at least Thursday morning and any lightning could start more fires.

Elsewhere, a wildfire near the Canadian border in northeastern Minnesota had covered more than 34 square miles Wednesday, adding more than 8 square miles in one day, authorities said. It had destroyed 45 buildings, including multimillion-dollar homes, and firefighters said it was just 5 percent contained.

More than 100 people had been removed from their homes in the path of the fire.

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