Word: crest
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
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...
...Army troops, National Guardsmen and Army Engineers. A two-foot "flashboard" was being added to the 31½-ft. levee and flood wall at Omaha. But its value was as much psychological as physical. Few expected the levee to withstand the pressure of a predicted 31½-ft. flood crest. After inspecting the inadequate dikes and flood walls, Brigadier General Don G. Shingler, Missouri River Division Engineer, remarked gloomily: "The Missouri is coming with a rip and a roar. We're in a hell of a lot of trouble...
Many people weren't waiting to find out. This week, as the flood crest swelled downstream, scores of smaller communities were virtual ghost towns as residents evacuated their homes, leaving only armed rowboat patrols behind to guard against looters...
...Seineside village of Villequier on her way to Le Havre and the open sea, a cutter of the revolutionary government decided to investigate, and ordered the Télémaque to heave to. Instead, she made a break for it, and raced down the Seine on the crest of the tide. Off the village of Quillebeuf, she hit a sandbank, broached to and capsized. By the time her captain and crew of twelve had swum the 120-odd meters to shore, the Télémaque had sunk...
...nightmare of white haze, white snow and blinding Arctic glare, the C-47 pilot picked out a landing area. Time after time he skimmed low over the island, slapping his skis on hummocks of ice, skipping from crest to crest like a stone over water. For nearly an hour he made passes at the island before he landed and slued to a halt. Photographer Silk crawled from the plane to shoot his pictures.* General Old, who had flown as copilot, trudged back up the plane's ski tracks in the 60°-below-zero cold...