Word: grand
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...early evening in Grand Tower, Ill., and Josh Franklin, 23, was standing outside his aunt's double-wide trailer. He'd like to move away from this community of 585 people to Carbondale, a college town about half an hour's drive to the north. But he can't afford to. Grand Tower isn't much of anyplace anymore. Its last restaurant closed shortly after the great flood of 1993. There isn't a bookstore. Don't even ask about wi-fi access. "If we get a major flood," he says, "it's all over. A lot of small towns...
...Grand Tower residents are anxiously watching the surrounding rivers. Stubborn bands of storms have saturated the region's corn and soybean fields, swelling the Mississippi River and its tributaries above St. Louis, Mo. Today the rising waters were only about two hours' drive to the north. Some 21 Illinois counties and all of Missouri have been declared disaster zones, and dozens of points along the Mississippi River's levees in both states have ruptured. "We're just standing by, hoping for the best but expecting the worst," says Burke "Bear" Ellett, 49, Grand Tower's mayor for the past dozen...
...Grand Tower sits along one of the Mississippi's narrowest points, across from Missouri. A levee runs along what remains of Main Street, but it's weak. That puts Grand Tower in a flood plain. Floods have repeatedly battered the town. And a handful of folks here recall 1947, when the Mississippi sent some 1,000 residents racing for the rocky hills above town...
...April 1990, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) placed Grand Tower on probation from the National Insurance Program for failing to adhere to guidelines intended to mitigate risk of flood damage. Among the guidelines: newly constructed buildings, and some existing ones undergoing significant upgrades, had to be raised some 12 feet. That's partly because major floods were projected to send at least 10 feet of water into town. Federal authorities imposed a $25 surcharge on residents' insurance policies, hoping it would pressure elected officials to comply with the guidelines...
...heightened expectations, Ivanovic doesn't seem stressed. She has seen too much to fret about tennis, and she's just enjoying this defining moment of her young career. "I still have to pinch myself to believe it really happened," says Ivanovic. "They were my two biggest goals, winning a Grand Slam and to be No. 1. And I achieved them within a few days. It's unbelievable." Go ahead and believe...