American Notes DISASTERS

Rampaging floodwaters continued to wash catastrophe across the Southwest last week, the Trinity River wreaking havoc from Dallas southward while the swollen Arkansas and Red rivers pitched into homes and fields in Arkansas, where Governor Bill Clinton declared 29 counties disaster areas. At the Texas- Oklahoma border, waters rushing out of overfilled Lake Texoma ravaged a popular summer restaurant-disco-and-marina complex. By the weekend the unruly Trinity was menacing East Texas with still larger troubles. "The river's going crazy," said National Weather Service hydrologist Ernest Cathey in Fort Worth. As it inundated immense swaths of ranchland, stranding herds of livestock and driving out hundreds of families, the Trinity at times looked like a vast lake. To people in its path, especially in Liberty County, 50 miles or so northeast of Houston, officials issued a blunt warning: "Get out now." A most discouraging word came from Trinity River Authority spokesman John Jadrosich, who said floods may linger through the summer in a "mega- natural disaster."