8/2/93
By: Brien Murphy
Courier-Post Staff Writer

People who still don't know where we are now haven't been paying attention.

Hannibal and surrounding communities were official Media Darlings for several weeks as reporters from magazines, the major television networks and large out-of-town newspapers rushed in almost as fast as the river through a levee break when Mark Twain's hometown was threatened.

Maps of Northeast Missouri were plastered across TV screens nationwide for days. Nearly all the major networks sent crews here. Images of City Engineer Bob Williamson, Emergency Management Director John Hark and dozens of local residents were beamed into homes worldwide via CNN (do you suppose Saddam Hussein was watching his favorite Western news network when Hark went live early one Sunday morning?).

Most of these reporters wanted to talk to people whose homes were under water, or who were stranded on one side of the river or the other. Most of them told the story accurately (with a few exceptions we'll discuss later), even though people in tourist businesses wish they wouldn't have said the bridges were closed.
It isn't everyday the nation's biggest story is in your backyard (and basement and living room and soaking up your socks). Quite frankly, I was kind of surprised how many people wanted to tell our story.

I and other newsroom denizens gave background facts and trivia to reporters from CNN, ABC, Newsday, Time and other national media. Newspaper reporters from West Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida., New York, Louisiana, Maryland and of course, Illinois and Missouri, asked for help. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation called us, and a colleague at a radio station said he talked to Auckland, New Zealand, about the flood. All of them wanted to know what it was like here (continued lousy with intermittent miserable, I began telling them).

Meanwhile, numerous local TV affiliates across the country sent satellite trucks to look at us (although one from an anonymous southern city had to be interrupted by a South Main Street business person who was pointing a camera toward the river and said the downtown historic district was under all the water).

As one print reporter told me, this is a "literary" story, filled with heroism, determination, common folk beating back the Mississippi River, and, of course, the grouchy-looking guy in the white suit.

Most out-of-town reporters have done a fine job telling the nation and world about our troubles. Other times, it just amazed me how information got turned around. In a disaster situation where information is traded like currency, some out-of-town media should be bankrupt.

A local attorney called me late July 16 at the office as West Quincy was falling apart, and Canton was threatening to do the same, and told me a major network whose name I won't mention, but whose initials are CNN, reported the bridge linking Hannibal and Quincy (I realize I've lived here only two years, but how did I miss that bridge?) was burning; and, a radio network named "ABC" reported 110,000 acres on the Missouri side were under water (they somehow got the Fabius and Sny levees confused).

But the local folks (myself included) aren't blameless. I went with incomplete information the day the Display Center collapsed, only adding to the confusion.

With that out of the way, shame on you rumor-mongers for spreading some of the following UNTRUE, COMPLETELY UNFACTUAL nuggets:

* the flood gates are in backward (and even if they are, which they aren't, does anyone really want to take them out and turn them around right now?);
* American Cyanamid is taking advantage of the high water to dump hazardous waste in the river;
* Bear Creek dam is going to break because the Hannibal Police have used it for target practice;
* Hannibal will lose all electric power for days on end, even though alternate arrangements have been made with Northeast Power to prevent that from happening.

Again, the previous rumors listed above in the sentences you just got done reading that have no basis whatsoever in fact ARE UNTRUE. They are FICTION. They NEVER HAPPENED.

Thankfully. We've had enough disaster. If this is what it takes to become a Media Darling, I'll pass next time.