Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1981-04-14

              STATS Hi -
Columbia, ao. e. 5-- - i
73rd Year - No. 179 Good Morning! It's Tuesday, April 14, 1981 2 Sections - 14 Pages - 25 Cents
Powerful wind, rain sweep through area
From staff and wire reports
Turbulent thunderstorms packing
numerous tornadoes at least one
near Columbia hammered Missouri
Monday night as a spring weather
front moved rapidly through the state,
bringing high winds, large hail and
heavy rain
The National Weather Service issued
a tornado warning for eastern Boone
and Callaway counties as the storm
moved through the Columbia area
around 9pm. Police reported a funnel
touched down along VJS 63 about 4
miles north of Columbia at 910 p m
East of that area on Wyatt Lane, one
trailer home was blown from its
anchors No injuries were reported
Several funnels were sighted in
northwest Missouri, with one repotted
near a bridge in northern Kansas City
and another sighted along the Missouri- Io-wa
state line north of Maryville
Another tornado touched down about
Zt miles south of Hannibal, flipping
over four unoccupied campers at a
trailer park, damaging a restaurant
and uprooting a tree No injuries were
reported.
Columbia was not included in any
tornado warnings, but city sirens
sounded minutes after the sighting
north of the city No injuries in Boone
County were reported
On the University campus, lightning
struck Gillett Hall, sending bricks sho-wering
to the ground Barricades were
set up around the structure to prevent
injuries from the debris Flooded sew--
er mams sent water several inches
deep into the intersection of Rollins
and Hitt streets, and minor flooding
was reported in other parts of town
Authorities reported guifball size
hail in Marshall and winds up to 80
mph near La Monte Police reported
numerous downed power lines and
trees throughout Mid- Missou- ri, and un-confirmed
funnel sightings came in
from near Centralia and Fulton around
9 30pm.
High winds reportedly damaged one
building in Centralia, and Deputy Chief
Bill Westhoff of the Boone County Fire
Protection District said winds blew the
roof from a structure in Harrisburg
Lightning apparently sparked brush
fires near Prathersville and Roche- por- t,
and a bolt knocked KCBJ tele
vision off the sir temporarily at 9 25
pjn. According to Jim Patty, coordina-tor
of disaster preparedness for Boone
County, the roof of a privately owned
grain elevator near Hallsville blew off,
scattering nearby cattle
Boone Electric Cooperative reported
power outages throughout its system,
particularly along UJS 63, where the
tornado sighting was reported Only
brief outages were reported in the
southern put of Columbia proper
According to weather service offi-cials,
about 34 inches of rain fell in Co-lumbia
Monday, bringing the total
since Saturday to 1 01 inches
In Northwestern Missouri, the Gen-try
County sheriffs office said a funnel
snaked through the area Monday
night, shattering windows in houses
and cars and causing a power outage
The tornado also destroyed three
barns and two outbuildings and dam-aged
three other bams in rural Gentry
No injuries from the storm were re-ported
A tornado struck a rural area near
Oregon in Holt County earlier Monday,
driving a tree through the living room
wall of a house and destroying two out-buildings
and a bam
Two occupants of the house escaped
injury as the tornado whipped by about
2 30 pjn. The house is about a half- mil- e
southeast of Oregon
The storm cut a 150- fo- ot swath just a
quarter- mil- e from the South Holt R-- l
school Just as its 500 students were pre-paring
to leave for the day No injuries
were reported
Authorities reported three funnel
clouds were spotted east of Oregon at
midaftemoon and near Bolckow, in
northern Andrew County
The National Weather Service fore-cast
partly sunny skies and cool tem-peratures
Tuesday with the high ex-pected
to be in the upper 50s and low
60s Skies should clear by Tuesday
night, and the low should be in the 30s
Partly sunny skies and mild temper-atures
were forecast Wednesday along
with a high In the 60s
The extended forecast for Thursday
through Saturday called for mild tem-peratures
Thursday, with the high in
the 70s and the low in the mid- M- s to
mid- 50- s Partly cloudy skies and a
chance of thunderstorms were ex-pected
Fnday
BBMBBBW- aBJBaBBMBWBBfcB-BB
fc jf- rjPj& fcw- yV J aJiffl! HHgV? T'll
Injuries
Columbia Fire Department paramedics and police officers used
hydraulic equipment Monday to extract John H. Laseter, 1 Stan-ford
Drive, from behind the wheel of the car he was driving after a
collision at Stadium Boulevard and Old Highway 63. Police said
David W. Smith, 100 Keene St., driver of the second car, apparent-ly
was eastbound on Stadium and was attempting to turn north on
Old 63 when the cars collided Smith, who suffered head and facial
lacerations, was treated and released at the Boone County Hospi-tal
emergency room Police said Laseter suffered head injuries
He was in stable condition Monday night at the University Hospi-tal
t
Survival
Doomsayers dig in, as they await
apocalypse economic or nuclear
New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO By most
standards, Charles Moss has
achieved a comfortable and secure
middle age As a highway engineer,
he invested wisely, bought land, re-tired
in Mount Shasta in northern
California and undertook a lucra-tive
second career in real estate
But the affable Moss, 52 years old,
fears that society will collapse and
it will then be every man for him-self
' I've laid by gold and silver," he
said, "$ 60,000 worth in different
spots " He grows and preserves his
own fruits and vegetables, and has
stored 200 pounds of grain in metal
containers Moss also has several
rifles and shotguns, along with re-loads
for 10,000 rounds of ammuni-tion.
Tbey are mostly for hunting ,
but if necessary, he said, " for snoot-ing
people "
I don't think I would shoot any-one
who was hungry if he would just
come and knock on my door and
ask, he said, " but if he would try
to break in, I'd shoot him in a min-ute"
Moss is by no means alone in his
vision of apocalypse Heisasurvi- valis- t,
one of an apparently growing
number of Americans who, in a
dark reprise of the bomo shelter era
of the 1950s, are storing food, stock-ing
bunkers, buying guns and pre- trin- g
for disaster Beyond the
Ibjat of nuclear war, they are
haunted by the specter cf economic
collapse, technological breakdown,
naffidisaster, an oil ahutoff , for- da- n
invasion, urban warfare or a
oSmnunist takeover
Isisigltt
Dr. Alan Dundes, professor of an-thropology
and folklore at the Uni-versity
of California at Berkeley,
said that a " doomsday mentality"
has recurred in world history, but
that the survivalist cult was dis-tinctly
American. " Americana have
a strong undercurrent of rugged in-dividualism,
of vigilantism even,"
he said.
Such a response, Dundes said, re-sults
from fear that one cannot con-trol
the future and fear of society's
growing complexity
Roger Oie, one of 12 adults and six
children who moved 110 miles ( 16
kilometers) north of Phoenix to live
as survivalists on a 12- ac- re ( 5 hec-tares)
ranch, initially fled urban
pollution and problems, but he now
believes mat natural disaster or nu-clear
holocaust endangers civiliza-tion.
" Something," says Oie, " has
to collapse"
Just as motivation varies among
survivalists, so does the degree of
preparation Some simply put aside
food, while others arm themselves
Most are secretive
" Asking how many survivalists
mere are is like asking bow many
spies there are," said Kurt Saxon,
48, a leading doomsayer of the
movement who contends that he
coined the torn " survivalist " But
there are some indications mat the
number is significant and growing
Although not all sumvalista arm
( See AMERICANS, Page 8A)
Astronauts gliding
home today; shuttle
heat shield checks out
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla ( UPI) --
America's first space freighter pilots,
barred Monday by two stuck screws
from fixing a key data tape recorder,
set their sights on home assured all
was well with insulating tiles on their
sporty new space shuttle Columbia
Astronauts John W Young and Rob-ert
L. Cnppen were beaded toward a
soft, wheels- dow- n landing the first
ever attempted by a spaceship at
12 20 pjn CST today on a dry lakebed
in California s Mojave Desert
" Everything is looking up," flight di-rector
Charles Lewis said in a briefing
late Monday
Space agency officials earlier had
been mildly concerned some of the
black insulating tiles under Columbia s
belly and wings, which must ward off
the 200- degre- e beat of re- entr- y, might
have been lost during launch along
with small patches of non- cntic- al
white tiles atop the space shuttle
But Monday night, deputy flight op-erations
chief Eugene Krara radiated
confidence that the vital underside
Ules on Columbia were intact
Kranb and other officials refused to
explain theo new confidence, except to
say they bad used Defense Department
" resources" the standard reference
to spy . satellites and super- powerf- ul
ground cameras able to spot a baseball
at 20,000 miles to look at the ship 166
miles ( 256 6 kilometers) above the
Earth.
But Kranz did say ground cameras
were unable to get good pictures be-cause
of cloud cover and the Colum-bia's
path through the sky Other offi-cials
said good pictures had been
obtained, leaving the strong suggestion
a spy satellite had taken a lok at the
space shuttle and sent its pictures
( See ASTRONAUTS, Page 8A)
Landing site
in dry lakebed
a pilot9s dream
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Cal-if
( AP) The Rogers Dry Lakebed,
destination for Columbia's landing to-day,
is a sun- bak- ed pilots dream
chosen for the first space shuttle re-turn
because there's so much room for
error
And because the weather is so pre-dictably
ideaL
" The landing is due at 12 28 a. m. CST
on this giant desert base in the Ante-lope
Valley whose 44- square- m- ile lake- be- d
airstrip has been at the cutting
edge of aviation technology smce
America's first jets were tested in 1942
The scene will little resemble the
thundering fires that sent the space
shuttle soaring above Cape Canaveral
early Sunday The ship will come sail-ing
out of the blue desert sky without
power, like a gigantic glider
Equipped with elevens ' ( wing
flaps) and speed brakes, the shuttle is
the first spacecraft ever designed to
return from space to be re- outfitt- ed
and sent aloft again and again
Columbia should fly 100 times m its
lifetime
Lt Col Winston CrandalL command-er
of the Air Force weather forecasting
detachment, said, ' We're looking for
conditions to be very favorable for a
landing, ' with clear skies and light
winds expected landing conditions
are good here about 350 days a year
The Columbia will enter ILS air
space near Big Sur, coast over desert
towns like Buttonwillow and Mojave
A one- wa- y plan for Walnut Street
By Steven L. Thorpe
Missourian staff writer
To City Manager Richard Gray,
there is a way to make traffic flow
more smoothly on Walnut Street one
way
Gray, who has made synchronizing
lights on several downtown streets a
major goal, today will suggest to the
Downtown Business District Board of
Directors that the major downtown ar-tery
become one- wa- y eastbound be-tween
Sixth and Tenth streets A one-way
Walnut in that area, he says, will
eliminate traffic knots that occur as
cars turn left at intersections
The plan completes a one- wa- y, circu-lar
grid in the immediate area, making
Walnut complementary to Ash, Gray
says
Gray hopes the change will improve
the downtown loop, begun in 1977 and
subjected to criticism by some citizens
who believe the loop discourages mo-torists
from traveling through the
downtown business district.
Gray said his " green- lig- ht progres
sion" idea will allow motorists to drive
at a constant speed through a series of
synchronized green lights He said
making Walnut one- wa- y will eliminate
the problem that turning left gener-ates
" When people are stopped to make a
left turn, nobody gets through,"
He says the progression works on
Broadway because that street has
three lanes at intersections, eliminat-ing
the chance for buildup of impeding
traffic
Walnut, he says, deserves an equal
chance ' One- wa- y gives two lanes, in
effect, because you don't have imped-ing
traffic "
Under Gray's plan, the bus- transf- er
point on the north side of Walnut Street
would be eliminated, and buses instead
would wait in a horseshoe- shape- d pat-tern
stretching from Seventh onto Wal-nut
and then onto Eighth. Parking
spaces will replace the relocated bus- transf- er
point, he says
He said relocating the bus transfer
would keep passengers -- from having to
exit into the path of oncoming vehicles
II First Christian Church 1 Walnut !. I
ianmmim mi n J BSBK8
p"' ce Department Broadway j
N s I
2 K I
1
I 55 uj 1
Dotted line shows proposed one- wa- y area o! Walnut
The can- ba- n fight; Round three
By Susan Darr
Missourian staff writer
Get ready for round three in the can- ba- n
brawL
After two court decisions they didn't
care for, local bottlers and distributers
plan to file today for a third chance to
stop the so- call- ed can- ba- n ordinance
from being implemented.
The ordinance, passed by 54 percent
of the voters four years ago, calls for a
5- ce- nt deposit on throwaway beverage
containers to help control Columbia's
litter
Tom Graham and Tom Wagstaff,
lawyers representing the bottlers and
distributors, said Monday they will file
for a rehearing in Kansas City's West- -
I
em District Court of Appeals the
court that handed down a unanimous
decision supporting the ordinance last
month
If the motions weren't filed, City At-torney
Scott Snyder would have been
asked to formulate a plan during the
next two months to put the ordinance
into effect Instead, he'll spend the
next month filing a rebjttle and wait-ing
for the court to grant or deny the
rehearing After that, more courtroom,
confrontations and waiting are ex-pected
in either the appellate court or
the state Supreme Court Action would
move to the Supreme Court if the re- bear- ing
isn't granted
" It is presently our intension to take
it up to the Supreme Court," Wagstaff
The petition for rehearing is just a
formality' The court is expected to
deny the motion
Wagstaff and Graham declined to
specify the grounds for the rehearing
motion, Wagstaff said they would ask
the court to reconsider some issues it
heard in recent proceedings that the
distributers thmk were not adequately
considered.
The bottling companies' rigorous op-position
stems from their belief that
the can ban would cause more hard-ship
for bottlers and distributers than
( See BOTTLERS, Page 8A)
1st tows today
9 30 ajn. Meeting, Boone County
Court, court chamber, fifth floor,
County- Cit- y Building
8 15 pjn. Benefit Concert, Uni-versity
Philharmonic, Assembly
Hall, Stephens College Tickets
$ 3 50
Index I
Business. 7A
Classified . . .. 3- f- fi
Opinion . 4A
Sports . ..... 1- Z- B
Theater .. .... .... . . A
Weather JtA. I