'93 BUYOUTS MAY REDUCE '95 MISERY

Buck Katt thinks there's a better way to fight floods than turning homes and businesses into sandbag bunkers.

As assistant director of the Missouri Emergency Management Agency, Katt touts the success of a federal buyout program that has moved thousands of people out of harm's way since the 1993 flood.

Katt said this year's flooding in Missouri underscores the success of the buyout program.

There have been fewer evacuations and less demand for sandbagging. In addition, damage to property has been less severe, Katt said.

Environmentalists also back the buyout, arguing that it has reduced human misery, cut costs to taxpayers and allowed rivers to naturally flood without as much property damage.

"The cost to people in the Midwest and the federal taxpayer are going to be far, far less than they were in 1993," Scott Faber said.

Faber is director of flood plain programs for the American Rivers organization, an environmental group based in Washington, D.C.

In all, Missouri is spending about $100 million to buy and demolish flood-prone structures, primarily homes that were damaged in the 1993 flood. Buyout money also has been used to purchase mobile home pads, vacant lots and some businesses. The federal government is providing most of the money, Katt said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's buyout program typically pays 75 percent of the cost. But Katt said Missouri managed to secure federal Community Development Block Grant funds to match the FEMA money.

The program is purely voluntary. Property owners aren't required to sell and they aren't allowed to unless their local government participates in the program.

In turn, local governments must agree to take over ownership of the affected properties and are prohibited from putting permanent structures on the land.

In many areas the flood-affected land is being turned into parks, FEMA spokesman Phil Kirk said.

In Jefferson County, the buyout program has benefited the city of Arnold.

The city regularly copes with flooding along the Meramec River. But the buyout of 88 homes since the 1993 flood has proven a money-saver.

City Manager Eric Knoll said flood-fighting expenses have been reduced from $15,000 to $5,000 a day and the buyout eliminated the need for sandbagging.

Statewide more than 3,251 properties were bought with another 1,000 remaining to be acquired.

In Ste. Genevieve, which was hit hard by the '93 flood, buyout offers have been accepted on 32 of 66 properties.

In the McBride area of Perry County along the Mississippi River, 28 properties were bought, with another five scheduled for acquisition.

In St. Mary, at least 12 homes and 19 vacant lots have been bought. At least seven businesses also are on the buyout list.

But the buyout program isn't without its drawbacks. Most counties and cities in Southeast Missouri haven't participated in the buyout program.

Cape Girardeau City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said the city didn't have a single, contiguous area where residents wanted to be bought out. As a result, the city would have ended up with a checkerboard of vacant lots to mow, none of them large enough to be a city park.

But for many residents of the water-logged Mississippi River town of Commerce, a buyout makes sense.

Roy Jones thought so two years ago. He hasn't changed his mind.

Jones, who chairs the town board, must wade through the muddy floodwaters to reach his home these days.

Most of the town's 180 residents have had to move out, leaving Commerce a virtual ghost town patrolled by National Guard troops.

Jones was on the town board in October 1993 when the board voted 3-2 against participating in a buyout. Jones cast one of the two votes for the buyout.

One of the reasons cited for turning down the proposal was that the city didn't have the funds to maintain the lots that would have been vacated by the buyout.

But Jones called such thinking short-sighted. He said plenty of Commerce residents would have jumped at the chance to move to higher ground.

"If we have an opportunity to be bought out, the board would pass a buyout resolution this time," Jones said.