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TOic 6amtcnck Plane from page 4 Twin Otter departed from Rothera at 10:34 a.m. EDT to retrieve Dr. Ronald S. Shemenski at the Amundsen Scott South Pole station. The Twin Otter and a companion plane had arrived at Rothera from Punta .Arenas late last week. Blowing snow and low visibility had postponed the flight for two days. Carroll said clear skies and improved conditions at the pole allowed the departure. The plane was expected to reach a point of “safe return” at 5 p.m. EDT, she said. At that time, the pilots were to decide whether conditions allowed them to continue on to the pole, where they would refuel before returning widi the 59-year old doctor. The only physician among 50 researchers working at the polar station, Shemenski recently suffered a gall bladder attack and has been diagnosed with the potentially life-threatening condition known as pancreatitis. A registered nurse at the South Pole helped take ultrasound images that were sent back to doctors in the United States for diagnosis. Pancreatitis is the inflammation of the pancreas and can happen when a gallstone passes down the bile duct, irritating the gland. Dr. Gerald Katz, Shemenski’s personal physician, said Shemenski needs surgery and that authorities wanted tc evacuate him before harsher winter weather set it, making a future rescue impossible. “There’s no doubt that the proper treatment for him is not available at the South Pole,” Katz said in a telephone interview from Englewood, Colo. “In this case, most people would have considered treatment within three weeks after the condition was diagnosed.” The rescue team included two pilots, an engineer, a nurse and a replacement physician for the polar station. The plane was expected to arrive with the dark, bone-chilling cold with a sheet of ice as a runway and no tower to guide the landing. Barrels of flaming debris were to be set up to light the runway. Swollen Mississippi River threatens Iowa by Ken Thomas Associated Press DAVENPORT, Iowa — Chet Simpson had two pumps humming away Tuesday against water seeping into the basement of his home near downtown, where the swollen Mississippi River was creeping toward a near-record flood crest. “Mother Nature rules everything,” said Simpson, 61. “When it happens it just makes you a stronger person.” The crest of a flood that already has caused millions of dollars in damage in Minnesota and chased hundreds of people from their homes in Iowa and Wisconsin was expected to reach Davenport late Tuesday. It was expected to crest somewhere between 22 and 22.5 feet —just short of the 1993 record of 22.6 feet. Davenport is the largest urban area on the upper Mississippi without permanent flood protection. Volunteers and National Guard soldiers scrambled to build a clay-and-sandbag levee spannir^ 1,200 feet to protect downtown businesses. The 12-foot wall is high enough for a 23-foot crest. City development official Clayton Lloyd estimated that fewer than 100 homes would be affected by flooding. About 70 already had been flooded in a low-lying neighborhood a few miles from downtown. Statewide, 1,115 homes, most of them secondary or vacation homes, had been damaged. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack formally requested federal assistance Tuesday. Workers standing guard behind the Davenport levee monitored nine diesel and gasoline-powered pumps removing water that seeped through stomi sewers and bubbled up through cracks in the street from the saturated soil. “Wall looks good. I see no * problems,” city construction inspector Ron Hocker said as he made his morning rounds. “I'm not worried about leaks in the levee. I'm worried about keeping up with the problems in the street.” Volunteers dumped truckloads of sandbags on trouble spots wliile resident Bill Walv spent his lunch break in a park south of the downtown area. “Probably the most interesting tiling about it is all the attention it's getting,” said Walv, 47. “Probably too much.” Rather downstream from Davenport and the rest of the Quad Cities — Bettendorf, Iowa, and Rock Island and Moline, 111. — workers in Niota, 111., shored up levees where the river was forecast to crest Wednesday. If you drink, Don *t drive. Have a designated driver. lYe are jnroucCof our new /\Zj sisters! 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