Nation IN BRIEF : MIDWEST : Businesses Close as River Overflows

Bank customers cleared out safe deposit boxes, businesses shut their doors and residents fled their homes in Valley Park, Mo., as the Meramec River flowed into the streets for the third time in a year. All across eastern and central Missouri, the spring of 1994 was beginning to look a lot like the summer of 1993. Volunteers piled up sandbags, and evacuees camped out in churches and schools. Streams also were out of their banks from Oklahoma to West Virginia. Rescue workers in West Virginia carried a woman in labor a half-mile through high water. Six flood-related deaths were reported, four in Missouri.