More Photos (7):

Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President Construction
West-Press
Printing Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Health Care
Dependable Health Services
Physical Therapists Health Care
CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE
DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Latest developments

•Flooding in the Midwest has brought freight traffic on the upper Mississippi River to a standstill.

•More than 100 barges loaded with grain, cement, scrap metal, fertilizer and other products were stranded.

•The shutdown is expected to last only a few weeks, and it involves primarily non-perishable goods. So no major damage to the economy is expected.

•The situation along the Mississippi in Missouri rivers was improving Friday as government forecasters predicted crests sharply below 1993's record levels.

•Several communities up and down the Mississippi River were still inundated, however, including Lincoln County, Mo., where 300 to 350 homes were flooded.

More worries

•Scientists fear floodwaters loaded with farm runoff will dramatically increase this summer's "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.

•The dead zone covers an area the size of Maryland.

•The dead zone is a region of the gulf that becomes starved for oxygen during much of the summer and cannot support fish or other sea life.

•The zone off the Louisiana and Texas coasts was first seen in 1972.

•Its size varies each year, but it has tended to grow.

•Oxygen in the dead zone is depleted by excess nutrients, mostly nitrates from farm fertilizer runoff, that cause algae blooms.

•After the algae die, bacteria on the bottom feast on the remains, removing crucial oxygen from the water.

The Associated Press