Shots Are Urged for Returning Flood Victims
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FALMOUTH, Ky. — Flood victims returning to towns overrun by the Ohio River and its tributaries are being told to get tetanus shots to protect them against floodwaters fouled with human and animal waste picked up from fields, sewage plants and backed-up sewers.
Kentucky’s top health official, Dr. Rice Leach, also has been offering common-sense advice to those cleaning up: If it’s dirty, wash it, then wash yourself. If it stinks, throw it away.
In this town of 2,700, where raging water from the Licking River knocked homes off their foundations and filled others to their rooftops, nearly all uncanned food has to be thrown out. National Guard dump trucks have been running convoys to landfills.
Downriver, in Old Shawneetown, Ill., Mayor Freeman Oldham called for a voluntary evacuation Tuesday as the Ohio River rose behind levees built 60 years ago after a devastating flood.
The Ohio is expected to crest tonight at 55 feet behind the 60-foot levees, the highest the river has climbed there since 1950.
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