From the Pubisher

By Elizabeth Valk Long

LIKE THE OVERFLOWING WATERS OF THE MISSISSIPPI, TIME's flood-coverage team spread out across the land last week. It was obvious to Midwest bureau chief Jon Hull that a major disaster required a major effort, and he divvied up a wide range of assignments. Correspondent Elizabeth Taylor headed off for Des Moines, Iowa; reporter Staci Kramer viewed the damage in St. Louis, Missouri, from a helicopter; and St. Paul, Minnesota, reporter Marc Hequet examined relief efforts as well as the health impact of contaminated water throughout the region. It would be a trying but fulfilling week for all.

Hull himself flew from Chicago to St. Louis to rendezvous with photographer Bill Campbell, and within an hour of landing, both were on a boat in St. Charles County, just north of the city, reporting on the calamity firsthand and uncovering the kind of anecdotes about human nature that catastrophes seem to inspire. Says Hull: "The man who gave us a lift on his boat seemed more upset by the fact that the floods had forced him to move back with his ex-wife than with the massive destruction itself." And in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, prisoners and housewives worked side by side tossing sandbags. Hull was impressed by the resilience of flood victims, many of whom maintained a spirit of teamwork and humor in the face of exhaustion and tragedy.

Meanwhile in Detroit, business correspondent William McWhirter was covering the financial aspect of the flood -- and he was also thinking back to his younger days in Kansas City, Missouri, hit hard by the great 1951 floods. Correspondent Taylor was collecting some new memories of the flood of 1993. "There was an eerie normality to life in Des Moines," she says. "With Guardsmen patrolling the empty streets, humidity oppressive and helicopters circling in the sky, it seemed like a M*A*S*H episode." TIME's photographers -- Steve Liss, Ron Haviv, Najlah Feanny and Fritz Hoffmann -- were scouring the area to capture such scenes on film.

Back in Chicago, senior correspondent Madeleine Nash, reporter Julie Grace and photo researcher Mary Thompson were monitoring developments and keeping the members of TIME's team in contact with one another. Perhaps the most dramatic contribution of all came from photographer Liss, a pilot. Ignoring the misgivings of police at the airport, he flew a small aircraft through a thunderstorm from Des Moines to Jefferson City, Missouri, to take the photo that graces this week's cover.