Spare change: Flood-Prone Bank Gets Go-Ahead for a Drier Home

Lemay Bank and Trust in Missouri will relocate next January - as it has wanted to do since being flooded in 1993.

The $425 million-asset bank received regulatory approval last month to move a mile and a half down the road in Lemay, away from the Mississippi River tributary that has been its nemesis.

The new location is "completely away from the water," said president Frank Ziegler.

After the 1993 flooding - three feet of water invaded the bank's lobby, and the cleanup cost $800,000 - the bank decided it was time to move.

But finding a desirable site and dealing with environmental cleanup and regulatory delays slowed the move.

Last year, meanwhile, water flooded the bank's parking lot; this year it has threatened to do so at least once.

"I get up in the morning, and the first thing I do is check the Weather Channel," Mr. Ziegler said.

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If only all bank robbers were this accommodating to police.

Chicago newspapers recently reported that a man approached a police car and said: "This is your lucky day, I'm turning myself in. I'm a bank robber."

The man then confessed to two recent robberies, one at Irving Bank and the other at a branch of LaSalle Bank, both in Chicago. He stole a total of $2,716.

He also gave officers a note he planned to use in another robbery, reports said.

The confessed robber said he had recently lost his job and was about to lose his apartment, so he needed money.

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Kids do the darndest things.

A 3-year-old boy whose mother works for Midland Bank in Philadelphia accompanied her to work June 1 and wandered into a bank vault.

A bank manager unknowingly locked it, according to wire service reports.

June 1 was a Saturday. The time lock was set to open Monday morning, and there was only enough oxygen in the vault to last seven hours.

Emergency crews were called to the scene. Eventually an industrial supply company saved the day with a diamond-bit drill, which was used to cut a hole in the vault's ceiling large enough to extract the child.

The boy was unharmed; firefighters at the scene were quoted as saying he seemed perplexed but unafraid.

- Barbara F. Bronstien and Terence O'Hara

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