An 8-foot-tall, water-filled temporary berm protecting the plant collapsed early Sunday. Vendor workers were at the plant Monday to determine whether the 2,000 foot berm can be repaired.

Omaha Public Power District spokesman Jeff Hanson said pumps were handling the problem at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station and that "everything is secure and safe." The plant, about 20 miles north of Omaha, has been closed for refueling since April. Hanson said the berm's collapse didn't affect the shutdown or the spent fuel pool cooling.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Victor Dricks described the situation as stable. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko plans to inspect the Fort Calhoun plant on Monday as part of a pre-arranged visit to Nebraska.

Hanson said OPPD fired up generators and cut the power supply after water surrounded the main electrical transformers on Sunday. The generators powered the plant until an off-site power supply was connected later in the day.

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The quake was centered about 122 miles east of Atka, about 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage. It was recorded at a depth of 26 miles, the Alaska Earthquake Information Center said.

The quake was felt through the central Aleutians and as far east as Dutch Harbor and Unalaska, but no damage was reported, said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman with the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

"It was shaking, it was just a little rumbly" and lasted about 20 seconds, said Atka resident Rodney Jones.

The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center posted a tsunami warning for some coastal areas of Alaska, but canceled the warning about an hour after the quake. The warning covered an area from 80 miles northeast of Dutch Harbor to about 125 miles west of Adak.

Jones said it appeared all of the town's 61 residents took to higher ground when they heard the tsunami warning, which he heard issued over CB radio. The townspeople gathered on a high hill for about an hour, near the city's new water tank.

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The National Weather Service has not confirmed that a tornado it was tracking on radar did the damage Wednesday night or whether it was gusting straight-line winds.

But eyewitnesses playing in a Texas Hold 'em poker tournament at the track said they saw the rotation in the clouds and then saw swirling winds touch down along the backstretch and skip diagonally through the barn area, Churchill Downs spokesman John Asher said.

"Clearly in their eyes it was a tornado," he said.

No races are run on Wednesdays this time of year. But besides the poker tournament, people were watching a simulcast of races from other tracks and some workers live in apartments above the damaged barns. Still, officials had no reports of injuries to humans or horses. Some minor injuries were reported elsewhere in Louisville that was inundated by torrential rains that caused flash flooding.

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Officials have ordered about 11,000 people, or a quarter of the city's residents, to evacuate by 6 p.m. But they cautioned even that deadline may be too generous, and said they are prepared to sound warning sirens if water spills over Minot's protective levees any earlier.

"Public safety is paramount," Mayor Curt Zimbelman said Tuesday. "The water is rising fast, and people need to get evacuated as soon as possible."

Water from the Souris River, which loops down from Canada through north central North Dakota and is bloated by heavy spring snowmelt and rain on both sides of the border, is forecast to top the city's levees within two days.

The resulting deluge is expected to dwarf the historic flood of 1969, when the Souris reached 1,554.5 feet above sea level. Zimbelman said the river was already just a tenth of an inch shy of that level at one bridge Tuesday afternoon. It's expected to hit nearly 1,563 feet this weekend -- topping the historical record of 1,558 feet set in 1881 by Friday or Saturday.

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Torrential rains have left huge areas of Hubei and Zhejiang provinces under water, with more than 1 million acres (432,200 hectares) of farmland inundated, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Almost 1,000 businesses have been forced to suspend operations and 5.7 million people have had their lives disrupted, Xinhua said in a brief report. More than 7,000 homes collapsed or were otherwise damaged and direct financial damage was estimated at almost 6 billion yuan ($930 million).

The downpour triggered a mudslide that buried houses and killed two people in Zhejiang's Changshan county, while two more were killed and two left missing by flooding in Hubei, Xinhua said.

Flooding in eastern and southern China this month has left more than 170 people dead or missing. Roads and railways have been blocked, but aid supplies are arriving and the country's weather bureau says skies are expected to clear up Monday.

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Since the tornado, the Humane Society has found itself overflowing with animals, with about 900 now calling the shelter home -- three times its usual inventory. One way or another, the pets became separated from their owners in the chaotic aftermath of the May 22 twister that tore through this town, killing 153 people. In some cases, the owners -- scrambling to find housing for themselves after 7,000 homes were destroyed, leaving nearly one-third of the city's 50,000 residents homeless -- have simply given up their pets.

But the Joplin Humane Society is determined to find a home for every cat and dog. To that end, it plans an "Adopt-a-thon" the weekend of June 25-26, when animals that haven't been claimed by their owners will be given away free to good homes, after being spayed and neutered.

"The reality is, a lot of these people aren't in a position to come get these animals," said Joplin native Tim Rickey, a field investigator for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "They've lost everything."

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Along the New Mexico-Colorado border, the winds Thursday pushed one fire toward breaks that had been carved into the rugged landscape by bulldozers. Crews had anticipated the fire's movement and were prepared to hold the line with help from helicopters and air tankers.

The winds weren't as strong as expected, but fire officials said the area wasn't out of danger.

"For the next couple of days we're still going to see gusty winds, very hot temperatures and dry conditions. It's possible we won't have a red-flag warning, but we will still see some weather conditions that will challenge our containment lines," fire information officer Denise Ottaviano said.

The fire had been sending up giant plumes of smoke that could be seen from Raton, N.M., each afternoon as the flames ate through nearly 26,000 acres of rugged terrain along the state line.

Thursday was a little different. Smoke wasn't as dense as earlier in the week, partly because crews had made progress on the southern flank and the winds were pushing out of the southwest and away from town.

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Sugar, a ten-year-old cocker spaniel feared dead in the tornado's wake, was reunited with her family when a stranger discovered her lying paralyzed in a ditch and posted a notice on Facebook. After recovering her, Sugar's owners, Steven and Debbie Leatherman, brought their struggling dog to the University of Missouri's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, where vets performed the necessary surgery and rehab for free.

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The Wallow Fire has burned more than 733 square miles since Memorial Day weekend. Fire spokesman John Helmich said Tuesday morning it's not yet certain whether the acreage that has burned in Arizona makes it larger than the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski fire, which burned 732 square miles, destroyed 491 buildings and cost about $400 million to fight.

The current blaze has burned only 31 homes and some other structures. It has encroached into New Mexico about a mile from the working-class community of Luna, where residents were warned to be prepared to flee.

In the state's opposite corner, near the Colorado border, a wildfire fanned by high winds that has forced hundreds of people from their homes more than doubled in size to an estimated 6,000 acres.

"We're watching trees explode before our eyes. It's horrendous," said Barbara Riley, a schoolteacher and bed-and-breakfast owner in the northeastern New Mexico community of Raton. A 20-mile section of the main north-south highway through New Mexico and Colorado remained closed, causing hundreds of travelers to drive hours out of their way.

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The river ruptured two levees in northwest Missouri on Monday, sending torrents of water over rural farmland toward Hamburg in southwest Iowa and a Missouri resort community downriver. By Wednesday, water spilling through a nearly 300-foot hole in the levee near Hamburg was expected to top a secondary levee built last week to protect the town.

The Army Corps of Engineers said crews are working to increase that wall's height by 3 feet. If it breaks, parts of Hamburg could be under as much as 10 feet of standing water, officials said.

"For right now, we believe we'll be able to get that elevation raised in the time available as that water flows across in the next 48 hours," Col. Bob Ruch, the corps' Omaha District commander, said Monday evening. "We've had excellent working conditions."

Across the border in Missouri, the river broke a 225-foot-wide hole through a levee near Big Lake in Holt County. About 30 residents had stayed in the resort town after the river started rising, but they were told to leave Monday. Big Lake is about 45 miles south of Hamburg.

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