End is near to Mississippi River rise
LOUISIANA, Mo. (AP) - June 23, 2008 "It's quieter compared to earlier this week," said Louisiana
emergency management director Mike Lesley, where sandbagging has
largely ceased. This past weekend, he said, "I actually got some
sleep."
The river started cresting Sunday at Canton, Mo., not far from
the Iowa state line, through the lock and dam near Quincy, Ill.
Next up, according to federal forecasters, were crests expected
Monday from Hannibal to Clarksville. In Mark Twain's hometown,
Hannibal emergency management director John Hark said he was
confident the town's levees would hold as the river begins to
recede.
Folks in Winfield and Grafton, Ill., will have to wait a little
longer, as forecasters said the river would crest there on
Wednesday. A reminder the threat had not passed came Sunday in
Lincoln County, Mo., where a levee near Winfield overtopped and
flooded about 1,000 acres and fewer than half a dozen homes.
"It just blew through our sandbags," said Lincoln County
emergency management spokesman Andy Binder. But he, too, was
confident the secondary levees protecting Winfield and nearby
Elsberry would hold.
Farther down river, the river dropped a bit Sunday below crest
level from Alton, Ill., through St. Louis and down to Chester, Ill.
The Mississippi was expected to rise again to crest level by
Wednesday, but to levels still well off the records set during the
Great Flood of '93. About 80 miles south of St. Louis at Chester,
the river was forecast to rise to about 10 feet above flood stage,
which is more than 10 feet lower than the record.
Still, the devastation is widespread: The storms and flooding
that started in early June have forced thousands from their homes
across six states, killing 24 and injuring roughly 150. Rural areas
such as Lincoln County suffered the worst. There, more than 300
homes were flooded after more than 90 percent of the county's
levees were overtopped.
In Canton, hundreds of volunteers and National Guard members
spent the past week using sandbags in a battle to spare that town's
levee a similar fate. Volunteers were back out Sunday, searching
for leaks along the earthen structure that appeared to be holding
up, said Monica Heaton, the city's emergency operations
spokeswoman.
"Everything is in a wait and see mode," she said.
Sporadic rains expected throughout the week in eastern Missouri
and southern Illinois will be scattered and light and shouldn't
increase the flooding hazard, said National Weather Service
meteorologist Ben Miller.
Miller said the river will start to recede after remaining at
crest level for longer than initially expected. A series of levee
breaches let flood waters spread over a wide swath of land in
Missouri and Illinois, and Miller said that water will take time to
drain back into the river and flow downstream.
"You don't have as high a crest, but yet you still have higher
levels for a long period had (the levees) not broken," Miller
said.
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Associated Press writers Jim Suhr and Christopher Leonard in St.
Louis contributed to this report.