Cresting Floodwaters Strain Soggy Levees

Small River Towns Hope Sandbags And Earthen Berms Can Hold Up A Few More Days

(CBS/ AP)  The swollen Mississippi River burst another levee Tuesday, submerging farmland and threatening a residential area whose occupants had already moved out in anticipation of a flood.

The levee failure near St. Charles comes as teams furiously fill sandbags to reinforce other waterlogged embankments guarding towns still waiting for the arrival of the huge river's flood crest.

Forecasters expect the last stretch of the bloated river to crest later this week.

"The spirits are tired, but they are still there and still solid," said Jo Anne Smiley, mayor of Clarksville, where makeshift sandbag levees are keeping the city's small downtown dry. "This is a community that will rise above this."

Smiley toured her town Monday with Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' chief of engineers. He said he was most concerned about agricultural levees up and down the river.

"I think what they have is holding well," Van Antwerp said. "Now, it's a matter of getting the water off of it."

But in the saturated Elm Point levee at St. Charles, Mo., about 30 miles north of St. Louis, two gaps allowed water to flood hundreds of acres of agricultural land. A mobile home park where about 700 people live near the Elm Point Levee had already been evacuated.

CBS News affiliate station KMOV-TV reports that the levee burst in two spots around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday. One of those holes is reportedly the size of a football field.

The constant pressure of the river remains the primary concern in Lincoln County, where officials asked for volunteers Monday to help fill 50,000 sandbags to fortify the 2½-mile-long Pin Oak levee, an earthen berm that was so waterlogged that it was like "walking on a waterbed," said county emergency management spokesman Andy Binder.

Federal officials said they couldn't be sure it would survive through the river's crest at Winfield later in the week.

"They have a serious condition on their hands," said Travis Tutka, the Army Corps' chief of dam safety. "This will be quite a test of that levee."

If it breaches, the river will swamp 100 homes in east Winfield, as well as 3,000 acres of farm fields, several businesses and a city ballpark. A muskrat that burrowed a hole in the soft ground released a geyser of water, and officials said it took nearly six hours Monday to choke off the leak.

"There is no guarantee of performance, but we're fighting the good fight," Tutka said.

Only a handful of residents remained in east Winfield on Monday, after emergency workers went door to door urging them to evacuate. Among the holdouts was Sherman Jones, 56, who was all alone in his house except for his dogs, Mugsy and Junior.

"There is no place to go but the high school. I am not going to leave 'til my feet are wet," Jones said. "It's been a rough year, but we'll get through it."

In Foley, north of Winfield, floodwaters late Monday were filling the higher part of town. The east side of Foley was already submerged.

Not far from the Iowa state line, the river was down a few inches at Canton after cresting Sunday at 27 feet - less than a foot short of the record set during the Great Flood of 1993. Jeff McReynolds, the city's emergency management director, said a voluntary evacuation request remained in place in the town of roughly 2,500.

"We were right up there to our nostrils for about 24 hours," McReynolds said. "The concern from our operations center is they (residents) have seen the crest and think the river has come down and want to move back into their homes."

Down river from Quincy, the levee at Hannibal, Mo., was holding the slowly falling river out of the boyhood hometown of Samuel Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain. Marion County Emergency Management Director John Hark said the city was already planning for its National Tom Sawyer Days, the early July festival celebrating Twain's work.

Hark said that with the river dropping, he could focus on other things that might discourage tourists - such as high gas prices.

"The flood, I think, is easier," he said.

[gisdude]

don''t be unprepared...use www.freeflood.com to find out if your home is in a flood zone before it''s too late. Your homeowner''s policy probably doesn''t cover flooding, so it''s a good idea to review your coverage.

[pfanerk]

The following news report from Milwaukee does not sound like the resilient Midwesterners that some goobers keep boasting about (and they didn''t even flood):

By ANNYSA JOHNSON, LINDA SPICE and GREG J. BOROWSKI
[e-mail]
Posted: June 23, 2008
The chaos that erupted outside Milwaukee County''s main welfare office Monday over disaster-related food aid had more to do with a weak economy and crushing poverty in parts of this community than the devastating floods that swept through the state earlier this month, local government and food relief officials said.

Many of the thousands of applicants thought they would receive vouchers immediately, and frustration mounted when some learned that was not the case.

People fill out applications for food vouchers at a makeshift station behind the Marcia P. Coggs Center. More than 20 Wisconsin counties, including Milwaukee, are eligible for disaster FoodShare benefits, a federally funded program.

[jboxton]

alcoton wrote: "After this flood is over the communities need to raize the levees because the next flood is less than 10 to 15 years away. The government is not going to raise the Levees. "
--------------
They won''t. They aren''t educated enough to do something like that. They''ll go back to huntin'', fishin'' an'' chewin'' tabacki until it happens again. They are simpletons who are caught off guard when the SAME THING happens to them every year. Good for ''em. Get an education.

[downsteamjim]

To pfanerk: J. Clampet was arrested for environmental crimes against nature. At present, he is walking the highways of America picking used CO2.

[pfanerk]

Jed Clampett just called. He said rumors that the cement pond was full of flood water are not true and that Granny is still able to scoop drinking water out of it.

[pfanerk]

Oh pullllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese:

Midwesterners are a bit more self-sufficient than that. In fact, the people around here have to be told it''''s okay to sign up for fema funds. Not because they don''''t know about it, but because they feel that if they take any assistance then it might cause someone else to do without;

The number of missing teeth and trailers has nothing to do with resilience.

[pfanerk]

From jboxton:
I LOVE the midwest floods. Shows farmers they should worry more about education than a huntin'''' an'''' a fishin''''.

An addendum: And don''t forget about the floating pig poo, three-bean salad and orange Jello.

[vietnam21]

Is the mayor and the governor sleeping on the job this whole time? geeee

[ajaxrose1]

Hey jboxton: Since you like to take jabs at farmers in this country I hope you at least aren''t talking with your big mouth full. Let me point out a noticeable difference between the farmer''s of the Midwest and the metros from New Orleans is: IN THE MIDWEST WE DON''T FREAKING EXPECT THE REST OF THE WORLD TO CLEAN THINGS UP AND FIX THE PROBLEM FOR US! You''ll notice that folks are taking care of business pretty much themselves. FEMA and the Corps of Engineers is there, sure, but they aren''t the ones sand bagging and digging out. In what little coverage the media has provided, there haven''t been stories of anyone accusing the government of damaging the levees so they''d fail, or any about looting, or anyone just expecting someone else to come clean up the mess. Midwesterners are a bit more self-sufficient than that. In fact, the people around here have to be told it''s okay to sign up for fema funds. Not because they don''t know about it, but because they feel that if they take any assistance then it might cause someone else to do without; they don''t see the government as just another deep pocket of free money and they don''t feel "entitled." For the record, where I come from, "huntin'' and fishin" (NOT food stamps) puts food on tables.

[jboxton]

I LOVE the midwest floods. Shows farmers they should worry more about education than a huntin'' an'' a fishin''.