Rising Floodwaters surge over US Midwest levees
Pastor Dale Morgan
Rising Floodwaters surge over US Midwest levees
* Story Highlights
* *NEW: *White House asks Congress for $1.8 billion for flood aid,
AP reports
* Levee break in Adams County, Illinois, floods 30,000 acres
* Great River Bridge over Mississippi between Illinois and Iowa is
closed
* Downstream, people pile sandbags along river to protect their towns
*(CNN)* -- Water spilled over two levees on the Mississippi River on
Wednesday, surging into west-central Illinois, covering fertile farmland
and pushing residents from their homes, officials said.
Pigs seek refuge from the floods on top of a farm building near
Oakville, Illinois, on Wednesday.
Pigs seek refuge from the floods on top of a farm building near
Oakville, Illinois, on Wednesday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Mississippi Valley said water
flowed over the top of one levee, but local officials had a different
account, reporting that the levee -- near Meyer, Illinois -- breached in
two places about 6:20 a.m., pouring water into Hancock and Adams counties.
"It's kind of a sad day," Sheriff John Jefferson of Hancock County said.
"People put in a lot of manpower [to build up the levees], and all was
lost."
The floodwaters will cover thousands of acres of farmland from Warsaw to
Quincy, about a 25-mile stretch of the river.
"There's a lot of wheat fields down here just about ready to be
harvested, and they're going to lose all that," Jefferson said. "The
corn crop, the bean crop that's up, is all going to be lost. And the
real work's going to come after the flood recedes. It'll take years to
get this ground back into shape to farm it."
All residents in the area had been evacuated, Jefferson said. Video
Watch why Illinois breach helps Iowa »
<http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/18/midwest.flooding/index.html#cnnSTCVideo>
Another levee in Adams County was breached about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday,
said David Rudduck, spokesman for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
In Adams County alone, water from the breached levees flooded about
30,000 acres of farmland, according to Julie Shepard of Adams County
Emergency Management Agency.
On Wednesday, the White House asked Congress for $1.8 billion in
emergency aid for the flooded region, The Associated Press reported.
The levees are about 45 miles south of another levee that was breached
Tuesday morning near the small village of Gulfport, Illinois, prompting
about 400 people to leave their homes in Henderson County.
The water flooded acres, shut down a train station and ruined crops.
Farmer Jim Olsen said his crop of beans and corn was ruined.
"It is not going to be a farm this year," he said, staring at his
damaged land. "It is a total loss."
Near Oakville, Illinois, floodwaters covered about 21 square miles of
corn and soybean fields, including Richard Siegle's farm.
All that was visible of the house Siegle built in 1972 was the roof and
an American flag on a tall pole waving in the submerged front yard. On a
nearby farm building, pigs clustered on the roof, eating whatever they
could find that floated down the river. Video Watch pigs stranded on
roof »
<http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/18/midwest.flooding/index.html#cnnSTCVideo>
"Who ever thought that we'd see water this deep here?" Siegle asked.
"It's unreal.
"You don't know where to start," Siegle said. "It just depends on what
Mother Nature does, when the water goes out, whether they get the levee
repaired. There's not any assurance that we'll get the levee repaired."
Authorities on Tuesday closed the Great River Bridge connecting Illinois
<http://topics.cnn.com/topics/Illinois> to Iowa, according to the
sheriff's office of Henderson County.
Across the Mississippi in Burlington, Iowa
<http://topics.cnn.com/topics/iowa>, water levels have "dropped a bit,"
but they may rise again, according to David Miller, administrator for
the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division.
"The good news is, the floodwater is receding in much of the state,"
Miller said. "The bad news is, we're still in a flood fight."
He said officials are also monitoring flooding
<http://topics.cnn.com/topics/floods> at Keokuk, a riverside town, where
water levels are expected to crest by Thursday.
Levees elsewhere along the Mississippi were being topped with sandbags
as the river, fed by its flooded tributaries, continued to rise.
In Clarksville, Missouri, five blocks were under water, but National
Guard members, inmates and students were sandbagging to save other parts
of the historic artists' town, AP reported.
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"We fix one thing, and it breaks," Mayor Jo Anne Smiley told AP. "Sewers
are plugged up. We have leaks in walls and people who need things. We're
boating in food to people."
President Bush plans to visit Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Thursday to see the
flood-damaged regions, according to White House Deputy Press Secretary
Tony Fratto.