Mo. Towns Try to Hold Back Flood Waters
Pastor Dale Morgan
Mo. Towns Try to Hold Back Flood Waters*
Friday May 11, 2007 7:46 AM
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
Associated Press Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Floodwaters rose still higher across northwest
and central Missouri Thursday, leading nervous residents to remove
valuables from their homes and fill sandbags to protect river communities.
Near-record flooding that inundated the village of Big Lake earlier this
week broke more levees Thursday, and water levels were expected to peak
in some spots this weekend. In other areas, however, the danger appeared
to be passing.
The Missouri River had dropped a few inches Thursday near Craig, where
inmates from a St. Joseph prison and National Guard members spent
Wednesday sandbagging, trying to protect the water treatment plant,
schools and an ethanol plant.
The water got within ``a hillbilly's whisker from going over in several
places,'' Holt County Sheriff Kirby Felumb said Thursday.
State officials said dozens of levees - most protecting agricultural
land - have been topped or breached since a weekend of drenching
thunderstorms raised rivers and generated tornadoes that claimed 12
lives in Kansas. No serious injuries or deaths had been reported in the
flooding, said Brian Hauswirth, a spokesman for the State Emergency
Management Agency.
The most recent levee break occurred Thursday afternoon between the
towns of DeWitt and Brunswick, spilling Missouri River water on
farmland, slowing traffic on U.S. 24 and damaging railroad tracks.
Another Carroll County breach south of Norborne had flooded about 15,000
acres of cropland and left about 75 rural homes surrounded with Missouri
River water.
Big Lake, in Holt County in northwestern Missouri, suffered some of the
worst damage in flooding Monday night and Tuesday, after several area
levees were breached. Most of the 32 rescues the Missouri State Water
Patrol has conducted since flooding began have been in the Big Lake area.
By Thursday, rooftops were still all that could be seen of some of the
450 to 475 homes flooded in Big Lake. Authorities spent Thursday taking
some residents to rescue their pets and retrieve medication.
``We can't do much for the property,'' Felumb said. ``There's no need to
let a family pet die if we have resources.''
Statewide, the flooding has led to the evacuation of several hundred
people, including some residents of Levasy and the Ray County town of
Hardin, where the 1993 flood surge toppled headstones and unearthed
hundreds of caskets.
In Levasy, a breached levee left at least 15 homes with up to 8 feet of
water in them, said Deputy Ronda Montgomery, a spokeswoman for the
Jackson County Sheriff's Department.
State officials said two other communities - Rushville and Napoleon -
were within 500 feet of levees that were broken or overtopped. But the
damage was less extensive, Hauswirth said.
Although the river crests were lower than forecast in many areas,
residents remained anxious. Many were here for the 1993 floods, among
the most costly in U.S. history.
The rain-swollen rivers and streams that make up the Missouri River
system are causing damage in different spots as the water makes its way
eastward toward St. Louis, where the Missouri River meets the
Mississippi, said Suzanne Fortin, a meteorologist with the National
Weather Service.
In Jefferson City, the Missouri River was expected to crest Sunday at
8.7 feet above flood stage, which could cause flooding at the municipal
airport and other low-lying areas below the bluff where the state
Capitol sits.
During a briefing at the State Emergency Operations Center, Gov. Matt
Blunt said joint state and federal damage assessment teams were being
dispatched to 17 counties, and about 100 Missouri National Guard members
had been deployed around the state.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has prepared about 1.2 million
sandbags, about 132,000 of which already had been distributed to help
fight the flood by Wednesday, Blunt said.
Prisoners were filling sandbags Thursday at the prison in Boonville, and
a crew of inmates had been sent to the Cooper County town of Wooldridge
to stack the bags on top of a levee that protects the community from the
Petite Saline Creek.
Torrential rain Thursday caused flash floods in parts of southern
Missouri, closing some roads. Near Gravois Mills, in Morgan County just
northwest of the Lake of the Ozarks, authorities said the normally empty
Little Proctor Creek filled with 4 to 6 feet of water in 20 minutes.
East of Jefferson City, the Missouri State Water Patrol closed a stretch
of the swollen Osage River to boaters.
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Associated Press writer Chris Blank in Jefferson City contributed to
this report.