Feds: 26 US levees could overflow if sandbags fail
Pastor Dale Morgan
Feds: 26 US levees could overflow if sandbags fail*
By EILEEN SULLIVAN,
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The federal government predicts that 27 levees could
potentially overflow along the Mississippi River if the weather forecast
is on the mark and a massive sandbagging effort fails to raise the level
of the levees, according to a map obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
Officials are placing millions of sandbags on top of the levees along
the river in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri to prevent overflowing. There
is no way to predict whether these levees will break, said Ron Fournier,
a spokesman with the Army Corps of Engineers in Iowa. "That's a crystal
ball that nobody has," he told the AP.
The levees in New Orleans broke during Hurricane Katrina, causing
catastrophic flooding.
Record-breaking storms and flooding across six states this month
continue to force thousands of people to evacuate and seek shelter.
Since June 6, there have been 22 deaths, 85 injuries and more than
26,000 power outages because of the storms and flooding, according to
the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The disasters are not as catastrophic as 2005's Hurricane Katrina, when
at least 1,600 people were killed.
The Army Corps of Engineers looks at the latest weather forecasts and
creates "battle maps" for levee engineers that show how many levees
could overflow without what Fournier calls a "big flood fight effort."
The flood fight entails placing millions of sandbags on top of the
levees to make them higher.
The information, which the Army Corps shares regularly with state and
local officials, changes constantly. Bret Vorhees, a spokesman for the
Iowa Emergency Management and Homeland Security agency, said his office
relies on these updates. "The weather can be unpredictable. It's a bit
of an art with a science with their projections," he said.
As of Monday evening, 27 levees have a potential of overflowing _ 20 of
those a "high potential" _ according to the Army Corps. Six levees have
already overflowed in the past three days: two in Iowa and four in Missouri.
In most instances, overflowing is just problematic, much like when you
fill your bathtub with too much water, says Larry Roth, the deputy
executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
But because the current flooding is so rare _ many are calling it a
one-in-500-years flood _ the entire levee system will be stressed, he said.
Still, Roth said, if the federal government and local officials are able
to get the sandbags in place and identify potential weak areas along the
levees, "then there's maybe a very good chance to provide flood
protection for the people that live along the river."
Some 251 miles of the Mississippi River have been closed. That doesn't
officially shut down the river, said U.S. Geological Survey national
flood specialist Bob Holmes, but it effectively shuts down barge traffic.
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Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Seth Borenstein in
Washington and Michael J. Crumb in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this
report.