More Mo. Flooding; Parts of River Crest
Pastor Dale Morgan
More Mo. Flooding; Parts of River Crest*
Friday May 11, 2007 6:31 PM
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
Associated Press Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Levee breaks along the Missouri River flooded
farms, highways and railroad tracks, and left dozens of homes surrounded
by water, as the flooding that has inundated the region was expected to
peak in some spots this weekend.
Near-record flood levels dropped in parts of Missouri, but rose in
northwest and central parts of the state, as worried residents removed
valuables from their homes and filled sandbags to protect river communities.
A runaway barge on the Missouri River slowed about 25 miles away from
the Jefferson City, officials said. A state transportation engineer said
a tugboat was on the way to recover the barge before it could reach the
capital.
Inmates from St. Joseph prison and National Guard members filled
sandbags to try to protect a water treatment plant, schools and an
ethanol plant near Craig, where the Missouri River dropped a few inches
Thursday.
The water got within ``a hillbilly's whisker from going over in several
places,'' Holt County Sheriff Kirby Felumb said Thursday.
Rivers breached or topped dozens of levees across the state, officials
said. No serious injuries or deaths had been reported in the flooding,
said Brian Hauswirth, a spokesman for the State Emergency Management
Agency. Thunderstorms raised rivers and generated tornadoes that claimed
12 lives in Kansas.
The most recent levee break occurred Thursday afternoon between the
towns of DeWitt and Brunswick, flooding 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 had been topped. 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.
He said 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.
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.