Continuing Rain Storms hit flooded U.S. Midwest
Pastor Dale Morgan
Continuing Rain Storms hit flooded U.S. Midwest*
Reuters
Reuters - 1 hour 42 minutes ago
By Ryan Schlader
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - More storms dumped crop-drowning rains on parts of
the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, threatening strained levees and slowing
recovery from a multibillion-dollar flood disaster in the heart of the
world's biggest grain and food exporter.
In Cedar Rapids, where 4,000 homes were flooded two weeks ago after
water spilled over 1,300 city blocks, officials ordered 300 houses
demolished. Efforts were under way to determine if some structures in
the most flood-prone areas could ever be rebuilt.
The city asked federal disaster officials to send in 500 temporary
housing units, most likely mobile homes of the type used following the
devastation from Hurricane Katrina.
Some estimates have indicated the recovery costs for Iowa alone could
exceed the $5.7 billion spent after the last major Midwestern floods 15
years ago in 1993.
Flooding from heavy rains that began in late May already have caused
more than $6 billion in crop damage in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri
and Nebraska, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest U.S. farm
group, said.
Fears that as much as 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been
lost due to the flooding pushed corn and livestock prices to record
highs last week.
On Thursday, Chicago Board of Trade corn for July 2009 delivery set
another record high at $8.15 a bushel, more than double the 40-year
average for corn prices. Corn is the main feed for meat animals, main
source for ethanol fuels, and used in hundreds of other food and
industrial products.
Iowa officials said this week that at least 2.5 million acres of corn
and soybeans in Iowa, well above 10 percent of planted acreage in the
top U.S. producing state for those crops, needs to be replanted.
INFLATION JITTERS
Worries about short supplies of basic food and feedstuffs have set off
fresh alarms about rising world food price inflation even as oil and
energy costs also set records.
The U.S. Federal Reserve cited rising inflation worries on Wednesday as
it nervously kept U.S. interest rates unchanged.
Up to 5 inches of rain fell in parts of Iowa on Thursday and heavy
rainfall was also reported in Missouri.
Forecasters warned that slow-moving thunderstorms packing similar
downpours were also likely in the region on Friday.
Additional heavy rains in the past two days have added new stress to
levees along the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, though no new
breaches were reported on Thursday.
"This is a dangerous time, and the longer the water stays up on the
levee, the more dangerous it gets," said Alan Dooley, a spokesman for
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in St Louis.
He said the prime area of concern is north of St. Louis on the
Mississippi, including a levee at Winfield, Missouri, where a struggle
has been going on for days to shore up an earthen berm protecting dozens
of homes and a large chunk of farmland.
Patrick Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, said:
"The thing about these storms right now is the ground is saturated and
can't absorb any more."
He said there is some hope that the additional rains will not have a
major impact on the Mississippi though the additional water could
prolong the flooding.
"Anything that falls in the flooded area is going to cause problems," he
said. "It's going to take a considerable amount of time for all of this
water to leave," perhaps several weeks.
The Midwest storms and torrential rains have killed 24 people since late
May. More than 38,000 people have been displaced from their homes,
mostly in Iowa where 83 of 99 counties have been declared disaster areas.
(Additional reporting by Erin Zureick in Chicago; Writing by Michael
Conlon; Editing by Peter Bohan and Eric Walsh)