RVII News Summary & Clips
May 2, 2011
Updated at 9:00 am CDT
Good Morning,
Clips Summary:
The demolition plan to breech the levee on the Mississippi river at Bird’s Point and evacuation orders
related to that activity dominate the news clips this morning.
CURRENT FLOODING:
Missouri Contests Levee Demolition Plan.
U.S. Top Court’s Alito Refuses To Block Mississippi River Levee Demolition (Bloomberg News)
Court declines to block levee blast, farm flooding
Mo. Asks Supreme Court To Block Levee Blast That Would Flood Farms To Prevent Flooding In Ill.
(Associated Press)
Mayor orders flood-threatened Ill. city evacuated
Release Levels Lowered At Table Rock Dam (KTTS-AM Springfield (MO))
Morehouse flooding exacerbated by state-built levee to save U.S. 60
IOWA:
Two with roots in Cedar Rapids’ flood-hit Time Check Neighborhood see Tuesday’s sales-tax vote differently
KANSAS:
Tornado time approaching for Kansas
MISSOURI:
All news related to current flooding.
NEBRASKA:
No news of relevance today.
NATIONAL LEVEL EXERCISE
FEMA To Conduct Multi-state Earthquake Drill (Randolph County (IL) Herald Tribune)
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RVII Summary and News Clips| Office of External Affairs
NEWS OF NATIONAL INTEREST:
Quick Facts: Worst US tornadoes
CURRENT FLOODING:
CBS: Missouri–Levee Demolition.
The CBS Evening News (5/1, story 5, 0:20, Mitchell) reported, “The state of Missouri is asking the US
Supreme Court to block an Army plan to use a barge of explosives to blow a two mile wide hole in the
Mississippi River levee. The goal is to ease the flood threat to Cairo, Illinois by flooding a 130,000 acres
of Missouri farmland. Cairo is now under an evacuation order.”
Levels Of Still Rising Mississippi, Ohio Rivers At All-time Highs (CNN)
By The CNN Wire Staff
CNN, May 1, 2011
Persistent, heavy rains have helped swell the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to the highest levels ever
recorded, said an Army Corps of Engineers official Sunday.
This ominous development prompted Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, president of the Mississippi River
Commission, to order several barges into place at 3 p.m. to begin pumping explosive slurry into a levee
near where the two rivers meet. This is all in preparation -- if the decision is made -- to blow up the Birds
Point-New Madrid levee and potentially flood 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland, in part to save the
town of Cairo, Illinois.
At 8 p.m., the water levels on the Ohio River outside Cairo had reached 60.27 feet -- well above the
flood stage of 40 feet -- according to the National Weather Service. And, boosted by more rain, the
forecast calls for a continued rise to as high as 61.5 feet by Tuesday afternoon.
"This is the largest flood that we have ever seen in our lifetimes," Walsh said.
Two states divided by river, flooding
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The U.S. Supreme Court refused Sunday to block any plan to intentionally breach the levee. Supreme
Court Justice Samuel Alito ruled against Missouri -- effectively giving Walsh the authority to execute on
the levee-breach plan.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster's office had appealed to the court, questioning the Corps'
authority to do so. He had hoped to overturn a federal judge's ruling against Missouri on Friday, saying a
1928 law permits the breach of the levee to ease pressure on the river.
Hours before the Supreme Court ruling came down, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon told reporters Sunday that
he was not dwelling on the legal battle. Rather, he said that local and state authorities are focused first
and foremost on making all necessary preparations, including steps to protect property and lives,
assuming that the levee will be breached and massive flooding will occur.
"The litigation is out there, but that's not our focal point, quite frankly," Nixon said, flanked by Walsh.
"This doesn't thrill us, where we are, but this is a (difficult) situation. ... We understand the general and
his team have difficult decisions to make."
Walsh said he'd directed crews to move the barges across the river to Missouri and load the pipes with
the blasting agent. The entire process -- including priming the explosives and breaching the levee -would take about 20 hours, at which point the controlled blast could occur.
"I have not given the command to put it into operation, just to get it to the next step," Walsh said.
The crisis is centered on the stretch of the Mississippi River between Memphis and St. Louis, but it
relates to a far broader issue of excess water in the river and its tributaries. Engineers have warned that
should the rising waters of the Mississippi River overwhelm the entire flood control project, it could
deluge cities, destroy crops, destroy businesses and paralyze river transportation.
Engineers already have reported sand boils and seepage at a number of levees near the confluence of
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, a condition that Walsh said also threatens the integrity of the Mississippi
River and Tributaries Project -- the world's largest flood control project.
Belief Blog: Baptism in floodwaters
"There is water in places where we have never ever seen it before," Walsh said.
The potential for disaster -- and with the levees deteriorating and more rain falling -- prompted Cairo
Mayor Judson Childs to order his city's 2,800 residents to evacuate by midnight Saturday.
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RVII Summary and News Clips| Office of External Affairs
"I'm here to try to protect the city of Cairo," Childs said. "I care about them and I don't want them in
harm's way. I would much rather issue a mandatory evacuation and nothing happen than not to do it
and people lose their life."
Meanwhile, Missouri is likewise preparing for the worst -- specifically, the immersion or other negative
effects on what Nixon called "the most productive part of our continent" for farming.
About 750 National Guard personnel are in the area, with nearly 100 state police also on hand to
safeguard the area and residents' property. In addition, 230 residents who were potentially in harm's
way in Mississippi and New Madrid counties have been evacuated.
"The point is, if this is going to occur here, we're going to do it safely, we're going to do it an orderly
fashion and we're going to do the best we can to defend it and save property where available," the
governor said.
The uncertain scenario threatened to turned the lives of thousands upside down.
In Dexter, Missouri, Amanda Jones spent much of her Sunday morning in tears, bouncing from her
computer to her phone and back again, pausing only to care for her sick toddler.
She and others are concerned about the economic impact on Mississippi County -- and are even more
worried about the unforeseen consequences if all doesn't go according to plan and water inundates the
nearby Missouri towns of New Madrid, Charleston, Wyatt and East Prairie.
Residents are being told a second levee built to protect the towns will hold, but "they really have no clue
what's going to happen," Jones said. And even out of the flood plain, she said she's worried an explosion
may trigger an earthquake on the New Madrid Fault, which runs through the region.
Jones posted on her Facebook page a transcript of a 1988 public meeting in which it was discussed that
such a plan could go awry, as the force of the water would be uncontrollable after such a breach and the
second levee cannot be guaranteed.
"As we all know too well, plans don't always go according to plan, especially when Old Man River is
involved," board member Lester Goodin said, according to the transcript. "It has time after time fooled
people who weren't fools, people who merely miscalculated, or failed to take into account its almost
infinite variables, or used inadequate models, or out-of-date models, or mistaken assumptions."
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RVII Summary and News Clips| Office of External Affairs
In East Prairie, Cassie Sutton isn't waiting around to find out. Her family's bags are packed, she said
Sunday. And should word be given that the levee will be blown up, they plan to head to stay with
relatives about 45 minutes away.
"They did say the secondary levee will hold, but we've also never been in times like these," she said. "...
I'm not willing to be the guinea pig. That's the bottom line."
Sutton said her aunt and uncle have evacuated two homes near the levee, moving out all their
possessions, and are now living in a camper. "They honestly think they'll have nothing to go back to,"
she said, adding the Corps of Engineers has told them the water will cover their home by at least 5 or 6
feet.
The levee was breached before, in 1937. But, Jones and Sutton pointed out, the area was heavily
forested then, with trees to slow the water before it reached the second levee. That forestation is no
longer there, they said.
Koster's office said last week that "the flooding would leave a layer of silt on the farmland that could
take as much as a generation to clear, causing significant injury to the quality of the farmland for many
years."
Still, even if they don't prefer it, not everyone in the Show-Me State opposes the levee breach if it's truly
a last resort.
Sutton said her family has traditionally made its living farming, but "when it comes over people's lives to
farmland, I say save the lives."
"They say it's going to help Cairo, then I'm for it," she said. "But I have a feeling that will destroy
Mississippi County, financially bankrupt our county."
Missouri Contests Levee Demolition Plan.
ABC World News (5/1, lead story, 2:50, Muir) reported on an “excruciating dilemma” in the Midwest
“where the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers come together. Flood waters there are nearing record levels
as the levees are nearing their breaking point. And tonight the question, whose homes, whose
livelihoods do you save? Because the plan is to blow up part of a giant levee…to lower the waters. It’s a
decision that would save the people in the city of Cairo, Illinois, but destroy nearly 100 homes in other
areas.”
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RVII Summary and News Clips| Office of External Affairs
The CBS Evening News (5/1, story 5, 0:20, Mitchell) reported, “The state of Missouri is asking the US
Supreme Court to block an Army plan to use a barge of explosives to blow a two mile wide hole in the
Mississippi River levee. The goal is to ease the flood threat to Cairo, Illinois by flooding a 130,000 acres
of Missouri farmland. Cairo is now under an evacuation order.”
U.S. Top Court’s Alito Refuses To Block Mississippi River Levee
Demolition (Bloomberg News)
By Andrew Harris
Bloomberg News, May 2, 2011
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito denied Missouri’s bid for an order blocking the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers from blasting a Mississippi River levee and diverting water into state farmland to
avert flooding upriver.
The high court’s associate justice last night declined to issue the injunction requested by Missouri
Attorney General Chris Koster earlier yesterday, according to Patricia McCabe Estrada, a spokeswoman
for the highest U.S. court.
Heavy rainfall has swelled river levels to their highest since 1937, according to a statement issued by the
Army Corps yesterday. The corps proposes to breach the Birds Point levee near Cape Girardeau in
southeast Missouri, diverting river water onto a 130,000-acre floodplain with about 100 homes.
The floodway is “designed to minimize damage and save lives from historic flood levels,” Army Corps
Major General Michael Walsh said in the statement. “Its purpose is to lower flood stages and pressure
on the entire system during major flood events.”
The U.S. estimates that breaching the levee may cause $314 million in damage within the floodway,
compared with more than $1.7 billion in damage across swaths of Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky that
may result if levees elsewhere on the system are overtopped or burst in uncontrolled flooding.
Koster sought and failed to win court orders blocking the plan from U.S. District Judge Stephen
Limbaugh Jr. in Cape Girardeau on April 29 and from a St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals on April 30
before asking the Supreme Court justice to intervene yesterday.
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RVII Summary and News Clips| Office of External Affairs
“The water will rush over farmland, destroying homes and outbuildings, taking agricultural chemicals,
petroleum tanks, diesel fuel and propane tanks stored and in use with it,” Koster said in his submission
to Alito.
At each stage he was opposed by the Army Corps and by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
Cairo, Illinois, a city of about 2,800 people near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and
north of Birds Point, Missouri has been ordered evacuated by Mayor Judson Childs, according to media
reports.
“Conditions are deteriorating rapidly in Cairo,” she told Alito in a brief filed yesterday opposing
Missouri’s bid for his intervention. “As floodwaters rise, they create ‘hydrostatic pressure’ on the levees,
which can lead first to seepage, and ultimately to the levee’s failure.”
Nanci Gonder, a spokeswoman for Koster, didn’t immediately reply to an e-mailed seeking comment
yesterday on Alito’s ruling. Robyn Ziegler, a spokeswoman for Madigan, and Xochitl Hinojosa, a U.S.
Justice Department spokeswoman, also didn’t immediately reply to e-mailed requests for comment.
Alito is the Supreme Court justice designated to review petitions from the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals, which hears cases from Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa and four other states.
Walsh at about 3:45 p.m. local time yesterday ordered the pumping of an explosive compound into
levee pipes. He hasn’t ordered the demolition, according to an Army Corps press statement.
The process of loading the pipes, setting charges, clearing river traffic and ensuring evacuation of the
target floodplain could take as long as 24 hours, Army Corps civil engineer Jon Korneliussen said in a
telephone interview.
The pipe-loading process is reversible, he said.
“The Project Flood is upon us,” Walsh said yesterday in an Army Corps-issued statement. “This is the
flood that engineers envisioned following the 1927 flood.”
That event led to legislation that gives the president of the Mississippi River Commission, currently
Walsh, authority to operate the 35-mile long floodway when necessary to protect public safety.
“It is testing the system like never before,” the general said.
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RVII Summary and News Clips| Office of External Affairs
The appellate court case is State of Missouri v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 11-01937, U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (St. Louis). The high court case is State of Missouri v. U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, 10A1059, U.S. Supreme Court.
Court declines to block levee blast, farm flooding
Action 3 News.com
Posted: May 01, 2011 4:09 AM CDT Updated: May 02, 2011 3:29 AM CDT
By JIM SUHR
Associated Press
CAIRO, Ill. (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Sunday refused to halt a plan by the Army Corps of
Engineers to blast open a levee to relieve the rain-swollen Mississippi River even as the Illinois town at
risk of flooding was cleared out.
As Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued his ruling, struggling Cairo near the confluence of Ohio and
Mississippi rivers resembled a ghost town. Illinois National Guard troops went door to door with law
enforcers to enforce the mayor's "mandatory" evacuation order the previous night.
About 20 to 30 families were allowed to stay - a courtesy extended only to adults - in the 2,800-resident
town after signing waivers acknowledging that they understood the potential peril, National Guard Sgt.
1st Class Heath Clark said.
"If you're (possibly) losing everything and don't know where to go, you wouldn't want to leave, either,"
he told The Associated Press.
Alito did not comment in denying Missouri's request to block the corps' plan. Alito handles emergency
requests from Missouri and other states in the 8th Circuit in the Midwest.
Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, the corps officer in charge of deciding whether to breach the levee, ordered
field crews to move barges to the Missouri side of the river and begin loading pipes in the levee with
explosives in anticipation of blowing up a two-mile section just downriver from Cairo. He stressed that
the decision to do so has not been made.
Walsh said it would take 20 hours to get the pipes filled, during which time he will review conditions
before deciding what to do. Destroying the levee would provide a relief valve to ease the menacing
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RVII Summary and News Clips| Office of External Affairs
rivers and ultimately lower them, taking pressure off Cairo's floodwall and other levees father south
along the Mississippi.
But the plan possibly would inundate 130,000 acres of now-evacuated farmland in Missouri's
agriculture-reliant Mississippi County, causing what Missouri argues would crush that region's economy
and environment by rendering that cropland useless under potentially feet of sand and silt.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, whose bid to derail the corps' plan in recent days included failed
requests to a federal district judge and an appellate court, took the case to the Supreme Court, noting
"it is the responsibility of this office to pursue every possible avenue of legal review." Koster's office did
not immediately return a call seeking comment after the court's ruling.
Corps officials are monitoring water levels and haven't decided whether to go through with the blast to
blunt the rise of the Ohio, which on Sunday afternoon had risen to 59.93 feet at Cairo - eclipsing the
1937 record there of 59.5 feet. The river was expected to crest Tuesday at 61.5 feet and stay there for
days, raising the corps' concerns about the lingering strain water that high could put on levees. Cairo's
floodwall can handle 64 feet.
After touring the levee with Walsh on Sunday, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declined to discuss the litigation.
He said he understood the difficulty in Walsh's decision and was assured that if the levee is blown apart,
it would be done safely.
"This is a dramatic, once or twice in a lifetime kind of occurrence," for the region, Nixon said, noting the
record water levels. "We understand the general and his team have difficult decisions to make."
Sunday's house-to-house canvass came as more thunderstorms passed through the already
waterlogged, rain-pummeled region, and as emergency-management officials in Cairo focused warily on
a "sand boil" - an area of river seepage that's a potential sign of trouble - that pooled to 40 feet wide
and 12 feet deep about 100 yards from the floodwall.
Marty Nicholson, Alexander County's emergency management coordinator, said the boil was in check,
resembling a doughnut surrounded by a mound of plastic-covered rock and sandbags.
"We've had sand boils before, but never this big," Nicholson said, noting that some 70 percent of the
9,600-resident county was flooded.
Just 17 miles from Cairo, near the tiny outpost of Olive Branch, Janice Bigham watched as her husband
and volunteers desperately scrambled to heighten the sandbag wall that made their ranch-style home
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an oasis - safe for now - from the at times swampy green floodwaters that already had swallowed up
many nearby homes and outbuildings without such defenses.
"All we can do is hope and pray that they blow that levee," said Bigham, 40. "That's the only thing that
might take the pressure off; otherwise, the water will be over the road and wipe out Olive Branch."
Bigham, warning sandbaggers wading into the inundation to watch out for "big-time" snakes, said the
gray-and-white brick home needed to be saved, given that her late father helped build it. "That's all I
have left of him," she said before turning away briefly from a reporter, her chin trembling as tears
welled in her eyes.
The flooding posed the latest challenge for Cairo and the rest of Alexander County, with a nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rate around 12 percent as of March, 3 percent higher than the
state's average. The cash-strapped county in recent years had several sheriff's cars taken back by the
bank over unpaid bills.
Cairo has proud history, once serving as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's headquarters in the Civil War's infancy
before steamboats helped make it a vital transportation nexus.
By the 1920s, when 15,200 people called Cairo home, the city was a hub of commerce, thanks to rails
and rivers, before its importance waned as the nation turned to interstate highways and air travel.
Matters worsened when a race riot erupted in 1967, fueling the exodus of employers and residents. The
city has never recovered.
The riverfront now resembles an Old West stage set, its facades crumbling and windows boarded up.
Some of the buildings are little more than heaps of bricks.
On Sunday, the city looked apocalyptic, its streets deserted of traffic that only included police cars.
Prisoners loaded sandbags on an auto-parts business' lot, then loaded them in a fire-brigade fashion
onto a dump truck under the watchful eye of guards. Churches that would have been overflowing that
time of day were shuttered.
Saturated ground had given way under some streets, in one case leaving a crater about 8 feet deep near
another stretch of buckled road.
Lauding the volunteerism and the orderly exodus from the city, police Chief Gary Hankins figured Cairo
would weather it all.
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"This city has gotten a bad rap," he said. "Like any situation of this magnitude, it's going to hopefully
endear people to each other. Hopefully, this will prove our worth as far as coming together as a
community."
Mo. Asks Supreme Court To Block Levee Blast That Would Flood Farms To
Prevent Flooding In Ill. (Associated Press)
Associated Press, May 1, 2011
CAIRO, Ill. — A legal fight over whether the Army Corps of Engineers should blast open a levee to relieve
the rain-swollen Mississippi River went to the nation’s highest court Sunday as the Illinois town the
breach is meant to help during record flooding was cleared out.
As Missouri asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the corps’ plan, struggling Cairo near the confluence
of Ohio and Mississippi rivers resembled a ghost town as Illinois National Guard troops went door to
door with law enforcers to enforce the mayor’s “mandatory” evacuation order the previous night.
About 20 to 30 families were allowed to stay — a courtesy extended only to adults — in the 2,800resident town after signing waivers acknowledging that they understood the potential peril, National
Guard Sgt. 1st Class Heath Clark said.
“If you’re (possibly) losing everything and don’t know where to go, you wouldn’t want to leave, either,”
he told The Associated Press during a staging area in the Cairo High School cafeteria.
The corps is considering blowing a two-mile hole into the Birds Point levee in southeast Missouri just
downriver from Cairo as a relief valve meant to ease the menacing rivers and ultimately lower them,
taking pressure off of Cairo’s floodwall and other levees farther south along the Mississippi.
But the plan possibly would inundate 130,000 acres of now-evacuated farmland in Missouri’s
agriculture-reliant Mississippi County, causing what Missouri argues would crush that region’s economy
and environment by rendering that cropland useless under potentially feet of sand and silt.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, whose bid to derail the corps’ plan in recent days included failed
requests to a federal district judge and an appellate court, took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court,
noting “it is the responsibility of this office to pursue every possible avenue of legal review.”
Corps officials are monitoring water levels and haven’t decided whether to go through with the blast to
blunt the rise of the Ohio, which on Sunday afternoon had risen to 59.93 feet at Cairo — eclipsing the
1937 record there of 59.5 feet. The river was expected to crest Tuesday at 61.5 feet and stay there for
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days, raising the corps’ concerns about the lingering strain water that high could put on levees. Cairo’s
flood wall can handle 64 feet.
Sunday’s house-to-house canvass came as more thunderstorms passed through the already
waterlogged, rain-pummeled region — and as emergency-management officials in Cairo focused warily
on a “sand boil” — an area of river seepage that’s a potential sign of trouble — pooled to 40 feet wide
and 12 feet deep about 100 yards from the floodwall.
Marty Nicholson, Alexander County’s emergency management coordinator, said the boil was in check,
resembling a doughnut surrounded by a mound of plastic-covered rock and sandbags.
“We’ve had sand boils before, but never this big,” Nicholson said, noting that some 70 percent of the
9,600-resident county was flooded.
Just 17 miles from Cairo, near the tiny outpost of Olive Branch, Janice Bigham watched as her husband
and volunteers desperately scrambled to heighten the sandbag wall that made their ranch-style home
an oasis — safe for now — from the at times swampy green floodwaters that already had swallowed up
many nearby homes and outbuildings without such defenses.
“All we can do is hope and pray that they blow that levee,” said Bigham, 40. “That’s the only thing that
might take the pressure off; otherwise, the water will be over the road and wipe out Olive Branch.”
Bigham, warning sandbaggers wading into the inundation to watch out for “big-time” snakes, said the
gray-and-white brick home needed to be saved, given that her late father helped build it. “That’s all I
have left of him,” she said before turning away briefly from a reporter, her chin trembling as ears welled
in her eyes.
The flooding posed the latest challenge for Cairo and the rest of Alexander County, with a nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rate naggingly around 12 percent as of March, 3 percent higher than
the state’s average. The cash-strapped county in recent years had several of its sheriff’s cars taken back
by the bank over unpaid bills.
Cairo has proud history, once serving as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters in the Civil War’s infancy
before steamboats helped make it a vital transportation nexus.
By the 1920s, when 15,200 people called Cairo home, the city was a hub of commerce, thanks to rails
and rivers, before its importance waned as the nation turned to interstate highways and air travel.
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RVII Summary and News Clips| Office of External Affairs
Matters worsened when a race riot erupted in 1967, fueling the exodus of employers and residents. The
city has never recovered from it.
The riverfront now resembles an Old West stage set, its facades crumbling and windows boarded up.
Some of the buildings are little more than heaps of bricks.
On Sunday, the city looked apocalyptic, its streets deserted of traffic that only included police cars.
Prisoners loaded sandbags on an auto-parts business’ lot, then loaded them in a fire-brigade fashion
onto a dump truck under the watchful eye of guards. Churches that would have been overflowing that
time of day were shuttered.
Saturated ground had given way under some streets, in one case leaving a crater about 8 feet deep near
another stretch of buckled road.
Lauding the volunteerism and the orderly exodus from the city, Police Chief Gary Hankins figured Cairo
would weather it all.
“This city has gotten a bad rap,” he said. “Like any situation of this magnitude, it’s going to hopefully
endear people to each other. Hopefully, this will prove our worth as far as coming together as a
community.”
Mayor orders flood-threatened Ill. city evacuated
Action 3 News.com
By DAVID MERCER
Associated Press
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) - The mayor of a small southern Illinois city threatened by two swollen rivers
ordered all residents to leave by midnight Saturday because a "sand boil," an area where river water
was seeping up through the ground behind the levee, had become dangerously large.
Cairo Mayor Judson Childs issued a mandatory evacuation order for the city of 2,800 residents late
Saturday afternoon hours after meeting with Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, the Army Corps of Engineers
officer tasked with deciding whether to blow a hole in the Birds Point levee in Missouri, downstream
from Cairo, to relieve pressure on levees along the dangerously high Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
Walsh, who toured Cairo's levee area, described the boil that has been growing since it was first spotted
Tuesday as the largest he had ever seen, the Southeast Missourian newspaper reported.
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Sand boils occur when high-pressure water pushes under flood walls and levees and wells up through
the soil behind them. They're a potential sign of trouble.
City clerk Lorrie Hesselrode described the boil as "kind of like Old Faithful," the famous geyser in
Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. "There's so much water pressure it forces the water under
ground."
"It's kind of scary. It's pretty big. We've had sand boils before but nothing like this. It is under control but
other boils have popped up," she told The Associated Press.
Childs said in a news release that the boil had been stabilized and that officials would continue to
monitor it closely.
The river is expected to crest in Cairo at 60.5 feet - a foot above the local record high - by Tuesday
morning and stay there through at least Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
A flood wall protects Cairo up to 64 feet, but the corps fears that water pressure from the lingering river
crest could compromise the wall and earthen levees that protect other parts of the city.
Rain was expected to fall in the area Saturday night, and authorities had been urging residents to leave
Cairo before the mandatory order was issued. Earlier Saturday, Cairo police Chief Gary Hankins
estimated that about 1,000 residents remained.
Childs urged residents to remain calm and to let police know they're leaving.
"Please do not panic and exit the city in a timely manner by midnight," Childs said.
The corps inched closer Saturday to blowing a hole in the Birds Point levee after a federal appeals court
declined to stop the move.
The corps moved a pair of barges loaded with the makings of an explosive sludge into position near
levee, which is on the Mississippi River just downstream from Cairo in Missouri, but said it hadn't
decided that it needed to breach the 60-foot-high earthen wall to protect Cairo.
The 230 people who live in the southeast Missouri flood plain behind the Birds Point levee had already
been evacuated from their homes, a spokesman for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said. Some of the farmers
whose roughly 130,000 acres of land would be inundated moved out what they could Saturday,
assuming the corps will have no choice as the Mississippi and Ohio that feeds it rise.
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"When the water hits this dirt, it's going to make a hell of a mess," one of the farmers, Ed Marshall, said
as he packed up his farm office and hauled away propane tanks and other equipment. He said he was
keeping an eye on the weather forecast, which called for several more inches of rain over the next few
days. "If that happens, I don't believe they'll be able to hold it."
In Cairo, the mayor said he was relieved by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision early Saturday
in St. Louis.
"I've been saying all along that we can't take land over lives," Childs said.
The state of Missouri had asked the court to block the plan because to protect the farm land. Scott
Holste, a spokesman for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, said state officials there are now focused on protecting
the homes, agricultural equipment and other property left behind in the heavily farmed flood plain
below the levee. In addition to people evacuated from the floodway, as many as 800 were asked to
leave surrounding areas.
"The entire area has been evacuated now," Holste said, adding that more than 500 Missouri National
Guard troops are helping local law enforcement at checkpoints around the area.
It's unclear whether Missouri could pursue further legal action. Holste referred questions to Attorney
General Chris Koster, whose didn't respond to phone calls or emails Saturday from The Associated Press.
The corps started moving the barges to a spot in Kentucky just across from the levee Saturday afternoon
but was still weighing its options and monitoring the rise of the Ohio River in Cairo, which is just north of
where the Ohio flows into the Mississippi, spokesman Jim Pogue said. The decision would be based on
how high the river is expected to get, from new rain that could fall and water backing up in reservoirs
upstream.
One key signal, he said, will be if the Ohio nears or reaches 61 feet at Cairo.
About 80 miles northeast in Old Shawneeville, Ill., local residents were looking for volunteer help to fill
sand bags to help contain leaks and seeps at the town's levee, Saline County sheriff's Lt. Tracey Felty
said. With the Ohio River at just under 53 feet and not expected to rise above 54.5 when it crests
Tuesday, the 60-foot-tall levee should be topped, he said.
But in some small area communities, a few homes have flooded, forcing their owners into a local
shelter. Other buildings are swamped, too.
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"It just flooded the church," in Junction, he said, noting one example. "They just couldn't keep up with
the sandbags."
Release Levels Lowered At Table Rock Dam (KTTS-AM Springfield (MO))
KTTS-AM Springfield (MO), May 1, 2011
Here's some welcome news for folks in Taney County. Water release from the Table Rock Dam has been
greatly reduced today, which means the risk for flooding downstream is reduced as well.
The Army Corps of Engineers says five of the ten flood gates that had been opened since Wednesday are
now closed. The forecast is calling for more rain over the next day or two, but the Corps says it has no
immediate plans to increase the flow from the dam.
Morehouse flooding exacerbated by state-built levee to save U.S. 60
Sunday, May 1, 2011
By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian
MOREHOUSE, Mo. -- The floodwaters crept into Scottie Parks' home as he slept. He woke up and put his
feet into 6 inches of it.
"Now it's throughout my entire house," said Parks, the assistant fire chief. "It's ruined. We've lost
everything."
Morehouse, a community of about 1,000 people, is about six miles from Sikeston in New Madrid
County. Its leaders and residents were up in arms Saturday about a state decision to build a levee
Thursday along U.S. 60 that has exacerbated their flood problem.
The western part of Morehouse, which runs along the Little River Drainage District, is underwater. Roads
are closed, people have evacuated and more than half of the town's homes are waist-deep in water.
Mayor Pete Leija met with U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a Cape Girardeau Republican, Saturday afternoon
to complain that the Missouri Department of Transportation's decision to build the levee came without
warning.
"We got no notice," Leija said. "None. I did not get a call from any individual. They built the levee
Thursday during the night at midnight. We didn't even have a chance. That berm caused our water to go
up six inches real quick. We had homes that were within an inch of going under."
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Flooding was already taking place, he said, as the waters from the Little River -- basically a big drainage
ditch -- overflowed its already meager banks. But MoDOT's decision made a bad situation worse, he
said, and left the community in "quite a fix."
Bill Robison, the department's Southeast District planning manager, said that the levee was built to save
U.S. 60. The levee that was built Thursday night has held anywhere from 8 to 10 inches from going over
the highway, Robison said.
"That water jeopardized Route 60 such to where it would have had to close down," Robison said. "We
had to weigh the difference between keeping 60 open. That decision was made at the top at the state
level, and SEMA was involved. That route had to be kept open for emergency services."
The department had been in contact with Morehouse officials throughout the week about other flood
issues, but he did not know if they had been notified about building the levee.
"I don't know that we specifically involved them in that decision," Robison said.
But Leija said they're left picking up the pieces. Several residents, including those at a senior housing
development, have been left homeless. Those seniors are staying at a nearby church, though Emerson
put the mayor in touch with the Red Cross, which was working to get them shelter.
"The water is just swallowing us up," Leija said. "It's hitting that berm, going along the highway and
circling the town. They've basically created a big bowl around us."
Dan Jennings is a farmer who lives in Sikeston, but he has a 5,000-acre farm in Morehouse, where he
grew up. A good portion of that farm is now underwater.
"It did get the highway open, I don't question that," Jennings said. "And it helped everybody south of us.
But more than half of the homes here are under water. Nobody has given us a good explanation of
what's happened."
George Kruse has lived in Morehouse for two years. While the water hasn't gotten into his home, he's
watched many of his friends struggle.
"The western end of town is just destroyed," he said.
And he blames the earthen berm.
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"It was just a dam and backed all the water right in town," he said. "They chose the highway over
people, and that's not right, to my way of thinking."
IOWA:
Two with roots in Cedar Rapids’ flood-hit Time Check Neighborhood see
Tuesday’s sales-tax vote differently
By Rick Smith/SourceMedia Group News
CEDAR RAPIDS — It’s one tough call to decide who has deeper ties to the flood-hit, working-class Time
Check Neighborhood, Jim McKiernan or Don Karr.
Both grew up among the modest homes between the Cedar River and Ellis Boulevard NW and both can
swap stories about diving into the river from the neighborhood railroad bridge and defending boyhood
turf with the best of them.
How could it be now, though, that the two, with the same roots and the same fondness for this old
riverside neighborhood, see Tuesday’s vote to extend the city’s 1-percent local-option sales tax for 20
years so differently?
The extension will raise about $20 million a year to provide what city leaders, which include City Council
member Karr, say is necessary local “matching” money if the city is to secure state and federal funds for
a comprehensive, $375-million flood-protection system that protects both sides of the city from a
repeat of the city’s historic 2008 flood disaster. Forty percent of the tax revenue will be used to fix
streets and 10 percent will go for property-tax relief under the city plan.
Last week, McKiernan, 66, was continuing to renovate his flood-damaged house at 908 Ellis Blvd. NW
and had just finished the one he rents out next door, at 906 Ellis Blvd. NW. The tiny front yards of both
of his places feature yellow-colored “Vote No” signs in seeming contradiction to the fact that McKiernan
has invested his own sweat and money — he’s gotten no public help for the two renovations — and
despite City Hall’s stated desire to find funds to protect investments like his from another damaging
flood.
“If I’m worried about a flood, I’ll protect myself,” declares McKiernan, who worked as seasonal help for
the city’s Parks Department for years while renting out a few homes for additional income. He has
benefitted from the city’s buyout program on a couple of flood-wrecked properties closer to the river,
he reports.
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His reasons to vote “No” on the tax-extension referendum center on an active skepticism and distrust of
City Hall. McKiernan says the city hasn’t used the revenue from the existing local-option sales tax, 90
percent of which goes to flood recovery projects, correctly. He says the city should not have bought the
downtown hotel. And he asks, why doesn’t the city dredge the river to solve its flooding threat?
“I want the city to be accountable for what they’re doing,” says McKiernan. “They’re out of control.”
Karr, 65, a retired business owner and plumber and one of four west-side residents on the nine-member
City Council, ticks off his responses to the points made by McKiernan, whom he has known since
boyhood: The city is using the current sales-tax revenue correctly to help flood victims and the city’s
flood recovery. Dredging doesn’t work for flood protection. The decision to buy the struggling hotel
from its creditors doesn’t involve local-option sales tax revenue.
Yet, Karr says he’s not surprised to hear some of the flood-impacted residents in and near his old
boyhood neighborhood talking against the extension of the city’s local-option sales tax to help pay for
flood protection. He says many of these are “hardworking, blue-collar” people who have lived near the
river all their lives, don’t fear floods like others do and like the way it has been. The city’s plans for flood
protection mean a change, which some don’t like, he says.
“I think it has to do with comfort,” says Karr. “And (the city’s plans) will take them somewhere they’ve
never been before, and it’s uncomfortable.”
He says tax-extension opponents like McKiernan are right about one thing: City government isn’t
perfect. But Karr says it’s not enough to stop there.
“Some feel something is being taken from them,” says Karr. “They don’t see if as an investment in the
future. But I don’t want to live in the past. I don’t want my children to live in the past.
“ … This community needs to get back the progressive attitude that built it. We’re going to have invest
our own money, and it’s going to be a little painful. But we’re going to have to invest to be a leader
again.”
Up and down the river, it isn’t difficult to find businesses owners, who were hit hard by the flood and
are now back on their feet, say they support the extension of the local-option sales tax for flood
protection.
Jon Jelinek, owner of Parlor City Pub & Eatery in the heart of the flood-hit New Bohemia commercial
district on Third Street SE, says the 2008 flood “wiped the slate clean” and now has turned the district
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into a whirlwind of construction activity. It only makes sense to protect all the reinvestment — some of
which has come from public dollars in the form of state I-JOBS grants and the use of historic tax credits
— with a new flood protection system, Jelinek says.
The Army Corps of Engineers has said its rules require it to follow a prescribed benefit-cost formula,
which the Corps says allows it to recommend basic flood protection in Cedar Rapids only for most of the
east side of the river. Such a limited system would protect Jelinek’s property, but “that’s shortsighted,”
he says.
“I think the mayor is right,” says Jelinek. “We’ve got to protect both sides of the river. One cent to
protect all the millions of dollars of investment makes sense.”
Even so, across 12th Street SE in New Bohemia, Dave Fountain, one of the owners of the just opened
restaurant and bar, Capone’s, says he doesn’t have an opinion on the extension of the local-option sales
tax. “We’ve been so consumed with this. We just opened it,” he says of the business.
Similarly, Tom Kinney, 30-year-old owner of Andrews Collision Center, 815 Eighth Ave. SE, says the eightand-half feet of flood water his business took on in 2008 still hadn’t convinced him one way or another
about the tax extension.
“I think in theory it’s a good idea,” Kinney says of the tax extension. “But where the money ultimately
will go is a good question.”
John Berge, the owner of the Two Star Detective Agency in Czech Village and the longtime president of
the village’s association, says most of the businesses in the village support the tax extension, but the
support comes with a hope that they will have some say on the exact line of the new flood protection
system once it gets to Czech Village.
At the village and through the downtown, the city’s plan calls for a system of more-expensive,
“removable” flood walls instead of a system of towering, less expensive, concrete flood walls.
“I’m not a fan of concrete walls,” says John Rocarek, owner of the Sykora Bakery in Czech Village, who
adds, “I’m all in favor of the tax extension.”
Erwin Froehlich, vice president and director of operations at the Penford Products plant that employs
220 workers along the river near downtown, says the city’s plan to extend the sales tax to help pay for
flood protection is important for the company’s future in Cedar Rapids. He puts the cost of the flood
damage and recovery at the Penford plant in the $60-million range, and he says potential business
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partners today always say, “’But wait a minute, show me how high the water got. And tell me, what are
you and the city and the state doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again?’ In a nutshell, we want to
continue to be here. … We just need some security to do that.”
One spot on the front lines of the tax-extension debate is Al Pierson’s flower shop and greenhouses,
1800 Ellis Blvd. NW. Pierson has the blue “Vote Yes” signs outside of his business, while a line of homes
across the street and stretching out toward Ellis Park have the yellow “Vote No” signs in their front
yards.
In part, the standoff has to do with where the city’s proposed earthen levee in this part of the city is
expected to go. Most of the preliminary ideas have put Pierson’s business on the protected side of any
levee and this group of homes right at the river on the unprotected side.
One of those homeowners, Mike Augustine, 1865 Ellis Blvd. NW, says he’s voting “No” because he does
not think the city is apt to have a repeat of 2008 and because no plan can protect people against
everything.
“But first of all, I just don’t trust anything the city does right now,” says Augustine, a retired Cedar
Rapids district fire chief. “I think the planners and developers see this as an opportunity to redo a lot of
stuff and they basically want someone else to pay for it.”
Flower-shop owner Pierson, who is on the board of the Northwest Neighbors group, says the proposed
flood-protection system has given him the confidence to hire back two of the 12 people he had to let go
after the flood and he says he has plans to tear down a flood-damaged home attached to his business
and to add a new entrance and other improvements.
He says he’s just like those in the homes with the “Vote No” signs across the street — “You’re
independent, you work hard, you take what you’re dealt and you deal with it.”
At the same time, Pierson says much of the old Time Check Neighborhood of which he considers himself
a part was taken by the flood and is gone for good.
“I prefer to look forward, to look the future. I want to see the city put together better than it ever was,”
he says.
KANSAS:
Tornado time approaching for Kansas
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By Shawn Cannon
Dodge City Daily Globe
DODGE CITY — As recent tornadoes rolled across the South, destroying large swaths of land and killing
hundreds, many western Kansans understand the loss that many families are suffering. Being in the
middle of Tornado Alley, Kansans have seen what tornadoes can do.
So when is a typical tornado season for Kansas?
"Things really ramp up in western Kansas in May, but sometimes it can start up anytime after the first of
March and can carry on through June." said Jeff Hutton, warning coordination meteorologist for the
National Weather Service. "Typically, the second season is in the fall from mid-September to midOctober. Although there is not a cut-and-dried time, tornadoes can occur any time of the year."
Kansas has had tornadoes in January and February, but those were relatively small.
In the last 10 years, more tornados have been spotted because weather-related technology has
improved and because there are more storm chasers. Kansas averages 77 tornadoes a year, with 15 in
western Kansas alone.
Tornadoes are not growing in intensity, either. In the late 1800s, there were some devastating
tornadoes that killed hundreds of people. More recently, there were large outbreaks in 1974 and in April
1991. And of course, now, in 2011.
Hutton said if there is a tornado warning in your location, you should:
• Not rely on the sirens. They may not sound or may not have power.
• Go to the basement. Get under something. Debris may fall into the basement or you may be sucked
out, as some people were in Alabama, but those are extreme cases.
• In most cases, if you have a well-built house, you need to find an interior room like a bathroom or a
closet as close to the center of the house as possible.
• If you are in a mobile home, you have to get out of there.
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• One of the most important items to have is shoes. If your house is damaged, you may have to step
on glass and other debris. Having some kind of footwear is essential.
A cell phone, a radio and water supply are also must-haves, said Hutton.
“Have a plan before a tornado would occur," he said. "If a tornado is a block away, you have 15 seconds.
You should be thinking, 'What am I going to do?' You should know what you are going to do."
If you are driving and a tornado is in your area, or if you can see one, drive away from it and find shelter.
"Do whatever it takes to seek shelter," Hutton said.
NATIONAL LEVEL EXERCISE
FEMA To Conduct Multi-state Earthquake Drill (Randolph County (IL)
Herald Tribune)
Randolph County (IL) Herald Tribune, May 1, 2011
U.S. Congressman Jerry Costello (D-IL) is encouraging public awareness about an upcoming multi-state
earthquake drill to be conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the first such drill ever
conducted. The Great Central U.S. Shakeout will take place Thursday, April 28 at 10:15 a.m. central time.
Eleven states are participating in the event, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois,
Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Participants – families, schools, businesses and other organizations - are asked to register so they can be
counted and receive communications and practice "drop, cover, and hold on" at the specified time.
Registered participants will receive information on how to plan their drill and how to create a dialogue
with others about earthquake preparedness. Registration is free and can be completed at
http://www.shakeout.org/centralus/.
“Living near the New Madrid fault, this is important information for our region,” said Costello. “The
tragic recent events in Japan are another reminder about how devastating a major earthquake can be.
Exercises like this one will leave us better prepared for such a catastrophe here at home, and I want to
make sure people are aware of this event.”
NATIONAL NEWS OF INTEREST:
Quick Facts: Worst US tornadoes
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Press TV
At least 361 people have been killed in the second deadliest tornado-related disaster in the history of
the United States amid fears of a further rise of the death toll.
Survivors of powerful tornadoes that swept the U.S. south this week began the monumental task
Saturday of clearing away debris from a disaster that claimed nearly 350 lives until April 30, 2011. AFP
The largest death toll ever was on March 18, 1925, when 747 people were killed in storms that raged
through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. AP
The 1925 outbreak was long before the days when Doppler radars could warn communities of severe
weather. Huffington Post
Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured Wednesday -- 990 in Tuscaloosa alone -- and as many
as 1 million Alabama homes and businesses remained without power. Huffington Post
The scale of the disaster astonished President Barack Obama when he arrived in the state Friday. "I've
never seen devastation like this," he said in Tuscaloosa, where at least 45 people were killed and entire
neighborhoods were flattened. Later, Obama signed disaster declarations for Mississippi and Georgia, in
addition to one he had authorized for Alabama. Huffington Post
On March 18, 1925, trees began to snap north-northwest of Ellington, Missouri, and for the next three
and a half hours more people would die, more schools would be destroyed, more students and farm
owners would be killed, and more deaths would occur in a single city than from any other tornado in
U.S. history. Tornado Project
A massive tornado touched down on May 7, 1840 at least 20 miles southwest of Natchez, Mississippi,
and moved to the northeast. It hit the Mississippi River about 7 miles southwest of the city and moved
upriver, “stripping the forest from both shores”. This long track over water contributed to the high
death toll that stood at 317. Tornado Project
On May 27, 1896, a tornado, which was to be one of the deadliest in U.S. history, touched down about 6
miles west of the Eads Bridge in St. Louis. There were 255 people killed. Tornado Project
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On April 5, 1936, a tornado hit near Coffeeville, Yalobusha County, Mississippi. It killed some 216.
Tornado Project
On April 6, 1936, 203 were killed when a massive pair of tornadoes moved east-northeast through
downtown Gainesville, Georgia, at the start of the work day. Tornado Project
On April 9, 1947, a family of tornadoes moved northeast and north-northeast from northwest of Pampa
to near St. Leo, Kansas. They cut a historic path of destruction across three states and killed 181 people.
Tornado Project
On April 24, 1908, a tornadic event touched down near Weiss, in northwest Livingston Parish, Louisiana
and moved east-northeast. 143 were killed. Tornado Project
On June 12, 1899, a tornado originated as a rather spectacular waterspout on Lake St. Croix, about 5
miles south of Hudson, Wisconsin. The funnel moved to the northeast, east of Hudson, in the direction
of New Richmond. It turned deadly and killed 117
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