Missouri River
Floodwaters still remain across northwest and central Missouri, leading residents to remove valuables from their homes and fill sandbags to protect river communities. Near-record flooding that inundated the Village of Big Lake broke more levees, and water levels were expected to peak soon. In other areas, however, the danger appeared to be passing.
The Missouri River had dropped a few inches near Craig, where inmates from a St. Joseph prison and National Guard members were sandbagging, trying to protect the water treatment plant, schools and an ethanol plant.
Dozens of levees have been topped or breached since thunderstorms raised rivers and generated tornadoes that claimed 12 lives in Kansas. No serious injuries or deaths had been reported in the flooding.
Big Lake suffered some of the worst damage in flooding, 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.
Statewide, the flooding has led to the evacuation of several hundred people, including some residents of Levasy and Hardin, where the 1993 flood surge toppled headstones and unearthed hundreds of caskets.
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.
Rain 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, the normally empty Little Proctor Creek filled with 4 to 6 feet of water in 20 minutes.
May 11, 2007 6:43 AM | Category: Flood