Missouri Floods 2011: Residents Urged To Evacuate As Army Considers Breaking Levee

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. -- Sheriff's officials in southeast Missouri are urging residents near the Birds Point Levee to clear out.

Law enforcement was busy Friday afternoon ordering the area's 200 residents to leave the flood plain while the Army Corps of Engineers weighs a decision to intentionally break the Mississippi River levee.

The move is aimed at reducing pressure on the flood wall protecting the upriver town of Cairo, Ill.

The land is sparsely populated, and many residents had already left as the corps began moving equipment into place to break the levee. That break is expected to send water over 130,000 acres of farmland.

The state of Missouri has fought the plan, but the corps says it's monitoring river levels and may not make a final decision on a break until the weekend.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A federal judge on Friday gave the Army Corps of Engineers the go-ahead to break a Mississippi River levee and flood Missouri farmland if the agency deems it necessary to spare a flood-threatened Illinois town upstream.

A day after hearing five hours of testimony over Missouri's bid to block any intentional levee break, U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr. found the corps' plan to breach the Birds Point levee appropriate to ensure navigation and flood-control along the still-rising Mississippi.

"This court finds that the corps is committed to implementing the (floodway) plan `only as absolutely essential to provide the authorized protection to all citizens,'" Limbaugh said in his ruling. "Furthermore, this court finds that no aspect of the corps' response to these historic floods suggests arbitrary or capricious decision-making is occurring."

The corps has proposed using explosives to blow a 2-mile-wide hole through the levee in southeast Missouri's Mississippi County, arguably to ease waters rising around the upstream town of Cairo, Ill., near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee all want the corps to move forward with the plan. Missouri had sought a temporary restraining order to block the detonation, and Attorney General Chris Koster immediately appealed Limbaugh's ruling to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.

Limbaugh already had voiced reluctance to get involved in the dispute, noting a 1984 federal appeals court ruling found that Congress had given the corps broad discretion in operating floodways such as the southeastern Missouri one – and that challenges of that authority were "largely unreviewable."

The corps halted its preparation for the levee break Thursday, saying it needed until the weekend to assess whether a sustained crest of the Ohio at Cairo would demand the extraordinary step.

The river's crest at the Cairo flood wall could reach 60.5 feet – a foot above its record high – as early as Sunday and stay that level before slowly retreating by Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service' office in Paducah, Ky. Cairo's wall protects the town up to 64 feet, but there's concern the lingering crest could put extra pressure on it and earthen levees protecting other parts of the city.

Jim Pogue, the region's Army Corps spokesman, said the agency remained "in a wait-and-see stage" Friday, with twin barges loaded with explosives still docked six hours downriver from the Bird's Point levee.

"We're hoping we can get a handle on this and sincerely hope we won't have to operate the floodway," he said. "Our intent is to make sure that if we have to move on to the next step (and breach the levee), everyone would have at least 24 hours' notice.

"We're just in a holding pattern right now. I can't speculate on when something might happen."

John McManus, an assistant Missouri attorney general, had argued in court Thursday that the break would unleash a torrent of water that would carve a channel through prime farmland, flood about 90 homes and displace 200 people. The rush of water also stood to cause an environmental catastrophe, sweeping away everything from fertilizer to diesel fuel, propane tanks, pesticides and other toxins, McManus and some of the four witnesses who testified for the state suggested.

Attorneys for the corps and the state of Illinois countered that the farmers already have land that's flooded and have been given ample notice to clear their properties of anything toxic. The state of Illinois and the town of Cairo argue the well-being of Cairo's 2,800 residents outweighs farmland that would be swallowed up by the rush.

Cairo Mayor Judson Childs welcomed Limbaugh's ruling Friday, but issued another call for the struggling city's residents to voluntarily clear out as earthen levees safeguarding it continued to show seepage. At least a couple hundred residents heeded Child's urging to leave earlier this week.

Limbaugh's decision "was the proper thing to do. You just don't select land over people's lives," Childs said after the ruling, for which he said he was "very appreciative, and the people of Cairo are grateful for it."

___

AP reporter Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

Comments

[Don Stalvino]

12:26 AM on 05/03/2011

The government has misplaced values. Productive farmland or an unproductive "town"?

[b525]

10:36 PM on 05/01/2011

Some of this flooding is actually good for riverside floodplains/marshes which have not received water for years because of upstream dams etc..

This lack of fresh water to river floodplains/marshes has devastated floodplain wildlife and fish along many of America's rivers.

Yearly spring flooding of the world's rivers and river valley floodplains is natural and healthy.... and has been the part of the cycle of life on earth for millions of years before man began hyper-engineering rivers with dams, dredging and levees.

Building upstream dams dries up river floodplains so we can build in them and then when we get a big flood it costs U.S. taxpayers BILLIONS to re-imburse people for their property losses, people who have built in what would have normally been a floodplain beneficial to wildlife and fishing.

[robodawa]

10:31 PM on 05/01/2011

I want those in need to get all the Federal help the government can give them. But what is Cape Giradeau's famous son Rush doing? Is he telling them this is great opportunity? To not take any of the dirty money from the feds? That only the weak take handouts? Where is Rush with his false prophecies? I want the Government to get in there and help. We are Americans and we help one another.

[Kenz300]

12:43 PM on 05/01/2011

We need to quit building in flood prone areas....

When flood insurance pays off the people that are flooded out that property needs to become part of the overall flood storage area for the future. It makes no sense to pay off a property more than once. If you get flooded out then let the insurance pay it off and move you to higher ground. It seems like we go thru the same issues every year. When will local governments move forward and create more flood storage areas?

[alvdh1]

12:15 PM on 05/01/2011

Where is the story about straightening meandering rivers and paving over the landscape with asphalt and concrete - which causes severe 20th and 21st century floods. Allowing development in flood plains is a prescription for economic and taxpayer disaster. Oxbow lakes were able to handle river overflows before the Army Corp. Of Engineers tried to outsmart mother nature by straightening meandering rivers.

[KarlaElisa]

10:56 PM on 05/01/2011

FANNED for speaking the truth!

Rivers should be left to go where rivers go and flood where rivers flood, PERIOD. There's benefits to flood plains actually being allowed to FLOOD. And nobody has the right to interrupt the waterways and remake them to suit themselves as if no other living creature depended upon that body of water but a human.

[alvdh1]

11:50 AM on 05/02/2011

You have spoken like a true naturalist. Untold habitats have been destroyed by the Army Corp. Of Engineers not to mention the fact that natural flooding improves soil fertility. Likewise, you are fanned for speaking the truth.

[alvdh1]

01:41 PM on 05/02/2011

Here is a book for you to read. I invited the author to come speak at an environmental history class offered at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He spent two days lecturing in every class I could get him invited into to speak about nuclear power. I also arranged for him to debate the head of the nuclear engineering department beofre over 500 hundred people. He was the Atomic Energy Commissions top researcher on the bilogical effects of ionizing radiation. He established the Biomedical Division of the Lawrence Livermore Lab on behalf of the AEC. He was given a $3 million per year research grant by the AEC from 1963 - 1969 to study the biological effects of ionizing radiation. He hired 150 research associates to assist him in the study. When he revealed to the AEC in 1969 that the radiation standards for nuclear workers were 30 times to high, he was ridiculed and blackballed in the industry. In 1970, the AEC cut his grant to $150,000. He layed everyone off and resigned his post at the end of the year. This man is not your typical scientist, but his credentials are impeccable. He is the uniquivocal father of the anit-nuclear movement - though he never, in his humble way, regarded himself as the father of the movement. His tireless efforts to educate the public never ceased until he died 3 years ago.

http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/JWGcv.html

http://www.ratical.com/radiation/CNR/PP/#TOC

[repugnicansfearme]

11:51 AM on 05/01/2011

Gobp legislators are pushing blowing it up- it will flood mostly black farmer's farmland. The Democratic governor is fighting to stop it.

[crparke]

11:01 AM on 05/01/2011

Wasn't there an episode of King of the Hill in which Hank was faced with this exact same predicament?

[devildoc68]

07:17 PM on 04/30/2011

There is an old Native American saying that goes something like this, 'Don't build your teepee on the side of a volcano or in a creekbed'. Think they had more sense that today's engineers who always feel they can ultimately control nature. Hasn't worked so far. I feel for the people but this land has a history of flooding and yet the dirt walls get built 'cause we are going to control nature'. Wish them all the best in this but don't look too great right now.

[KarlaElisa]

10:57 PM on 05/01/2011

I wish none of these people luck. I'm rooting for the river.

[ThinkCreeps]

06:19 PM on 04/30/2011

The provision of levees is socialism. Blow 'em up.

[TimtheEnchanted]

05:37 PM on 04/30/2011

Mark Twain said something like, 'men will never tame the Mississippi'.

[recasper]

04:51 PM on 04/30/2011

http://youtu.be/yQjqjhHAip0

PLEASE Watch... Please, this is not spam.... This has to be seen. This is the mentality of the wealthy politicians in the area related to this situation. Temporary shutdown of farmland in their eyes, are important than peoples lives, their livelihood and their homes. And in saying this they LAUGH about destroying the city. They LAUGH!

This is a perfect example of not only Missouri politicians but most of them.

[maxfax]

02:15 PM on 04/30/2011

Jim Pogue, the region's Army Corps spokesman, said the agency remained "in a wait-and-see stage" Friday, with twin barges loaded with explosives still docked six hours downriver from the Bird's Point levee.
"We're hoping we can get a handle on this and sincerely hope we won't have to operate the floodway," he said. "Our intent is to make sure that if we have to move on to the next step (and breach the levee), everyone would have at least 24 hours' notice.

 
Don't turn your backs.

[r shedd]

01:25 PM on 04/30/2011

please don't speak about something you clearly know NOTHING about

[maxfax]

02:17 PM on 04/30/2011

This is your fantasy. 

[Aries Warrior]

10:27 AM on 04/30/2011

Probably not a good idea to live in a flood plain.

[Hoodoo X]

10:48 AM on 04/30/2011

The rich soil is where a lot of food comes from.  Do you grow your own?

[LeFlaneur]

02:27 AM on 05/01/2011

He didn't say you shouldn't farm on it. Just don't live there.

[rjmtx]

10:11 AM on 05/01/2011

That's if it's allowed to flood. These levees and the channelization of rivers just increases out dependence on synthetic fertilizers and also increases runoff of said fertilizers into the river. We have thrown and monkey wrench i the nutrient cycle.

[Benmyoho]

09:53 AM on 04/30/2011

What a coincidence! This post basically confirms what the guy has spouted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDTcoUoeMmw&feature=autoshare

[Michael Little]

02:20 PM on 04/30/2011

Not much of a coincidence. The link you provided, though interesting, is just another conspiracy theory about the area. Everyone knows the fault runs the Mississippi and Ohio river corridor. The flooding has nothing to do with it and the explosives we'd use to blow the levy wouldn't affect it any.