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Midwest Tries To Stem Flood

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By KARI LYDERSEN and WILLIAM BRANIGIN

The Washington Post

Published: June 18, 2008

GULFPORT, Ill. - Floodwaters that wreaked havoc along Illinois and Iowa rivers poured into the Mississippi on Tuesday, creating a torrent of water that threatens to spread the misery to historic riverside towns on the way to St. Louis and beyond.

A levee burst in Gulfport, flooding thousands of acres of the country's most fertile farmland, swamping the downtown, and forcing the closure of highways, rail lines and bridges across the Mississippi.

More than a dozen people were rescued by helicopter, boat and four-wheeler. Among those saved was a motorist who was stranded on top of his car amid the rising waters.

The flooding halted car travel over two bridges linking Illinois and Iowa and threatened to cover areas near tiny Gulfport with 10 feet of water.

"I'm not going back after this one," 83-year-old Lois Russell said as she watched water surround her house near Gulfport. It was the third time she had fled her home because of flooding since 1965.

"It was a good place to raise my seven kids," she said, crying. "I know I haven't lost anything that feels important because I have a big family."

The river was expected to crest overnight in Gulfport, as hundreds of volunteers in towns farther downstream desperately laid sandbags and built berms in hopes of staving off the water.

"Hopefully, it'll hold," said Lloyd Wellington, 60, in nearby Gladstone, Ill., as volunteers sped around him on all-terrain vehicles, transporting sandbags filled by National Guardsmen outside a carwash.

The rising water forced the closure of the Mississippi bridge in Burlington and stopped car traffic on the bridge in Fort Madison.

The National Weather Service predicted that the river would reach levels near previous catastrophic floods. The river at Canton, Mo., could reach 27.7 feet on Thursday, more than 13 feet above flood stage.

Crests at Quincy, Ill., are expected to climb to about 15 feet above flood stage. In Hannibal, Mo., the river is projected to crest at 31.8 feet.

And in St. Louis, the Mississippi is projected to crest Saturday at 39.8 feet, about 10 feet above flood stage.

In Washington, President Bush promised to speed federal disaster relief to flood-ravaged Midwestern communities and said he plans to visit Iowa Thursday to meet with state and local officials.

"The first task at hand is to deal with the floodwaters, to anticipate where the flooding may next occur and to work with the state and local authorities to deal with their response," Bush said. "Now that the water is beginning to recede, the question is, how do we help with the recovery?"

But, as the water retreated in parts of central Iowa, it inexorably rose along the Mississippi, swelled by floodwaters from its tributaries.

The federal government fears that the river could overflow 27 levees along the Mississippi if forecasts are accurate and a major sandbagging effort does not raise the levees sufficiently. Workers were busy placing millions of sandbags atop levees in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.

In Keokuk, Iowa, near the Missouri border, Iowa Homeland Security spokesman Brett Voorhees said officials and local volunteers were gearing up. "It will be a challenge but the good news is, not as much as a challenge as we've already faced in Cedar Rapids," he said.

Preliminary estimates were that the flooding has caused more than $1.5 billion in damage in Iowa, and that figure will undoubtedly rise as the high water moves downstream.

The Mississippi has been closed to commercial traffic for an almost 300-mile stretch for more than five days since record river levels overwhelmed locks.

River- and lake-related tourism has been halted, a severe blow for towns that rely primarily on farming and tourism to survive.

Russell was surrounded by four generations of family as she watched floodwaters cover her hundreds of acres of cornfields and soybean fields near Gulfport.

Old cornstalks bobbed in the water as it rose several inches a minute on the road where Russell stood, a road that normally would have led to her house over a mile away.

"That's it for this summer," she said. "I had just installed an irrigation system under one of those fields; it was not even used. I guess I won't need it now."

The loss of crops across the Midwest has helped push corn prices to record highs in the past seven days.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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