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River's Crest Will Test Weak Levee

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The Associated Press

Published: June 25, 2008

WINFIELD, Mo. - The weakest spot left along the swollen Mississippi River may be the Pin Oak levee, a barrier so tenuous that soil slides down its slope.

Only National Guard soldiers and firefighters in life vests are allowed to stack sandbags, because volunteers and heavy equipment could sink. A muskrat recently created a geyser of water by digging into the berm.

But the earthen levee is all that's still protecting 100 houses, a city park, several businesses and 3,000 acres of agricultural land in east Winfield, one of the last towns where the upper Mississippi is expected to crest.

For days, emergency management officials in Lincoln County have focused on the 2 1/2 -mile-long levee about 45 miles northwest of St. Louis. A storm with thunder and lightning on Tuesday was only the latest impediment to the desperate attempts to shore up the Pin Oak.

While levees in the nearby communities of Elsberry and Old Monroe held strong, an urgent call went out this week for volunteers to fill up to 50,000 sandbags here.

The Mississippi was expected to finally crest at Winfield sometime late today, and to flow at its high-water mark - more than 11 feet above flood stage - for several more days. A disturbance as minor as a passing boat could lead to disaster.

Several miles down the river, the Elm Point levee in St. Charles succumbed early Tuesday. But the breach there swamped only a soccer field and a sod farm, and St. Charles Assistant Fire Chief Rich Oney said residents of a nearby mobile home park would likely stay dry. The flooding from the Elm Point levee break would come close to only two homes, he said, and the residents of both were staying put.

Thirty-five levees had overtopped during the Midwest flooding, and seven of them had been federally designed and constructed, Ed Hecker, chief of the office of homeland security for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Tuesday. He said the nation's levee system was not designed to hold back such extraordinarily high flood waters, particularly in rural communities such as Lincoln County.

The river continued to recede Tuesday from the Iowa line down through the lock and dam at Saverton, about 90 miles north of St. Louis. The river had dropped a foot Tuesday morning at Canton after a Sunday crest of 13 feet above flood stage.

Rain in the St. Louis area Tuesday was not expected to have any effect on the river level. But forecasters were nervous about storms expected to hit northeast Missouri and central Iowa today and Thursday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Fuchs.

Pending the rains, the weather service said the river wouldn't begin to recede at St. Louis - where there is flooding, but none significant - until Thursday night. Forecasters said the last point on the river to finish cresting would be near Chester, Ill., about 80 miles south of St. Louis, sometime Friday.

Also Tuesday, the governors of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin asked President Bush to allow the federal government to cover 90 percent of disaster-related costs incurred by state and local governments. The federal government usually covers 75 percent of costs after Bush declares a disaster.

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