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Troops Lose Fight With Rising River

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The New York Times

Published: June 29, 2008

WINFIELD, Mo. - WINFIELD, Mo. - First the National Guard soldiers stacked the Pin Oak levee with sandbags, raising it by as much as 4 feet.

Then they toiled to repair damage from the pounding river, dumping dirt where the water boiled through, sandbagging around leaks and propping up sections so saturated that the earth slid down, sometimes in sections hundreds of feet long.

When the levee finally gave way Friday and water surged toward this town, they refused to surrender the fight, feverishly building a new sand-filled barricade around about 100 homes in east Winfield.

But the round-the-clock battle to save the homes from the Mississippi River's onslaught ended before dawn Saturday, when water found its way underneath the barrier, first seeping in, then pushing over a portion of the wall and pouring over the top. By midmorning, the homes that soldiers had worked so hard to save looked to be standing in a lake.

Residents and soldiers stood quietly as they watched the river rise.

"This is the grand finale here," said Bob Foust, 57, who thought the water would reach 2 or 3 feet in his home. He dreaded breaking the news to his wife, still asleep at the friend's home.

"I figured it was a long shot," said Jan Fox, 50, who finally left her mobile home Friday night when her power went out. She called the show of support overwhelming.

"It was wonderful, all the people who came, the sandbaggers, the military," she said.

Some residents looked stricken, others simply exhausted as they realized that their fears had been realized: an unknown amount of time outside of their homes and the foreboding task of cleaning up whatever the river left. But even as they looked out over their flooded homes, people here expressed deep thanks for what they described as heroic efforts by the soldiers.

"I think they're more heartbroken than the actual victims," Foust said. "They tried so hard."

"It was a valiant effort," said Chris Azar of the Winfield-Foley Fire Department. "It's unfortunate that we couldn't do more, but Mother Nature won. Now, just give it time for the water to recede."

By the time the final barrier broke, most of the soldiers had been working for about 24 hours, officials said, refusing to take the three-hour naps their commander offered. For days before that, they had labored feverishly on the Pin Oak levee. When the river finally beat them, some broke down.

"I've seen more men cry in these last nine or 11 days than I've ever seen cry in my lifetime," Col. Michele Melton of the Missouri National Guard said both of devastated residents and soldiers.

At least their efforts gave people several more days in their homes, she said.

The barricade failed, officials said, because they built part of it on earth instead of on asphalt in an effort to ring in a pocket of four homes. It was primarily made from 4-foot-tall wire mesh, lined baskets known as Hesco barriers, and 4 feet of sandbags were stacked on top. But water began seeping below and through around midnight, and it was clear in the hours before sunrise it was not going to hold.

At least 60 homes in the cluster were flooded.

Lincoln County emergency operations spokesman Andy Binder said 92 homes have been destroyed and 36 others have major damage; 650 can't be evaluated because they remain inaccessible.

"We'll learn lessons from this, it's the military way," said Col. Wendul G. Hagler II, joint chief of staff with the Missouri National Guard.

"It was a fight worth fighting," he said, "win or lose."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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