United States: Historic flooding in St. Louis, Mo.
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Homes are surrounded by floodwater on Wednesday in Pacific, Mo. Flooding in the Midwest usually comes in the spring as snowmelt swells rivers.
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A 24-mile stretch of I-44 remains closed in Missouri, where the MS and Meramec rivers caused extreme flooding in towns near St. Louis.
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Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has added a total of 12 counties to the state disaster declaration for widespread flooding. The biggest problems came from the Meramec River – a tributary of the Mississippi River – which at points topped the record from the so-called Great Flood of 1993 by 4 feet.
The rare wintertime flooding was spurred by 10 inches of rain or more over a three-day period across a wide swath of Missouri and IL.
“This historic flooding event will continue to cause significant hazards and disruptions – from Missourians being forced from their homes, to businesses temporarily closing, to traffic congestion and impacts on interstate commerce due to the closure of a major trucking corridor”, Nixon said in a statement. The Meramec swamped major feeders, including Missouri routes 21, 30, 109 and 141, and many more smaller roads.
In Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, south of St. Louis, the MS was still rising but there was good news: The crest forecast for late Friday or early Saturday, once expected to be a record, was now expected to fall about 2 feet short of the 1993 mark.
The US Coast Guard issued a high water safety advisory on Thursday for more than 560 miles of the Lower Mississippi River from Caruthersville, Missouri, to near Natchez, Mississippi.
Records for water levels, though, were being broken along the Meramec River which empties into the Mississippi River.
All southbound lanes remain closed with high levels of water covering the road, according to the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Governor Jay Nixon pleaded with people to heed evacuation orders and stay off flooded roadways, after the body of a motorist who was swept off a road was recovered on Wednesday, December 30.
“It’s a waiting game now; wait for the waters to recede so that we can get in to access the severity of the damage to both plants”, he said. The Mississippi River was closed for a 5-mile stretch at St. Louis, idling barge traffic.
Amtrak has suspended traffic on a route that runs from Kansas City to St. Louis because of flooding in Missouri.
“We’re moving things up high and we’ve got our generators out and got some extra water”, said Dotty Kirkendoll, a clerk at Riverside Park Marina on McKellar Lake, which feeds off the Mississippi River. The Missouri stretches span from Jefferson City to St. Louis and St. Louis to De Soto; The Illinois stretches are from Mount Vernon to Percy and Springfield to Nelson. Scores of people have had to be rescued by boat – including one man plucked from the roof of his home as it floated away.
“Valley Park should start falling off pretty quickly, probably later today it should be falling off pretty rapidly”, he said, “and then Arnold will fall in behind it several hours later”.
The station is underwater; electricity has been cut off. They cleared out as much equipment as possible, but will have to wait for water to go down to assess damage.
However, water poured over sandbags at Valley Park’s sewage treatment plant, forcing its closure and allowing raw sewage to flow into the Meramec, just it has since Monday when another wastewater plant in nearby Fenton flooded. The El Nino weather phenomenon tends to disturb global weather patterns as ocean water temperatures rise above normal across the central and eastern Pacific, near the equator.
Further south, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency as the waters moved toward his state. Sandbags are holding back up to three feet of water, and he said the department is bringing in additional pumps to keep it back.
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