Floods still pose threat, despite receding waters

Chicago Tribune

FOLEY, Mo. — John Young thought he made the real estate deal of his life in 1993 when he bought a flood-damaged, three-bedroom house in this Mississippi River town for just $3,000. Like his neighbors, Young found the bargain because he figured the river would not in hundreds of years ever flood so badly again.

But as Young watched the raging river march into his backyard Friday, he couldn’t quite believe how his luck had changed.

“They told us in 1993 that was a 500-year-flood,” Young said, unable to contain his bitterness. “Well, it’s only 15 years later, and here we are again.”

Flooding continued to rip apart small towns along the Mississippi River Friday. As urban areas were spared — the flood highs in St. Louis were some 10 feet below expected near-record levels — little communities took a bashing.

Some were protected by levees that were simply not designed to hold back such high waters and couldn’t resist the river. Others had no protection at all and saw the Mississippi surge into their properties.

Here in Lincoln County, where three levees were overrun on Thursday and one on Friday, others were barely holding, with officials predicting three more levees could falter by the weekend. Some 300 people were evacuated in this river region north of St. Louis as residents watched flood waters surge higher and higher.

“We’ve got water topping the levees all up and down (the county),” said Kelly Hardcastle, the county’s director of emergency management. “It looks like a waterfall.”

Overnight rains made the misery worse and more storms were expected this weekend. But they are not expected to add a significant amount of water to the already swollen river.

With at least 25 levees breaking in recent days along either side of the river in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, the flood of 2008 continues to threaten further havoc despite government forecasts that show the risk of more flooding is dropping.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt said Friday that the high number of levee breaches shows that the federal government should soon survey the nation’s levees to find out what can be done to provide better flood protection.

He said the biggest problem seems to be with dirt levees built privately and by communities to protect farmland.

Down the block from where Young lives, Andy Watson, a roofer, is now living — appropriately enough — on his roof. For the past few days, Watson has kept a lonely vigil, watching for would-be looters drawn by news accounts of communities that have cleared out in front of the cresting Mississippi.

“You know how thieves are,” Watson said during a tour of his makeshift living quarters located about 10 feet above the ground. “Once the water starts going down, you guys aren’t going to be here and the National Guard will go home. That’s when they come to get you.”

Like several of their neighbors, Watson and Young were drawn to this tiny village of less than 200 people when property values plummeted in the wake of the 1993 floods.

It’s low ground, on the wrong side of the railroad tracks, but they figured it had been flood-proofed, in a sense, by the 1993 floods

Young, 49, lives in the house with his wife and five other relatives, ages 4 to 82. They rented a storage locker and moved their belongings out three days ago. He came home Friday after hearing that the Mississippi, usually about two miles away, had pushed two feet of water into his neighborhood.

“My kids hope FEMA buys us out so we never get flooded again,” said Young, referring to the government’s policy of buying some properties in flood-prone areas to avoid generating more grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Four miles south, residents of Winfield were wondering Friday when the water would reach their homes. Sally Collier sat on the banks of a drainage ditch and marveled at how her bait shop was rapidly engulfed by the waters Thursday while her home less than a mile away has largely escaped harm. It has just a few inches of water in the basement.

“It was unbelievable how fast it came in,” said Collier, 50, who watched the waters cross a half mile of farmland in less than 90 minutes.

Collier, who opened the R&S Bait Shop with her husband three years ago, said she can only think of one upside to the flood.

“We won’t have trouble telling people where to fish this year — anywhere,” she said, generating hearty laughs from the neighbors surrounding her.