Levees are possible cause of more-frequent flooding

Associated Press

ST. LOUIS

The Mississippi River floods more often than it used to, and at higher levels. Richard Knaup thinks he knows why.

The veteran emergency management director for southeast Missouri’s Cape Girardeau County is fighting floods again, just as he did last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

“Prior to levee building, the river was a wild thing and it spread out between the river bluffs,” Knaup said Monday. “Now we’ve tried to tame it. Mother Nature and Old Man River will fight back.”

The rains that caused this winter’s flood, blamed already for 25 deaths and damage to hundreds of homes and businesses, ended a week ago, but the water was still rising Monday in southern Missouri and Illinois.