Posted on 04/27/2011 10:08:43 AM PDT by silentknight
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 ~ Updated 11:06 AM
By M.D. Kittle ~ Southeast Missourian
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this hour is setting up a joint information center in Sikeston, Mo., and has tentatively scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m., according to a corps spokeswoman, although the timing has yet to be confirmed. Officials at the headquarters could not be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, a barge loaded with explosives was making its way from Memphis, Tenn., to Charleston, Mo., destined for the Birds Point levee as the ash gray sky prepares to unleash more heavy rains and a big decision hangs in the balance.
The Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday postponed its decision on a proposal to blow a huge hole in the levee, just downriver of the confluence. The procedure was put in place years ago as a desperate bid to reduce the amount of water moving down the Mississippi River, taking pressure off a soddened Cairo, Ill.
Mary Statum, a spokeswoman for the Corps of Engineers Memphis District, could not comment on whether a decision on breaching the levy had been reached this morning. She said corps officials met with the multistate Mississippi River Commission for several hours Tuesday but came to no conclusion.
"We're not going to make a decision until we have to," she said Tuesday. "It's nothing we want to just jump into. You don't take it lightly. We decided we can wait a little longer."
In Cairo, and Alexander County, the water keeps rising, as the hectic pace of sandbagging continues and a voluntary evacuation remains in effect.
Alexander County Sheriff's Department dispatcher Sheila Dodson said the worst of the flooding is hitting the small community of Olive Branch. The heavy rains forecast for today, Dodson said, will only add "insult to injury" to a water-logged county.
The Mississippi is expected to crest at Cape Girardeau on Friday about four feet lower than the record-setting amount in 1993. At Cairo, Ill., not too far from Birds Point, the Ohio is expected to set a record Friday, and it is already 17 feet above flood stage. Forecasts call for the river to rise by another four feet by Friday.
Look for updates at semissourian.com, and in Thursday's Southeast Missourian.
During this flooding season? Are they crazy? Would be rather easy to lose control, wouldn’t it?
Presonally, I'm expecting a new lake, fed and drained by the Mississippi, named Lake Oh Shi...
Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn’t it be safer to simply bleed the levies along both sides of the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers? Some large pipes installed at five kilometer intervals near the top and slanting down the slope could do the job. I’m no engineer, but that’s really the first thought that occurred to me, after seeing that this wasn’t another crazed Mennonite caught by Homeland Security.
Seems like a fair question. The only reason I can figure is that the way the some levees are constructed, flooding on the 'dry' side can weaken them by an unknown amount, requiring that they be dismantled and rebuilt. Arguably, dynamiting them and letting the water carry them away would reduce the amount of work required to dismantle them. Plausible theory, except that dismantling levies and keeping the material on hand to rebuild would seem easier than rebuilding the levies with material from elsewhere.
Even if the sole loss caused by the flooding of farmland is the inability to plant and harvest one year's crop, that would be millions of dollars. How much cash money would one have to offer every inhabitant of Cairo for them to decide moving wasn't so bad?
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