Posted on 04/30/2011 6:06:50 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Tiny downstate Cairo, already battling the still-rising Ohio and Mississippi rivers, has been drawn into a controversial flood-relief plan that could put thousands of acres of farmland in neighboring Missouri under water.
The plan calls for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to burst a Mississippi River levee to provide relief to little Cairo, population 2,800, as well as relief for a series of pumping stations, flood walls and levees.
But the relief action will trigger flooding in southeastern Missouri, as opening the levee will allow water to flow over some 130,000 acres of Missouri land, mostly farms.
The state of Missouri had sued the Army Corps of Engineers — charged with flood control along the lower Mississippi River. But on Friday, a federal court judge backed the Army Corps plan.
And on Saturday, a federal appeals court rejected Missouri’s appeal, upholding the ruling.
“If we open the levee, it would allow us to release the water, and that would have the effect of lessening the pressure on the flood protection system in that part of the country,” said Jim Pogue, a spokesman with the Army Corps of Engineers.
“We would expect that would drop the water by three to four — up to as much as seven feet. It could drop the pressure on the system by as much as a quarter,” Pogue added,.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) toured the area on Friday, and already the flood waters had reached the front doors of residents’ homes in Cairo, a spokeswoman for Durbin said.
On Saturday morning, the river was up to 59.2 feet, and forecast to hit 60.5 feet by Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
Cairo Mayor Judson Childs said Saturday afternoon that he’s called for voluntary evacuation of his city, which is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers — both swelled from the heavy rains. But the mayor steered clear of the controversy pitting his town against Missouri.
“It’s voluntary now,” he said of his call for his residents to evacuate. “But as I keep telling everyone, in the next 20 minutes I could mandate it. This is my home too, and my main concern is the safety of the citizens of Cairo.”
St. Louis, Missouri is bad enough but for real slums East St. Louis, Illinois has St. Louis, Missouri beat hands down.
Cairo is a perfect example of a dying town. Racial unrest in the 60s & 70s drove nearly all of the businesses and jobs away. When you drive through town you mostly see boarded up businesses. Recently the town has suffered a string of arsons. There are lots of beautiful mansions that have no value—no one who has any choice wants to live there.
I believe that any dispute between Missouri and Illinois over what the Corps of Engineers will do is bound to favor Illinois—after all, where is this administration from? That said the people of Cairo (pronounced care-o around here) both black and white are human beings who could very well lose their homes and belongings if the Corps doesn’t blow the levees in Missouri.
In addition, there is apparently a lot of toxic waste/pollution in Cairo that an inundation of the town would spread far down stream.
The farmer I heard on the radio yesterday said it would take a really long time before the soil could be farmed again. And he said it was wrong that their farms and lives would be destroyed because of Illinois’ negligence.
It is not black dirt that would inundate the area. The farm land would be filled with sand and debris... it would take decades to recoup from the damage, and some think the land would never be used for farming again.
The land has been farmed for generations.
I'm on the farmers' side.
I have been following this for a week. Search Birds Point Levee for an interesting history.
First post. Long-time lurker and contributor.
Now that makes sense.
Might take out Paducah and Cairo, and could provide enough extra flow to back up the Mississippi enough so it overtops the levees in Missouri.
The problem with blowing up levees is that defeats the earlier comprehensive designs. No one knows what is going to happen but if it endangers Indiana I don't want you doing it, ya hear?!
The Corps of Engineers will need national guards troops armed and ready to fire back if they go ahead with this. There has been gunfire in the past during Mississippi flooding as both sides tried to breach levies on the other side to protect their homes and farmland, and if I were a Misssouri farmer looking at some fellows planting charges on a levy on my side of the river to flood my land I’d drop them in a second. And no Missouri jury would convict me.
That is a matter of opinion.
The Missouri National Guard is closing off all roads leading into into the area that will be flooded if/when the Corps decides to blow the levees. So a Missouri jury might well convict someone of shooting a Missouri guardsman.
Cairo is being evacuated right now. Everyone is to be out of town by midnight. The problem now is “sand boils” . This water that is being forced by pressure under the levees to “dry” side. Apparently there are several very large ones boiling up in several places and they can’t be controlled.
And we are getting more rain...up to 4 more inches in Cape Girardeau over the next couple of days.
I don’t know the area well, but drive thru every couple of months on I-55 heading to or back from the south. Strikes me that the land on the west side of the river is far more productive. Rather than flood hundreds of thousands of acres of productive farm land in this day of soaring food prices, wouldn’t it make more sense to evacuate Cairo and let nature take it’s course? If it does flood the little town and some surrounding acreage, then we can flood the area with FEMA bucks after the deluge is past and rebuild Cairo (this time a bit higher, please).
Anyway, my prayers go out to folks on both sides of the river. If the rains continue and the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri all continue to swell, they may well all be underwater in a week or so anyway.
I have two sisters and a sister-in-law and their families who live in the small town of Morehouse, in New Madrid County and my mother in Miner, Missouri (Near Sikeston) who have already evacuated from their homes. Morehouse is about 40 miles west of the Mississippi. The Mississippi is not their primary problem but ordinarily calm and small Little River, which runs through Morehouse and is now a very full and very large river flooding the entire town. Plus the Wahite, about 2 miles west of the town is over it's levees
I was born and raised there and in all my 65 years there's never been a flood there.
I can't imagine what Diversion Channel in Cape looks like, it backs up on a some what regular basis anyway. Scott City, Benton and all points south of Cape are in danger too, all those small streams and rivers dumping in the Mississippi have no place to go.
You are right, the Missouri side is prosperous/productive than the Illinois side. And starting Cairo anew, might well be the best thing that could that could happen to it. The hundreds of people being forced to leave their homes from the floodway will likely loose everything if the levees are blown.
The Mississippi is nearly as high as it was in ‘93 and that was a record. But this year the Ohio is also at flood stage. Cairo may well be doomed, whether or not the levees are blown.
I’ll confess, I don’t know how “political” the Corps of Engineers is. But I’d like to think that the decision that they make will not be based on the victims politics.
I haven’t been down to see the Diversion Channel, but Dutchtown is battling to stay dry, so I imagine there are now large lakes in the area. (thirty years ago, I saw a sailboat sailing over a flooded field).
Moorehouse is getting wet. Apparently MODOT made a makeshift levee on a highway to keep it open and that caused the water to flood Moorehouse.
The river is so high that it is backing up into the little creeks and steams that feed into it, causing flooding away from the river where you might not expect it.
The COE is plenty political. Just do some snooping into the hows/whys/wheres of the COE in New Orleans prior to Katrina and you’ll see for yourself.
Cario is a mini New Orleans, it sits in a flood prone bowl, it is also a social cesspool hardly worth saving at any cost.
Man proposes, but nature disposes. Puny man thinks he can control the actions of rivers like the Mississippi, which is a fool’s course of action, for the river will win out in the end.
I seldom (as in hardly ever) hear a discussion of the disaster waiting to happen at the Little River Control Structures. They damn near lost the whole shebang during the big 1973 flood, so they built the Old River Auxiliary Control Structure. But, for all the construction, higher and higher levees, the Mississippi will one day surely breach at Old River. Divert, and cascade down the Atchafalaya River and into the Atchafalaya flood plain as it has done at least twice in recorded history.
And the result of the entire Mississippi River channelization for flood control has been, the subsidence of now settled former natural wetlands, making them ever more prone to flooding when (not if) the river levees fail. Not to mention the loss of Louisiana coastline, which has receded several thousand feet in just the past few decades.
But, I am just an old fart with a eighth grade education, so what do I know.
“if the Corps doesn’t blow the levees in Missouri.”
Historically the Corp has been wrong in every disaster situation involving the Mississippi River.
“I’ll confess, I don’t know how “political” the Corps of Engineers is. But I’d like to think that the decision that they make will not be based on the victims politics.”
They don’t call them the Whore of Engineers for nothing. Why do you think they have projects in just about every Congressional district of any importance to their budget. Their motto should be incompetence is a way of life.
I was born and raised down in the Bootheel which was once the catch basin (AKA an uninhabitable swamp) for the Little River drainage.
More than a few people don’t know the Little River Drainage District project during early part of the 20th century was of massive proportions. More soil was dug and displaced than during construction of the Panama Canal. The hundreds of miles of smaller drainage ditches and levees cumulated in five or six large pararell ditches known as the Floodways, in which I did a lot of fishing as a kid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAKQIB2cYbM
The Floodways then drain into Big Lake AR. This video shows what all of the Bootheel country once looked like before the Little River Drainage District Project.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKuvIyc2PK0
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