[gorush]

I’m going to build a levee but I reserve the right to blow it up when I see fit....would you sign right here?

[basil]

I sure wish there were some way to divert that water to the Colorado River in Texas—we’re drying up around here—all our rivers and lakes are way down—at least that is the case Deep in the Heart of Texas—around the Austin-San Antonio area.

[basil]

I sure wish there were some way to divert that water to the Colorado River in Texas—we’re drying up around here—all our rivers and lakes are way down—at least that is the case Deep in the Heart of Texas—around the Austin-San Antonio area.

[Truth29]

Sounds like a states rights’ issue. There are 700 Missouri guard already on duty nearby. Maybe they should have a conversation with the COE.

[TheBattman]

Rob Peter to pay Paul?

Seriously - the flooding is a tragedy - but how come the Corps gets to play god? They built the levy to protect people and their property... so now they are going to pick and choose who’s property they protect?

[TheBattman]

The plan calls for engineers to use explosives to breach the Birds Point-New Madrid levee, flooding 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland that has been designated as a flood plain.

is Cairo, IL not "in a floodplain"? Oh- wait... ILLINOIS...

2008- Missouri went for McCain, Illinois went for Obummer...

[TheBattman]

Sutton said her family has traditionally made its living farming, but "when it comes over people's lives to farmland, I say save the lives."

BS - in the time it has taken to put this plan together, and will take to implement - the orderly and complete evacuation of the town of Cairo could be carried out. This isn't about lives. It is about playing god with people's live, livelihood, and property. Cairo, Illinois is more important than most of Mississippi County, Missouri (at least one would be led to believe).

[Just another Joe]

Missouri ping

Low volume ping list

FReepmail me to be on, or off, this list.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The city of Kayro has 700 of Eric Holder's people.

The farmer's whose land would be flooded are not Eric Holder's people.

Coincidence?

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Cairo is an Obama welfare village. They call it a city. The population is 2,831 with 62% black, 35 percent with unmarried female heads of household, and an average household income of $21,000. Can you say Obama voters. There probably are more farmers and workers who will get flooded out in Missouri than there are people in Cairo, but they are Red state voters. It would be cheaper to let Cario be washed off the map than to have Missouri lose this season's farm produce.

[PAR35]

If I was governor, I’d at least send out the State troopers. It was a mistake to turn to the courts.

The best bet at this point might be to steal a march on the enemy, and blow the Illinois levees.

[Rome2000]

They want to blow the levee, they have to agree to the damages to be paid in advance.

This bullshit of we flood your land and then we'll pay you whatever the hell we feel like is not Constitutional.

[urtax$@work]

Interesting dilemma, but that crop land has probably been paid back by previous floods not occurring because of same levee. Was this town flooding a known or unknown when levee was first designed and built !+? Is/has town expanded into
flood plain in recent years?

Our town had flood control applied to a scenic creek area that
had flooded before. NO guarantee of preventing ALL future floods - but new apartments built right down almost to edge
of new creek.....mistake.

[lacrew]

This is being presented as a ‘land vs lives’ decision. There are several things wrong with this argument...but I’ll concentrate on one:

They have already evacuated 280 people from the Missouri side...and are asking another 600 to leave.

Cairo has a population of 2,800....it looks like at least 280 people in Missouri will lose their homes (perhaps 880, but I’m not sure).

So its not ‘land vs lives’. Its ‘these people are greater in number, so you draw the short straw today’.

This type of logic can take a long trip down a slippery slope....and frankly it is frightening.

Also, the article is not very clear; but I think it states the Cairo wall is 64 ft, while the river is expected to crest at 61. It should be tall enough....but apparently they are not confident it will actually hold. Whose fault is that?

I remember in 1993, there was alot of debate over whether or not the levee system caused more damage than it prevented, because those not protected by it were subjected to higher flood waters (caused by constraint between levees). I am a strong proponent of levees, and don’t agree with this line of thinking....but are there actually people at the COE who are making the case that levees actually CAUSE problems? This case seems to indicate that.

If the COE is going to start bean counting and playing favorites, I think they should look at productivity. How much federal income tax was derived from the Missouri side, vs Cairo...who wants to bet Cairo’s is a negative number. Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the fields and destroy

Alas, I hope those barges loaded with explosives don’t simultaneously blow the Missouri levee, and send a wave which destrpys the Cairo side.

[Lion Den Dan]

It is an outrage to consider destroying all those productive agricultural Missouri acres (R) to save that cesspool known as Cairo, Ill (D). If there is anything in Cairo worth saving, give a prize to anyone who can show it.

[Talisker]

The place they want to blow the levee is in the center of the New Madrid fault. It's not that the explosives themselves could trigger an earthquake (I think...) but that it would release an enormous amount of very, very heavy water, which just might be enough to trigger a quake.

It's hard to think about that area of the country as being in earthquake danger, but it is. The last times the New Madrid went off, it changed the course of the MIssissippi River - and that was in the early, and then again late, 1800's when almost no one lived there (and certainly when there was no significant architectural buildup).

If it goes now, though, it would be... like... really bad, dude. From Wikipedia: In a report filed in November 2008, The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that a serious earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone could result in "the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States," further predicting "widespread and catastrophic" damage across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and particularly Tennessee, where a 7.7 magnitude quake or greater would cause damage to tens of thousands of structures affecting water distribution, transportation systems, and other vital infrastructure.