By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER, AP and Reuters
June 19, 2008
GULFPORT, Ill. - The swollen Mississippi River broke through two more levees yesterday in Illinois, and the federal government warned that 20 to 30 more of the earthen dams may overflow.
The new breaches about 45 miles south of Gulfport flooded farmland near the hamlet of Meyer, a community of 40 to 50 people.
PHOTO GALLERY: Mississippi River Flooding
Meyer had been evacuated late Tuesday and authorities patrolled the town yesterday to make sure nobody was left behind, local emergency-response spokeswoman Julie Shepard said. Flooding there could swamp 47 square miles.
Officials monitored levees in other Mississippi River towns in Illinois and Missouri in hopes that they would hold.
Twenty levees already have overflowed this week, the Army Corps of Engineers said. The others could overflow if sandbagging efforts fail to raise the levees' levels.
The levees in danger protect rural, industrial and agricultural areas - not heavily populated towns. Levees protecting large towns are not as at risk of overflowing, officials said.
Early yesterday, floodwaters began overtopping levees between Hannibal, Mo., and Quincy, Ill.
Authorities rescued people by helicopter, boat and four-wheeler Tuesday after the river broke through a levee in Gulfport.
Lois Russell was among those who watched her house inundated. "What else am I going to do? Where else am I going to go?" said Russell, 83, who had lived in the farmhouse for 57 years.
The Mississippi is also expected to threaten a host of other communities, leading officials to consider evacuation plans and begin sandbagging.
In Clarksville, Mo. - a historic artists' town of 500 between St. Louis and Hannibal - National Guard members, inmates and students were sandbagging. Five blocks were already swamped.
"We fix one thing and it breaks," Mayor Jo Anne Smiley said. "Sewers are plugged up. We have leaks in walls and people who need things. We're boating in food to people."
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill negotiated privately yesterday over how much money to add to President Bush's informal $1.8 billion request for flood relief. Bush requested funding for the government's main disaster relief fund, as well as help for farmers and small businesses.
The prospects of flood-damaged crops have already jolted commodity markets, food producers and exporters. Chicago Board of Trade corn prices traded yesterday at a record $8.07 a bushel.
Copyright Reuters.
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