Louis area faces big cleanup effort after flooding

The Mississippi River and many of its tributaries continued their retreat Sunday from historic and deadly winter flooding, leaving amid the silt a massive cleanup and recovery effort likely to take weeks, if not months.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has toured communities in his state ravaged by flooding that killed at least 31 people and forced the evacuations of thousands in the MS and OH river regions, as the danger of rising waters shifted to Arkansas and other states further down river.

There was some relief, however, in the St. Louis area of Missouri, where flooding was at last receding. The clouds have long cleared out, and no more rain is expected in the Mississippi River basin until late next week.

Gov. Nixon said Missouri Guardsmen will continue to provide vital support to local law enforcement and the Missouri State Highway Patrol, since he activated the Guard on December 29.

Nine people have died in the state of Illinois so far, and a dozen counties have been declared disaster areas, Reuters quoted Illinois Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Patti Thompson as saying. Some houses like this one are still flooded, although water from the Mississippi, Meremec and Missouri rivers was larg…

“Hundreds of families have been requested to evacuate”, Rauner said after a closed briefing with county and state authorities at an Alexander County command center in Olive Branch.

As the runoff from the deluges that hit around Christmas gathered in rivers that empty into the Mississippi River, downstream gauges are predicting potential flooding for areas in southern Missouri and Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Statewide, Rauner said, 10 people lost their lives as a result of last week’s floods: five in Marion County, four in Christian County and one Department of Corrections officer who worked in Dwight.

The main culprit in the St. Louis region was the Meramac River, a relatively small MS tributary. The Kaskaskia River there topped the previous record by more than 5 feet.

But the Illinois River north of St. Louis is still rising.

Noelle Pace said she packed up electronics, some furniture and her 4-year-old son’s clothing and toys and left Pacific on Monday, the day after she received a nonmandatory notice to evacuate.

“Everybody around us had catastrophic damage”, Pace said.

The river is expected to reach major flood stage from Arkansas City, Arkansas, to Natchez, Mississippi, the NWS said. She said she might not be able to move back for weeks while her landlord replaces soaked insulation. The Mississippi River was expected to crest there Saturday at about 3½ feet below the 1993 record.

Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, and Illinois Emergency Management Agency Director James Joseph about flooding in Villa Grove on Sunday at the Villa Grove fire station.

Fifteen of the deaths were in Missouri and seven in IL.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from towns in eastern Missouri, including Pacific and Eureka, as homes took on water.

St. Louis-area cleanup largely was focused around the Meramec. Nearby levee breaks in other places kept the crest down.

While Rauner said the state doesn’t have dedicated financial resources to help those affected by floods – “It has nothing to do with the budget; we just have never had that in Illinois” – he vowed that the state will work with homeowners to help them get reimbursed by their insurance companies.

Signs that flood waters were headed south began to emerge as the National Weather Service issued a major flooding designation on Saturday for Osceola, Arkansas, where the Mississippi River reached above 10.7m, well above the 8.5m flood stage. Minor flooding along the Ohio River affects Owensboro and Paducah, Kentucky, and the crest isn’t expected until Thursday.