Flooding Spoils Weekend Fun on the Mississippi

High, fast water that shut down commercial traffic on more than 500 miles of the Mississippi River idled weekend boaters and swimmers as well.

“The potential for disaster is real high,” said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Jeff Van Reese in St. Paul, Minn. “If you’ve got a life jacket, it’s not going to matter. This current’s going to pull you under a barge or something.”

Equally dangerous, he said, is the fast-flowing debris: Everything from tree limbs to picnic tables to dead deer are being carried along the swollen waterway.

“I don’t know of anybody who would go out there,” said Bob Bochmore, who said business was up at an inland lake where he rents boats.

Unusual June flooding forced the closure of most of the locks that permit navigation on the Mississippi River from St. Louis upstream to St. Paul.

More than 50 towboats and an unknown number of barges were stranded when rising water forced locks to shut down on Friday, mostly because water was rising toward the level of electrical equipment.

Coal, grain, farm chemicals and fertilizers are the major commodities carried by barge along the river. Coal-burning power plants along the upper river have large stockpiles, but grain shippers had less leeway.

High water crested at St. Paul on Saturday, a day earlier than expected.

But downstream, the river was rising rapidly at Rock Island, Ill. It was at 18 1/2 feet Sunday, 3 1/2 feet above flood stage, said Larry Squire, a lock-and-dam operator for the Army Corps of Engineers.