Midwest Gets More Rain, Braces for Floods

Rain fell in the Midwest on Saturday as volunteers filled more sandbags in case of renewed flooding along the swollen Missouri, Mississippi and Illinois rivers.

Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar ordered 160 members of the National Guard to join the effort. The guardsmen and two helicopters were activated in case a levee at Nutwood on the Illinois River gives way, a spokesman for Edgar’s office said.

Thunderstorms were scattered over Illinois, while rain fell in eastern Missouri and heavy rain was possible in northern Missouri.

Farther upstream in the Missouri River’s watershed, heavy rain fell overnight in south-central Nebraska, with 3.4 inches at Kenesaw.

Despite the rainfall, “it doesn’t look as bad as 1993,” said Ken Kruchowski, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the St. Louis district. However, he added that water could go over levees in several places.

Kruchowski said that in the St. Louis district alone 2 million sandbags had been distributed during the last two weeks to shore up ailing flood defenses.

During the 1993 floods, when millions of acres of crops were lost, about 13 million sandbags were distributed in the St. Louis district, he said.

Jim Braibish, spokesman for the Red Cross in St. Louis, estimated that two weeks of flooding and tornadoes had affected 1,300 families along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and that half the families had been forced from their homes.

The Red Cross on Saturday opened a disaster office at Winfield, Mo.; it was only the second to open this year. A total of 13 offices were opened in 1993 to deal with flood victims.

Kruchowski said the Mississippi River at St. Louis was forecast, based on no additional rainfall, to crest on Wednesday at 41.8 feet, well above the 30-foot flood stage.

And with more rain forecast, the actual level could be significantly higher, he said.

Scott Kaplan, meteorologist with Weather Services Corp., said key farm states such as Indiana, Illinois and Missouri had received between two and four times as much rainfall as normal during May.