Midwestern Flood Crest Moves South

Sunshine sparkled off receding Mississippi River flood waters Friday as business owners returned to a downtown still protected by a clay-and-sandbag levee.

“We just hope we’ve seen the last of our floods for a while,” said Jim Romine, who was hoping to reopen his antiques store Monday for the first time in more than a week.

The flood crest had pushed into Missouri by Friday, but it wasn’t expected to cause much damage as it loses steam in a region dotted with flood walls and levees.

“We are battened down tight, and everything is looking good,” said John Hark, the Marion County, Mo., emergency management director. “I don’t want to play down the seriousness of it, but after ’73 and ‘93, and a couple in between there, this is not flooding--this is high water.”

Farther north, however, there was concern over the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers, swollen by rain last weekend. The highest crest in 36 years was expected Friday along the St. Croix, which forms northern portions of the Minnesota-Wisconsin line.

“We’re just kind of holding our breath and hoping our communities will continue to hold their own,” said Cmdr. Don McGlothlin of the Washington County, Minn., sheriff’s office.

In St. Paul, Minn., the Mississippi wasn’t expected to fall below flood stage until late May. Officials there estimate flooding has cost local agencies about $1.2 million and businesses about $7.6 million.

Spring flooding has damaged more than 3,500 homes in Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, and hit parts of North Dakota and Minnesota. Damage estimates in Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota alone have climbed to at least $13 million.

Businesses along the Mississippi face millions of dollars in losses because flooding forced a halt to barge traffic along a 486-mile stretch of the huge water highway.

The Mississippi is a major transit route for shipment of grain and agricultural supplies between Midwest farmers and exporters at the Gulf of Mexico. But the shipping industry was effectively shut down April 16 when the Coast Guard first closed a 403-mile stretch of the river.

The closure was extended by 83 miles Friday, stopping barge movement from Keokuk, Iowa, to Minneapolis.

While television images have focused on people frantically sandbagging to hold back the water in river towns such as Davenport, businesses dependent on the river for their livelihood also have suffered.

“We’re losing between $15,000 to $20,000 a day that’s not recoverable,” said Lee Nelson, president of Upper River Services, a harbor fleeting company in St. Paul, Minn.

In Davenport, city workers, National Guard soldiers and volunteers will keep a 24-hour watch over the levee until the Mississippi drops to 19 feet, which could take three weeks.

“This is going to be slow as molasses, as far as the river going down,” said Dee Bruemmer, the city public works director.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Joe Allbaugh toured the area Thursday but stopped short of promising that he would recommend federal disaster assistance.

Allbaugh has questioned Davenport’s refusal to build permanent flood protection; the city is the largest in the region without it.

The City Council is expected to address the issue of whether to build a flood wall at its meeting Monday.