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| Illinois mayor orders threatened city to evacuate while Midwest faces flooding |
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — Authorities in a southern Illinois city menaced by two dangerously swollen rivers said Sunday most of the small city’s remaining residents have heeded a mandatory evacuation order, prompted by river water seeping up through the ground behind the levee.
Cairo Mayor Judson Childs issued a mandatory evacuation order for the city of 2,800 residents late Saturday afternoon, hours after meeting with Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officer tasked with deciding whether to blow a hole in the Birds Point levee in Missouri, downstream from Cairo, to relieve pressure on levees along the dangerously high Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
He ordered remaining residents to leave by midnight Saturday because of a “sand boil,” or area of river water seepage, that had become dangerously large.
Jim Pitchford, a spokesman for Cairo’s emergency services, told The Associated Press early Sunday that authorities were continuing to monitor the seeping water but that the boil area appeared “stable” at the time and was undergoing constant monitoring by Corps officials.
Walsh, who toured Cairo’s levee area, had recently described the boil that has been growing since it was first spotted April 26 as the largest he had ever seen, the Southeast Missourian newspaper reported. Sand boils occur when high-pressure water pushes under flood walls and levees and wells up through the soil behind them. They’re a potential sign of trouble. The river was expected to crest in Cairo at 60.5 feet by yesterday morning (May 3).
The river was expected to stay at that level at least Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. A flood wall protects Cairo up to 64 feet, but the Corps fears water pressure from the lingering river crest could compromise the wall and earthen levees that protect other parts of the city.
The Corps inched closer Saturday to blowing a hole in the Birds Point levee after a federal appeals court declined to stop the move. The Corps moved a pair of barges loaded with the makings of an explosive sludge into position near the levee, which is on the Mississippi River just downstream from Cairo, in Missouri, but said it hadn’t decided that it needed to breach the 60-foot-high earthen wall to protect Cairo.
The 230 people who live in the southeastern Missouri flood plain behind the Birds Point levee had already been evacuated from their homes, a spokesman for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said. Some of the farmers whose roughly 130,000 acres of land would be inundated moved out what they could Saturday, assuming the Corps would have no choice as the Mississippi and Ohio that feeds it rose.
“When the water hits this dirt, it’s going to make a hell of a mess,” farmer Ed Marshall said as he packed up his farm office and hauled away propane tanks and other equipment.
He was keeping an eye on the weather forecast, which called for several more inches of rain over the next few days. “If that happens, I don’t believe they’ll be able to hold it.”
In Cairo, the mayor said he was relieved by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision early Saturday in St. Louis. “I’ve been saying all along that we can’t take land over lives,” Childs said. Missouri had asked the court to block the plan to protect the farmland. Scott Holste, a spokesman for Nixon, said state officials there were focused on protecting the homes, agricultural equipment and other property left behind in the heavily farmed flood plain below the levee.
In addition to people evacuated from the floodway, as many as 800 were asked to leave surrounding areas.
It’s unclear whether Missouri could pursue further legal action. Holste referred questions to Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, whose didn’t respond to phone calls or emails Saturday from the AP. |
| 5/4/2011 |
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