Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: TUESDAY, July 27, 1993 TAG: 9307270177 SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: Knight-Ridder DATELINE: FOUNTAIN, ILL. LENGTH: Medium
Now there is a new villain: time.
Each passing day of the phenomenally long-lived flood in the Midwest gives the water more chances to push and poke, seeking any advantage, relentlessly burrowing under or through the obstacles it cannot surmount.
"Time is a real problem," Gary Dyhouse, chief of the hydraulic section for the Army Corps of Engineers' regional office, said Monday. "When you have high river stages, the river finds weak spots."
He said that in most past floods, water had subsided within a few days. For the high water to keep coming for weeks and weeks, he said, is "unprecedented."
Twice recently, the Mississippi undermined Illinois levees it had been unable to top, flooding Kaskaskia Island and farms near Perryville.
Monday, the river was burbling like percolating coffee through a 5 1/2-foot hole behind the levee protecting Prairie du Rocher, Ill. Near Fountain, workers were pumping water out of the ground behind a levee that was getting so soaked it was ready to give way.
And in St. Louis, pressure from the high river forced silt into a cracked sewer line and created a sinkhole that left railroad tracks dangling a few yards away from the 52-foot wall that protects the city from the water.
More high water was on its way to test the levees yet again. Rain was forecast for the Upper Mississippi Valley this week, although it appeared there might be some easing of the collision between cool air from the Northwest and hot air in the East that has kept the Midwest wet for weeks.
The Missouri rose more than 3 feet in 24 hours at Kansas City, Mo., heading for St. Louis and the confluence with the Mississippi. A record flood crest of about 48 feet, more than a foot and a half above the present level, was expected to roll past St. Louis a week from today.
In the south part of St. Louis, 1,500 volunteers piled rocks and sandbags to raise the levee along the River Des Peres from 47 to 49 feet.
Thousands queued up for clean water for a second day Monday in St. Joseph, Mo., as they waited for crews to repair damage caused when the Missouri River invaded the city water treatment plant.
With the plant out for perhaps the rest of the week, Vickie Bartel of St. Joseph filled a milk jug with water and planned a 50-mile trip to take care of other needs.
"Smell me," she said. "I'm going to Kansas City to do my laundry tomorrow and to maybe take a shower."
About eight miles west of Topeka, Kan., a levee shielding Silver Lake from the Kansas River continued to soften and was expected to break, officials said. Water had pushed under the levee in three spots and bubbled up through dirt roads leading to the levee.
"You better get your water wings out," said a Shawnee County sheriff's deputy patrolling the area and telling residents to move out.
So far, at least 42 have died in the floods. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
by CNB