Agriculture levee near Commerce breached

COMMERCE, Mo. -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers levee at Commerce is now the last line of defense for southern Scott County.

A private levee which had provided protection for farmland between the corps' levee and the Mississippi River was breached sometime Monday night or early Tuesday, according to Amber Scudder, emergency management director for Scott County.

"The water is now to the corps' levee -- it flooded 5,500 acres of farmland," Scudder said Tuesday. The levee was breached "sometime in the middle of the night -- apparently nobody knew about it. The farmers didn't know about it until the morning when they went out to look at it."