CITY: CLEANUP, REPAIR BILLS WILL BE HIGH

Officials were relieved Wednesday to hear that Cape Girardeau County will receive state and federal disaster relief funds for public flood efforts.

City officials said the announcement was timely, with the Mississippi River's greatest and, hopefully, final surge expected to pass Cape Girardeau Saturday.

Although no one knows how long it will take for the crest to recede, City Engineer J. Kensey Russell said affected residents already are beginning to contemplate the next phase of the flood of 1993 clean-up.

The city, too, is beginning to plan for clean-up particularly now that the way is cleared for state and federal reimbursement for the cost.

Assistant City Manager Al Stoverink said the cost to various city departments for basic flood prevention already exceeds $200,000.

He predicted that when combined with clean-up and repairs of city streets and utilities affected by the floodwaters, the costs could approach $500,000.

"Beyond that, if we have some major failures, such as the Sloan's Creek bridge (on the north side of the Main Street flood wall), or major sewer breaks, we could have higher costs," Stoverink added.

The assistant city manager said that without the disaster declaration Tuesday, the city would have been forced to dip into reserve funds or put off needed capital improvement projects to pay for flood relief.

"I would expect we would be able to get 85 to 90 percent of our out-of-pocket expenses reimbursed out of the disaster assistance funds," Stoverink said.

It's still unclear, though, what the total costs likely will be.

The weather service announced Wednesday that the Mississippi River in Cape Girardeau is expected to crest this weekend at 49 feet. That level was revised from earlier Wednesday, when forecasters predicted a crest of 47.3 feet.

The river crested Tuesday at 46.9 feet, before dropping to 46.7 Wednesday. The water is expected to rise again today and Friday before cresting Saturday.

Mark Hasheider, Cape Girardeau emergency operations coordinator, said he believes the city is prepared for the crest, which is about two feet lower than was projected last week.

"A few weeks ago, 47 feet sounded horrible," Hasheider said. "Today, it sounds pretty good."

Flood stage at Cape Girardeau is 32 feet.

City officials are hopeful the water will recede quickly so they can begin clean-up efforts.

Russell said that aside from general removal of debris, sandbags and silt from city streets and rights of way, public works crews also will be helping citizens haul trash and damaged materials from their flooded homes.

But more costly projects might include street and sewer line repairs. Also, flood waters might have damaged the sludge lagoon at the city's number two water treatment plant, and sanitary sewer pump stations have had to be stopped due to the high water.

"They'll have to be dried out and put back into service," Russell said. "We'll want to inspect all the bridges that have been under water, and there are about five miles of roadways that have been covered.

"We'll need to look and see if any slabs have buckled, or if the sub grade has softened."

Two to three miles of combined sanitary and storm sewers now are flooded and might have to be flushed after the water recedes.

But Public Works isn't the only department that faces city-wide clean-up. Shawnee and Twin Trees parks both are partially submerged and will require reseeding and road repairs.

And Russell said, "Nobody knows what we'll find" in Riverfront Park situated on the wet side of the downtown flood wall.

Also, cleanup and repairs will involve the city's inspection services to deal with building renovations and subsequent inspections.

"We have set up a plan to handle that," Russell said. "The inspection services division is hoping to be able to handle it with existing city manpower.

"They're hoping to dedicate an inspector exclusively to flood work, with the other inspectors handling normal business."

The city engineer said the city might have to contract private firms for clean-up work in order to maintain services for the rest of Cape Girardeau.

"It may be rental of trucks and drivers to haul debris, or contracting out road repairs," Russell said. "The intent is to try to keep our everyday service level as close to what we normally do as possible."

Stoverink said the record flood also has revealed needed capital improvement projects.

For example, he predicted a regulatory push on the part of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to get cities to separate combined sanitary and storm sewers, such as those flooded in Cape Girardeau. The sewer-segregation project already is in the city's 20-year sewer master plan, but at a cost of several million dollars.

Similar projects might be an elevated access road to the city's sewer treatment facility, which is surrounded by water, and a new facility for the water intake pumps that had to be raised to keep them out of the rising waters.

"Other projects like that long-term capital projects that we see are needed with this flood we would have to address through local bonds," Stoverink said. "The response from the community to this flood, hopefully, will support that."