Crest expected at 46 (for now); port business slows to crawl as barge, rail traffic closed

The Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau is expected to crest at 46 feet by Friday morning, 14 feet above flood stage and within 3 feet of the river’s high water mark here.

As of Monday morning, the National Weather Service in Paducah, Kentucky, was predicting a 47-foot crest for Cape Girardeau but by midday the forecast was revised to 46 feet and will stay at that level until early Sunday morning before beginning a gradual and steady decline. The river stage at midafternoon Monday stood at 44.3 feet.

By late Monday afternoon, the NWS was forecasting 3 to 4 inches of rain here from Thursday through Saturday, which could, in turn, affect flood crest predictions.

Today marks the 83rd consecutive day the Mississippi has been at or above Cape Girardeau’s 32-foot flood stage and, according to the latest forecasts, it will remain above that level for another two to three weeks. The record river crest at Cape Girardeau was 48.86 feet, more than 16 feet above flood stage, on Jan. 3, 2016.

For many people in and around Cape Girardeau, flooding causes a minor inconvenience in the form of closed streets in low-lying areas and the need to use detours to avoid floodwaters. But for others, including residents of certain flood-prone areas in Cape Girardeau County and across the river in places such as East Cape Girardeau and McClure, Illinois, the floodwaters have been cause for sandbagging in an attempt to minimize flood damage.

For farmers dealing with flood-saturated fields, the situation is economically devastating. Although the amount of farm acreage that has been inundated this spring by flooding along the Mississippi and its tributaries is not available, state agriculture officials say they’re keeping an eye on the situation.

“Agriculture has been severely impacted because of flooding this spring,” said Missouri Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Sami Jo Freeman.

“When you consider the fact that 34% of Missouri’s productive cropland is in a flood plain, the potential impact is immense,” she said.

As of Monday afternoon, flooding throughout the state had closed nearly 400 roads in 56 Missouri counties and halted barge loading on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

“Our farmers and ranchers are doing without these critical pieces of infrastructure,” Freeman said. “In addition, farmers all across northern Missouri are delayed significantly in planting and a total of 28 levee breaches have been reported across the state as well.”

Barge traffic

The Mississippi River had not been closed to barge traffic as of Monday afternoon, but Jeff Derrick, area engineer with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Jackson, said with the river closed north of St. Louis, there has been little barge traffic in this area for several days.

He said during flood conditions the Corps of Engineers monitors the wake from passing tows and whether it might harm or overtop area levees.

“We don’t want to create any more problems on the levees than we already have,” he said.

South of Cape Girardeau, at the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority, flooding began slowing operations several weeks ago when rail traffic was shut down.

“We’re pretty much at a standstill,” said Port Authority customer service manager Jackie Prater. “The last two and a half weeks or so we haven’t had any BNSF rail traffic from the north and then with the water getting as high as it is, it has gotten to where we’re not going to be able to accept anything on the Union Pacific side from the south, either,” she said, adding the river stage at Cape Girardeau needs to be below 40 feet for rail service to resume normal operations.

One of the port’s tenants, Girardeau Stevedores and Contractors, has constructed a rock levee around its dock and warehousing facility to keep as much floodwater out as possible.

“We’ve built a levee down by the dock where the water can’t get in, and we’re unloading a barge right now,” a company spokesperson told the Southeast Missourian on Monday. “But when it gets up to where it is now, we just have to wait and see what happens.”

Highways closed

Highway 74 south of Cape Girardeau is closed at Dutchtown and Highway 177 north of Cape Girardeau was closed Monday about a quarter of a mile north of Lexington Avenue. However, the Missouri Department of Transportation began adding gravel to the road surface Monday in order to make the highway passable to one lane of traffic. As of Monday afternoon, Highway 25 near Dutchtown remained open, but a highway department spokesperson said the situation there would be re-evaluated today.

Meanwhile, Cape Girardeau County emergency management director Mark Winkler met with Cape Girardeau County commissioners and representatives of various local, area and state emergency response agencies Monday to go over each agency’s plans for what he referred to as “the flood fight of June 2019.”

“The intent of the meeting was to go over what they’re doing, to identify the resources they have and identify any resources they might need,” Winkler said.

Among the agencies involved in the meeting were Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Department, East Cape County Fire Protection District, Missouri Department of Transportation, Cape County Private Ambulance Service, Cape Special Road District, Cape Girardeau County Highway Department, Missouri State Highway Patrol, Cape Girardeau Fire Department, American Red Cross, Cape Girardeau County Health Department and representatives of Allenville, Dutchtown and Little River Drainage District.

Winkler said by preparing now for the 46-foot crest later this week, he and other agencies hope to avoid any major issues.

“We’re trying to get ahead of the game and bring in any resources, including personnel and equipment, that are needed,” he said, adding they are “hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.”

Asked what concerns him the most, Winkler said “the unexpected” and explained a “deluge or unforecast amounts of rainfall anywhere in our region that could result in a rapid rise in the river or even torrential rain or flooding rains to the west in the watershed that feeds into the Diversion Channel, that could be devastating.”