Crews start to clear away levee

Cape Girardeau County highway administrator Scott Bechtold said Highway 25 and Route A at Dutchtown should be open by 4 p.m. today.

County road crews and eight inmates from the Charleston Correctional facility cleared 60 percent of the sandbags from atop the temporary levee on Highway 74 Tuesday, leaving only the 6-foot mound of crushed rocks and plastic sheeting.

"Part of the agreement with the Corps of Engineers was that, if the corps paid for the rocks, we'd get rid of it when the water went down," Bechtold said. "The Cape Special Road District will help us haul it all out, and MODOT will help power sweep the streets once the rock is gone."

Bechtold said the sandbags and rocks from the 2,000-foot-long levee will be used to fill in ditches along county roads where there is no shoulder and to fill in areas of county roads that were washed away by heavy rains or flash flooding.

"We anticipate removing the rest of the levee by Friday afternoon," Bechtold said, referring to the remaining 1,500 feet of levee on Highway 74 east of the intersection. "There's still a section about 500 feet wide where water is on the road. We'll try to get the levee removed about the time the water is off the highway."