Dutchtown, Red Star residents fight for their homes

Work continues to strengthen the emergency levee at Dutchtown in preparation for the Mississippi River's predicted crest of 46 feet at Cape Girardeau on Sunday.

The river has risen five feet since Monday and measured 45.12 feet at Cape Girardeau at 5 p.m. Thursday. Inmates with the Missouri Department of Corrections hauled more sandbags Thursday to be placed into the water at the bottom of the levee on the river side.

That will help keep the plastic wrapping the levee in place and prevent it from washing out as floodwaters push against it, said Doyle Parmer, Dutchtown clerk and emergency management coordinator.

"We're not worrying about rising water right now. Our priority isn't how high the water is; it's to protect the levee so it doesn't get damaged from the water that's already here," Parmer said.

Most Dutchtown residents are still staying in their homes but have packed up their furniture, appliances, clothing and family photos and moved them to higher ground.

"It's scary," said Christina Parmer, Doyle Parmer's daughter, who also lives in Dutchtown. "It's depressing. Mother Nature has hit everyone so hard. You just don't know what to expect next."

She said the residents have pulled together, helping each other pack and helping with the levee. She was thankful for the inmates who've worked on the levee for the past two days.

"If it wasn't for the prisoners, that levee wouldn't be there," she said.

While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provided the materials to build the levee, it was up to Cape Girardeau County and the community of Dutchtown to construct it. The corps continues to monitor the levee around the clock.

There are 52 structures in Dutchtown and right now five are flooded, Doyle Parmer said. Another 15 are threatened by floodwaters.

"If that levee wasn't there, they'd be flooded," he said.

The last time an emergency levee was built in Dutchtown was 2002, when the river reached 45.7 feet at the Cape Girardeau gauge.

The community also fell victim to flash flooding in March 2008 after a 13-inch rainfall sent water washing over levees at Dutchtown at the Diversion Channel and Hubble Creek. After that, Parmer said, he supported taking a voluntarily buyout offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But a vote of residents at a town meeting in June 2008 indicated the majority wanted the town to build up its levee instead of taking the buyout. One of the town's existing levees washed out Monday night, and the Corps of Engineers emergency levee was completed Wednesday.

"I'm sick of it," Parmer said of fighting the floods. "I'm done."

But Parmer continued Wednesday to coordinate the reinforcement of the emergency levee. He said after this round of flooding, he will push again for residents to take FEMA buyouts. Federal buyouts of flood-damaged properties replaced public assistance for repairs and rebuilding following record-setting flood of the Mississippi in 1993.

FEMA funds were used to purchase many homes along the river in Cape Girardeau after that flood. That's helped minimize the damage in the city's Red Star district, but the remaining homes and a couple of businesses in the area are now threatened by floodwaters again.

Bill Sandquist spent the last two days surrounding his house with a fortress of sandbags. He drove posts into the ground and erected a 38-inch barrier of metal roofing panels on two sides of his home.

"If it gets over my panels, we're done," Sandquist said. He's got a boat tied to his front porch if he has to evacuate, he said, but he and his wife plan to stay as long as possible.

Although Sandquist didn't live there then, he said in 1993 water flowed into the house and leveled even with the bottom of the windows.

So far, his sandbag levee is holding and he's pumping water out of his crawl space to keep his home dry.

"I've got a great view of the river," he said, looking out at the water lapping at the south side of his home. A nearby city playground at Spanish and Third streets just across from his house is also underwater.

No one in the city has been asked to evacuate at this time, city manager Scott Meyer said. For the past two days the city has provided sandbagging stations, at the Red Star Baptist Church parking lot and at the Red House Interpretive Center on the south end of Main Street. Two more truckloads of sand were delivered Thursday to the Red Star sandbagging station, said Steve Cook, assistant public works director.

Many roads in that area are closed, including portions of North Water, North Main and Spanish streets.

mmiller@semissourian.com

388-3646

Pertinent address:

Highways 25 and Highway 74, Dutchtown, MO

North Main Street, Cape Girardeau, MO