Dutchtown residents may be ready for buyouts

After living through repeated flooding for decades, many residents of Dutchtown may be ready to move.

Approximately 30 residents of the evacuated community of about 100 along Highway 74 in southern Cape Girardeau County meet Thursday with Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and State Emergency Management Agency representative Mark Winkler and signed paperwork that they are willing to talk about selling their homes in a buyout, said Sheriff John Jordan, who was present at the meeting.

The gathering took place on Highway 25 at the edge of floodwaters that filled the community after a record-shattering rainstorm Tuesday and Wednesday. The storm dumped up to 13 inches of rain across hundreds of square miles and sent water rushing over levees along the Diversion Channel and Hubble Creek, both of which run by Dutchtown.

"It was an unofficial meeting with people who had realized those folks were coming there," Jordan said.

Residents of Dutchtown have resisted buyouts in the past, choosing instead to fight floods with temporary levees and sandbag walls around their homes. But many of those present told the officials they had endured enough.

"This is the worst head pressure and headwater they have seen," Jordan said. "This is the first time they have seen water over the intersection of Highway 74 and Route A with force. This was running through with current. It is a big difference."

Federal buyouts of flood-damaged properties replaced public assistance for repairs and rebuilding following record-setting flood of 1993 that ravaged the Upper Mississippi River and Missouri River valleys. Thousands of homes, including residences in the Red Star neighborhood of Cape Girardeau, the old Smeltertown area and Commerce, Mo., have been purchased. After a buyout, the land is left in public hands and no construction or development that can be damaged by floodwaters is allowed.

Federal officials from the area have sought funding for bigger levees in Dutchtown. U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson said she always felt resistance to buyout proposals from Dutchtown residents.

"It is a very hard question" to ask people to move, Emerson said. "How would you feel?"

A buyout usually is a complicated and difficult negotiation, she said. "There have been challenges in other areas getting people to sell."

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