Farmers crave Hurricane Dennis' leftovers

Growers welcome

the 2-plus inches of rain

that soaked the region.

Hurricane Dennis damaged parts of Florida, Alabama and Georgia. But in Southeast Missouri, the resulting heavy rains thrilled farmers trying to grow crops in the hard dirt of moisture-starved fields.

"It is a dream come true for me," said Cape Girardeau County farmer John Lorberg. "I have hundreds of acres that need rain bad," he said.

"The way it is coming right now, we could handle 3 inches," Lorberg said Monday morning from his Gordonville area farm where he grows about 900 acres of corn and soybeans.

The corn crop particularly needs water. A few more weeks without rain and the crop could have been a disaster, he said.

The rain is forecast to continue through today with an accumulation of as much as 4 inches, said meteorologist Chris Noles with the National Weather Service office in Paducah, Ky.

The rain began in Cape Girardeau around 3 a.m. Monday as Hurricane Dennis -- downgraded to a slow-moving tropical depression -- continued its inland advance into the mid-Mississippi River Valley.

Heavy rain started moving in after 8 a.m., making for a soggy commute to work and sending people scrambling for their umbrellas.

Nearly two inches of precipitation had fallen in downtown Cape Girardeau 12 hours after the rains began locally.

The heaviest rainfall in the four-state region appeared to be centered in Southeast Missouri, Noles said.

The National Weather Service issued a flash-flood watch for Southeast Missouri, southern Illinois, western Kentucky and parts of Indiana until 6 tonight.

Some streets in Cape Girardeau had minor flooding.

Noles said the rain was steady but not enough of a deluge to create major flooding problems. With rain falling on parched ground and the low level of streams, the storm shouldn't cause any widespread flooding in Southeast Missouri, forecasters said.

Low-lying streets could see some minor flooding. "I don't think it is going to be much more than a nuisance," said Noles.

The tropical storm was expected to continue its north-to-northwest track through Missouri.

Hurricane-related weather in Missouri is uncommon. Since 1879, forty-five tropical storms have hit Missouri. The most recent was in 2002 when Hurricane Lily dumped rain in the Bootheel, the National Weather Service said.

Cape Girardeau police reported several accidents Monday on slippery streets and highways. City officials said the city's storm sewers were keeping up with the rain, and there was no serious street flooding.

In Jackson, police said they had no reports of traffic or flooding problems by mid-afternoon as the steady rain continued.

The rain temporarily put a halt to major construction work on the Broadway widening project in Cape Girardeau.

While it may have been an inconvenience for city residents and construction crews in the area, farmers celebrated the wet weather.

"It is coming at a very welcome time," said Gerald Bryan, an agronomy specialist with the University of Missouri Extension office in Jackson.

Farm fields had been starved for moisture this summer. "If we get 3 or 4 inches of rain it should take care of a good portion of the deficit," he said.

He said it's particularly critical for the corn crop. The plants need nearly half an inch of water a day now, Bryan said.

"The key is not only to get rain now, but we need more a couple weeks from now," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123