Floods hamper rail, road and river traffic

Flooding throughout Southeast Missouri in recent weeks has made travel troublesome at times, whether on the ground, in the air or along the river.

Area highways, railways, runways and waterways have all been affected.

After peaking at about 150 road closures in Southeast Missouri, the Missouri Department of Transportation has since reopened about 40 percent of those roads, said Mark Shelton, MoDOT district engineer.

"The flood has had an effect on commerce, no doubt," Shelton said.

MoDOT's commercial carriers division has worked closely with the commercial trucking industry, he said, to keep traveler information maps updated so dispatchers could reroute traffic appropriately.

"That vastly minimized any kind of situation where trucks can't reach their destination," Shelton said.

Updated lists of MoDOT road closures are posted several times daily at www.modot.mo.gov/tim/.

Until the water recedes, it's impossible to estimate the damage that has been done to Southeast Missouri roads. Repair costs average about $100,000 per mile, Shelton said.

"The longer the roads are underwater, the more damage we would expect," Shelton said. Traffic on reopened roads has a tendency to create potholes, he said.

"Some of the problems may not appear initially, but with traffic, problems will surface," Shelton said. MoDOT is already expecting damage to Interstate 55 near St. John's Bayou due to a combination of high water and low road elevation.

Sand boils are also occurring along Highway 84 near the Caruthersville, Mo., city limits, Shelton said.

More than 200 miles of roads within the spillway area now flooded after the intentional Birds Point levee breach will be MoDOT's responsibility to repair.

Shelton said if federal disaster relief funds are available to assist with this effort, MoDOT will pursue them.

At SEMO Port, the rising waters of the Mississippi River have put a halt to commercial barge traffic there, said Dan Overbey, executive director.

The dock at Girardeau Stevedores, which operates the port's public terminal, providing barge loading and unloading services to a variety of customers, has been underwater for about two weeks, Overbey said.

Midwest Agri-Chemico, a fertilizer distributor, has also been unable to ship by barge due to high water.

While the River at Cape Girardeau crested at 46.28 feet May 2, it's fallen steadily during the past week and is forecast to drop to 38.9 feet today, according to the National Weather Service in Paducah.

That is good news to Overbey and the businesses at the port.

"Both companies have other businesses and projects that kept folks going. They've been handling products through other channels," he said. "Everybody is ready to get back to what's supposed to be normal."

Railroad traffic out of SEMO Port has also been a struggle due to flooding.

The BNSF Railway has been closed as water remains over the tracks at Rush Tower, Mo., just south of McBride, Mo., and at Cape Girardeau, BNSF spokesman Andy Williams said.

As a result, rail cars that would normally come from St. Louis to Cape Girardeau now have to go over to Springfield, Mo., down to Memphis, Tenn., and back up to Chaffee, Mo.

"Cars are piling up there in Chaffee waiting for the river to go down," Overbey said.

Williams would not comment on whether the rerouting meant additional costs for shipping customers.

Union Pacific, which also serves SEMO Port, was not affected by flooding in Southeast Missouri but does have some tracks in Salem, Ill., that are underwater, said Mark Davis, UP spokesman.

The Mississippi River at Caruthersville, Mo., was closed to barge traffic for a time Friday due to concerns that the wake from boats would cause water to spill over the top of the town's floodwalls. The Coast Guard decided to allow limited commercial traffic after the National Weather Service lowered the projected crest at Caruthersville to 48.1 feet from 49.5 feet.

Even air travel was affected by local flooding due to submerged runways and flight restrictions in place due to the blasting at the Birds Point levee.

April 25 through 28, the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport's runways were closed as heavy rains flooded the airfield.

"At one point we had six pumps going to get the water on its way faster because it couldn't go through our culverts under the runways fast enough," said Bruce Loy, airport manager.

The fly-over restrictions put into place by the FAA due to blasting at Birds Point did not affect commercial traffic at the airport because pilots could simply fly around or above the restricted area.

"Some individual pilots may have been affected," Loy said.

mmiller@semissourian.com

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