Iron County residents hit hard by flooding

IRONTON, Mo. -- After several days of near-constant rain left the hills around the Iron County seat saturated, residents of this Southeast Missouri community could only hope the rain continued to fall slowly.

"You prepare because you know there is going to be a rain storm," said Ronald Murphy, Iron County's presiding commissioner. "But when you have an hour of horrific rain, you're going to have problems."

That's what fell Sunday night in and around Iron County, raising creeks into rivers, turning ponds into lakes, washing out roads, damaging bridges and leaving at least two Southeast Missouri men dead.

"This was worse than in '93," Bill Mayberry said while cleaning up the parking lot of the Stouts Creek Baptist Church on Monday, just down a water-wrecked road from where Charles Griffey, 43, was found dead late Sunday night.

Griffey, who lived west of Ironton, had climbed into the tree in an attempt to escape the rising waters, Iron County Sheriff Allen Mathes said. Griffey's wife and son escaped, Mathes said.

"There were houses around here that have never seen water, but they saw water this time," said Mayberry, who spent Sunday night trapped in Farmington, unable to return to his home in Arcadia because of high water.

About 20 people from Iron County spent the night in a shelter and many more spent the evening with friends or family, Murphy said.

The latest storms Sunday dumped several inches of new rain in many parts of eastern Missouri after days of wet weather.

High winds knocked over trees and power lines in some areas.

At his Iron County home, Guy Stevenson, the county's southern district commissioner, said the rain gauge measured 5.25 inches after a 12-hour downpour that started about 6 p.m. Sunday. Stevenson and the other commissioners were working Monday to build access to a few small parts of the county still unreachable because of high water.

"What we want to do now is just get through," Stevenson said. "Not with an automobile, but just get in and get out with a pickup."

'They're lucky'

Monday afternoon, two teen-agers capsized a small boat they had tied to a train trestle along the swollen Big River near Desloge. Both were swept down river but made it to shore unharmed, not needing the assembled rescue crews who were ready to begin a search.

"They're lucky," said deputy chief Todd Asher of the Desloge Fire Department. "It's almost impossible to swim against the current, unless you can get to shore and grab onto a tree."

Faced with high water, flash flooding and already swollen rivers spilling further over their banks across the southeastern part of the state, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers district office in St. Louis opened its emergency operations center over the weekend.

So far, the heavy rain has brought water in the area's rivers above only one levee, a nonfederal dike in Vandalia, Ill., on the Kaskaskia River. Water was approaching the design limits of several other nonfederal levees, although the Corps said it does not foresee any of the area's levees breaking.

Additional rainfall could change that forecast, the Corps said.

In St. Louis, the Mississippi River was expected to reach 39 feet on Wednesday, or 9 feet above flood stage. The high water was creeping up the steps leading to the Gateway Arch, but causing no serious problems. The Mississippi hit 49.58 feet at St. Louis during the Flood of 1993.

Just south of St. Louis, the Meramec River wasn't expected to reach its high point until Thursday in Arnold. Forecasters predicted levels at 38.5 feet, more than 14 feet above flood stage, because water backing up from the Mississippi will gorge the Meramec.

Some sandbagging was taking place Monday in Valley Park, a St. Louis County town along the Meramec where the river already has crested.