Judge Limbaugh reflects on Birds Point levee ruling 10 years later

At about 10 p.m. May 2, 2011, the night sky over a portion of Southeast Missouri lit up as explosions obliterated a levee holding back the bulging Mississippi River.

The concussions rang through the region. A collective sigh of relief floated up from Cairo, Illinois. And those who lived and worked on the 130,000 acres making up Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in Mississippi County, Missouri, watched as the floodwaters came.

The story of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision to blast a two-mile hole in the levee to prevent worse flooding in Cairo and other populated areas up and down the river is ongoing to this day. In coming days, a series of articles will consider factors prompting the decision to artificially breach the levee, economic and human costs of the breach and the breach's lingering effects.

Up first: A judge's call.

Ten years ago this week, three days after federal Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. of Cape Girardeau denied a request for an injunction to stop the action, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers detonated explosives along the Birds Point levee on May 2, 2011, in Mississippi County, Missouri.

A total of 130,000 acres of farmland were flooded when the levee was blown -- land on which corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice and other crops were being grown.

Approximately 90 homes and roughly 200 residents in the floodway were affected.

The action to blow a two-mile hole in the levy, in a time of record-setting rains pummeling the region, spared other populated areas from flooding, including Cairo, Illinois.

Quick decision necessary

Limbaugh, now a senior judge of the U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Missouri, recalls the sequence of events quite well after an evidentiary hearing was held on the matter April 28, 2011.

"My staff and I were in the office until 2:30 the next morning because this was an emergency situation requiring an expedited ruling," said Limbaugh, who was originally appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2008.

Limbaugh recalls his ruling was quickly upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up injunctive relief.

With legal appeals exhausted, the levee was blown.

"It was a very emotional thing for the people who farmed and lived there, and I actually knew some of them," the judge said, particularly noting the late Donald Pemberton, a member of Limbaugh's service club, Cape Girardeau Rotary, owned land in the floodway.

"(Pemberton) was affected but he fully understood the situation," Limbaugh remembered, adding most residents were able to evacuate to accommodate the imminent breach of the levee.

Following the law

"From a legal standpoint, it wasn't a difficult call," Limbaugh told the Southeast Missourian Wednesday, referencing his 2011 ruling that noted Congress' passage of the Flood Control Act of 1928.

"In reaction to the last great flood of record in 1927, the government eventually bought easements from all the farmers down there to deal with a (future) situation if the river ever came up so much that the flood plain had to be used and the levee blown," he said.

"(Those easements) were another reason why this wasn't that close of a call, legally," Limbaugh opined.

"I was well aware of the emotional focus of the case, but you have to set that aside and rule on the basis of facts and the law," he added.

The next day

A few hours after the release of his ruling, Limbaugh traveled from Cape Girardeau to Cairo to attend the funeral of a fellow jurist.

"We saw firsthand what the flooding was doing the very next morning," he said, noting the road to Cairo was partially underwater.

"It was remarkable (and) we worried that at any time the flood walls would give way, but the church where the service was held was in a dry area," Limbaugh recalled, adding the river continued to rise in the immediate aftermath of his ruling and was quickly approaching a 60-foot limit set by the Corps.

Some fears not realized

Limbaugh said word had reached him farmers in the floodway were worried a breach of the levee would flood the acreage with so much silt the land's productivity would be ruined.

"As it turned out, at least from the sources I heard from, (the new silt) actually helped make the land more fertile," he said.