Levee blasting moves to New Madrid, along with worry

NEW MADRID, Mo. -- At Taster's Restaurant, it is the morning of the blast.

A good-natured waitress jokes with a customer about not knowing how to swim. Another woman sips coffee and says her worried son called from Tallahassee, Fla., asking if she wanted him to come and get her out of harm's way. They laugh, but their laughter may twinge with a hint of nervousness.

A police scanner halts their chatter with news that emergency first-responders are on their way to the blast site to be put on stand-by.

Just in case.

The blast is 2 1/2 hours away.

Water flows over the breached section of levee near New Madrid, Mo., after it was intentionally breached on Tuesday, May 3, 2011. On May 2, Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh gave the order to activate the Birds Point-New Madrid floodway, covering over 130,000 acres of farmland to ease flooding upstream. (Kristin Eberts)

"I guess some of them are worried," New Madrid resident Kenneth Ward said. "Some people left town. They're scared. You can't blame them, I guess. They just want to know what's going to happen."

For the people of New Madrid -- a town of just more than 3,000 in Southeast Missouri -- that was the big question Tuesday morning: What would happen when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blasted a hole in their flood-protection levee?

Some of the town's more superstitious have already brought up that this is a town that has already been destroyed once, although that happened way back in 1812 by an earthquake along a fault that shares the town's name.

The townsfolk had felt and heard the blast from the night before, more than 35 miles away in Mississippi County. That was the first one. The corps had blown a 11,000-foot hole there, not too far from the confluence of the swelling Ohio and Mississippi rivers to bring down floodwaters elsewhere. The Monday night blast had opened a hole to allow the water to spill down the 130,000-acre floodway and the waters were heading right for New Madrid.

Now, Tuesday, the corps had scheduled the next phase: using tons of explosives to open a 5,500-foot hole in one of their three protective levees to provide an escape route for the waters to rush back into the Mississippi.

At Taster's, Ward said his daughter was among those who left New Madrid. She wasn't the only one.

"I think most people's concerns are that the river would rush down here and wash away the town," Ward said. "We know that ain't going to happen, but I guess it's hard to tell some of these young folks. Everybody has their own opinion about what would happen, and none of them would be right."

Sitting across the table from Ward is Bud Townsend, who jokes that he's been 79 for the past three years. Townsend said he isn't afraid of the river. He was 9 years old when the big flood hit the town in 1937. He remembers hearing then that the town had lost 17 men who were sandbagging near where the blasting site is today.

So this doesn't seem like a big deal.

"We just need the rain to quit," he said. "It's hard to keep the water out if it keeps raining every 15 minutes."

Two hours later it's noon. New Madrid residents are lining Russell Street, which runs alongside the levee. Word has come that the blast will happen soon.

Tammy Clark, who works at a nearby gymnastics studio, says she has been waiting and watching since 5:30 a.m. At one point, she yells in the direction of the caravan of corps and emergency vehicles.

"Just blow the thing, will you? We're tired of waiting!"

Then, without warning, shortly after 12:30, comes the boom. It's loud, but it barely shakes the ground. A pillar of smoke grows in the distance.

William Henry has come from nearby Lilbourn, Mo. He was raised along the levee. After the explosion, he smiles.

"See," he says. "Nothing to worry about."

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

New Madrid, MO