Mississippi River expected to reach major flood stage by Tuesday

The Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau is expected to hit major flood stage with an anticipated crest of 45.5 feet Tuesday, though that number may change depending on expected significant rain through Tuesday.

The Village of Allenville, which has flooded many times, is in peril of being isolated, effectively turning into an island and accessible only by boat. As the river approaches 46 feet, monitoring of levees will increase in frequency and more roads will close.

Floodgates remained sealed at Broadway and Themis Street and pump stations remain open in Cape Girardeau as the Mississippi River — at 39 feet as of Friday — kept rising.

This is the fourth time the Mississippi River has exceeded the flood stage since New Year’s Day, said Stan Polivick, City of Cape Girardeau public works director.

But, “It hasn’t been high enough to be a big issue for us,” he said.

When the river reaches 42 feet on the gauge in Cape Girardeau, Polivick said, “moderate flood level” becomes “major flood level.” That’s also when daily inspections of the floodwall and levee system begin, he said.

If the river hits 44 feet, inspections are completed once a day. At 46 feet or higher, inspections are completed every six hours.

Cape Girardeau County emergency management director Mark Winkler said he is keeping an eye on the area around Neelys Landing within the northeast corner of Cape Girardeau County and on Highway 177.

According to the Missouri Department of Transportation, work is underway to construct an elevated roadway using gravel on Highway 177 to prevent a permanent closure because of flooding. The section of roadway is from County Road 651 to County Road 657.

Highway 177 was reduced to one lane, accessible to local traffic only, as of Friday afternoon.

“Thank goodness that we bought out Dutchtown so we don’t have to worry about a community,” Winkler said.

He stressed the county and City of Cape Girardeau have done a lot in the past to keep people safe — referring to the buyout in the Red Star district and the buyout at Dutchtown.

All of those things, he said, have tremendously reduced emergency response and have taken people out of harm’s way, “which is the No. 1 item we try to do.”

“The area that we’re all watching is Allenville,” he said. “At 45 feet, Allenville pretty much becomes an island. The southern entrance to Allenville, at that point, water starts flowing over it.”

Meteorologist Ashley Ravenscraft with the National Weather Service office in Paducah, Kentucky, said the additional rainfall expected through the weekend could drastically change the river stage forecast.

Ravenscraft said she expected heavy rainfall Friday to be followed by another 1 to 2 inches of rain through Tuesday.

She considers this to be the “active period of the year,” where higher rainfall amounts are probable. Thursday in Cape Girardeau, she said, 2.22 inches of rainfall surpassed the daily rainfall record of 2.06 set in 2008.

“We’re running about 7.25 inches higher for the year, as far as normal precipitation,” Ravenscraft said. “The past couple months, we’ve just been in a very wet pattern; we’ve had several systems that have tracked over us and dumped a lot of rain.”

Capt. David James of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Department confirmed Friday afternoon the water rescue of a motorist near County Road 379 in Whitewater at 11 a.m. Friday. The truck the man was driving stalled about 100 yards into floodwater near the edge of a ditch, James said. Multiple departments responded to the call, he said, adding the man was rescued with no injuries.

In addition to local rain, the upper Midwest has been inundated with several major storms this spring. The upper Mississippi River is reaching near-record levels in some areas.

Several blocks of downtown Davenport, Iowa, were flooded this week when a flood barrier succumbed to the onslaught of water, the Associated Press reported. And the river at the Quad Cities has been at major flood stage or higher for 41 consecutive days. When the Mississippi River reached record levels 26 years ago, the overflowing water covered 400,000 square miles and caused dozens of deaths in a disaster dubbed “The Great Flood of 1993.”

jhartwig@semissourian.com

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