Mo. residents assess flood damage

PACIFIC, Mo. -- Residents here spent a chilly Easter Sunday assessing flood damage to more than 200 homes and businesses, while wishing for a levee like one that saved Valley Park, a neighboring town in the Meramec River basin, over the weekend.

Pacific Mayor Herbert Adams said Sunday that the state and federal governments are obligated to protect residents from floodwaters in towns like his along the Meramec River in eastern Missouri. They must help not just with cleaning up, he says, but by building a levee to prevent future flooding.

Pacific, a town of 7,000 people 35 miles southwest of St. Louis, was one of several towns flooded last week when the Meramec exceeded its banks after near constant rain in eastern and southern Missouri. Pacific has been hit by three major floods in 26 years -- in 1982, 1994 and last week -- and lesser ones in between.

"There's going to be another flood sometime between now and later," he said. "I want them to get their experts together and give us a start date."

Adams said he has spoken to many federal and state officials or their representatives since low-lying parts of Pacific were flooded Thursday.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who called four times over two days, was most encouraging, he said. In her phone message to Adams, which he played for The Associated Press, McCaskill said she would look for ways "to keep this from happening again," adding she wanted to solicit the help of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Meanwhile, towns south of where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers meet in Cairo, Ill., braced for flooding expected in the next couple of days.

"From Cape [Girardeau] north, the worst is over," said John Campbell, operations chief at Missouri's State Emergency Management Agency.

But south of Cape Girardeau in places such as New Madrid and Caruthersville, Mo., and Cairo, Ill., it's a different story. "They're not going down yet," Campbell said. "They're still rising."

The Mississippi River at Cairo, Ill., was expected to crest at 54 feet Tuesday morning, 14 feet above flood stage.

Moderate flooding was forecast for New Madrid, where the river was expected to crest at 42 feet Wednesday evening. The river will crest at 41 feet in Caruthersville on Friday morning, the National Weather Service said.

Over the weekend, Pacific building inspectors assessed homes and businesses that had been invaded by water and slapped color-coded notices on doors -- green for OK, and bright yellow for uninhabitable.

City Collector Debbie Kelley's home is less about three miles from the Meramec River but got as much as 8 inches of water. Her house sits in a 100-year-flood plain. She said she never could have guessed it would flood twice in 14 years.

"Right now, all we can do is sit and wait for FEMA," she said. "The Meramec is not afraid of no one."