Mo. residents bracing for near-record river levels

ST. LOUIS -- Northeast Missouri residents and businesses, and an entire City Hall in La Grange, evacuated Monday as crews worked feverishly to hold back the swollen Mississippi River from levels that may in two cases top records set in 1993.

Those are at Saverton and Clarksville, but others will come devilishly close.

Armies of Mennonites and Amish worked sandbag lines with convicted felons, college students and other volunteers in communities south of Iowa and north of St. Louis in a race to beat the rising river. The Mississippi was forecast to crest in northeast Missouri towns by mid- to late-week.

"Today is our critical day, we need to get it done," said Monica Heaton, spokeswoman for Canton's emergency operations center.

Canton, 120 miles north of St. Louis, is working to extend its 27.5-foot levee an additional 2 feet with a wall supported by sandbags.

The river is expected to crest there at 27.5 feet Wednesday morning, three-tenths shy of the 27.8-foot record set in the Great Flood of 1993.

Canton's levee held in '93, and town leaders are confident it'll hold again. But they're taking no chances. A voluntary evacuation imposed Sunday remains in place.

Right now the weather is in the region's favor with little or no rain forecast.

But what bothers weather experts is the potential for additional rainfall beyond the next several days.

"The water will still be in the system next week and will take a long time to get rid of it," National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Fuchs said.

"It won't take a lot of thunderstorms to put us in dangerous territory again. I'd like to see persistent dry weather for another three to four weeks just to get it back so we can handle some rain.

"I don't know if we're going to see that. Rain is not an option now."

Sandbagging efforts got a boost from National Guard members, 185 minimum-security inmates from throughout Missouri, and other volunteers.

In La Grange, a town of 1,000 people and no levee, City Hall and about 50 residents evacuated to higher ground Monday after Main Street and 20 homes flooded, City Administrator Mark Campbell said. Roads to the town are under water except for Route C. People are sandbagging their own properties.

The tiny town of Alexandria, population 166, just south of the Iowa border has abandoned sandbagging efforts on its 27-foot levee and was completing an evacuation Monday.

Officials said the Mississippi is expected to crest Wednesday at 28.4 feet -- a foot lower than the 1993 level.

North of Alexandria, most of the 100 residents of St. Francisville on the Des Moines River have evacuated. It has no levee, said Clark County emergency management director Jim Sherwood.

Also Monday, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder asked President Bush to expedite a disaster declaration to help the state deal with the record flooding.

Humane Society of Missouri, which helped rescue 300 animals in the Iowa floods, said it's now focusing relief efforts in northeast Missouri counties.

In Hannibal, the river is expected to crest at 31.5 feet Thursday night, three-tenths of a foot below the 1993 record. Floodwaters began creeping into residential neighborhoods and endangering roughly 40 homes, emergency management director John Hark said. Businesses remain open downtown, where flood walls are protecting the city.

Hark said roughly 400 volunteers filled sandbags this weekend, and the city's floodwalls were raised 2 feet to help keep the cresting water at bay.

Lincoln County authorities were expecting water to breach the 38-foot levee in Winfield by Monday night or Tuesday and called for voluntary evacuations east of Missouri 79.

Temporary shelters were set up for displaced people and pets.

The river should reach record crests of 30 feet Thursday night at Saverton Lock and Dam, and 38 feet Friday at Clarksville. Both new levels are tenths higher than the '93 records, the National Weather Service said.

The river at Louisiana should crest at 28.2 feet Friday morning, two-tenths of a foot shy of the 1993 record.

The river at St. Louis will crest at 39.8 feet Saturday night, about 10 feet short of the '93 record. St. Louis does not face the same crisis as its northern neighbors because two rivers that feed into it -- the Missouri and Illinois -- are not at record levels, Fuchs said. That wasn't the case in 1993.

The river at Winfield will crest Sunday night at 39.2 feet, four-tenths of a foot shy of the old record.

The record flooding in Missouri comes after an abnormally wet spring punctuated by torrential June rains to the north that have caused the Mississippi to swell as it heads south.