Pleading with the Guard: McClure mayor wants troops to help sandbag, but policy forbids

Efforts to hold back the floodwaters in Southern Illinois has sparked a dispute over use of National Guard troops for sandbagging.

In a Facebook post Wednesday morning, McClure, Illinois, Mayor Cheryle Dillon voiced frustration over refusal of Illinois National Guard troops to sandbag homes in her town.

She claimed that National Guard troops recently sandbagged homes in the nearby village of East Girardeau, Illinois.

But East Cape Mayor Joe Aden denied the accusation. "That is not true," he said.

According to Aden, National Guard troops only helped sandbag along street easements and utility alleys. He said troops are not allowed to sandbag on private property and have not done so in his village.

Alexander County emergency management director Mike Turner said state law prohibits Guard troops from engaging in sandbagging efforts on private land.

But Dillon said, whether legal or not, Guardsmen have sandbagged private buildings in East Cape. "I know it has been done," she said Wednesday afternoon.

She said she has reached out to area lawmakers and even sent a Facebook message to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker seeking assistance from the Guard.

Floodwaters have surrounded McClure and threatened to close the one remaining road out of the town, which in 2010 had a population of just over 400.

Many of the town's residents are elderly, and if the remaining road in and out of McClure is closed, those residents would be in trouble in case of medical emergencies, Dillon said.

The situation is dire in McClure's Egyptian Acres subdivision of frame houses and mobile homes, she said.

Many of the subdivision's residents are elderly and not physically able to sandbag their properties.

"Some of the homes already have water in them," the mayor said.

"Every home there is going to be lost if something is not done," she said.

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