RECORD SHATTERED AS MISSISSIPPI RIVER HOVERS NEAR 46 FEET (25 YEARS AGO)

Tuesday, May 1, 1973; Page 1

Reprinted from The Southeast Missourian

The Mississippi River hovered at a record-breaking crest of nearly 46 feet here today, but the National Weather Service warned that a major storm which is blasting the Midwest with up to 4 inches of rain might send the flooded stream toward another crest next week.

If so, it will be the fourth time this spring that the river has reached a crest of 40 feet or more here, well above the 32-foot flood stage.

It appeared this forenoon the new record river level here is 45.55 feet, which was recorded in a secondary gauge station at both 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. today. Although the reading at the time of the crest was 45.55 feet, the weather service lists it officially at 46 feet.

The stage for Wednesday is predicted to be 45.4 feet, 44.9 on Thursday and 44.3 on Friday.

This morning's crest shattered the 24-day-old record crest of 43.17 feet established here April 7. The river has not been below flood stage here since March 10.

The Corps of Engineers in St. Louis estimated that the discharge of water past Cape Girardeau at the crest today was 900,000 cubic feet per second.

This is the third largest volume in recorded history. It is only exceeded by the great flood of July 4, 1844 -- when there were no levees to contain it -- with a discharge rate of 1,460,000 cfs, and by the flood of 1927 when 1,054,000 cfs moved past Cape Girardeau.

Most of eastern Missouri received upwards of an inch of rain during the night and more is in store for tonight and Wednesday. The Federal Aviation Agency's Flight Service Station at Municipal Airport measured total rainfall today at 1.11 inches.

"It can't do anything but hurt us," said a weary Paul Johnson, chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sector office here.

"This interior water with added rainwater is what I'm greatly worried about right now. We simply do not have the pumping capacity," he said.

Mr. Johnson agreed with the weather service in warning evacuees not to be too anxious about moving back into their homes throughout the flood-plagued Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois area.

In St. Louis, Kenneth Long, public affairs officer for the St. Louis District, Corps of Engineers, cautioned that the river will likely remain high for a long period to come even as the crest passes.

He explained that all of the surface water impounded behind levees must, at some point, run out and join the main stream when it drops below interior water levels.

"If this rain keeps up this thing could go on another two months," said Johnson, noting that the normal flood season is just beginning.

The corpsman expressed little concern that levees would not contain still another crest, even though they are soaked.

Threaten substation

The rising floodwaters continued to pose a threat to the important Missouri Utilities Co. substation south of the intersection of Interstate 55 and Highway 74. However, company officials appeared not to be concerned.

Water surrounding the substation grounds was seeping through sandbags at a few locations in the hastily built levee. Some sandbags along the fence around the grounds have been broken up by wavewash.

The main concern is that water might enter the gas turbine generating plant. The facility serves as a feeder station for a wide area from Cape Girardeau to the Dexter vicinity.

"We are pretty well protected and the sandbags are holding well so far," said Clyde Wilson, vice president of electrical operations.

The sandbag levee has been up about five weeks. About 15 pumps inside the levee are moving seepwater into the floodwaters of the Mississippi River and the Diversion Channel. The area resembles a large lake. Water is along both sides of I-55.

The private Miller City, Ill., levee northwest of Olive Branch is still holding, thanks to efforts of hundreds of volunteer sandbaggers and the Illinois Highway Department employees who are hauling Corps-bought silica onto the low spots of the levee.

Fifteen additional water pumps have been put into use in Alexander and Union counties in Illinois; seven more pumps are on order.

At Federal Materials and Marquette Cement Co. in south Cape Girardeau and the West Lake Quarry near Neelys Landing, workmen are carrying out sandbag and levee reinforcement operations in an attempt to keep the river out of quarries.

Should water get into these quarries, it could take a year to pump it out.

In the historic community of Kaskaskia, Ill., the highest point on the 9,400-acre island, water is to the top of the 8-foot-high doors of the old Catholic church. Water as deep as 18 feet is destroying practically everything, corpsmen said.

An estimated 500 to 600 barges line the riverbank in the Cairo, Ill., area, awaiting authority to travel the river, which was closed Friday to all barge traffic. But the city remains flood-free.

The community of McClure, Ill., where interior water is constantly increasing, is practically evacuated..

Frank Marchildon, a McClure merchant, said, "Just about everybody's gone. It's awfully lonely up here at night. All we see at night are patrol cars keeping looters out of town."