River expected to fall below 40 feet; Illinois towns looking for sandbagging help

The Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau is predicted to fall below 40 feet Monday for the first time in more than two months.

The river gauge reading at Cape Girardeau on Friday afternoon was 41.2 feet. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers district office in St. Louis, the river is expected to fall to about 39.9 feet by Monday evening, barring any substantial rainfall along the river basin in the next 48 hours.

The last time the Cape Girardeau gauge was under 40 feet was May 3.

But even though the river has dropped below the 40-foot mark, it is still substantially above the local flood stage of 32 feet and will remain above flood stage for at least another week and a half according to forecasts from the Corps of Engineers and the National Weather Service in Paducah, Kentucky.

On the Illinois side of the river, water trapped inside the levee system has continued to rise as a result of seep water being forced under the levee by the swollen river. Floodwaters still cover approximately 50,000 acres of Alexander County, according to Mike Turner, the county’s director of emergency management, who said pumping operations have been offset by several pop-up thunderstorms in recent days.

“Every time we start making a little headway, it rains again,” Turner said. “And every little bit of rain makes a difference.”

Sandbagging operations will continue this weekend around the Alexander County communities of East Cape Girardeau and McClure. Illinois National Guard troops are working from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily filling and placing sandbags around the perimeter of East Cape Girardeau and along Route 3 near McClure and within the community itself.

Keith Miley, operations manager with the Illinois Department of Transportation’s District 9 in Carbondale, said another 2,000 sandbags were delivered to McClure on Friday and between 400 and 500 sandbags an hour are being filled in East Cape Girardeau, which are being used to shore up sandbag levees built over the past week on the outskirts of the village.

“About all we can do is continue to monitor the situation and work with the National Guard,” Miley said, adding Illinois Route 146 between East Cape Girardeau and Illinois Route 3 remains completely closed. On the east side of East Cape Girardeau, between the town and the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, Route 146 is covered by about a foot of floodwater and is impassible to all traffic except National Guard vehicles and IDOT trucks moving people and supplies. Route 3 between McClure and Gale, Illinois, also remains closed.

IDOT’s District 9 covers Illinois’ 16 southernmost counties.

“Right now, I have eight miles of highway flooded, all in Alexander County,” Miley said.

East Cape Girardeau Mayor Joe Aden said Friday most of the town’s residential areas are still above water, “but that’s subject to change.” Aden said he’s hopeful some floodgates can be opened, allowing some of the trapped floodwater to drain back into the river, once the river stage falls below 40 feet on the Cape Girardeau gauge.

Route 3 north of McClure is still open, although it remains covered by several inches of water.

McClure Mayor Cheryle Dillon said fields surrounding McClure were under as much as 5 feet of water as of Friday afternoon and about 10% of homes in the town had suffered flood damage. She said volunteers who can reach the community from the north are needed this weekend to help place sandbags in various locations. Volunteers should report to the Sparks Ministries building, formerly the McClure elementary school, on the south side of town.

Although the Corps of Engineers is forecasting a gradual drop of the Mississippi River over the next two weeks, seep water in parts of Alexander County is continuing to rise, at least for now.

“In reality, we won’t see a lot of drop there until we get below flood stage,” said Liz Norrenberns, water control manager with the Corps of Engineers in St. Louis. She said by Tuesday or Wednesday the river should start dropping almost a foot a day and could fall to 32 feet sometime in the next 10 to 14 days, depending on rainfall over the next two weeks, especially upstream.

On Friday, The National Weather Service was calling for a 40% to 50% chance of thunderstorms in the Cape Girardeau area through the weekend and a “slight” chance (20%) of thunderstorms Monday.