Sun lifts spirits in waterlogged East Prairie

EAST PRAIRIE, Mo. -- It's amazing what sunshine and blue skies can do for a water-logged psyche.

"It just lifts those spirits really high," said Gary Sisk, whose face lit up Tuesday afternoon as he looked up at the bright sun, slightly tempered by a smattering of fluffy white clouds -- the kind that don't typically make rain.

Sisk and his East Prairie neighbors have seen an overabundance of rain of late, and much of the Mississippi County community of 3,200 people remained underwater Tuesday -- less than a day after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began a series of detonations to breach the nearby Birds Point-New Madrid levee. Sisk had to wade through water in his front yard on his way to work at McDonald's Food Mart, just off Highway 105 in East Prairie. Millar Road, adjacent the grocery store, was a lake, and McDonald's delivery drive looked like a Venetian canal, sans the gondola.

But blue skies after days of rain -- record rains -- couldn't have come any sooner for Sisk and many others in Southeast Missouri assessing damage and hoping to begin cleanup from the flood of 2011.

"The sunshine makes you happy," said Gary Adkisson, a delivery driver at Beauton Drug, on the city's deluged Washington Street. The senior citizen has lived his whole life in East Prairie, and he's astounded by the amount of water. His delivery route takes him around town, to the drenched east, southeast and northwest parts, streets like Lombardi and by the new subdivision, mostly submerged these days.

Adkisson said it will take at least a week without rain for the streets to dry up, not to mention some of the closed highways and roads leading into the city.

Levi St. Cyre, 15, and his buddy Brandon Evans, 14, biked through the high water in what had been green space adjacent to Dollar General and residential neighborhoods facing Highway 105. They were enjoying another unscheduled day off, as flooding forced the East Prairie School District to cancel classes.

"We're happy we're out of school," St. Cyre said. Later in the afternoon, the teens could be seen shooting some hoops at the community park's basketball court, a small portion of which appeared to be the only dry spot in the park.

'That's my home'

In Sikeston, Mo., Monday's heavy rains and the overflow of the surging St. John's Ditch, has submerged several neighborhoods and businesses.

Stacey Bolen escaped last week's trouble in Morehouse, Mo., where a man-made levee pushed more water into the community, flooding the town of 1,000 residents and forcing many from their homes. After a few days at a hotel, Bolen and her husband were staying at her parents' one-bedroom home near the intersection of Selma and East Gladys streets in Sikeston. The front yard there looked like a lagoon, but the house remained dry, albeit cramped.

"It's better than sleeping in water," Bolen said.

On Tuesday, she wondered what her home in Moorhouse looked like. She hasn't been back since Friday, but she knows the property has taken on at least 4 feet of floodwater.

"I don't know and that scares me, because that's my home; that's all of our stuff, that's things we've worked to get. Our home," she said. "Everything's ruined."

The National Weather Service forecast calls for more sunshine today, with highs in the mid-60s. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms is in the outlook for Thursday, with a 40 percent chance of precipitation Saturday morning.

While Tuesday's sunshine served as respite from his flood troubles, East Prairie's Gary Sisk said he fears the days ahead.

"I think the worst is yet to come," he said, voicing concerns about the breaching of the Birds Point levee and the massive flooding it has created. "The river is going to do what it's going to do."

mkittle@semissourian.com

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707 W. Washington St., East Prairie, MO

124 N. Washington St., East Prairie, MO