SURFACE WATER IS ABUNDANT; HIGHWAYS 3, 146 IN ILLINOIS ARE COVERED

While the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau continues to fall, water keeps rising inside the East Cape Girardeau-Clear Creek Levee District in Illinois.

Officials said the rise will continue until the river state at Cape Girardeau falls below 30 to 32 feet. Then the surface water can drain into the river again.

Bill Stout, district operations engineer for the Illinois Department of Transportation's regional office at Carbondale, said Monday that 1,000 feet of Route 3 has over 2 inches of water over it just north of Gale.

Stout said a smaller section of Route 146 in East Cape Girardeau was also partially covered with water late last week. He said there are no plans to raise the highway at that spot.

"We feel comfortable that people can drive in up to 6 inches of water," he said. "It's about 2 inches deep right now on the sandbagged stretch of Route 3, and a little less than that on Route 146 at East Cape. If the water does come up higher on Route 3, we'll take another look at the situation and see if we need to go higher."

During July and August, a section of the Route 3 roadbed was raised by IDOT between the Route 3-146 junction at a point about 1 miles north of the levee to keep the water off and the highway open.

When the water continued to rise, IDOT brought in two large pumps and placed them near the levee just west of Route 3.

"We're hoping the pumps can reduce the accumulation of surface water near the highway and prevent any more water from getting on the 1,000-foot strip of sandbagged pavement just north of the levee," Stout said. "It is far less expensive for us to operate the pumps than to try to raise the 1-mile section of highway north of the levee."

Stout said two smaller pumps are also working along the Clear Creek levee east of McClure in an attempt to divert some of the water into Clear Creek.

"The good news is that Clear Creek has now dropped enough so that the surface water is starting to drain by gravity flow into Clear Creek from McClure northward. That will really help us down here," he said.

Stout said traffic is still two-way where the water has covered both highways, but some motorists are stopping in places to avoid being splashed by water from other vehicles or to avoid drowning their engines.

"We have posted a 15-miles-per-hour speed limit along the entire stretch of highway between the East Cape `Y' and the levee," said Stout. "That's because of the rough road surface and because, if someone should run off the narrow traffic lanes, there is no shoulder, and they'll wind up in several feet of water.

"We urge everyone that uses Route 3 between the levee and the East Cape `Y' to obey the speed limit and drive carefully, to protect themselves and other drivers."

As proof of Stout's words, an abandoned pickup truck was setting in about 3 feet of water Monday morning along the edge of the raised roadway where the shoulder used to be.

Stout said the McClure-East Cape Girardeau water problem was caused by a combination of seepwater when the river was high and surface water from rain.

Normally the water drains through pipes under the levee into Clear Creek on the east and the Mississippi River on the west. But the river and creek have been too high to keep the drains open this summer. That's caused the water to back up, leaving most of the area between East Cape Girardeau and Gale looking more like a south Louisiana wetland, complete with hundreds of great white egrets and blue herons looking for food.

Levee district officials say they can reopen the drain gates and let the water flow into the river when it falls to around 30-32 feet on the Cape Girardeau gauge. On Monday the river at Cape Girardeau was 36.9 feet. It was forecast to drop to 36.5 today, 36 feet on Wednesday, and 35 feet on Thursday. Earlier, the National Weather Service had said the river here would drop below flood stage on Sept. 12.

Heavy rains that occurred over the weekend in Iowa have renewed fears of more flooding north of St. Louis. The Mississippi at St. Louis was at 31.7 feet on Monday, and was expected to fall slowly, to 30.3 feet by Thursday.

Of more immediate concern to Stout is a forecast of thunderstorms today and Wednesday in extreme Southern Illinois. Although farmers with parched grain and soybeans would welcome a 1- to 2-inch rain now, Stout says that's the last thing needed because it would add water to the levee district.