Worst yet to come in Illinois flood fight

Sections of Illinois routes 3 and 146 remain closed today because of flooding along the Mississippi River and, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the worst is yet to come.

Meanwhile, McClure and East Cape Girardeau, Illinois, are in danger of being completely cut off by rising backwater.

“With all the rain that came through over the weekend, the river stages are pretty much going to hold flat the rest of the week. It’s not going up but also not going down,” according to John Osterhage, chief of the Corps of Engineers’ emergency management section in St. Louis.

“Water levels on the protected side of the levee (in Alexander County) will continue to rise due to both the rain that has fallen within the protected area and also the seepage that comes through and under the levee,” he said. “So with the river staying up high that seepage isn’t going to stop and the result will be that we’ll continue to see water levels increase a little bit in the protected area.”

On Monday, the Mississippi River gauge at Cape Girardeau was at 43.2 feet, 3 feet below its recent crest of 46.3 feet recorded two weeks ago and about 5.5 feet lower than the river’s record crest of 48.86 feet Jan. 2, 2016. Flood stage at Cape Girardeau is 32 feet.

According to the National Weather Service, the river was forecast to drop slightly, to 43.1 feet, by Tuesday morning, but then gradually rise again to 43.5 feet by Thursday.

Forecasters say the river stage at Cape Girardeau will remain relatively unchanged this week and won’t fall below 43 feet until the end of the month, in part, because of recent heavy rains in the Mississippi River basin to the north.

“We’re not going to see it start to drop at least through this week,” Osterhage said and explained the duration of this flood has been much longer than typical flood conditions and the saturated soil around East Cape Girardeau and McClure cannot absorb any additional floodwater.

“We’re pretty much getting close to an unprecedented duration for this event,” he said. In previous flooding situations, floodwaters have receded more quickly allowing flood gates throughout the county’s levee system to be opened, which would, in turn, drain the interior floodwaters.

“But because the water is up, the levee gates have to stay closed and the water in the interior has nowhere to drain out,” Osterhage said. “We’re going to continue to see seepage coming through as long as the river is at elevated stages.”

The lack of a permanent pumping station to help drain the floodwater inside the levee has compounded the problem. “There are a lot of smaller, temporary pumps that have been brought in to try to help or slow it down, but it’s a losing battle,” Osterhage said. “You really need a massive, permanent pump station to remove that water.”

East Cape Girardeau Mayor Joe Aden said most of the 380 residents of the community were relatively dry until this weekend.

“It’s really been a day-to-day situation, but then the rainwater killed us,” he said. “We were doing good until all the rain the last few days.”

Aden said he has never experienced flooding as bad as this.

“I’ve lived her since 1973 and have been mayor 38 years and have never seen it like this,” he said, adding while two of the four lanes of Illinois Route 146 in East Cape Girardeau are still open to local traffic, “you can only see one.”

A “flood command center” has been set up at Pit Stop Pizza along Route 146 for Illinois Department of Transportation staff and sandbag crews from the Illinois National Guard.

“We had to vacate City Hall because we had some water in there, but now they’ve pumped it out,” Aden said.

Although a mobile home park on the north side of Route 146 has been flooded, “We don’t have a mandatory evacuation at this point and people can get to their houses,” the mayor said. “But it’s a day-to-day situation.”

Cheryle Dillon, mayor of McClure, said she can see the floodwaters from her house.

“Every day, I look out my kitchen window and I can see it getting closer,” she said.

As of Monday, Route 3 between McClure and the Union County line just to the north was still open.

“We can still get to Anna,” Dillon said in a cellphone interview. “We have to travel through water, but we can still get there.”

McClure has a population of just more than 400, the majority of whom have stayed in town as the floodwaters encroach on the community.

“Most people are still right here, but they’re depressed and worried,” she said. “There are a lot of older people here who are retired or disabled and some of them need help. We have one lady whose mother has to go to dialysis (in Cape Girardeau) so she’s driving more than a hundred extra miles to get her mother to dialysis three times a week.”

Dillon estimated about a dozen or so homes in McClure had been damaged by the floodwaters as of Monday. That number will rise along with the water level.

At a recent community meeting, Dillon told McClure residents they should either consider leaving town until the waters recede or “stock up” on supplies in case the water forces IDOT to close Route 3 north of town, effectively turning McClure into an island.

As for Dillon, she doesn’t plan to evacuate.

“I just couldn’t leave knowing other people are here,” she said.