At least 4 still missing as Midwest floods force hundreds to flee
ST. LOUIS -- Surging Midwestern rivers forced hundreds of evacuations, threatened dozens of levees and brought transportation by car, boat or train to a virtual standstill Thursday in the St. Louis area.
At least 22 deaths over several days in Missouri and Illinois were blamed on flooding, mostly involving vehicles that drove onto swamped roadways, and at least four people were still missing Thursday, two each in Illinois and southwest Missouri.
One of the men missing in Missouri is a duck hunter who disappeared this weekend from the Four Rivers Conservation Area in Vernon County. Sgt. John H. Lueckenhoff, of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, says the hunter is thought to be somewhere in 3,500-acre field in 10 feet of water. Crews are focusing on an area where the hunter's boat and belongings were found.
Volunteers also are searching for a motorist who disappeared Saturday night as he prepared to cross a bridge over the Pomme de Terre River in Polk County. Guardrails kept the man's vehicle from washing away.
In Illinois, authorities were searching floodwaters for two 18-year-olds from the community of Taylorville.
Police say the two were last seen Monday and divers concentrated their search Wednesday near flooded areas of Sangchris Lake and Pawnee, where one of the teen's cellphone was tracked.
Christian County emergency services director Mike Crews told the State Journal-Register that "it's going to be difficult to find them" because the water is so high and that authorities may have to wait for it to recede.
Swollen rivers and streams, already high from a wet late fall, were pushed to heights not seen in nearly a quarter- century after more than 10 inches of rain fell this week in a wide swath from central Illinois through southwest Missouri.
While St. Louis itself was not flooded, hundreds of homes in its southwestern suburbs were damaged and residents in hundreds of others had to leave as water approached the tops of levees. Other spots being threatened were just farmland or now-deserted land.
The good news Thursday: The Missouri, Meramec and Mississippi rivers were cresting throughout the region. The Mississippi River appeared it would be about 7 1/2 feet below the 1993 record in St. Louis, where a floodwall offered solid protection, but as the waters flow south, points in southern Missouri and Illinois were awaiting the crest.
The Missouri River leveled off about 5 feet shy of the record in St. Charles, Missouri, and was on the way down at Hermann and Washington, two German heritage towns in Missouri's Wine Country region.
The Meramec, southwest of St. Louis, continued to be the biggest problem, even as it began to drop after reaching record levels in the Missouri towns of Eureka, Valley Park and Arnold. Hundreds of homes were damaged in Eureka, an estimated 100 homes in Arnold were damaged, as well as dozens more in nearby Pacific.
"We're to the point now that the sandbagging won't hold it back," said Arnold Police Chief Robert Shockey. "We're going to lose probably 100 to 150 homes."
The river also caused major transportation issues. A 24-mile stretch of Interstate 44 was closed southwest of St. Louis on Wednesday, and the Missouri Department of Transportation was forced to close a 3-mile stretch of Interstate 55 in both directions on early Thursday due to flooding.
"There's still water out there - there's water everywhere," MoDOT spokeswoman Marie Elliott said. "We were out there all night sandbagging trying to hold it back as much as we could, but it was just so much."
The only north-south alternative to I-55 was an already-congested local road.
"The other alternates that we would have sent motorists to basically have water on them as well," Elliott said.
Other forms of transportation were equally problematic. Amtrak officials halted the St. Louis-to-Kansas City train on Thursday, and 5-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that was closed at St. Louis halted barge traffic.
In Eureka, southwest of St. Louis, firefighters and their boats have been in high demand since Tuesday, accounting for roughly four dozen rescues of people in their homes, businesses or vehicles.
"I think you're seeing people who are desperate or impatient, putting themselves in predicaments," said Scott Barthelmass, a Eureka Fire Protection District spokesman.
Nine levees, some on the Mississippi River and others on the Missouri River, had been topped by water, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said. Most of those earthen barriers were meant to protect farmland rather than populated areas and one held the Mississippi back from the now-deserted manmade Chouteau Island on the Illinois side.
Nearly a dozen other levees considered at risk for "possible significant distress," were holding Thursday, but people were moving out just in case.
Michael Pennise, mayor of the St. Louis suburb of Valley Park, ordered mandatory evacuations for 350 to 400 homes and dozens of businesses in the section of town near the Meramec River. But the water was receding Thursday, and the levee held.
However, water poured over sandbags at Valley Park's sewage treatment plant, forcing its closure and allowing raw sewage to flow into the Meramec, just it has since Monday when another wastewater plant in nearby Fenton flooded. A treatment plant in the southwest Missouri town of Springfield also flooded this week and released raw sewage.
A water plant was flooded in High Ridge, south of St. Louis. Tanker trucks were bringing in water, but customers were urged to conserve.
The southwest Missouri tourist destination of Branson had residents of about 150 duplexes and homes evacuate Wednesday due to flooding from a manmade lake.
In Illinois, where seven of the flooding deaths occurred, the search for two missing 18-year-olds resumed Thursday with dive crews surveying a flooded lake where one of the teen's cellphone was tracked. Gov. Bruce Rauner is scheduled to return early from a vacation outside the U.S. to visit flood-damaged areas. Twelve counties in the state have been declared disaster areas.