Once-parched Midwest now soaked by Spring floods
(CBS News) CLARKSVILLE, Mo. -- Spring rains are the enemy in the Midwest, as flooding threatens farms and towns along the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. On Tuesday, the National Weather Service said the high water will continue into next month.
It was only a few weeks ago that Louis Busch was worried the rains would never come.
Nobody is talking about the drought in Annada, Mo., anymore. The Mississippi River is now knocking on Busch's front door.
"That little town and everything would be under water if it comes over this," Busch says of a levee.
This part of the Midwest has received three times the normal April rainfall. Busch showed us a second levee that bears the consequences -- water pouring over the top now, threatening 2,500 acres.
Watch: Rain and snow in forecast for towns hit by Midwest flooding, Dean Reynolds reports, below.
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The town, the railroad and the highway would all be submerged if the water keeps coming.
"From where we're standing here, it would be up to our eyes," Busch says. "That's how deep it would be."
Flood warnings have been posted from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. In Grand Rapids, Mich., ducks were seen swimming at office-window levels.
In Clarksville, Mo., not far from Louis Busch's farm, volunteers worked hard piling sandbags five to six feet high in a last-ditch bid to hold the Mississippi at bay.
The sandbags will stay in place, because people in the area understand that water in the upper Midwest is heading in their direction and could make for a very difficult month of May.
