Missouri residents start to clean up after record floods
EUREKA, Missouri — Jason Peck didn’t expect 2016 to start out like this.
Three to four feet of flood waters wiped out his basement and living room. Recalling the damage to his son’s room brought Peck close to tears.
“I didn’t believe it was going to get like this,” he told CNN Saturday.
Here in St. Louis County, residents returning to water-logged communities began the painstaking process of surveying the damage, cleaning up and salvaging whatever they could.
The swollen Mississippi River has crested but flood warnings still covered areas where 8 million people live in 16 states.
Peck and his family had planned for the flooding, he said. They placed sandbags around the house and took other precautions. After midnight on Tuesday, however, the preparations appeared inadequate.
“We heard it was coming,” he said of the flooding. “Then we heard some rushing water and went downstairs and three o’clock is when it got real bad and [water] started shooting up through the drains.”
Peck’s son has not seen what’s left of his bedroom. The family waited for an insurance adjuster. Peck said he has no flood insurance but damage from a sewer backup may be covered.
“We have a lot of grossness in there,” he said.
‘Kind of winging it’
At the house where Tim Hodge and his family, including a newborn, moved in weeks ago, the flood waters cascaded down a hill in the backyard. The water line in his basement reached about six feet. A hulking refrigerator sailed across the room.
“It’s pretty intimidating,” he said. “And with a newborn baby, you watch this water get up to where it’s inches from those electrical outlets and it’s probably time to get ready to go.”
Their new furniture was muddied and soaked by the rare winter-time flooding. New appliances were damaged. The water heater was torn apart.
But Hodge said he was grateful for his neighbors.
“We’re kind of winging it really,” he said. “Thank God all these neighbors have come in. We would have never been able to even do half the stuff we had without them.”
The threat from the historic flooding is not over. Places on the Mississippi in southern Missouri and Illinois could see record water levels until early next week, according to meteorologists.
Deadly storms
Water submerged neighborhoods, schools and shopping centers, and carried off whole houses. The storms and floods killed 15 people in Missouri, officials have said.
In Illinois, the death toll grew to nine with the discovery of an 18-year-old’s body, according to Christian County Coroner Amy Calvert Winans. Search teams traced pings from a cell phone to locate a pickup truck in which the teen was believed to have been riding, the sheriff’s office said. A second teenager last seen in the truck is missing.
Many of those who died drove into high, rushing water and were carried away in their cars.
The Meramec River, which meets the Mississippi near Arnold, crested at 47.2 feet Thursday, about 9 feet above what is considered a major flood stage in the community of about 20,000. Sandbags saved some homes there, but about 10 were flooded, with one home getting about 7 feet of water, CNN affiliate KMOV reported.
By Friday afternoon, conditions had eased in the St. Louis area.
All portions of interstates 44 and 55 I-44 in the St. Louis area had reopened. Parts of those highways, including a 24-mile stretch of I-44, were closed because of flooding earlier this week.
A week ago, bad weather spread across the country, starting with a spate of tornadoes. By the weekend, the Midwest was flooded. The clouds have long cleared out, and no more rain is expected in the Mississippi River basin until late next week. But runoff has swelled rivers, and in areas south of St. Louis, they have yet to crest.
‘Bacteria in the river water’
On Thursday, the flooding breached a St. Louis-area wastewater treatment plant near the Meramec River — the second such breach there in a week — sending untreated waste into the river. Missouri American Water spokeswoman Ann Dettmer said the water in homes and businesses in the area still is safe to use.
“We are seeing higher levels of bacteria in the river water … but we’re managing it,” she told CNN.
Other plants are treating the river water, she said. “We are meeting state and federal standards. They don’t have to worry about their drinking water.”
Residents in the southernmost tip of Illinois anxiously watched the levees Friday night.
In the Alexander County seat of Cairo, where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers meet, the Ohio is expected to crest Sunday at 56.5 feet, more than 3 feet above major flooding stage.
Water has already gone over the top of one levee, prompting people to evacuate areas nearby, the office of Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner said.
A second levee has “good potential” of overtopping, Patty Thompson with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency said.
Sheriff’s deputies went door-to door recommending people evacuate from the towns of East Cape Girardeau and McClure.
College student Megan Gilpin told CNN affiliate WSIL that she and her parents were taking no chances.
“They just told me pack up my clothes and if I have any pictures I want just to make sure that I have them packed and ready to go in case,” she said.
In McClure, Randy Seyer helped his sister pack up her home.
“I’ve lived here for my whole life and that wall has never caused any trouble,” he said. “Don’t think it will. This is just a precaution.”
Rauner activated members of the Illinois National Guard to help local authorities in the south part of the state.
River crest records
At its peak, the Mississippi should be at its highest level ever, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has said, beating the highest level of the great flood of 1993, the benchmark for flood catastrophes in the region.
As the runoff from the deluges that hit around Christmas continues gathering in rivers that empty into the Mississippi River, downstream, gauges are predicting flooding in areas farther south as deep torrents roll that way — in Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, in early January.
Hundreds of miles to the south, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the river is expected to crest above flood stage on January 19.
