The Mississippi River has topped 19 levees in the American midwest. The flooding is shaping up to be a crisis of Katrina-like proportions ...
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The swollen Mississippi River has flowed over the top of 19 levees in Missouri, Iowa and Illinois, and another 29 levees are at risk, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Wednesday. The river overtopped at least nine levees overnight as water levels rose in the Midwest's worst flooding in 15 years. The river was cresting in Burlington, Iowa, but has yet to reach its peak in many areas where the levees have already failed. The compromised levees stretch from Dubuque, Iowa, to St. Louis and protect hundreds of thousands of acres of homes and farmland.
Record flooding in the Midwest has killed dozens of people since March, and has left scores of homes literally under water. And there's another outcome you might not have considered: FORT MADISON, Iowa (Reuters) - The Mississippi River surged up through storm drains and flooded part of an eastern Iowa river town on Tuesday as the worst Midwest floods in 15 years ruined cropland and drove up world food prices. "There is nowhere for the water to go, so it's flooding these areas," said Lee County official Steve Cirinna, pointing to pools forming amid historic red-brick houses in Fort Madison. Volunteers and National Guard troops helped reinforce or raise levees on both sides of the river seeking to protect low-lying businesses, water supplies, and prime farmland planted with increasingly valuable crops. Across the river from nearby Burlington, Iowa, a levee broke in Gulfport, Illinois, sending muddy waters cascading onto nearby farmland and a few homes. Although sandbagging was going on, no one was injured. Authorities closed the river bridge and road. Corn and soybean prices closed near record highs after millions of acres of U.S. cropland were lost or damaged in the heart of the world's largest grain exporter. Cattle and hog futures prices also hit new highs, with soaring feed costs expected to prompt farmers to cull livestock numbers.
It's being called the worst flooding in the U.S. in 15 years, and it underscores a critical problem facing this country: crumbling infrastructure that can't stand up to Mother Nature.
| Labels: Heartland Katrina, infrastructure, Midwest flooding, natural disasters |
