This Is What Major Flooding From The Mississippi River Looks Like

At its peak, the Mississippi River should be at its highest level ever, Nixon has said, beating the highest level of the great flood of 1993, the benchmark for flood catastrophes in the region.

The floodwaters that swept away cars and swamped living rooms decorated for Christmas slowly drained from homes and businesses outside St Louis, leaving behind months of cleanup as the threat of record-breaking floods headed south toward towns and farm communities flanking the Mississippi River.

Overflowing rivers receded in Missouri and IL on Friday after flooding swamped communities and forced towns to evacuate, but forecasters warned rain-swollen waterways could menace Southern states downstream.

Stivers shares a home with her 45-year-old daughter battling breast cancer, along with a granddaughter and four dogs.

The Amtrak route shares a line used by Union Pacific for freight traffic, which also was disrupted by flooding along the Missouri River. I have another home in Dyersburg. “Am I mad? When I’m not crying I am”.

In Thebes, Illinois, about 125 miles (201 km) downriver from St. Louis, the floodwater was expected to crest at 47.5 feet (14 m) on Sunday, more than 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) above the 1995 record, the NWS said.

By Friday afternoon, conditions had eased in the St. Louis area.

“We’re moving things up high and we’ve got our generators out and got some extra water”, said Dotty Kirkendoll, a clerk at Riverside Park Marina on McKellar Lake, which feeds off the Mississippi River. “But wading out now when the wind chill is well below 20, you can’t say in the water for long (because) there can by hypothermia in minutes if not seconds”.

Sheriff John Jordan of Cape Girardeau County said that residents were piling up sandbags outside their homes and that water was already creeping into tiny communities in low-lying areas of the county.

Nixon has requested a federal emergency declaration to speed debris removal and relieve the strain of recovery costs in the St. Louis region. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon had asked for the help.

Hundreds of homes in the Midwest have been damaged as Mississippi, Meramec and Missouri rivers overflowed after heavy rainfall this week.

“It was bad from every direction”, Newman said.

Though much of the town is still underwater, Lovell said he has no plans to leave. “This flood came up quick and went down quick”.

According to Illinois Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Patti Thompson, nine people have died in Illinois while fifteen people have died in Missouri. Searchers were still looking Friday for five missing people – two teenagers in IL, two men in Missouri and one man in Oklahoma. Two wastewater plants were shut down – at Fenton and Valley Park – allowing raw sewage into the Meramec.

There was no major flooding reported in Missouri as of Saturday night, Holste said, and what floodwaters remained are slowly receding.

In St. Louis, the river crested Friday at 42.58 feet – just shy of the 1993 level. Associated Press journalists Maria Sudekum in Kansas City, Jim Salter in St. Louis and Fritz Faerber in Arnold, Mo., contributed.

Parts of the South are also in the flood’s path with moderate Mississippi River flooding expected in Memphis. The Mississippi River is expected to crest Sunday in East Cape Girardeau and on Monday in nearby Cairo.