LOUISIANA, Mo. — Towns hard-hit by flooding along the Mississippi River got good news Sunday; the swollen waterway was close to hitting its highest point.
It appeared Sunday that the flooding in Missouri and Illinois could give way to recovery in a few days. The National Weather Service said the Mississippi was cresting Sunday at Canton, Mo., not far from the Iowa state line, through the lock and dam near Saverton.
Late Sunday, the official crest forecast was pushed back for several points downriver. The river wasn’t forecast to rise any higher than had been expected earlier, but forecasters said it would take a little longer to get there. Crests were forecast today from Hannibal to Clarksville.
“It’s quieter compared to earlier this week,” said Louisiana emergency management director Mike Lesley, adding that sandbagging in the town had largely ceased. “Last night, I actually got some sleep.”
But elsewhere, the river was still rising. The latest forecasts for hard-hit Winfield and Grafton, Ill., pushed back the crest to Wednesday.
“We’re just trying to deal with it as it comes to us,” said Jamie Scott, a dispatcher with the sheriff’s office in Jersey County, Ill. “The crest (forecast) has dropped almost a foot, so that’s a good thing. … All of our levees are holding.”
Officials in Lincoln County, Mo., inspected levees near Winfield by air Sunday after one was overtopped earlier in the day, flooding about 1,000 acres and fewer than half a dozen homes, said Lincoln County emergency management spokesman Andy Binder.
“It just blew through our sandbags,” Binder said.
Several miles down the river in Grafton, the floodwaters continued to spread deeper into the 650-resident village.
When the river does crest in Grafton, it’s expected to do so at 29.5 feet — roughly nine feet below the record mark set during the Great Flood of ‘93. In St. Louis, where the river continued to flow at crest levels Sunday, it was more than 12 feet below the ‘93 record.
While not record-setting, the devastation was still widespread: The storms and flooding that started in early June have forced thousands from their homes across six states, killing 24. Rural areas such as Lincoln County, Mo., suffered the worst. More than 300 homes were flooded after more than 90 percent of the county’s levees were overtopped.
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