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Levees along Mississippi risk flooding, Feds say

by Rob Peters | June 16, 2008 at 06:23 pm | 240 views | add comment

If a major sandbagging effort along the Mississippi River fails, more than two dozen levees in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri could overflow, according to officials.

WASHINGTON - The federal government predicts that 27 levees could potentially overflow along the Mississippi River if the weather forecast is on the mark and a massive sandbagging effort fails to raise the level of the levees, according to a map obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

adx_U_9932="";adx_D_9932="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/...764183/A=5388396/R=0/*";adx_I_9932=""; adx_data_9932="A=57,AN=YahooCanada%2fY_CA_Careers_300x250,AC=,AV=,PB=1/SIG=15au22pfn,X=1213664873,B=5388396,K=21UkktLwPHJko5IZoubcUQ--,C=586416.12101916.13015965.1442997,D=LREC,Z=,R=news,P=PKADN0WTVvqlPaYBSC2u1QpMGFJfgUhXDmkAC4cM,E=83018390,Y=YAHOO,V=1.0"; Officials are placing millions of sandbags on top of the levees along the river in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri to prevent overflowing. There is no way to predict whether these levees will break, said Ron Fournier, a spokesman with the Army Corps of Engineers in Iowa. "That's a crystal ball that nobody has," he told the AP.
The levees in New Orleans broke during Hurricane Katrina, causing catastrophic flooding.

Record-breaking storms and flooding across six states this month continue to force thousands of people to evacuate and seek shelter. Since June 6, there have been 22 deaths, 85 injuries and more than 26,000 power outages because of the storms and flooding, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

As of Monday evening, 27 levees have a potential of overflowing — 20 of those a "high potential" — according to the Army Corps. Six levees have already overflowed in the past three days: two in Iowa and four in Missouri.

Still, Roth said, if the federal government and local officials are able to get the sandbags in place and identify potential weak areas along the levees, "then there's maybe a very good chance to provide flood protection for the people that live along the river."

Some 251 miles of the Mississippi River have been closed. That doesn't officially shut down the river, said U.S. Geological Survey national flood specialist Bob Holmes, but it effectively shuts down barge traffic.