Floods in Missouri forced hundreds of residents out of their homes on Tuesday after four days of storms sent rivers to record levels, killing at least 13 people, closing hundreds of roads and halting shipping on the swollen Mississippi river.
A week of chaotic weather continued throughout the US as a storm system that spawned deadly tornadoes in the Midwest and Southwest pushed north. More than 40 people across the country have died of weather-related causes during the Christmas holidays in the past week.
Missouri has been pounded by downpours since Saturday and forecasters warned that its major rivers could crest between yesterday and Saturday at records.
Photo: Reuters
“Flooding on the middle portion of the Mississippi River and its tributaries may reach levels not seen during the winter months since records began during the middle 1800s,” senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski wrote on AccuWeather.com.
At the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, about 32 km north of St Louis, residents of the towns of West Alton and Arnold were told to evacuate on Tuesday.
“Access to and from town will be lost in a matter of hours,” the local Rivers Pointe Fire District said in an alert.
Video from local news helicopters showed homes in West Alton with water almost at roof levels.
Arnold residents scrambled to find hotels or move to shelters.
Sarah Quinn, 18, said she and her great-grandparents were moving to a hotel room after police turned off the power at her subdivision.
Her sister, grandmother and other relatives decided to brave it out without power because they wanted to stay in their homes and vehicles to look after their pets.
“I’ve never had this happen before. We’ve had simple flooding in the back of our subdivision and we’ve had to sandbag before, but it wasn’t this severe,” said Quinn, who spoke to reporters by telephone from her job in a local restaurant.
The Bourbeuse River crested on Tuesday at an all-time record in Union, Missouri, after flooding about 25 homes, nine businesses and the city’s sewer system, Union Mayor Mike Livengood said.
“It will take major work to get those businesses up and running again,” Livengood told reporters.
He said no one was injured in the town of about 10,500 people in Franklin County, just southwest of St Louis.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon called out the US National Guard to direct traffic away from hundreds of closed roads across the state and urged drivers not to drive into flooded areas.
Three new flood-related deaths were discovered on Tuesday, the governor said, raising the death toll in the state since the storms began over the weekend to 13.
“These citizen soldiers will provide much-needed support to state and local first responders, many of whom have spent the last several days working around the clock responding to record rainfall and flooding,” Nixon said in a statement.
Nixon visited Franklin County yesterday to tour flood-fighting efforts in Pacific, where the Meramec River continues to rise above flood stage. The river was expected to crest yesterday evening more than 61cm above the previous record set in 1982.
Across the Mississippi, in Illinois, some inmates were moved out of the Menard Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison on the banks of the river, and sandbags and drinking water were prepared in anticipation of flooding in lower-level cell blocks, Illinois officials said in a statement.
The US Coast Guard closed an 8km stretch of the Mississippi River near St Louis to all vessel traffic due to hazardous conditions.
The US National Weather Service forecast the Mississippi River at the Chester, Illinois, river gauge about 100km south of St Louis would crest at 15.1m tomorrow, matching the 1993 record.
Local officials and the US Army Corps of Engineers were working to fortify a levee in the area to protect homes and businesses.
On Saturday, the Mississippi is expected to crest at Thebes, Illinois, just south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, at 14.5m, nearly 61cm above the record, officials said.
Other rivers are also expected to reach new highs, with the Meramec forecast to crest at Valley Park, Missouri, at a record 12.8m.
Illinois issued a disaster proclamation for seven counties with flooding or potential flooding after being drenched with 17cm of rain from Wednesday last week to Monday.
Elsewhere in the US midsection, parts of eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas were under flood warnings and flood watches on Tuesday.
Up to 30cm of snow was forecast for Iowa and the Great Lakes region, the National Weather Service said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in