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.
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