Rain delays loading of explosives at Birds Point levee
Posted by JAC on 5/2/2011, 3:23 pm
http://www.semissourian.com/story/1723568.html



Floodwaters creep towards Illinois 3 on Sunday, May 1, 2011 in Olive Branch, Ill.
Volunteers were scrambling to build a sandbag wall to protect homes on the opposite side of the highway.



The rain has not only increased the rapid rise of the Ohio River at Cairo, Ill., but it has delayed the placement of explosives into pipes at the Birds Point levee.

Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Jim Pogue said just before 2 p.m. that barge crews were still loading the explosives.

After the loading is finished, it would take three hours to be ready for blasting, if the order is given.

The corps hasn't said yet that it definitely plans to breach the levee, inundating about 200 square miles of prime farm land in Mississippi County.

The Ohio River at Cairo is now over 61 feet, the level at which the Army Corps of Engineers can activate the Birds Point New Madrid Floodway.

The river stage stood at 61.18 at 1 p.m. after shattering the previous record of 59.51 Sunday. The river had risen 1.29 feet in the preceding 24 hours.

New forecasts from the National Weather Service show the river going to 63 feet by Wednesday. The floodwall at Cairo is designed to protect to 64 feet.




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??? on New Madrid Fault and the Peaking River - BobbiStorm, 4/28/2011, 5:06 pm
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