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Cairo residents' ire at Quinn flares as floodwaters rise

BY ANDREW THOMASON, Illinois Statehouse News

CAIRO - The Ohio and Mississippi rivers continue to rise around this southern Illinois town, but anger at politicians is rising just as quickly.

Residents of the town, which sits on a strip of land just north of where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet, say Gov. Pat Quinn and others were too slow in their response to the emergency.

Janice Osgood lives in a fifth-floor apartment in a building bordering the Ohio River. She said she's not angry at Missouri politicians for trying to prevent a levee along the Mississippi River from being breached by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Missouri sued the Corps of Engineers to prevent it from blowing the dam, which would relieve pressure on Cairo by flooding some Missouri farmland. A federal judge ruled in favor of the Corps Friday morning, but the state of Missouri is appealing that decision "I mean, I understand Missouri's side," Osgood said.

What she is angry about is what she sees as a lack of interest by the people that represent her.

Quinn on Thursday visited the flooded areas and made a stop in Marion, which sits about 50 miles north of Cairo. Osgood said she wished Quinn would have come to her hometown instead.

"We're where the rivers are. We're the ones talking about the levees holding and so forth," Osgood said. "I realize Marion is worth a lot more to the state, but my feeling is that Cairo is worth something too."

Marion, located about an hour north of Cairo, has a much larger population than the small river town, and was the scene Thursday of a gathering of state officials who were commenting on conditions in the flood zone. The southern Illinois emergency command center is located in Marion.

James Wilson is another lifelong resident of the river town, as well as a former mayor.

As he drove around town Friday morning listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival, he pulled up to a diner for a cup of coffee with friends. They traded jabs with each other, but the conversation revolved around the flooding, especially the Corps of Engineers and the levee.

"Everyday right across the river we saw the congresswoman and the governor of Missouri taking up for a bunch of farmers over there, and we have nobody over here speaking up for us. We started raising hell," he said.

On his trip to Marion on Thursday, Quinn likened himself to World War II Gen. George Marshall, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for developing the logistic-heavy rebuilding of Europe after the war.

"My job is to keep everyone organized," Quinn said. "One of my heroes in life is a general by the name of George Marshall. He led the effort in World War II. He wasn't showing up and getting a lot of glory. All he did was organize the United States, the Allied response to fascism and totalitarianism and win the war."

Not everyone, however, was critical of Quinn. Todd Childers and his mother, Judy, stood near the concrete levee on Friday, staring at the rising Ohio River. Todd said Quinn and others are doing as good as job as possible given the situation.

"I'd say they're doing what they can do. Ain't a whole lot you can do with Mother Nature," he said.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. and Illinois U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, D-12th District, visited Cairo Friday for a tour of the soaked city. Cairo is in Costello's district.

But the gesture was too little, too late for Osgood and Wilson.