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Corps general orders barges in position for possible Birds Point levee breach

By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian

SIKESTON, Mo. -- With the rains returning and the flood gauge at Cairo, Ill., expected to match all-time highs by Monday, Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh gave the order Saturday to move barges carrying 250 tons of explosives to Wickliffe, Ky., putting them in position to blow the Birds Point levee in Mississippi County.

But Walsh said at a news conference Saturday afternoon he has yet to decide whether he will activate the plan that would inundate 132,000 acres of farmland in Mississippi and New Madrid counties.

"No decision has been made," said Walsh, president of the Mississippi River Commission and commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi Valley Division. "It's not time-phased, it's condition-phased."

And moving the barges is not even an indicator that he's more strongly considering blowing the levee, which would relieve pressure from the swollen Mississippi River by diverting its waters to 132,000 acres of farmland in Mississippi and New Madrid counties.

It was the next step to prepare for that contingency, which was precipitated by the Cairo gauge of 59.19 feet, which is just below the all-time high of 59.5 feet, a level that is expected at Cairo by Monday or Tuesday, Walsh said. Three to four inches of rain was also expected to be dumped on an already soaked Southeast Missouri within the next two to three days, forecasters said.

Several other decisions would have to be made in the process before he would give the order to activate the floodway, he said. The next step would be to position the barges along the Birds Point levee, followed by an order to charge the pipes and then the final order to activate the plan to create holes in levee, making inflow and outflow spots that Walsh said would lower river waters at Cairo by 3 to 4 feet.

"So there are still a lot of decision points as we move forward," Walsh said.

Walsh, who is the only person who can make the decision, said if he does opt to blow the levee, it would likely be only the first such levee breach. Three other floodways are situated between here and Louisiana and he's had conversations with communities there and those also may require breaching.

"This is an event that may use all the resources that we have to control this level of flooding we have in the system," Walsh said.

Water in new places

On Saturday, Walsh and other corps officers flew from his offices at Vicksburg, Miss., over flooded areas before stopping at Sikeston.

"There is water in places where we hadn't ever, ever seen it before," Walsh said. "This is certainly a fight of the human dimension. We know the price being paid is high. As I flew over, I saw a number of structures and facilities underwater and people evacuating."

Also problematic, he said, is that other levees and flood-control systems along the Mississippi are being stressed by the heavy rains and high floodwaters. He said part of the system that's "not behaving in the way that we thought." Those issues include underseepage, which occurs when water seeps under earthen levees and hurts their structural integrity. He said they also came across the largest sand boil, the movement of sand under a levee, they'd ever come across during a visit to Cairo Saturday. They have been putting in sand berms to try to combat those problems up and down the river, he said.

"The Mississippi River tributary system has never been under this type of pressure before," Walsh said. "There's different places of it that's beginning to degrade. We're putting people in those positions and flood-fighting them until they become stabilized."

The corps has also managed to hold back some of the water. Maj. Gen. John Peabody, commander of the corps' Great Lakes and Ohio River Division and fellow commission member, said dams at Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley have been holding back water that normally flows into the river. But on Saturday, pool levels rose to record highs, he said.

When those pools get to 375 feet, water can't be held back anymore, he said, for fear of losing those flood-control projects from overtopping. On Thursday, Peabody took the unprecedented step of ordering all the districts of the Ohio River Basin to start holding back water at all reservoirs. Walsh said those efforts have made about 1 1/2 feet of difference at the gauge at Cairo.

'Every asset we have'

Fellow Mississippi River Commission member R.D. James, a self-employed farmer from New Madrid, also spoke to the group at the news conference, which included several area farmers as well.

"Folks, this is the largest flood any of us will see in our history, I hope," James said. "But you can rest assured that every asset we have are working to try to prevent using the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway. That may come, that may have to be executed. But they're holding off and doing everything they can."

Mississippi County Sheriff Keith Moore said that the floodway had been successfully evacuated. Moore, who was born and raised in Mississippi County, said this is the worst conditions he's ever seen.

He also hopes the corps doesn't have to blow the levee.

"We really don't want it breached," he said. "But if it's to save lives, that's a different story. We're just doing the best we can with everything that's happened."

Glenn Ault, a Mississippi County farmer who owns about 6,000 acres within the Birds Point Levee spillway, said he would like to see a natural overflow rather than a breach of the levee at Birds Point.

"We won't have near the damage in the floodway and loss of land and ability to raise crops and loss of infrastructure, bridges and all that stuff with a natural overtopping," he said.

Ault said the farmers in Mississippi County consider the risks of the floodwaters for residents of Cairo and do not want to see anyone's life in danger.

"I don't want to ruin Cairo, but I don't want them to ruin me either," he said.

Staff writer Rebecca Rolwing contributed to this report.

From the Southeast Missourian...

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If word comes ... Corps of Engineers ready to blow levee

By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stands ready to launch a precise, technical -- and hopefully highly effective -- 48-hour operation that was preceded with barges moving upriver Saturday and that would culminate with the ebbing of unforgiving floodwaters through the floodway's breach.

But the 200 or so corps employees who are stationed in Mississippi County along the levee are waiting for the word from one man -- Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, president of the Mississippi River Commission.

"Our whole goal in this operation is to basically activate, if ordered by the president of the MRC, the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway," said Jim Lloyd, the corps' operations team leader. "If he gives the order, that's when it begins."

The corps invited the media Friday to its operation headquarters near Charleston, just off the northmost point of the Birds Point levee directly across the river from Wickliffe, Ky. The operations center is not far from Cairo, Ill., which has spent much of the past week fighting back floodwaters before being ordered to evacuate by midnight last night.

So far, Walsh, who commands the Mississippi Valley Division of the corps, has made the decision day-to-day after a conference call with his staff and other engineers. Walsh looks at the gauge at Cairo, weather forecasts and the rate the river is rising before he makes the decision.

The Cairo flood gauge stood Saturday afternoon at 59.19 feet and was just 3 inches below the record of 59.5, with the breaching plan set at 61 feet for activation.

If the general does decide to do it -- and the federal courts cleared the way Friday denying a state's motion for a temporary restraining order -- the plan kicks into high gear, Lloyd said. An appellate court Saturday also refused to block the corps from blowing the levee.

The barges were ordered from Hickman, Ky., to Birds Point in Mississippi County Saturday and stand ready this morning with 265 tons of explosives. The explosives, Lloyd said, are a liquid mix of aluminum powder and sodium perchlorate, which is sometimes used to make ammunition.

If the order comes, corps crews would pump the mixture into pipes burrowed into the levee in 1,000-foot lengths, each separated by 60-foot gaps, and accessible through holes cut into the earthen embankment. Getting the barge in position and getting the explosives into place would take about 24 hours, Lloyd said.

"We will mix the blasting agent prior to pumping it in," Lloyd said. "If the hydraulic conditions and the forecast and the president of the MRC determines we need to operate, we'll send in explosive technicians, prime the ends of the 1,000-foot sections and we'll detonate it."

A detonating cord will be laid and the corps team will prime them with C-4 explosives before installing the blasting cap before pushing a button from their operations site.

The first breach would allow for inflow and is just across the river from Wickliffe, Ky. A total of 11,000 feet would be blown first to create inflow to allow waters from the river to exit the river's normal path and into the floodway's 130,000 acres, largely in Mississippi County.

The operation will relieve pressure on the lower Ohio and lower Mississippi rivers by expanding the cross-section of the river and giving it more room, Lloyd said.

Twenty-four hours later, an outflow breach would be created by blowing two 5,500-foot sections at the floodway's southern end just north of New Madrid, Mo., Lloyd said. That will allow the waters to return to the Mississippi in that area, Lloyd said. He said that breaching the levee will cause water to drop in the vicinity of Cairo, by 3 to 4 feet. Smaller water reductions will be seen above Cairo and through the floodway reach, he said.

The corps crews have already been at work doing some prep work, Lloyd said. They've been busy digging out the manholes, or "fuse plugs," which has been completed.

The floodway, a combination of public and private land with easements granting the government the right to let water pass through, has been activated only once, in the record flood of 1937.

Lloyd said Walsh will be closely monitoring the weather forecasts. Showers and storms forecast for today and Monday are likely to bring 1 to 3 inches of rainfall to Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois, said David Humphrey, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service at Paducah, Ky. The area could see 2 to 4 inches of rain through Tuesday, he said, but this rainfall isn't likely to bring higher crests along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

"The overall impact on the larger rivers is that it will slow the recession after the crest," Humphrey said.

Dams at Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers will continue to cut water releases over the next 24 hours in an effort to mitigate flooding on the Ohio River, but they are nearing maximum pool stages.

If the levee is breached, the U.S. Coast Guard will stop barge traffic and the Federal Aviation Administration would restrict airplane flight, though the corps would have a helicopter in the air to monitor the activation. Cairo has about 3,000 people; the 130,000 acres of farmland in Mississippi County has about 200 residents in 90 homes.

Staff writer Melissa Miller contributed to this report.

From the Southern Illinoisan...

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Cairo on the brink

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AND THE SOUTHERN

"Non-essential" people were ordered to leave Cairo Saturday as barges loaded with the makings of explosive sludge moved closer to a Missouri levee that could prove to be the saving grace of the Alexander County city.

Cairo Mayor Judson Childs issued a "mandatory by midnight" evacuation for all non-essential people in the city. The levee system does not have a break, Childs said, but predicted rainfall and sand boils are raising fears that the city at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers could be overtaken by floodwaters. "I'd rather mandate people to leave and nothing happen," Child's said, "than have the people stay and we have a catastrophe on our hands."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers inched closer to blowing a hole in a Mississippi River levee after a federal appeals court declined to stop the move.

The corps moved a pair of barges into position near the Birds Point levee in Missouri, but said it hadn't yet decided that it needed to breach the 60-foot-high earthen wall to protect Cairo. More than half that town's 2,800 residents had been evacuated from the area, local police said. Further upstream from Cairo, Ohio River communities, such as Old Shawneetown, were plugging leaks in their own levees, hoping they hold.

The 230 people who live in the southeast Missouri flood plain behind the Birds Point levee had already been evacuated from their homes, a spokesman for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said. Some of the farmers whose roughly 130,000 acres of land would be inundated moved out what they could Saturday, assuming the corps will have no choice as the Mississippi and Ohio that feeds it rise.

"When the water hits this dirt, it's gonna make a hell of a mess," one of the farmers, Ed Marshall, said as he packed up his farm office and hauled away propane tanks and other equipment. He said he was keeping an eye on the weather forecast, which called for several more inches of rain over the next few days. "If that happens I don't believe they'll be able to hold it."

In Cairo, Childs said he was relieved by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision early Saturday in St. Louis.

"I've been saying all along that we can't take land over lives," the mayor said.

The state of Missouri had asked the court to block the plan because to protect the farm land. Scott Holste, a spokesman for Nixon, said state officials there are now focused on protecting the homes, agricultural equipment and other property left behind in the heavily farmed flood plain below the levee. In addition to people evacuated from the floodway, as many as 800 were asked to leave surrounding areas.

"The entire area has been evacuated now," Holste said, adding that more than 500 Missouri National Guard troops are helping local law enforcement at checkpoints around the area.

It's unclear whether Missouri could pursue further legal action. Holste referred questions to Attorney General Chris Koster, who didn't respond to phone calls or emails Saturday from The Associated Press.

The corps started moving the barges to a spot in Kentucky just across from the levee Saturday afternoon but was still weighing its options and monitoring the rise of the Ohio River in Cairo, which is just north of where the Ohio flows into the Mississippi, spokesman Jim Pogue said. The decision would be based on how high the river is expected to get, from new rain that could fall and water backing up in reservoirs upstream.

One key signal, he said, will be if the Ohio nears or reaches 61 feet at Cairo.

"It's certainly a significant benchmark, if we get there," Pogue said.

The river is expected to crest in Cairo at 60.5 feet - a foot above the local record high - by Tuesday morning and stay there through at least Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. A flood wall protects Cairo up to 64 feet, but the corps fears that water pressure from the lingering river crest could compromise the wall and earthen levees that protect other parts of the city.

"It's all about how much pressure is being put on the levee system," Pogue said.

Judson said he and others, including National Guard troops were closely watching for sand boils, spots where high-pressure water pushes under the flood wall and levees and wells up through the soil behind them. They're a potential sign of trouble.

If the corps decides to breach the levee in Cairo, it would use a sludgy mix of explosives pumped into 11,000 feet of pipes inside the levee to weaken a 2-mile-wide section, Pogue said. The force of the water would push through to the land that sits behind the levee in Missouri's Mississippi County. Levees would be breached in two more spots further downstream near new Madrid, Mo., so at least some of the water could flow back out into the Mississippi.

Missouri officials have argued that the rush of water could lead to environmental mess, sweeping away fertilizer, diesel fuel, propane tanks, pesticides and other toxins.

- David Mercer of The Associated Press, Becky Malkovich of The Southern Illinoisan, and The Paducah Sun contributed to this report.

From the seattlepi.com website...

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Mayor orders flood-threatened Ill. city evacuated

DAVID MERCER, Associated Press

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — Authorities in a southern Illinois city menaced by two dangerously swollen rivers say most of the city's remaining residents have heeded a mandatory evacuation order, prompted by river water seeping up through the ground behind the levee "kind of like Old Faithful."

Passing thunderstorms dumped rain overnight on the already waterlogged region, adding to the worries of emergency officials.

Cairo Mayor Judson Childs issued a mandatory evacuation order for the city of 2,800 residents late Saturday afternoon, hours after meeting with Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, the Army Corps of Engineers officer tasked with deciding whether to blow a hole in the Birds Point levee in Missouri, downstream from Cairo, to relieve pressure on levees along the dangerously high Ohio and Mississippi rivers. He ordered remaining residents to leave by midnight Saturday due to a "sand boil" — or area of river water seepage — that had become dangerously large.

At 4 a.m. CDT, the Ohio River topped a 1937 record of 59.50 feet by reaching 59.59 feet at Cairo, the National Weather Service reported.

Jim Pitchford, a spokesman for Cairo's emergency services, told The Associated Press early Sunday that authorities had taken note of the new river level but were gratified that the boil area appeared to hold "stable" throughout the night. He said the seeping water was undergoing constant monitoring by corps officials.

"I'm happy to report that there's been no change in the past four hours. We continue to monitor the area and we have taken note of the gauge," he said of the record level on the Ohio River at Cairo posted on a National Weather Service website.

Pitchford said corps officials and others had been out checking the pumps during the night and earlier thunderstorms had since ended.

Police in Cairo also told AP early Sunday that they had no indication anyone had defied the mandatory evacuation order, but officers would go door to door in coming hours to make sure everyone was out who wasn't authorized to be there.

Walsh, who toured Cairo's levee area, had recently described the boil that has been growing since it was first spotted Tuesday as the largest he had ever seen, the Southeast Missourian newspaper reported. Sand boils occur when high-pressure water pushes under flood walls and levees and wells up through the soil behind them. They're a potential sign of trouble.

City clerk Lorrie Hesselrode described the boil as "kind of like Old Faithful," the famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. "There's so much water pressure it forces the water under ground."

"It's kind of scary. It's pretty big. We've had sand boils before but nothing like this. It is under control but other boils have popped up," she told The Associated Press.

The river is expected to crest in Cairo at 60.5 feet — a foot above the local record high — by Tuesday morning and stay there through at least Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. A flood wall protects Cairo up to 64 feet, but the corps fears that water pressure from the lingering river crest could compromise the wall and earthen levees that protect other parts of the city.

Earlier Saturday, Cairo police Chief Gary Hankins estimated that about 1,000 residents had remained prior to the mandatory evacuation.

The corps inched closer Saturday to blowing a hole in the Birds Point levee after a federal appeals court declined to stop the move. The corps moved a pair of barges loaded with the makings of an explosive sludge into position near the levee, which is on the Mississippi River just downstream from Cairo in Missouri, but said it hadn't decided that it needed to breach the 60-foot-high earthen wall to protect Cairo.

The 230 people who live in the southeast Missouri flood plain behind the Birds Point levee had already been evacuated from their homes, a spokesman for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said. Some of the farmers whose roughly 130,000 acres of land would be inundated moved out what they could Saturday, assuming the corps will have no choice as the Mississippi and Ohio that feeds it rise.

"When the water hits this dirt, it's going to make a hell of a mess," one of the farmers, Ed Marshall, said as he packed up his farm office and hauled away propane tanks and other equipment. He said he was keeping an eye on the weather forecast, which called for several more inches of rain over the next few days. "If that happens, I don't believe they'll be able to hold it."

In Cairo, the mayor said he was relieved by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision early Saturday in St. Louis.

"I've been saying all along that we can't take land over lives," Childs said.

The state of Missouri had asked the court to block the plan to protect the farm land. Scott Holste, a spokesman for Nixon, said state officials there are now focused on protecting the homes, agricultural equipment and other property left behind in the heavily farmed flood plain below the levee. In addition to people evacuated from the floodway, as many as 800 were asked to leave surrounding areas.

"The entire area has been evacuated now," Holste said, adding that more than 500 Missouri National Guard troops are helping local law enforcement at checkpoints around the area.

It's unclear whether Missouri could pursue further legal action. Holste referred questions to Attorney General Chris Koster, whose didn't respond to phone calls or emails Saturday from The Associated Press.

The corps started moving the barges to a spot in Kentucky just across from the levee Saturday afternoon but was still weighing its options and monitoring the rise of the Ohio River in Cairo, which is just north of where the Ohio flows into the Mississippi, spokesman Jim Pogue said. The decision would be based on how high the river is expected to get, from new rain that could fall and water backing up in reservoirs upstream.

One key signal, he said, will be if the Ohio nears or reaches 61 feet at Cairo.

___

Associated Press writer Bill Draper in Kansas City, Mo., and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

From the Southeast Missourian...

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River hits record at Cairo

Sunday, May 1, 2011 ~ Updated 12:16 PM
Southeast Missourian

The river gauge at Cairo, Ill., hit 59.83 feet at 11 a.m. today, reaching a level never before seen. Original forecasts hadn't called for the river to reach that level so fast, but Saturday night storms contributed to a quicker rise. At Cape Girardeau, 1.5 inches of rain was measured from storms Saturday night.

The Ohio River at Cairo rose 0.6 feet in the 24 hours preceding the record reading, and should soon be over 60 feet.

The Army Corps of Engineers put out a news release this morning saying the river had gone to a level higher than that seen during the historic 1937 flood. That flood was preceded 10 years earlier by a major flood that spawned the creation of today's flood-control system, including the New Madrid Floodway.

"The Project Flood is upon us," Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, President of the Mississippi River Commission said today. "This is the flood that engineers envisioned following the 1927 flood. It is testing the system like never before."

Heavy rain was expected in the area Sunday night, possibly exacerbating the problem of record river levels.

On Saturday barges containing explosives were moved to Wickliffe, Ky., across the river from Birds Point, another step closer to getting ready for a possible breach in the levee. Corps officials have said the process of moving toward activation of the New Madrid Floodway will be one of small, incremental steps defined by changing conditions in the river system.

Also on Saturday, Cairo was evacuated.

Look for more information later at www.semissourian.com/flood2011.

A pre-evacuation story from the cnn.com website...with some new information. Mostly, I decided to post it for the picture. A couple of days ago, that was me...

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A boy in Cairo, Illinois, looks over a levee wall
holding back floodwaters from the Ohio River.

Divided by a river: Two states grapple with rising floodwaters

(CNN) -- A mandatory evacuation was issued Saturday for a southwestern Illinois town threatened by the rain-swollen Mississippi River, an order that was issued as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers weighed whether to blow up a levee and flood rural farm communities to save the town.

Heavy rains have pushed the river to near-record levels, putting pressure on a tributary system that began buckling days earlier when a levee failed and flooded a handful of rural towns in southeastern Missouri.

"I know that the price being paid is high," said Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers, who told reporters during a briefing that he had flown over a number of the affected communities.

With more rain predicted and the deterioration of a levee near Cairo, Illinois, the town's mayor, Judson Childs, ordered his 2,800 residents to leave by midnight.

Walsh told reporters that a decision whether to blow a 2-mile hole in the levee to save Cairo will be dictated by the conditions.

"The decision clock has been rolling," he said.

But the decision whether to blow up the levee has pitted Illinois and Missouri against one another in recent days, with Missouri filing a federal lawsuit to block the Corps. Illinois joined the Corps as a defendant.

A federal judge ruled Friday against Missouri, saying a 1928 law permitted the breach of a levee to ease pressure on the river.

Caught in the middle, though, are residents on either side of the river, which threatens to swallow communities in Missouri and Illinois.

"People are losing their jobs. They're losing their homes. They are losing the beds they sleep in at night. All because of this flooding," said Aaron Mitchell, 48, who worries breaching the levee could overwhelm smaller tributaries that could flood his home.

Mitchell is also concerned about where the water released under the Corps' plan would go since much of the land in the area is already under water because of heavy rains.

"Where is all that water going to go?" he said.

The plan calls for engineers to use explosives to breach the Birds Point-New Madrid levee, flooding 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland that has been designated as a flood plain. About 90 families who live in the area have already been evacuated, Missouri officials have said.

Illinois and Missouri have called out hundreds of National Guard soldiers to help evacuate communities and protect vacated communities.

But while government officials were divided by the decision to breach the levee, residents on both sides of the river appeared to be pulling together.

Families forced to flee were being offered shelter in area hotels and at local churches, according to county officials.

A car dealership in Sikeston, Missouri, was allowing residents forced to leave their homes to store furniture and other personal belongings in buildings on their lot, while some restaurants in the area were providing food to the displaced.

"Everybody is pulling together," Mitchell said.

While Walsh said a final decision has not been made to breach the Birds Point-New Madrid levee, he has begun preparations by ordering barges that would be used in the operation to move toward the levee.

Engineers have reported sand boils and seepage at a number of levees near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, a condition that Walsh said also threatens the integrity of the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project -- the world's largest flood control project.

"There is water in places where we have never ever seen it before," Walsh said.

Engineers have warned that should the rising waters of the Mississippi River overwhelm the entire flood control project, it could deluge cities, destroy crops, destroy businesses and paralyze river transportation.

From the Southeast Missourian...

Link to Original Story

General orders pipes at Bird Point levee loaded with blasting agent

Sunday, May 1, 2011 ~ Updated 5:05 PM
By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is taking the final steps to prepare the Birds Point levee in Mississippi County for detonation, though the man in charge says that decision has still yet to be made.

Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh ordered field crews on Sunday to move barges loaded with 250 tons of explosives across the river from Kentucky to Missouri and to load the pipes with the blasting agent.

The only step left - the final one - would be to activate the floodway, which would send Mississippi River floodwaters through the 130,000-acre floodway in Mississippi County.

"The final decision to activate the floodway has not been made. Repeat - has not been made," the corps said in a release.

Walsh, the president of the Mississippi River Commission, said in the release that it will take about 20 hours to move the barges and to fill the pipes that are burrowed into the earthen levee.

Walsh said he will review the situation continuously as conditions change.

The Birds Point New Madrid Floodway Plan calls for activating the floodway when the gauge reaches 61 and rising. On Sunday morning, the gauge at Cairo passed the previous record of 59.5 and reached 59.89 by 1 p.m. Walsh said the gauge was expected to reach 60.5 Monday. Walsh toured the area by helicopter along with U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt and U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson.

Saturday night storms contributed to a quick rise in the river level. At Cape Girardeau, 1.5 inches of rain was measured from storms Saturday night.

The Ohio River at Cairo rose 0.7 feet in the 24 hours preceding the 1 p.m. reading.

The Army Corps of Engineers put out a news release this morning saying the river had gone to a level higher than that seen during the historic 1937 flood. That flood was preceded 10 years earlier by a major flood that spawned the creation of today's flood-control system, including the New Madrid Floodway.

"The Project Flood is upon us," Walsh said today before his decision. "This is the flood that engineers envisioned following the 1927 flood. It is testing the system like never before."

Heavy rain was expected in the area Sunday night, possibly exacerbating the problem of record river levels.