One paragraph from an updated article below just about caused ignition:

"Any residents who stayed in the city and checked in properly with law enforcement will be allowed to exit and re-enter Cairo with identification. About 100 people, according to law enforcement, have stayed within city limits. Thousands of people, including residents of a nursing home and mental health assisted-living facility, started to leave town at midnight Sunday."

I'll (reluctantly) give 'em until sundown tomorrow before my own personal detonation...

CAT Tracks Editor's Note:

If you wanna keep a constant eye on the Ohio River level...

NWS Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service

From the WSIL TV Channel 3 Website...

Link to Original Story

Corps Blasts Levee; Ohio River Drops at Cairo

Posted: Tuesday, May 3rd

By Dana Jay

MISSISSIPPI COUTY, Mo.— Two hours after the Army Corps of Engineers blasted the Birds Point levee, the gauge on the Ohio River at Cairo, Ill. had dropped from 61.72 to 61.13 feet, a sign that the operation may in fact be a success.

“We executed the plan and it performed as expected,” said Col. Vernie Reichling, Commander of the Corps’ Memphis District.

“We are now moving to the next steps, which are opening the two outflow crevasses at the southern end of the floodway."

Around 10 p.m. Monday, the Corps let the flooded Mississippi River flow into the Birds Point spillway, flooding thousands of acres of sparsely populated land. Most of the terrain was used for farming.

It was the first of three blasts. Another was scheduled between 1 and 4 a.m. Tuesday. The final blow was expected by Noon.

The Corps predicts this will lower the Ohio River between three and four feet at Cairo and other communities nearby.

A series of blasts could be seen across the top of the levee during the explosion. As the smoke billowed from the levee water slowly began to fill the spillway.

The hope is that 130,000 acres of flooded Missouri farmland will mean relief for communities upstream.

Flooding is so bad across the river in Alexander County, Illinois, the National Guard sandbagged the main road into Olive Branch making it impossible to reach that town from Cairo.

A small levee that holds back the Mississippi had broken Monday morning.

The county was forced to abandon it's emergency management command center. Crews drove through feet of water as they evacuated.

Despite all that flooding-- many in Missouri had hoped to save the land in the spillway. They expect major damage from the breach.

Missouri’s Attorney General asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the explosion, but a barge--once loaded with explosives-- moved away from the levee shortly before dark Monday.

“We understand why the decision was made. [I] can't really say we agree with it, but I guess we understand. It's a very sad day for us all around here,” said Mississippi County Commissioner Carlin Bennett.

From the New York Times...

Link to Original Story

Army Corps Blows Up Missouri Levee

By A. G. SULZBERGER

EAST PRAIRIE, Mo. — Ruben Bennett, his back bent and his fingers gnarled from a lifetime of labor, has lived all of his 88 years on an expanse of rich farmland here, just below where the Ohio River pours into the Mississippi. He survived his share of floods — including the record-setting one that swept away his boyhood home — but he has never run from one, until now.

For days he returned repeatedly, despite a mandatory evacuation, with the hope of riding out another major flood in his longtime home above his shuttered grocery store. But under threats from law enforcement officials, and the cajoling of his family, he finally agreed to retreat. As explosives tore open a protective levee Monday night, he waited for the news that his home has been destroyed.

“I can’t tell you how I feel, because there no feeling for that,” he said hours earlier, sitting in his daughter’s house — nearby, and safe from possible flooding — where he has been sleeping on the couch. “I hate it so bad.”

The Mississippi River, already at record levels here, keeps rising, fed by punishing rains. As the flood protection systems that safeguard countless communities groan under the pressure, federal officials executed a fiercely debated plan to destroy a part of the levee holding back the river in the area Mr. Bennett calls home for the greater good of the region.

With a flash of light and a massive rumbling that shook windows miles away, the Army Corps of Engineers set off explosives at 10 p.m. along the first of several sections of the earthen barrier, sending 550,000 cubic feet of water a second across the 130,000 acres of farmland known as the spillway. There were 90 homes in the spillway, but under the cover of darkness it was impossible to gauge the initial devastation. “This doesn’t end this historic flood,” said Maj. Gen. Michael J. Walsh, who commands the Mississippi Valley Division of the corps, explaining that the river may rise again in a few days. “This is not the end, this is just the beginning.”

Col. Vernie L. Reichling Jr., commander of the corps’ Memphis District, said the blast was successful, calling it “historic as well as tragic.”

The move was a desperate effort to lower the river, which had climbed to about 61 feet in nearby Cairo, Ill., to head off calamity up- and downriver. In Illinois, the pressure on the levee created a geyser, forcing the evacuation of Cairo. In Louisiana, there was concern about whether levees could survive a record flood.

And it raised a new risk in this part of Missouri, which had challenged the plan unsuccessfully in court, because any water filling the spillway would put pressure on an untested secondary levee that protects more populous communities.

Some of the 200 residents in the spillway have argued that the young shoots of corn and knee-high carpet of wheat offered evidence enough that the area was worth protecting. Their claims will be soon be forgotten as the attention shifts downriver. But for these people, some of whom watched the blast, the flooding represents the beginning of a long process they say will drastically change their lives.

Just days after a farmer and his wife celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary saying goodbye to their newly built home, they planned to return to the area Tuesday to see if there was anything left. Another farmer spent the evening worrying that the sudden onslaught of river water had stripped and scarred the prized soil that gave the land its reputation for bounty. And an old man, stubborn enough to try to stick out the flood, spent the evening just trying not to think about the only place he has ever called home.

These residents, each with lifelong ties to the area, were divided about the decision to blow up the levee. But what they shared — beyond that streak of stoic perseverance native to farm country — was a sense that the value of their work had been diminished.

“This is our industry, this is our factory, we grow food for the same folks trying to blow up our levee,” said Cathy Allred, sitting alongside her husband, Larry, at a friend’s guest house, where they are living.

After growing up in the spillway, Mr. Allred left, working many jobs before persuading his wife to return to the country to farm. Six years ago, they built a house with their savings — about $100,000 — but were unable to get a mortgage or insurance because of the flood risks.

They enjoyed the change of pace: while Ms. Allred, 60, would stroll the property with the grandchildren looking for arrowheads, Mr. Allred, 59, would stalk for the dusty blackberry brambles that used the fences like growing stakes.

But on the anniversary of their marriage four decades ago, Ms. Allred sat alone on the floor of her empty home while her husband was on the porch, too emotional to come inside. He remained angry and distrustful at the way the federal government went about choosing which community to sacrifice. “I poured my whole life into that farm, and I’m 60 years old and I don’t want to start on anything else,” he said.

Down the road was the old brick home, hand-built 40 years ago by Milus and Wanda Wallace. This was what they were trying to save when Mr. Wallace, 60, who survived cancer a few years back, traveled to federal court to testify in support of a lawsuit to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from blowing up the levee.

But less than a week later, en route to sell his cows, because he had no place to put them, he says that he was wrong, that the river has left no choice but to sacrifice the area where he has lived since he was born. He is one of the fortunate ones whose house is insured, but they plan to relocate.

“It’s the ground that can never be replaced,” Mr. Wallace said. “They don’t make any more ground, and this ground in the spillway is the best in the world.”

The spillway was a different place when Mr. Bennett was a child. The land was covered in trees, until it was stripped by a lumber company and sold off in stump-covered lots at $17 an acre for farmland, like the 40 acres his parents cleared to feed their eight children.

The record-setting 1937 flood — the only other time the levee was intentionally breached — destroyed his family home.

Staying to raise a family of his own, he watched the area transform into thriving cropland, rich with corn, soy and wheat. He ran a grocery store and a tire repair businesses that made him the best-known man in the spillway. A decade ago, he closed the store, and his wife died. But he remained. So did the risk of flood.

Usually, when the river caused trouble every few years, he just carted his possessions to the second floor and prepared to muck out afterward. When he sneaked on to the levee to get a final look at the river this weekend, he saw that this flood was different.

“I’ve never seen him scared before in my life till they talked about blowing the levee,” said his son Barry Bennett, who runs a tire shop in East Prairie. “It got to him bad.”

Malcolm Gay contributed reporting from Charleston, Mo.

From the Washington Post...

Link to Original Story

Army Corps of Engineers blows up Mississippi River levee in effort to save Illinois town

By Associated Press, Tuesday, May 3, 12:14 AM

WYATT, Mo. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers exploded a large section of a Mississippi River levee Monday in a desperate attempt to protect an Illinois town from rising floodwaters.

The corps said the break in the Birds Point levee would help tiny Cairo, Ill., by diverting up to 4 feet of water off the river. Just before Monday night’s explosions, river levels at Cairo were at historic highs and creating pressure on the floodwall protecting the town.

For the Missouri side, the blasts were likely unleashing a muddy torrent into empty farm fields and around evacuated homes in Mississippi County.

Brief but bright orange flashes could be seen above the river as the explosions went off just after 10 p.m. The blasts lasted only about two seconds. Darkness kept reporters, who were more than a half mile off the river, from seeing how fast the water was moving into the farmland.

Engineers carried out the blast after spending hours pumping liquid explosives into the levee. More explosions were planned for overnight and midday Tuesday, though most of the damage was expected to be done by the first blast.

But questions remain about whether breaking open the levee would provide the relief needed, and how much water the blast would divert from the Mississippi River as more rain was forecast to fall on the region Tuesday. The seemingly endless rain has overwhelmed rivers and strained levees, including the one protecting Cairo, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Flooding concerns also were widespread Monday in western Tennessee, where tributaries were backed up due to heavy rains and the bulging Mississippi River. Streets in suburban Memphis were blocked, and some 175 people filled a church gymnasium to brace for potential record flooding.

The break at Birds Point was expected to do little to ease the flood dangers there, Tennessee officials said.

The Ohio River at Cairo had climbed to more than 61 feet as of Monday, a day after eclipsing the 1937 record of 59.5 feet.

The river was expected to crest late Wednesday or early Thursday at 63 feet — just a foot below the level that Cairo’s floodwall is built to hold back — before starting a slow decline by Friday.

The high water has raised concerns about the strain on the floodwalls in Cairo and other cities. The agency has been weighing for days whether to blow open the Birds Point levee, which would inundate 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland.

Engineers believe sacrificing the levee could reduce the water levels at Cairo by about 4 feet in less than two days. Meteorologist Beverly Poole of the National Weather Service put the figure closer to five feet.

“These are uncharted territories, but it would be very fast,” she said.

Carlin Bennett, the presiding Mississippi County commissioner, said he was told a 10- to 15-foot wall of water would come pouring through the breach. The demolition was expected to cover about 11,000 feet of the levee.

“Tell me what that’s going to do to this area?” he said. “It’s a mini-tsunami.”

Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh — the man ultimately responsible for the decision to go through with the plan— has indicated that he may not stop there if blasting open the levee doesn’t do the trick. In recent days, Walsh has said he might also make use of other downstream “floodways” — basins surrounded by levees that can intentionally be blown open to divert floodwaters.

Among those that could be tapped are the 58-year-old Morganza floodway near Morgan City, La., and the Bonnet Carre floodway about 30 miles north of New Orleans. The Morganza has been pressed into service just once, in 1973. The Bonnet Carre, which was christened in 1932 has been opened up nine times since 1937, the most recent in 2008.

“Making this decision is not easy or hard,” Walsh said. “It’s simply grave — because the decision leads to loss of property and livelihood, either in a floodway or in an area that was not designed to flood.”

Officials in Louisiana and Mississippi are warning that the river could bring a surge of water unseen since the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

The corps has said about 241 miles of levees along the Mississippi River between Cape Girardeau, Mo., and the Gulf of Mexico need to be made taller or strengthened.

George Sills, a former Army Corps engineer and levee expert in Vicksburg, Miss., said the volume of water moving down the river would test the levee system south of Memphis into Louisiana.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a major flood down the Mississippi River,” Sills said. “This is the highest river in Vicksburg, Miss., since 1927. There will be water coming by here that most people have never seen in their lifetime.”

He said the Army Corps has warned residents that waters levels in Eagle Lake, an oxbow lake of the Mississippi River, will rise exceptionally high, and that could stress a federal levee with a history of problems.

“They’re taking some extreme measures to save it,” he said.

But few measures could be as drastic as the one at Birds Point.

Bob Holmes, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said using such levees as relief valves can be vital, likening swollen rivers to traffic bottlenecked to one lane in freeway construction zones. Remove the barricades, he says, and things flow more freely.

“I can tell you that when you can open up the flow path and have additional conveyance, you’re going to lower the elevations upstream,” he said.

Holmes declined to talk specifically about the Birds Point matter, saying the corps was more versed in the computations used to decide the levee’s fate.

“For me to make any kind of a guess would be irresponsible,” he said. “All this extra rain threw a monkey wrench into it.”

Missouri’s legal bid to block the breach was rejected by federal courts including the U.S. Supreme Court, which on Sunday refused to intervene.

Missouri officials said the incoming water would crush the region’s economy and environment by possibly covering the land under sand and silt and rendering it useless.

Bob Byrne, 59, farms 550 acres below the Missouri levee and called news about the pending break “devastating.”

“It’s a sickening feeling,” he said. “They’re talking about not getting the water off until late July or early August. That knocks out a whole season.”

Rep. JoAnn Emerson, who represents the southeast Missouri area in Congress, said Monday she had spoken to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who told her that farmers with crop insurance would be treated the same as if the flood were a natural disaster.

There were other trouble spots Monday, both on the Mississippi and elsewhere in southern Missouri, where rains last week overran a levee protecting the town of Poplar Bluff.

In Olive Branch, about 17 miles northwest of Cairo, the Mississippi River overtook a levee, further drowning the tiny outpost where locals spent recent days erecting walls of sandbags around homes.

In the southern Illinois communities of Metropolis and Old Shawneetown, voluntary evacuations were under way. State officials went door-to-door by boat in some places telling people to leave.

___

Associated Press writers Cain Burdeau in New Orleans and Maria Sudekum Fisher in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this story.

From the Southeast Missourian Website...

Link to Original Story

Mayor cautious about letting residents return to Cairo

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 ~ Updated 1:10 PM

By Erin Hevern ~ Southeast Missourian

Cairo's mayor Tyrone Coleman isn't taking any risks when it comes to the safety of the city's residents.

Although the first levee breach at the Birds Point-New Madrid floodway has caused the Ohio River at Cairo to drop from 61.72 feet to 60.4 between 10 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. today, he, U.S. Corps of Engineers officials and other emergency personnel are still assessing the situation before letting people back into the city.

The river dropped to 60.2 feet at 1 p.m. after the corps' second blast along the levee at around 12:45 p.m.

Coleman said around 10 a.m. they were driving through the city's streets, evaluating infrastructure and checking on a sink hole directly in front of Cairo Public Utilities.

"Everything is going as well as to be expected," he said.

Still, the new mayor -- he was sworn in late Monday afternoon -- wouldn't say whether residents would be let in at all today.

"When we know that, they'll have access to that information," Coleman said.

Several routes to Cairo remained closed today, including Illinois Route 3 in Olive Branch, Ill. at the Tamms, Ill./Olive Branch Road and Illinois Highway 127 at Tamms. As of Tuesday morning, there was still no access to the city from the south.

From the Southeast Missourian Website...

Link to Original Story

Residents will not return to Cairo today

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 ~ Updated 4:19 PM

By Erin Hevern ~ Southeast Missourian

Cairo's mayor Tyrone Coleman isn't taking any risks when it comes to the safety of the city's residents.

At a 3 p.m. news conference today he said the mandatory evacuation of the city put in place early Sunday would not be lifted due to unprecedented rainfall and flooding.

Although the first levee breach at the Birds Point-New Madrid floodway has caused the Ohio River at Cairo to drop from 61.72 feet to 60.2 between 10 p.m. Monday and 1 p.m. today, he, U.S. Corps of Engineers officials and other emergency personnel are still assessing the situation before letting people back into the city. The river dropped to 60.2 feet at 1 p.m. after the corps' second blast along the levee at around 12:45 p.m.

"We are in the process of making our city safe for our residents to be able to return," he said.

Any residents who stayed in the city and checked in properly with law enforcement will be allowed to exit and re-enter Cairo with identification. About 100 people, according to law enforcement, have stayed within city limits. Thousands of people, including residents of a nursing home and mental health assisted-living facility, started to leave town at midnight Sunday.

While Cairo city officials were relieved to hear the news of the breach Monday and see river levels drop, so was Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. He said he was "very grateful" for the intentional breach of a levee to save the small Southern Illinois town. Quinn asked people to pray for those in the region who are battling the floods and also warned there would be a lot of water in Southern Illinois in the coming weeks.

Several routes to Cairo remained closed today, including Illinois Highway 3 in Olive Branch, Ill., at the Tamms, Ill./Olive Branch Road. There was also still no access to the city from the south.

Olive Branch was still quiet after water spilled over the road Monday, forcing more people to leave the city. Families in the small town began sandbagging around their homes last week when the river and Horseshoe Lake started to rapidly rise around them. Only county crews were working in the city today to help recede the waters.

Alexander County Sheriff Tim Brown said today an incident in Tamms, where crews were working to control seepage from the Cache River and nearby tributaries, was under control.

"They had a nice sized hole where water was shooting over, but it's OK now. They evacuated a few people as a precaution, but I think it's OK," Brown said.

However, Highway 127 south of Tamms was still closed this afternoon.

With help from other county personnel, Brown has been monitoring flooding in Southern Illinois for days, including assisting in water rescues.

Brown said a woman on Monday had to be rescued from her residence near Hodges Park, south of Tamms and east of Olive Branch.

He said he was relieved to know that after the corps executed two phases of their levee breach that the river level was dropping. The National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky., is forecasting it to drop below 59.5 feet -- the Ohio's old record -- on Saturday.

"It's a good feeling. It's always a good feeling when it's going down," Brown said.

Brown added that the department has had no reports of injuries in the county due to flooding.

From the KFVS TV Channel 12 Website...

Third levee blast scheduled for Wednesday morning

Updated: May 03, 2011 6:31 PM CDT

From the Southeast Missourian Website...

Link to Original Story

Corps delays third breach after exhausting explosives supply

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 ~ Updated 8:09 PM

By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian

SIKESTON, Mo. -- A third levee breach planned for today is being delayed by at least 24 hours because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used too much of the explosives on the first two detonations and do not have enough for the third breach yet, corps officials said at a news conference this evening. Col. Vernie Reichling, who heads the corps' Memphis District, said they discovered the "potential issue" Monday night after executing the first breach at Birds Point in Mississippi County. The problem was exacerbated today after the second blast near New Madrid, Mo.

"We saw that we were potentially using more of the slurry mix than we had anticipated," Reichling said. "This comes as we are executing a plan that was hatched 30-some years ago and we are implementing it for the first time. So there has been a learning curve."

The "slurry mix" is a liquid mix of sodium perchlorate -- often used to make ammunition -- and aluminum powder. The amount used by the corps also may answer questions from people, some in different states, who said they felt the blasts Monday night nearly a hundred miles away.

Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, president of the Mississippi River Commission and the man who ordered the execution of the plan, said they had acquired more of the explosives shortly before 6 p.m. today, but it would take 24 hours for it to arrive. Walsh said the third detonation, which would create a second 5,500-foot outflow area, would take place sometime after that 24-hour period.

Walsh said that they had used more than 150 tons of explosives for the first two breaches, the second which took place near New Madrid, just after 12:30 p.m. today. Reichling said that after the second blast came today, he ordered an "operational pause."

That not only will allow time for the additional explosives to arrive, but it will give his crew of about 150 corps members a time to rest.

"Fatigue has been a factor," Reichling said. "Some of our people have worked 24 to 36 hours straight. They've been working with high explosives and there is a concern for safety. We have been constantly adjusting to conditions. The conditions Mother Nature threw at us was severe."

The Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway plan is intended to create inflow and outflow breaks in the levee system to move river water across 200 square miles of Southeast Missouri farmland, largely in Mississippi County. The first breach floods the land and the second two allow the water to flow back into the Mississippi River. The detonation today creates one outflow for the water and both Walsh and Reichling said that not immediately having a third would not create a problem.

Reichling said about 390,000 cubic feet per second was coming into the floodway, as of about noon today. But he said his chief hydrologist and other corps scientists have taken a look at the risk of having only one outflow breach.

"They have all continually come to the same conclusions," Reichling said. "There are no elevated risk with having only one outflow crevasse."

Levees along the floodway are expected to hold from Mississippi County to the outflow area near New Madrid, Reichling said, adding that "we are overcoming the challenges we are facing."

As far as to exactly when the third breach would happen, Walsh said that "timelines are still shifting."

Before that news broke, Gov. Jay Nixon paid a visit to the rain-soaked region today, pledging to use every resource at his disposal to offer aid to a part of the state that is suffering through one of the worst floods in Missouri history.

But the governor also offered a word of caution: "Floods last a long time and the damage lasts a long time afterward."

Nixon also met briefly with Walsh to talk about the floodway, which was activated in an effort to diminish floodwaters in communities in Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky.

Walsh told Nixon that the waters that were released Monday night have made their way about three-quarters of the way down the floodway. The waters are headed the 35 to 40 miles toward New Madrid.

The original plan called for detonating the inflow breach at Birds Point Monday night and the outflow breach near New Madrid after midnight Monday. The last breach would have taken place by midmorning today. But the second detonation occurred just after 12:30 p.m. today. Corps crews were about eight hours behind schedule because of weather-related issues and, apparently, the depleting supply of explosives.

At the conference with Nixon, Walsh said the floodway has operated as designed. The delay overnight Monday came with "blinding rain" and 50 mph winds, Walsh said. After blowing the inflow fuse plug Monday night -- creating an 11,000-foot opening for the Mississippi River -- they had to stand down because of the weather after getting only two of the six fuse plugs near New Madrid full of slurry. The other manhole-type access wells were full of rainwater and special pumps had to be brought in to free them from water. Later, after that had taken place, the first outflow breach was made near New Madrid.

When asked about when the water might recede from the floodway, Walsh said it was not likely to happen before late summer or early fall.