Missouri pounded by rains and tornadoes, thousands evacuate
This week heavy rain storms are raging across the mid-west and south forcing thousands of residents in Missouri to flee as swollen rivers threaten to flood their homes; in some areas emergency responders do not have many options and can do nothing but hope that the levees hold; the mid-west will not see any respite from the storms until Thursday as another major storm system is about to hit; officials are bracing for substantial flooding; the region is still struggling to recover from major storms that spawned tornadoes in six states killing forty-five people and damaging structures; Missouri has requested aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency
This week heavy rain storms are raging across the mid-west and south forcing thousands of residents in Missouri to flee as swollen rivers threaten to flood their homes.
In Poplar Bluff, Missouri residents were evacuated as the Black River has already partially submerged many homes and officials fear that the levees may break as rain continues to fall.
According to Police Chief Danny Whiteley, emergency responders do not have many options at this point and can do nothing but hope that the levees hold.
“It was too late for sandbagging. There are too many places. If you sandbag one place, it goes to the next. All we can do is wait and see,” Whiteley said.
If the levee were to break, water would flood city’s southern side and leave approximately 7,000 people displaced.
Emergency crews have been busy rescuing individuals who have been stranded by the rising waters including a man whose vehicle was swept into a water-filled ditch and a homebound woman.
The storm that is threatening to flood Missouri first inundated northeast, Texas, and Oklahoma with rain before heading north to Illinois and Wisconsin.
In addition to heavy showers, the storm system spawned tornadoes in Arkansas that left seven dead and dozens more missing.
Greg Carbin, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma, says that the mid-west and south will not see any respite from the storms until Thursday as another major storm system is about to hit those same states.
Carbin predicts that “we’ll see substantial flooding.”
“Arkansas to Illinois, that corridor, they’ve already have incredible rainfall and this is going to aggravate the situation,” he added.
The region is still struggling to recover from major storms that have already left the ground saturated and more susceptible to flooding and tornadoes in six states have killed forty-five people and damaged homes, businesses, and even the main airport in St. Louis.
Carbin expects the area to receive at least six inches of rain over the next three days with the area east of Little Rock, Arkansas to Memphis and eastern Tennessee hardest hit with as much as nine inches.
Residents across the region are bracing for worse flooding with some communities evacuating and others sandbagging to hold back surging rivers as more storms roll in.
Dozens of roads in multiple states have been closed and many school districts have canceled classes.
On Monday, officials in Hardy, Arkansas shut down City Hall and ordered residents to evacuate.
Hardy mayor Nina Thornton said, “We just got back in after the last flood.”
Missouri has requested aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Region VII office and a state liaison officer has been deployed to the state’s emergency command center in Jefferson City. The liaison officer will help coordinate state and federal relief efforts and disaster response.
