Cairo Vs. Mississippi County

[gotmuddy]

Yeah I agree with helping Cairo. That's how I voted.

I'd also agree with giving them one last chance for assistance to move and then cutting off the Federal tap for them after that. Do we really have to bail them out every 15 years???

Oddly enough I agree completely. If they refuse help then let them lay in their bed. Blow the levee. The farmers will make more money off of ruined crops anyway

[Kayser]

Aside from the smaller ones that got completely destroyed, what towns were moved onto the bluff after '93? All I can think of is Valmeyer, IL.

But seriously, the MO floodplain was designated for a water sink for levee relief. And why can't people understand that this is a plan to save not only Cairo, but a lot of other places downstream. Cairo is a good indicator of downstream flooding because it sits at the confluence of of the MS and OH rivers, which is why the plan was formed with regards to Cairo. Look at the news for Memphis, they don't exactly have it easy right now, either.

Rob

P.S.- Can we just blow the MO at Chesterfield? It's a disaster waiting to happen, so might as well stop it while we can.

[jdmidwest]

The decision to blow has been issued, it starts tonight and runs thru tomorrow morning in a series of 3 levee breaches. The first on the upper end floods the horseshoe shaped area creating a lake, the next two creates the outlet downstream near New Madrid.

The thing is not really about saving Cairo after all, the reference to the Cairo River Gauge has caused some confusion. When the river hit 61 at the Cairo Gauge, the floodway has to be activated to relieve stress all along the levee system. The levee is already overtopped in the first blast area. Upstream, levee's gave way today at Fayville and Dog Tooth Bend flooding towns near Olive Branch today causing more flooding. There is water every where you go around here if it is flat, hill country is in better shape.

[flytyer57]

Ok. So they blow the levee and drain the flood waters of the Miss. into the farm lands. Then what? Rebuild the levee again?

That is BS. Let the darn levees fail and quit messing around. It's time to move people. You've had too many chances already.

And these people wonder how the government can start cutting budgets. Let them start with no more levees.

[hank franklin]

The order to blow has been given. The situation obviously has gotten much worse since the Corps first announced possible plans to blow Bird's Point. Cairo is nearing the top of its flood wall. Parts of Birds Point is overtopping. I understand that the Corps and Maj Gen Walsh who made the decision probably had no choice. The MO levee had to blow.

I'm still not sure it was the correct decision. I don't have the facts they have of course.

The feds essentially own both sides in this issue. The MO floodway plan as I understand it was essentially recorded on the deeds of the landholders. Everyone knew. So on that point yeah, blow it. You have no choice.

At the same time Cairo's very existence is due to the levees. Yes Cairo goes back to pre-levee times but at some point the federal gov't via the USACE made a plan to levee the town. At some point later FEMA enters with the National Flood Insurance Program which is focused on people either paying up or move out. Cairo being protected by the levee likely has been paying little or no flood insurance. (This gets into NFIP technicalities, sorry.)

The point again is Cairo by FEMA's own rules is a dinosaur. It is doomed, either now or later.

The Army Corps on the other hand is getting out of the levee business, to the degree practicable. River management while highly political nonetheless has been focused on not repairing breached levees when and if you can. So I can't see that the Corps would have a lot of interest in continuing to protect Cairo. It is a losing battle that very likely does not pass the cost / benefit test.

The easy decision here is to blow the levee. As I said, given the record flows, the documented flood easement, and all-around extreme circumstances, you probably have no practical choice but to blow.

The much tougher decision would be to go hands-off, and watch. I understand that might even be irresponsible given the circumstances, but federal policy in my view supports doing nothing.

Instead you now have the Corps order and the terrible catastrophe of Bird's Point which must be fixed. With Cairo at best you're just buying time. At a very steep price. At worst you lose Cairo anyway.

No easy way out.

[flytyer57]

I hope that after they blow the Birds Point levee, the levee around Cairo fails and floods the town anyway.

[wily]

i wish the national media was covering it more -- but bin laden is getting all the press.

i doubt much of the land is being used for corn production...i would guess mostly rice and beans.

the rice and beans will be exported, and any corn will be fed to chickens.

many lives have been improved by the levee's, wing dams and other engineered features of the river.

i say blow the levee -- stick with the plan.

and then rebuild the levee higher.

[gotmuddy]

Ok. So they blow the levee and drain the flood waters of the Miss. into the farm lands. Then what? Rebuild the levee again?

That is BS. Let the darn levees fail and quit messing around. It's time to move people. You've had too many chances already.

And these people wonder how the government can start cutting budgets. Let them start with no more levees.

The US government is in the business of controlling things. They will not give up control unless they are forced. If they can't get the people of Cairo to figure out things and leave their flood-prone homes then what? FORCE them to leave? I don't like that either but it would not be the first time the government has done it.

You definetly are not the person to drag government budget cutting into this discussion.

[Al Agnew]

i wish the national media was covering it more -- but bin laden is getting all the press.

i doubt much of the land is being used for corn production...i would guess mostly rice and beans.

the rice and beans will be exported, and any corn will be fed to chickens.

many lives have been improved by the levee's, wing dams and other engineered features of the river.

i say blow the levee -- stick with the plan.

and then rebuild the levee higher.

Nope, disagree with that. Building the levees higher means spending LOTS of taxpayer money to do so, to protect relatively few people and farmland. And the lesson that never seems to be learned is that no levee is flood-proof. Sooner or later, and probably sooner given the continuing paving over of land that once soaked up rain, the next record flood comes along and the higher levee turns out not to be quite high enough. Or else the higher levee is high enough to protect THAT piece of ground, but means another levee somewhere downstream ISN'T high enough any more and another piece of ground floods.

I'm not going to look up exact figures, but as I remember, in the great flood of 1993, the Mississippi at Chester IL was flowing less than 2/3s the volume of water it had flowed during the previous record flood, which if I remember correctly was back in the late 1800s. But it went several feet higher than that record, even though it was flowing less water. Why? Because the river had been so greatly constricted by levees during the intervening years that, unable to spread out over the whole floodplain naturally, it just kept getting higher and higher within its levee system until it overtopped a whole bunch of levees.

Living close to Ste. Genevieve, I know well the problems associated with trying to protect a town on the floodplain. I did a lot of sandbagging in 1993. I also remember other levees failing and taking pressure off the sandbag walls. I can justify protecting Ste. Genevieve in the abstract ONLY because it is such an important historic place, not because it's a town full of people. But knowing the people, it's hard to tell them that.

[strangercreek]

I guess in a perfect world, nobody gets hurt and the 2.4 million original acres of wetlands (in SE MO), streams, sloughs come back now that we know more about the benefits of wetlands.

Interesting writing on the subject.

http://mdc.mo.gov/landwater-care/wetlands-management/wetland-values

As much as I enjoy chasing gar in the shallows and just spending time in those areas, I really wish there were more wetlands.