|
Valley Park, Missouri: Residents' trust in their community's new levee was justified on Saturday as the earthen wall protected their town from the Meramec River, bloated by heavy rain that caused flooding across the US Midwest.
The Meramec crested at about midday at 11.52 metres - its record there is 12.1 metres - the National Weather Service said. That was just over 90 cm below the top of the levee.
Upstream in Eureka, the river crested several hours earlier at 12 metres, below that town's record of 13.08 metres.
The high water pushing against the other side of the Valley Park levee did not bother customers at Meramec Jack's bar and grill. Owner Tracy Ziegler, 47, had been confident all along that the levee would hold. "I haven't even lifted my computer off the floor in the office," said Ziegler. "Why would they spend $50 million if they expected it to fail?" she said.
Levee protection
If the levee were to break or was overtopped, nearly one-third of the homes in the town of 6,500 people could be damaged or destroyed. Authorities took no chances and set up a staging area of rescue trucks and stationed a boat in a school parking lot near the town.
Residents of Missouri, Arkansas and Ohio also were fighting to save their homes after heavy rain pushed rivers out of their banks. At least 16 deaths have been linked to the weather over the past week, and two people are missing since their vehicles were swept away by rushing water in Arkansas.
In addition to this past week's rain, a lingering storm blew more snow through parts of the Upper Midwest on Saturday, a day after as much as a foot of snow cancelled flights and some Good Friday services in parts of southern Wisconsin and southeastern Minnesota.
Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport was closed overnight because of the snow and reopened late Saturday morning. About 200 people had to spend the night at the terminal, said spokes-woman Pat Rowe. Milwaukee's 31.5 cm of snow on Friday brought the city's total this season to 243.84 cm, its second-heaviest on record.
|
