|
Louisiana: The faithful gathered for church services last Sunday in towns hard-hit by flooding along the Mississippi River, and many found comfort in word that the swollen waterway had apparently started to hit its high point.
Dozens of parishioners filled the dry Centenary United Methodist Church in Louisiana, a few blocks from floodwaters that still cover about 15 per cent of the town's neighbourhoods.
They prayed for aid and gave thanks for the volunteers, National Guard soldiers and prison inmates who helped the community of nearly 4,000 in recent days.
"And they all worked," Reverend Jeanne Webdell said of the volunteers. "They worked for a cause bigger than themselves, worked to help people that most didn't even know."
It appeared Sunday the flooding in the town and elsewhere in Missouri and Illinois could soon give way to recovery.
The National Weather Service said the Mississippi was cresting Sunday at Canton, Missouri, not far from the Iowa state line, through the lock and dam near Saverton, about 160 kilometres north of St Louis.
"It's quieter compared to earlier this week," said Louisiana emergency management director Mike Lesley, adding that sandbagging in the town had largely ceased. "Last night, I actually got some sleep."
But elsewhere, the river was still rising. The latest forecasts for hard-hit Winfield and Grafton, Illinois, pushed back the crest to tomorrow.
Deal with it
"We're just trying to deal with it as it comes to us," said Jamie Scott, a dispatcher with the Jersey County, Illinois, Sheriff's Office. "The crest forecast has dropped almost a foot, so that's a good thing. All of our levees are holding."
Officials in Lincoln County, Missouri, inspected levees near Winfield by air Sunday after one was overtopped earlier in the day, flooding about 405 hectares and fewer than half a dozen homes, said Lincoln County emergency management spokesman Andy Binder.
"It just blew through our sandbags," Binder said, adding that authorities are confident the secondary levees protecting the town will hold.
Rural areas such as Lincoln County suffered the worst. There, more than 300 homes were flooded after more than 90 per cent of the county's levees were overtopped.
The flooding remained moderate to minor south of St Louis, and because the Missouri River is running at normal levels it should not grow any worse as the heavy water from Iowa's storms heads downstream.
|
