The Second Deluge

The rampaging Mississippi was at it again last week. For many residents along the river's course, it was their second drenching in three weeks. Homeowners and farmers in dozens of river towns from Illinois to Louisiana saw water overtop local levees, surge through streets, inundate prime farm land. In Keithsburg, Ill. (pop. 836), 15 square blocks--three-quarters of the town--lay under 3 ft. of water after the levee broke. Four thousand flood-plain residents north and south of Quincy, Ill. were evacuated during a touch-and-go fight waged by 1,000 volunteers to shore up 75 miles of levees.

State police sealed off Grafton, Ill., at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, when most of the town was deluged. Downstream, the Mississippi boiled along at a rate of 13.5 million gallons per second, enough to fill all of New York City's daily water needs in a minute and a half.

So far this spring, heavy rains have sent the Mississippi spilling across 10.4 million acres, leaving 30 people dead, 30,000 homeless and damages estimated at $193 million. In a Midwestern repetition of last spring's disastrous East Coast floods, boats, rafts and Army trucks evacuated parents, children, even goldfish and family refrigerators.

The first major city in the path of the latest eruption was St. Louis, where an elevenmile stretch of levee and flood wall was holding at week's end. Built in 1955 at a cost of $80 million, the wall has already saved the city $340 million in flood damages this year. But 6 ft. of water sloshed through Mark Twain's Hannibal, Mo. Thirty thousand acres of Missouri farm land went un der water when an extensive system of dikes gave way.

Federally controlled levees along the Mississippi generally withstood the soaking, but a few were overtopped by high water. Along tributaries like the Missouri, St. Francis and Yazoo rivers, locally and privately financed levees and dikes were in many cases even less able to resist the increased pressure. President Nixon surveyed the flood regions from aboard The Spirit of '76 at the end of the week and pledged "full federal support for their recovery and rebuilding efforts." Even the eldest Mississippians could not remember such biblical rainfalls (57 in. since last October). Said one: "Everything that could be flooded has been flooded." Perhaps 15% to 20% of the region's cotton crop will have to be written off, along with a large portion of the soybean harvest. An Illinois agricultural official said flood water had devastated 45,000 acres of the winter wheat crop.

To keep such devastation from increasing, Army Corps of Engineers flood-control experts have opened three Louisiana spillways since April 8, diverting more than 800,000 cu. ft. of water per sec. But the engineers say that the danger of flooding in the lower valley is certainly not over, nor will it be for at least another six weeks.

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