Cairo residents evacuate as river levels rise

CAIRO, Ill. — At least 100 Cairo residents heeded their mayor's plea to voluntarily evacuate the southern Illinois city Tuesday as the Ohio and Mississippi rivers rose around it, and officials said the evacuations could become mandatory if the Ohio gains a few more feet.

Mayor Judson Childs also defended a controversial U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to protect his struggling town of 2,800 by intentionally breaking an upstream levee that now protects about 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland.

The Corps put off the detonation of the levee after Missouri officials filed suit in federal court to stop it. Corps officials said they had not abandoned the plan, but a final decision would not be made until at least Wednesday.

The agency was still moving equipment needed for the break into position along the levee at Birds Point in Missouri's Mississippi County.

"What is most important, farmland or 3,000 lives?" Childs said. "Do they want it to be like the ninth ward in New Orleans?"

Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon also endorsed the Corps plan Tuesday, saying the delay meant the Missouri levee would not be breached until water had topped the levee in Cairo and inundated the town.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Simon said the Missouri farmers will be compensated for their losses and will be able to use the land next year.

"We're talking about a place where the crops can grow again and farmers can be compensated for their losses," Simon said. "Growing a town again is not quite as easily done."

She noted an Illinois levee was intentionally breached during 1993 flooding under similar circumstances. "It's something we have a record of doing," she said.

Earlier in the day, Gov. Pat Quinn called up 125 Illinois National Guardsmen to help with emergency planning in Marion. The governor's office said more troops could be called upon if they're needed.

Cairo sits at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, which have been rising rapidly with the spring thaw and heavy rains.

City officials appeared mostly focused on the Ohio, which is already above flood stage and not expected to crest for another week. The National Weather Service has predicted the crest will be at 61 feet, which is 3 feet lower than the city's flood wall, but with more drenching storms in the forecast, the mayor said he was playing it safe.

Childs expressed confidence in the city's concrete floodwall, which was raised to its current height after a record 59.5-foot crest in 1937. "We're just erring on the side of caution," he said, in reference to the voluntary evacuation. "We want people to know the possibilities of what could happen."

The rising Ohio also led to a voluntary evacuation in Brookport, a town of about 1,000 people on the border with Kentucky, and Grand Tower, which is about 30 miles north of Cape Girardeau, Mo.

The river reached 51.9 feet in Brookport on Tuesday, or nearly 15 feet above flood stage. The river is expected to climb another two feet in coming days, which would be the third-highest flood on record there.

County emergency coordinator Larry Douglas says the Brookport mayor urged residents to evacuate Tuesday. He says the city's school has closed and probably won't resume classes for the rest of this school year.

About 12 miles from Cairo, a family in the small community of Miller City disregarded an evacuation order and got stranded. Before the ever-broadening Mississippi swallowed up the town, its approximately 40 residents hastily retreated Monday in what one local described as a caravan of people, pets and prized possessions — including tractors.

But evangelist Duane Lyon, 50, said Tuesday morning that he returned from a work trip to find that his wife and six children, ages 18 to 10, were still at their home, built on a mound and dry for the time being. He sat vexed in a white van with a friend, plotting how to rescue his family from their two-story, 91-year-old house when all the roads were covered in water.

"Nobody could see this coming or predict this rain," Lyon said. "We've been flooded about five times, but nothing like this."

He weighed whether to wade into the water long enough to find someone with a boat to borrow or call the Coast Guard.

Hours later, he arrived home in a friend's boat. He said the family planned to spend at least one more night on the property, which he described as an "island," and then evacuate by boat after packing valuables and moving them to the attic for protection.

To handle the evacuees from Cairo, an American Red Cross shelter was opening at Shawnee Community College in Ullin about 20 miles away. More rain was in the forecast through Wednesday night.

Upriver in Chester, about 60 miles southeast of St. Louis, flooding along the Mississippi forced the closure of more than a mile of road along the riverbank, limiting access to the maximum-security Menard prison and the ConAgra grain mill. Most of the city's offices and facilities are on a bluff overlooking the river.

Outside her home at the impassable stretch were Lyon was plotting his moves, Sandy Pulley watched water creep steadily onto her property and near her brick, ranch-style home. Within a couple hours on Tuesday morning, she said, the inundation had swallowed up another foot or so and threatened to get worse. But Pulley, overnight stocker at a Walmart who had dumped 11 inches of water from her rain gauge in the past five days, said she and her husband still planned to stay put.

They've known disaster before, having moved from nearby Gale after repeated flooding and, a year ago, a lightning strike that burned their house to the ground.

"It's been ugly," she said of the latest downpour. "You walk through my yard and you just squoosh."