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Towns along Ohio River face evacuation

BY SCOTT FITZGERALD
THE SOUTHERN

Officials in some Illinois towns and counties bordering the Ohio River could order resident evacuations today as the result of ongoing torrential rainfall.

State Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg, said he met late Monday afternoon with Alexander County and Cairo officials about a potential evacuation.

The Illinois Department of Emergency Management confirmed a voluntary evacuation is in place today for Brookport in Massac County.

"It's going to get bad down here if the Ohio River gets to a 61-foot level. That's the highest level since 1937. The next 48 hours are critical for Southern Illinois," Phelps said shortly after the meeting.

Phelps said the governor's office has notified the Illinois National Guard to be on standby. Illinois Emergency Management Agency has established an emergency command center in Marion that is ready to provide emergency shelter and other assistance, said IEMA spokeswoman Patti Thompson.

Evacuations must be decided at the local county and municipal levels, she said.

Along the Mississippi River, the news was not quite as drastic on Monday.

An Army Corps of Engineers emergency effort over the weekend to fill in a gap on the Big Muddy River near Grand Tower averted further and hazardous flooding in southern Jackson County.

"We have closed a gap in the levee. Every repair is complete," said Col. Tom O'Hara, a district commander with the Army Corps of Engineers' St. Louis office during a Monday news conference at the just repaired levee site.

The Corps retained A & H Contracting of St. Louis with subcontracting assistance from Magruder Construction of Eolia. Workers from arrived at the site south of Grand Tower off Illinois 3 late Friday afternoon with a dump truck, bulldozer and compactor, pouring and compacting 14,000 tons of rock around the clock until the job was completed Monday morning.

"They did an excellent job," said Grand Tower Mayor Mike Ellet, who voiced concern a month earlier about the Army Corps drain lock project that required cutting out a section of levee about 100 yards in length that created the gap.

Ellet had begun circulating a petition at that time, gathering resident signatures stating the unfinished levee project placed lives, land and livelihoods in danger.

O'Hara said during the news conference he was aware of the petition. The Army Corps had a safety plan in place that they utilized over the weekend.