Still more flooding expected in the US Midwest

Disaster News Network: Flood-weary residents along rivers in the Midwest are tallying damages and planning for a long recovery while keeping an eye on the weather which is promising yet more rain.

While Iowa residents are well-into the clean-up phase following massive flooding last month, just last week citizens of Winfield, MO watched in horror as flood waters pushed under the six foot barrier they had built for about 2000 feet along the edge of town and washed the sandbags under a flood of water. Nearly 150 homes in the small town of about 800 north of St. Louis became the latest community to be hit by flooding that has damaged more than 35,000 homes from Indiana to Missouri this year.

"They tried to fight it, but the water won," said Lincoln County emergency management spokesman Andy Binder.

…Further upstream, in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, residents are mopping up from the floods and tornadoes of the last months while the National Weather Service predicts more severe flooding for some of the same areas hit by high waters last month.

Weekend thunderstorms in a wide area along the Mississippi River will make already swollen rivers push higher and possibly crest again where they have crested and peak at a higher than expected level where they have not yet reached their top levels, forecasters said. Tributary rivers and streams are also expected to bring flooding.

Faith responders are scrambling to help. A winter and spring of disaster after disaster has left supply warehouses empty and the coffers of response agencies with dangerously low balances. Frantic appeals are being broadcast, but response can barely keep up with the ever-growing need.

…."It's what we call the secondary – the emotional – disaster," MacNeill said as she was given the news about the houses that were to be torn down. "Some of these people have lived in these houses their whole lives and they're being told they can never go back and that the houses will be torn down."….

Flooding last month in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Shot by Don Becker of the USGS, Wikimedia Commons