Water Will Have Its Way

This story has been top news here in Missouri for the past week - "To Do or Not To Do" that was the question when the Army Corps of Engineers decided to use explosives to blow up a portion of the levee along side the Mississippi River to save the river town of Cairo from flooding.

The result of this blast would flood acres and acres of farmland adjacent to the river. So while the town would be saved, there would be loss in livelihood to the farmers of the land and many of the small homes associated with the farms.

It is always a tough call. I was living in Missouri when we had the big flood about twenty years ago, levees broke and towns were washed away.

The more technology improves and we use that technology to hold back rivers and gain more use of the land the more we are going to have to face up to the fact, that when push comes to shove, water will have its way!

I live not far from a valley that was completely flooded in the 1993 flood of the Missouri River. At the time the valley was home to the little Spirit of St. Louis Airport and a small industrial park. There was The Smoke House and Annie Gunn's restaurant, an ice hockey rink, a couple of car dealerships, a prison and a few farms and that was about it.

Since the flood and the rebuilding of the levee along the Missouri River that little valley rose like a Phoenix from the ashes, only in this case it rose from the waters, in to a blossoming commercial center. A huge shopping center with stores like Target, Home Depot, Lowe's to smaller stores, Best Buy, Office Max to name just a few. The valley has become a mecca for restaurants from fast food places to relatively nice sit down and dine places. A large cinema complex with multiple upon multiple screens anchors another end of the valley.

A couple of new roads have been built to give you easy access from both the north and south boundaries along with a couple of new ramps from the highway. It truly is amazing. But I still wonder when it will be when the next flood comes that will be strong enough to breech the levees built after the '93 flood. You can contain and control water just so long, and then it will have its way.

The Smoke House & Annie Gunn's - Flood of 1993

The Smoke House & Annie Gunn's Seven Months Later

UPDATE:

An explosion lights up the night sky as the the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blows an 11,000 foot hole in the Birds Point levee in Mississippi County, Mo. on Monday, May 2, 2011. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, David Carson/AP Photo

Late Monday, the US Army Corps of Engineers blasted a two-mile hole in a Mississippi River levee to relieve water pressure that, at its height Monday night, stood at a record-breaking 61.72 feet in Cairo, Ill. The historic river town is located at the bottommost tip of Illinois, where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet.

By late Tuesday morning, the water had dropped to 60.39 feet in Cairo and had fallen by almost four feet in the area of the detonated breach, the Army Corps reported.