Coast Guard Sails to Flooded Missouri Town

Six Coast Guard boats sailed into West Alton, Mo., to help evacuate residents Wednesday after crews were unable to shore up levees around the town on a narrow peninsula and more water flooded in from the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

Both rivers were bloated by water draining from Midwestern states hit by nearly two weeks of record flooding.

A levee north of West Alton on the Mississippi side of the peninsula was breached at about midnight Tuesday and sandbagging to keep out the Missouri on the south side failed Wednesday. Deputies earlier warned residents to be prepared to move to higher ground.

Expected to Rise

Coast Guard Lt. Chris Smith warned that the Mississippi was expected to rise an additional two feet before cresting. “When the river levels are this high, you’re talking about an awful lot of water,” he said.

About 10 miles west of West Alton, a community of about 450 people, the Missouri opened a two-mile gap in a levee Tuesday and surged in a quarter-mile-wide channel 12 miles across the peninsula dividing it from the Mississippi north of St. Louis, isolating the town of Portage Des Sioux, Mo.

The Missouri crested Tuesday at nearby St. Charles, which is protected by levees, at a record for this century of 37.5 feet, 12.5 feet above flood stage. The record there was 40.1 feet in 1844.

The Missouri has broken through or poured over 73 levees along a 200-mile stretch between Glasgow and St. Charles since Oct. 1, the Army Corps of Engineers reported.