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Corps Breaks Levee to Help Cairo
(IRN)-The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blew up a section of the Birds Point Levee in southeast Missouri Monday night. After the blasts, the Mississippi River began pouring through the man-made rupture.

Corps officials say the break in the levee would help Cairo, Illinois, by diverting up to 4 feet of water away from the state's southernmost town by relieving pressure on the floodwall that protects the town of 2800 residents from floodwaters.

Water levels in Cairo, which sits at the confluence of the Ohio and the Missouri Rivers could fall by up to 4 feet by late Tuesday or early Wednesday, according to Corps officials, but the breach will send the diverted floodwaters onto 130,000 acres of rich Missouri farmland and 100 homes.

Even as the explosions breached the levee, floodwaters are also rising downriver, including at Memphis, Tennessee. The levee breach in Missouri is not expected to ease the downriver flooding concerns.

(Source: Illinois Radio Netwwork)
05 02 11 by Newsroom
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