Levee Breaks Along Mississippi River in Flood-Ravaged Region, Bridge Closed

A levee on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River broke Tuesday in a region already battered for days by severe flooding.The breach happened just across the river from Burlington, Iowa, in Henderson County, Ill. Police subsequently shut down a bridge six miles to the south.The federal government predicted that a total of 27 levees could potentially overflow along the river if the weather forecast is on the mark and a massive sandbagging effort fails to raise the level of the levees, according to a map obtained Monday by The Associated Press.The breached levee meant there were 26 more that could burst.The BNSF Railway Co. swing span bridge over the Mississippi was closed early Tuesday to car traffic at Fort Madison, near the Iowa-Illinois line, Lee County emergency management director Steve Cirinna said.About 30 people were working to raise the railroad tracks above floodwaters, but BNSF Railway Co. spokesman Steve Forsberg said the bridge hadn't closed to trains.Car traffic moves on the bridge and trains travel on tracks below.The banks of the rising Mississippi were stacked with sandbags as the rest of Iowa began the slow move from protection to cleanup.Officials placed millions of sandbags on top of the levees in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri to prevent overflowing. There was no way to predict whether the levees would break, said Ron Fournier, a spokesman with the Army Corps of Engineers in Iowa.In much of Iowa, there were small signs of a return to normalcy: Interstate 80 reopened near Iowa City for the first time in days, with Interstate 380 to the north scheduled to reopen early Tuesday. On the University of Iowa campus, officials began to take stock of the damage.One woman forced to evacuate her home had to take a row boat through the flooded streets with her 7-month-old baby and husband."There was a lot more water than I expected there to be, honestly," Jamie Duff told FOX News. "It was insane."In Des Moines, where a levee failure Saturday sent water pouring into the Birdland neighborhood, some residents returned for the first time to see the damage."It's really bad. I mean, I can't believe this," said Gloria Ruiz, whose home suffered flood damage.Ruiz pointed to a dirty line about 5 feet up on her basement wall showing how high the water rose. Her washer, dryer and boiler, and most of her children's toys, including a stereo and an Xbox video game system, were ruined.
Floodwaters lingered about 50 feet from her driveway."We don't know how long it will stay like that," she said.Where floodwaters remained, they were a noxious brew of sewage, farm chemicals and fuel. Bob Lanz used a 22-foot aluminum flatboat to navigate through downtown Oakville, where the water reeked of pig feces and diesel fuel."You can hardly stand it," Lanz said as he surveyed what remained of his family's hog farm. "It's strong."LeRoy Lippert, chairman of emergency management and homeland security in nearby Des Moines County, warned people to avoid the floodwaters: "If you drink this water and live, tell me about it. You have no idea. It is very, very wise to stay out of it. It's as dangerous as anything."Gov. Chet Culver and others pointed to the next looming trouble spot, in southeastern Iowa. Most requests for state aid were coming from Des Moines County, where the Mississippi River was expected to crest Tuesday evening at 26 feet in a mostly rural area near Burlington. Early Tuesday, the river was at 25.7 feet — more than 10 feet above flood stage — and still rising....
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