WINFIELD, Mo. — With a few days to go before the last stretch of the bloated Mississippi River reaches its crest, people toiled around the clock Monday to reinforce levees already strained and saturated from the pressure of the rising water.
Officials in Lincoln County asked for volunteers to help fill 50,000 sandbags to fortify the 2 1/2-mile-long Pin Oak levee, an earthen berm that was so waterlogged that it was like “walking on a waterbed,” said county emergency management spokesman Andy Binder.
If the levee breaches, the river will swamp 100 homes in east Winfield, as well as fields and a city ballpark. A muskrat burrowed a hole in the soft ground during the night, releasing a geyser of water, and officials said it took nearly six hours to choke off the leak.
Downriver in Grafton, Ill., Mayor Richard Mosby said about 20 homes and businesses were flooded — but no more were expected to be affected if the Mississippi crests as forecast just a few inches above Monday’s level.
The river’s crest was not expected to reach Grafton and Winfield until Thursday or Friday, according to the federal river forecast issued Monday afternoon.
