Mississippi River Surges Over More than 10 Levees

[tekisui]

WINFIELD, MO. -- Water from the swollen Mississippi River surged over more than 10 levees Thursday, flooding huge swaths of Missouri farmland as thousands of volunteers continued to pile sandbags in a desperate bid to protect their communities.

The efforts brought mixed results in Winfield, a rural and commuter city of 1,200 about an hour north of St. Louis.

Lincoln County officials said late Thursday that downtown Winfield had been saved, but some neighborhoods close to the river or outside the town's internal levee system were considered lost. About 350 homes had been flooded.

"The entire eastern part of the county is underwater, and the water keeps on rising," said Cpl. Andy Binder, spokesman for the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department.

In the Winfield Acres area, water was slowly rising and by evening was waist-high.

Roger Collier, 50, stood on the deck behind his house watching water creep across a cornfield. "I guess I'll wait and see what happens," he said.

Severe storms and flooding have killed 24 people and injured 148 in six states and forced tens of thousands to evacuate. Federal agencies have distributed enough drinking water for 1.1 million people, as well as 12.8 million sandbags, 2,500 tarps and 4,000 rolls of plastic sheeting.

more at link, pics: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-flood20-2008jun20,0,4949852.story

[Crazy Dave]

1. $2 billion a week or more being spent in Iraq

And people here are dying because of poorly engineered or poorly maintained infrastructure. Pitiful!

[Catch22Dem]

2. In many cases, it wasn't poor engineering

In some cases that was exactly the problem, but in others, there was simply more rain than you could engineer for.

[Crazy Dave]

3. True

No matter how good the engineering is, nothing can truly stop mother nature is she chooses so.

But with that said, being involved in the engineering field for over twenty years, what gets designed and proposed is not always what implemented. Cutting costs, cutting quality, using the lowest bidder compared to the most qualified is always the top priority. Then add and take away for pay-backs, favors and other corruption, etc. The more spent on the actual project, the less goes into their off-shore bank accounts.

From people who know and from working for the city, I guesstimate that for every $1 million dollars of tax paid money dedicated for a project, the public probably only gets a quarter million of their money's worth and even that's probably a little generous.