I hear the Meramec River near St Louis is out of control again and many other rivers throughout the state are continuing to rise. As soon as the snow starts melting up north, the entire Mississippi River Valley could be under water. Hope you all stay safe and have little or no property damage!

 

The Meramec is supposed to crest tomorrow and Saturday. Valley Park and Eureka are predicted to rise just above the 1982 record, here in Pacific it should be below but still high. Also 141 may have to close at I-44 due to the water backing up under the highway.

 

No big problems in northwest St. Louis County where I live but south and southwest counties are getting swallowed up by swelling rivers.... My sister and her husband are in Fenton just a block south of the flooded Highway 141 and Highway 44 area. My brother-in-law spent the day sandbagging his hometown as the Meramec River goes crazy in the worse flooding in the history of the river.

Most of this flooding is not from snow melt up north but simply that recent rainstorm that dumped up to 10 - 14 inches of rain in a couple days.

MODot is now concerned that the river may actually breach OVER Highway 44 this weekend. Now THAT is some scary levels for those around here.

 

Yeah, my town--Poplar Bluff, was featured on GMA this morning. I'm trying to get ready for work this morning and all of my relatives are calling me to ask if I've floated away yet!

Fortunately, I rent a townhouse on the top of the biggest hill in town--not down in the bottoms with the rest of the river-dwellers.

Lots of water out there, though. I'm just glad we aren't under a boil order.

 

Thankfully we were not hit nearly as hard here in North Central Missouri as you guys were in the Southern and Eastern parts of the state. We have some flooding around here, but nothing like what others have had. I'll keep all you guys in our thoughts and prayers. Please stay safe and don't try to cross a road covered by water.

 

My dad lives high on a hill in south St Louis County so we were never affected except for trying to get to work. I can't believe the water might go over I-44! Is the Chrysler Plant still operating?

I used to travel to Poplar Bluff all the time. I can't believe the flooding is so extreme there. My sister lived there for a short time and we have a cabin at Lake Wappapello. See, I even know how to spell it!

Hope you all survive this with few losses. How much destruction could have avoided had they built that dam on the Meramec River years ago?

 

Climate Change 101.

 

Let's not turn this into a global warming myth. People are losing their homes and lives are being swept away. Besides, floods in this area have happened before. Quite frequently actually, they do live next to the 3rd largest river system in the world, that had a foot of rain drop in a span of 24 hours. So what's the change?

 

Yes... the Chrysler plant appears to be still operating. The worst of the flooding is in the Valley Park / Fenton / Eureka / Pacific areas here in SW county.

The entire intersection of 141 and 44 are completely submerged.

In fact, you can no longer exit Highway 44 at Highway 141. The Meramec is now only inches away from the 44 in that area. MoDot has built up a temporary concrete medium with plastic tarp and sandbags on both sides of the highway to allow a few more hours of dry ground while traffic is reduced to 2 lanes each direction.

 

Climate change is not myth. It is fact. The only area of debate is whether or not it is human influenced. I, and thousands of Phd climatologists worldwide, believe it is human influenced... but as you cited this is not a thread for discussing the meterological effects of climate change.