The Corps of Engineers has stated distributing hundreds of thousands of sandbags to be used in fighting flooding between Kansas City and the northwest corner of the state line. He says 1.6 million bags have been distributed and the corps has 3.8 million bags remaining.
District engineer Bob Hoffman says the Corps also is providing four bag-filling machines, three in St. Joseph and the other in Holt County.
The Corps says problems with sand supplies are common to all floods, largely because most sand plants and sand storage areas are on the river-side of the levees being protected. A Corps spokesman says alternative materials can be used…or sand can be shipped in.
The Corps says it has no plans to breach any levees in Missouri on the Missouri River, nothing those levees are operated by private entities. The levee breached in southeast Missouri last month is a Corps levee.