Governor Nixon wants flood victims in northwest Missouri to know they haven’t been forgotten in state disaster recovery efforts. He has spent a lot of time in Joplin and earlier in the spring had pressured the Corps of Engineers to work quickly on restoring the Birds Point-New Madrid levee in southeast Missouri Now he’s gone to northwest Missouri where tens of thousands of acres remain under deep and fast-moving water.
He says he wanted those flood victims to know the state would help pay some of the costs of levee repair and rebuilding. He’s not ready to commit to rebuilding the levees higher or substantially stronger.
Listen to Nixon’s comment :30 mp3
Nixon says the state won’t be able to get a solid assessment of levee damage until the water has run out of the area as the river level drops–and that’s going to take several more weeks.
The Corps of Engineers says it will cut flows into the lower river from the closest upstream reservoir by 5,000 cubic feet per second tomorrow. with similar cuts for the next several weeks until the flow reaches 90,000 CFS late this month. and 40,000 CFS at the end of September.
