An estimated 6,000 to 8,000 sandbags sit on a levee in northeast Missouri’s Hannibal to protect property from getting damaged by spring flooding. Rich Dauma with the Hannibal Street Department tells Missourinet affiliate WGEM in Quincy the city is ready for them to be removed and needs volunteers to help.
Massive flooding in northeast Missouri has closed Highway 79 in several locations, including this location south of Hannibal (May 3, 2019 photo courtesy of the Missouri State Highway Patrol)
“It doesn’t help it but it doesn’t hurt it either other than the aesthetics of it. We’re killing grass and everything else so we need to get them off,” says Dauma.
He says the sandbags must be cleared so the Army Corps of Engineers can inspect the levee there. The department is operating a crane to make the process easier.
Up the river in Canton, Mayor Jarrod Phillips says the piles of sandbags in town are free to take.
“If some folks want to come down and do that, it saves us some money on having to dispose of them ourselves,” says Phillips.
Phillips says the town is not in a big rush to remove the sandbags on the levee there.
“It’s going to be an ongoing project,” said Phillips. “We have some things we want to wrap up while it’s good weather for construction. We have some water lines that we want to lay that are priority right now.”
Phillips hopes to get the sandbags removed in the fall.
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