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Rauner tours region

Posted December 31, 2015 10:00 pm

By Pete Spitler Herald Tribune

Residents of Randolph County's flood-affected regions will soon begin the cleanup process as floodwaters from the Mississippi River recede.

The river is forecast to remain in major flood stage through the middle of next week after topping out at 45.99 feet around 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning. While the second-highest crest on record, it was still 4 feet below last Monday's prediction.

Gov. Bruce Rauner visited flood-affected areas in the county on Friday, touring the key locations of Prairie du Rocher, Evansville and Chester as part of a three-day swing through counties declared state disaster areas.

"We're here to thank the first responders who have done a wonderful job, we're here to thank volunteers who have spent days sandbagging and helping those in need," Rauner said during media availability at the Randolph County Courthouse. "We're also touring facilities, shelters that the Red Cross has been operating and thanking volunteers for the Red Cross providing food and shelter, blankets for families who have had to leave their homes."

The governor returned home early from a family vacation in an unspecified foreign country to address the situation and has declared 12 counties - Randolph, Jackson, Monroe, St. Clair, Alexander, Christian, Clinton, Douglas, Morgan, Calhoun, Madison and Jersey - disaster areas because of widespread flooding.

Rauner said he would be visiting all 12 counties on the tour that concludes Sunday.

"We want to make sure that every community tracks their financial spending on these issues of the flood because we're going to work hard to get reimbursement and financial support from the federal government for many of the costs that have been incurred in the damage done here in these 12 counties," he said.

The state disaster declaration frees up state resources, such as heavy equipment and pumps, to be used in the relief effort.

Also Friday, Rauner's press office announced the governor was activating 20 Illinois National Guard soldiers to help local officials with the flood damage in Southern Illinois.

Rauner told media at the courthouse that the majority of those soldiers would be going to aid Alexander County, where Mississippi River floodwaters began overtopping levees Friday morning.

"We decided to put on standby about two dozen National Guard servicemen and women," Rauner said. "We haven't deployed them yet. They're ready because really where we're going to need them probably is in Alexander County (Saturday)."

Prior to his arrival at the courthouse, Rauner visited the maximum-security Menard Correctional Center in Chester, which had to make swift preparations for the flood.

According to the Illinois Department of Transportation, the facility asked for 400 tons of sand for sandbagging operations.

Rauner noted that 200 of Menard's 3,204 inmates had to be transferred to other facilities due to flooding, while others were relocated to other areas of the prison.

"The inmates, as well as the correctional officers, have done a tremendous job in very trying circumstances," Rauner said. "Anticipating the flood, they built walls with sandbags, they moved offenders out of the lowest-lying parts of the facility and made temporary quarters in the gymnasium."

The Christmas Day weekend storm, a slow-moving juggernaut that has caused at least 20 flood-related deaths in Missouri and Illinois, dropped between seven and eight inches of rain in Randolph County.

Relief efforts have been helped by colder, drier air in the days after the storm, with a chance of light rain returning next Friday.

Elsewhere in the region, flooding closed parts of three interstates - I-44, I-55 and I-70 - in St. Louis and a levee breach in Ste. Genevieve County, Mo., on New Year's Eve flooded an area of farmland south of Ste. Genevieve and north of the Bourbon Port.

No one was injured and no homes endangered as a result of the breach.

Tested for the second time in six months, Randolph County's levees have stood up to the task thus far, with only sand boils and occasional mudslides as minor challenges.

According to Larry Willis, Randolph County Emergency Management Agency public information officer, the next step will be damage assessments as water levels drop.

"I would say it would take a couple of weeks to get all the damage reports in, then you have to hit a certain threshold before FEMA kicks in," he said.

In regard to the closure of the Chester Bridge, which was closed due to flooding for the first time since the Great Flood of 1993, Willis said it was better to "err on the side of caution than not do anything."

"(The Mississippi River) came up really, really fast, but everybody was proactive," he said. "You have to be proactive in these situations.

"In 1993, we knew it was coming and this time, it was happening so fast."

In June, the remnants of Tropical Storm Bill caused the Mississippi to reach a crest of 39.4 feet, six-tenths of a foot below major flood stage. No major problems were reported, but parts of 11 area roads were closed.

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