After devastating flooding this year, Iowa funneled $15 million into a special fund to help local governments recover and guard against future floods. Missouri budgeted more money to fight rising waters, including $2 million to help buy a moveable floodwall for a historic Mississippi River town that has faced flooding in all but one of the past 20 years.
As predicted, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it plans to keep water releases into the lower Missouri River elevated, as runoff continues to keep upstream reservoirs full.
MoDOT Project Manager Melissa Wilbers says "three to eight-hour backups are possible" when MoDOT begins a massive refurbishment of the I-70 Rocheport bridge.
About 15.5 million people, 1.4 million acres of farmland, and $23.8 billion in residential property are now threatened by flooding in the Missouri River Basin. The flooding this year made that apparent, after at least 60 levees were overtopped or breached across Missouri and Kansas.