ST. LOUIS—Floodwater was starting to recede at some water-logged Midwestern communities Thursday, but hundreds of homes were damaged, hundreds more remained evacuated, and getting through St. Louis by car, boat or train was increasingly difficult.
The Mississippi River neared record levels at many places, and a tributary, the Meramec River, surged 4 feet beyond previous records before finally starting to fall. The rare wintertime flooding was spurred by 10 inches of rain or more over a three-day period across a wide swath of Missouri and Illinois.
Twenty deaths were blamed on flooding — nearly all of them from motorists driving onto wet roads — and searches continued for two missing men in southwest Missouri and two missing teenagers in southern Illinois.
Some flood-weary communities were getting relief: The Missouri, Meramec and Mississippi rivers were cresting throughout the St. Louis region. The Mississippi River was slowly dropping at St. Louis after peaking about 7 1/2 feet below the 1993 record. A floodwall offered solid protection, but as the waters flow south, points in southern Missouri and Illinois were awaiting the crest.
The Missouri River leveled off about 5 feet shy of the record in St. Charles, Missouri, and was on the way down at Hermann and Washington, two German heritage towns in Missouri’s Wine Country region.
The Meramec, southwest of St. Louis, continued to be the biggest problem, even as it began to drop after reaching record levels in the Missouri towns of Eureka, Valley Park and Arnold. Hundreds of homes were damaged in Eureka, an estimated 100 homes in Arnold were damaged, as well as dozens more in nearby Pacific.
