A rare winter flood that brought record or near-milestone crests along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, claiming at least 25 lives in Missouri and Illinois, had largely subsided in the region as of Monday. However, the Illinois River continued to rise in some Illinois stretches.
Here’s a rundown of Midwest flooding, by the numbers:
9 tO 14 Inches of Rain
The National Weather Service says that’s the amount that deluged much of Missouri and portions of Illinois over a three-day period starting Dec. 26. The pounding proved epic in some areas: The 11.43 inches that pummeled Springfield, Missouri, in December broke the city’s 1895 record for precipitation for that month. Hydrologists with the weather service say such drenches occur in the U.S. only every 100 to 300 years.
25 Dead
As of Monday morning, Missouri had reported 15 flood-related deaths while Illinois had 10. Nearly all of those fatalities resulted from vehicles being driven over flooded roadways, including five international soldiers from Missouri’s Fort Leonard Wood whose vehicle was swept away by floodwaters. Without explanation, the state is not including 40-year-old Rickey Lerma, who drowned in the swollen St. Francis River in Missouri’s Bootheel while trying to elude authorities.
A Million-Plus Sandbags
While volunteers helped fill tens of thousands of sandbags, the state of Illinois provided 988,000 of them to communities threatened by the Illinois, Sangamon, Iroquois and Mississippi Rivers through Sunday, Illinois Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Patti Thompson said Monday. Illinois taxpayers also doled out 10,500 tons of rock, 4,546 tons of sand and 717 rolls of plastic, with the state’s inmates contributing 8,187 hours of labor in filling 125,000 sandbags, Thompson said. Those sandbag numbers did not count what communities provided for themselves.
