Residents Affected by Illinois Flooding Go Home for Now

Flood Waters Beginning to Subside; More Rain Expected

Shannon Brackett and her husband Phil moved back into their trailer at Reed Station Mobile Home Park in Carbondale on Saturday and began the process of waiting for the insurance adjusters, for both cars and the trailer itself.

The mobile home sits about 42 inches off the ground and the water was only about three feet deep in their part of the trailer park. They know the underpinning of the trailer was damaged, but they won't know how badly until the insurance inspection is completed. That could be done today, which would be good, since the next round of rainfall is supposed to begin tonight.

The National Weather Service forecast calls for 2 to 3 inches of rain over the next three days and right now, the NWS is of the opinion that it is unlikely the new rain will affect the water levels in the flood zones. And, the rivers generally crested at levels lower than the forecasts.

But Southern Illinois is far from out of danger. In Grand Tower, a community of about 1,000 people along the Mississippi River bottoms, much of the fertile farmland is under water. On Friday, the mayor issued a voluntary evacuation order because the levees that hold back the Big Muddy River and the Mississippi River were showing signs of slippage.

Slippage generally occurs when an earthen levee becomes so saturated with water that the top layers of soil begin to slip off, in a sort of mudslide. Then, tiny trickles of water begins to weave their way through the levee and each little stream carries a bit of soil with it, rapidly enlarging the hole in the levee.

These levees survived the 1993 Mississippi River flood intact, but stressed. On Friday, it looked as though they might not make it through this onslaught.

With supervision from the Army Corps of Engineers , the levee was sandbagged and areas with slippage were patched and as long as the river levels do not stay high for a long period of time, the community should be safe. Residents who left during the evacuation generally returned home Sunday.