flood of 2008

[almaty 19]

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (CNN) -- The swollen Mississippi River's relentless push downstream claimed new tracts of farmland overnight after a levee broke north of St. Louis.

Fred Dietz of Elgin, Illinois, throws bales of straw as volunteers work to prevent flooding in West Quincy.

The 150-foot breach, in Winfield, Missouri, sent floodwaters racing toward a secondary levee and prompted emergency officials to issue evacuation orders for residents east of Winfield, according to Andy Binder, a spokesman for Lincoln County. Some evacuees are being housed at the local high school.

People continued to pile sandbags along Winfield's secondary levee on Thursday.

It's a scene being repeated up and down the waterway from Iowa's Quad Cities to the St. Louis area, with the crest pushing downriver every day.

Waters spilled over two Mississippi River levees Wednesday, pouring into west-central Illinois, covering fertile farmland there and pushing residents from their homes, officials said.

The Army Corps of Engineers said water had topped one levee, but officials and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office reported that the levee at Indian Grave breached in two places, pouring water into Hancock and Adams counties. The counties border each other along the Mississippi. Watch why Illinois breach helps Iowa »

"It's kind of a sad day," Hancock County Sheriff John Jefferson said. "People put in a lot of manpower [to build up the levees], and all was lost."

Another levee at Lima Lake was breached, according to Blagojevich's office. Both of the breached levees were in Adams County.

Blagojevich spent the day visiting flood-ravaged towns, including an aerial tour of Quincy and the rest of Adams County. Watch how floodwaters drenched Quincy »

He has deployed 1,100 National Guard troops to assist with sandbagging and other efforts to stabilize levees, working alongside 300 prisoners and hundreds of residents.

Quincy sits on a bluff that protects it from flooding, but officials are worried about their water treatment plant, just outside of town, the governor said.

"We are preparing for the worst," said Blagojevich, who has declared disasters in 19 counties. "I have never seen anything at the magnitude I've seen so far, and we're being told by the experts that the challenges are going to get more severe." See what causes a levee to fail »

Nearly 25,000 acres of corn and bean farms were affected by the flooding, according to the Adams County Emergency Management Agency. Up to 60 people were evacuated from the area.

"The corn crop, the bean crop that's up is all going to be lost," Jefferson said. "And the real work's going to come after the flood recedes. It'll take years to get this ground back into shape to farm it." Watch a tour of underwater farms »

The two spillovers Wednesday bring the number of levees between Iowa and Missouri that have overflowed to 20, according to the Corps of Engineers.

In Missouri, nine levees that were breached were constructed to protect agricultural property. One was breached intentionally by its owner last week to minimize damage, said Nicole Dalrymple, a spokeswoman for the Corps' St. Louis district.

"This overtopping that we're seeing now is just due to the sheer volume of water that has come into these 14 main river systems in Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, and ... then Minnesota, too," said Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, the chief of the Corps of Engineers.

"I think, first of all, for a lot of these levees, you could not prevent this," he said.

Two dozen people have been killed in the flooding and 148 have been injured, Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison said Wednesday. "Probably 35,000 or 40,000" people have left their homes, he said.

However, despite the numbers of evacuees, "we've been staying at right around 600 people" in shelters -- which he attributed to the resourcefulness of people who are finding places to stay. More than 28,000 people have registered for FEMA assistance, he said.

The levees in Adams County are about 45 miles south of another levee that breached Tuesday morning near the small village of Gulfport, Illinois, prompting about 400 people to leave their homes in Henderson County. The water flooded acres of land, shut down a train station and ruined crops.

"It is a total loss," said farmer Jim Olsen, whose crop of beans and corn was ruined. He said he would have no farm this year.

Near Oakville, Iowa, floodwaters covered about 21 square miles of corn and soybean fields, including Richard Siegle's farm.

All that was visible of the house Siegle built in 1972 was the roof and an American flag on a tall pole waving in the submerged front yard. On a nearby farm building, pigs clustered on the roof, eating whatever they could find that floated down the river. Watch pigs stranded on roof »

"Who ever thought that we'd see water this deep here?" Siegle asked. "It's unreal."

Levees elsewhere along the Mississippi were being topped with sandbags as the river -- fed by its flooded tributaries --

i was in quincy, illinois in the flood of '93...terrible....

where i live will get some minor flooding this week, but not like 1993, when there was no water...and streets homes gone./..

[eric&gen 0]

Gee this is awful.

[almaty 19]

quincy

[Kevin and 10]

Food costs will be going up higher due to the floods too.

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

missouri river is up too