Cairo Il Mayor issues mandatory evacuation order due to a "sand boil"

[Guardian]

By DAVID MERCER
The Associated Press
updated 4/30/2011 11:57:59 PM ET 2011-05-01T03:57:59

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The mayor of a small southern Illinois city threatened by two swollen rivers ordered all residents to leave by midnight Saturday because a "sand boil," an area where river water was seeping up through the ground behind the levee, had become dangerously large.

Cairo Mayor Judson Childs issued a mandatory evacuation order for the city of 2,800 residents late Saturday afternoon hours after meeting with Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, the Army Corps of Engineers officer tasked with deciding whether to blow a hole in the Birds Point levee in Missouri, downstream from Cairo, to relieve pressure on levees along the dangerously high Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Walsh, who toured Cairo's levee area, described the boil that has been growing since it was first spotted Tuesday as the largest he had ever seen, the Southeast Missourian newspaper reported.

Sand boils occur when high-pressure water pushes under flood walls and levees and wells up through the soil behind them. They're a potential sign of trouble.

City clerk Lorrie Hesselrode described the boil as "kind of like Old Faithful," the famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. "There's so much water pressure it forces the water under ground."

"It's kind of scary. It's pretty big. We've had sand boils before but nothing like this. It is under control but other boils have popped up," she told The Associated Press.......complete story: _http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42836171

 

[Guardian]

_http://www.searshomes.org/index.php/2011/05/01/boom-goes-the-levees-cairo-to-be-spared/

Farmland 0, Cairo 1 (Updated)
May 1st, 2011 Sears Homes Leave a comment Go to comments

Despite a last-minute plea from desperate Missourians, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the plan to flood 132,000 acres of prime Missouri farmland will go forward. Flooding the farms will spare the tiny town of Cairo, Illinois, population - 2,800.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that as of yesterday (Saturday, April 30th), floodwaters in Cairo crested at 59.2 feet, and have now reached 59.8 feet (as of 3:40 pm, EST). If the levees in Cairo give way, the town will be flooded. Opening up levees on the farmland in Missouri will spare Cairo, and ruin the farmland for years.

The Chicago Tribune is also reporting that crops have already been planted on some of the farms that will be inundated with this “man-made tsunami,” destroying the crops and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to the local farmers. In addition, about 100 homes would be lost.

Cairo is an interesting little town, and was full of history, but much of their historically significant architecture is gone, and the remnant is in poor condition. A few grand old manses remain, but they’re the exception. Most of the businesses and all of the industry left long ago. Cairo’s downtown is a ghost town, and a virtual trip back in time to the 1960s. To learn more about Cairo’s history, click here.

We’ve got to protect our farms. With the rising costs of food, it’s time to start showing a little respect to the few family farms we have left in this country, many of which are in Missouri.

This time, it might be best to let Cairo be the sacrificial lamb, rather than lose our farmland.

Pictures of Cairo are below.

 

[Ca.]

The Army core sure like to blow things up. So it was refuted that some one had blown up the levees in New Orleans, that affected affected the very poor sections of the Louisiana's parish's.

The majority of of those affected in this situation are poor as well, to save the down town area.