When a crucial street in Ray County became vulnerable to seepage from a nearby river, Citizen-Soldiers once again answered the call to help.
On July 9, eight Guardsmen from the 220th Engineer Co. (Horiz) out of Festus and the 880th Engineer Co. (Haul) from Perryville arrived on site with their heavy equipment to raise 92nd Street two feet to keep water of off it.
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Not far in the distance from the soggy road is a levee holding back water from the Crooked River. It is at capacity due to the back water off the Missouri River, less than two miles away. Currently three, 36-inch pumps sit atop the levee siphoning water that has made its way on the other side of the barrier.
The sodden 92nd Street is the primary passage to these pumps. Running 24 hours a day, the pumps must be refueled and serviced, and operators need to access them. The secondary road is still passable, but Sam Clemens, chief law enforcement officer for Ray Co., said one heavy rain would close it, as well.
About 2,000 tons of rock from of a nearby quarry in Richmond was trucked in by both the Missouri Army National Guard trucks and local citizens, many of them area farmers.
Staff Sgt. Herb Krattli III, of New Haven, operated a bulldozer to distribute the rock along the road where water had already started to pool. The weight of the 61,000 pound machine also served as a compactor, given the weight pressing down on the road.
‘The Guard has come in and furnished a lot of the expertise we didn’t have,” said Clemens. “Not only manpower, but they brought equipment and they brought their own resources.”
If the pumps could not be accessed, Clemens said flooding would be imminent. It would affect at least half of Henrietta’s 450 residents, not to mention the surrounding farm ground and BNSF Railway tracks.
“If the Guard had not built that road up, there’s a good possibility we would have lost three sets of railroad tracks,” said Clemens. “Right now, that’s their main set of tracks from east to west. The ones up north have been closed due to high water.”
These tracks cut through 92nd Street and now average 140-150 trains a day, according to Clemens, which is double what it normally runs. As trains pass through the area it does suspend the delivery of rock, but progress continues.
“There has been no negative attitude and that is a big help to me,” said Clemens. “The Guard has come in with smiles on their faces saying what do you want done? I don’t know what I would have done without them, and I mean that. I defy anybody to say anything bad about them.”
(Submitted by the Missouri National Guard)