By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A lot of work and a little luck spared St. Joseph when the Missouri River reached record levels in March.
St. Joseph City Manager Bruce Woody says projections provided the city from the National Weather Service that the river would rise only half a foot the evening of March 23rd due to upstream levee breaks were off base. The river rose a full foot late that night and another foot the next morning.
“And that’s because they finally determined that enough of that water that had left the system upstream was making its way back into the system, was pushing the river back up again,” Woody tells Barry Birr, host of the KFEQ Hotline. “So, if the community sensed not having as much notice as they would have liked and a sense of being surprised, everybody was surprised and that was the challenge.”
The Missouri River had already exceeded its banks and caused widespread flooding throughout northwest Missouri by the time it rose to its record crest of 32.12 feet at St. Joseph March 24th, exceeding the previous record from July of 1993, when it reached 32.07 feet on the 26th.
Flooding caused widespread damage in Atchison and Holt Counties. It didn’t cause as much damage in Buchanan County.
Emergency management officials from both the county and the city today released the official damage assessment. Sixty-seven residences and 12 businesses suffered damage from floodwaters. Of the 67 residences, 53 were located in the county and 14 in the city of St. Joseph. One of the businesses impacted by the flood was located in the county with 11 in the city.
Woody says it could have been worse if it weren’t for 800 volunteers who re-enforced the levee with 100,000 sand bags over a three-day period.
“Yes, at its crest, the Missouri River would have overtopped that low section had it not been for those sand bags,” according to Woody.
Woody says without the sandbagging effort, the flood would have been much worse in St. Joseph.
“It would have been a 1993 all over again.”
In 1993, the levee protecting Elwood was breached, flooding the entire community, including Rosecrans Airport.
Much of the volunteer work took place on the Elwood, Kansas side of the river, but whether the effort took place on the Kansas side or the Missouri side doesn’t matter much, according to Woody.
“We suddenly lose all these designations of what city or county or jurisdiction you’re from,” Woody says. “It’s just neighbor helping neighbor.”