00:49 Severe Storms, Tornadoes, River Flooding Hit Several States Scatter severe thunderstorms stretching from Texas to Ohio Valley brought tornadoes and flooding across several states. The storms overturned trucks, damaged homes and forced many to seek high ground.

At a Glance At least seven people are dead as a result of storms and flooding since Monday.

The Mississippi River ticked above levels reached in 1993 in Davenport, Iowa, the highest level there in 157 years.

The city's downtown area remained under water Friday, days after a temporary levee gave way.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency Thursday for Wayne County

At least 3,000 homes have been damaged in Wayne County from flooding.

Deadly flooding from heavy rains and snow melt continued to plague areas from Michigan to the South on Saturday.

The Mississippi River ticked above levels reached in the historic 1993 flood in Davenport, Iowa, making it the highest level there in 157 years. The city's downtown remained under water Friday, days after a temporary levee gave way and flooded the city that does not have a permanent levee or floodwall, the Associated Press reports.

Jon Erdman, weather.com senior meteorologist, noted that the Mississippi River at Rock Island, Illinois, across the river from Davenport, first rose above flood stage on March 15 as water from melting snow in upstream tributaries flowed into the Mississippi River.

"Rounds of additional rain in Iowa and Illinois and a melt of snow cover from some April storms pushed the river higher since late April," Erdman added.

On Friday, the U.S. Coast Guard closed a five-mile stretch of the Mississippi River near St. Louis to boat and barge traffic, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

“The Mississippi is closed to all vessel traffic due to extremely high water levels and fast-moving currents," U.S. Coast Guard public affairs officer Brandon Giles told the newspaper.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency Thursday for Wayne County after this week's heavy rains left widespread flooding, the AP reports.

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said an estimated 3,000 homes in the county, including homes in Detroit, have been damaged by the flooding that also forced authorities to close a stretch of the Southfield Freeway in both directions.

(MORE: Next: Severe Thunderstorms, Isolated Tornadoes)

In other areas throughout the Midwest and the South, flooding has made roads impassable and forced the closure of two Mississippi River bridges in Quincy, Illinois, and Louisiana, Missouri.

All along the Mississippi River, communities continue to sandbag in an attempt to stave off floodwaters.

Grafton Mayor Rick Eberlin told reporters roads were closing around the town that is 40 miles north of St. Louis and has no flood walls or levees. He noted that waters were beginning to encroach the town hall, the AP reported.

"We are at our wits end," Eberlin said. "We are totally unprotected."

About 40 miles northwest of St. Louis, the towns of Winfield and Foley saw flash flooding after a levee overtopped, according to emergency personnel.

In Hannibal, Missouri, the Mississippi is expected to crest Friday afternoon at the third-highest level on records , the Hannibal Courier-Post reports. The city, which issued a state of emergency declaration Wednesday morning, plans to raise the height of flood gates and the levee will be raised as a precaution.

The town of West Alton, Missouri, home to about 500 residents, is under a voluntary evacuation order.

"We've been through this before," West Alton Emergency Management Director Gary Machens told the Associated Press. "It's part of living in a floodplain."

At least seven deaths are attributed to this week's flooding and severe weather.

The body of Martha Patricia Torres-Regalado, 44, was found in a drainage ditch Friday after her car became stranded in high water. A second woman traveling with Torres-Regalado left the vehicle to seek help but returned to find Torres-Regalado gone from the vehicle. Her body was found several blocks away in the drainage ditch, the AP reports.

Police recovered the body of 23-year-old kayak paddler Alex Ekern from a flooded Missouri creek Thursday after he and another paddler went missing.

The victim was one of three paddlers who ran into trouble on Wednesday when their kayaks went over a low-water bridge and became caught in a hydraulic, which churns up the water like a washing-machine and is difficult to escape. Authorities continue to search for the second victim, while a third paddler managed to escape the hydraulic, the AP reports.

A 2-year-old boy was killed Thursday when his mother drove past a "high water" sign in Wabash County, Indiana, and into a flooded road.

Earlier in the week, a man was killed in Missouri he was swept away by flash flooding and three others died in Oklahoma.

Storms Continue

A multi-day rash of storms hitting parts of Texas through the Ohio Valley continued on Friday.

Damage was reported to several industrial buildings by a possible tornado early Friday in Fayette County, Texas.

The storms spawned numerous tornadoes, and dumped heavy rain this week, overturning trucks, damaging homes and forcing many to seek higher ground. Four tornadoes that touched down in central Arkansas Thursday were confirmed Friday by the National Weather Service, including an EF1 twister.

Scattered severe thunderstorms will continue to flare up from Texas into parts of the mid-Atlantic through Friday, producing damaging wind gusts, large hail and potentially a few tornadoes. Heavy rainfall from these storms could also trigger flash flooding.</s>OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The Latest on flooding along the Mississippi River (all times local):

The National Weather Service at St. Louis says rain in the coming days will determine whether Mississippi River levels will rise more than expected.

Levels at some points reached their highest ever this past week.

Several rounds of rain are expected in the coming week throughout the Mississippi River basin. The weather service says that, at best, the rain will cause the swollen river to linger at current elevated levels. At worst, additional rain will push river levels higher, leading to more flooding.

A flood warning continues for areas on either side of the river from Minnesota all the way to Louisiana, where the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Mississippi River has crested at many of the hardest-hit towns, but with more heavy rain expected over the next several days, the latest round of spring flooding may be far from finished.

The river was starting to decline at Davenport, Iowa, after eclipsing the 1993 record, but downtown remained underwater. It will likely be days before it dries out.

The Mississippi crested a few feet shy of 1993 levels at several other places in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Crests further to the south in towns like Cape Girardeau, Missouri, aren't expected until the middle of next week.

Other rivers in the Midwest also are seeing significant flooding. The floods are blamed on four deaths, three in Missouri and one in Indiana.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>The Mississippi River has been at major flood stage for 41 days and counting, and this week a temporary wall failed, sending water rushing into several blocks of downtown Davenport, Iowa.

In that same area — the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois — the river crested at a new record height. The National Weather Service says a new record appears to have been set at Rock Island, Ill.

The previous area record was set during the Great Flood of 1993 — and as NPR's Rebecca Hersher has reported, that flood caused some $15 billion in damage.

Davenport Mayor Frank Klipsch says the city had placed temporary barriers to protect against rising water, and a small section of those barriers eventually was breached on Tuesday after holding for weeks.

"We evacuated about 30 to 40 residents in that area who lived in some condo areas there," he tells NPR's Here & Now. "We deal with [flooding] every year, but this was an unexpected breach and a lot of water got into that area."

The upper Mississippi was inundated with massive amounts of rain earlier this week, exacerbating the already high river level. "The state of Iowa has received more precipitation in the last 12 months than any recorded period in 124 years of data," Bob Gallagher, the mayor of the upriver town of Bettendorf, told reporters Friday. "When you get as much rain as we have this year there's just no way to avoid this situation."

Some Davenport businesses are having a hard time, even if they aren't flooded, reports Benjamin Payne of member station WVIK. "It's slowed things down. The detours have made it more difficult to get downtown," Tiffany Cannon, who has kept her bakery open, tells Payne. "So I've had customers call me and say, 'We have trucks; we have sandbags. Tell me what you need.' "

According to WVIK, residents and businesses in the flooded area had received warnings about the possibility that the temporary wall could fail, "but still had little time, only about one hour, to protect their buildings and evacuate."

The local minor league team's stadium is surrounded by water, Payne adds, and the team is now referring to it as "baseball island."

Meanwhile, communities downriver are bracing for the high waters to arrive, and farming communities along the Mississippi are at risk.

John Roach, the city administrator of La Grange, Mo., tells reporters that the town is already experiencing its third-highest level of historic flooding.

"The post office has moved out; the Head Start day care has moved out; our mechanic's garage — they've moved out," Roach says. "We've got water up and down Main Street, the whole length of town. It's impacting just about every aspect that you can imagine. ... We're in pretty bad shape."

In March, the National Weather Service predicted that the potential for flooding this spring was "above to well above normal," owing to a large snowpack high in the Mississippi River's basin and saturated soil.

"Snowmelt alone will cause rivers to rise near or above flood stage," NWS said. Lower-than-usual temperatures in January and February, and higher snowfall, contributed to the large snowpack.

And as NPR's Hersher reported, the intense rain that exacerbated this flooding has a link to climate change. "Such intense rain has gotten more frequent as the climate changes, in part because warmer air can hold more moisture," she said. "That means Midwestern communities can expect more years like this one."</s>DAVENPORT, IOWA — The Half Nelson restaurant was well stocked and spiffy for its official opening Tuesday, an upscale addition to the locally owned businesses that anchor this riverfront city.

But then a temporary flood barrier breached, shooting torrents of water from the Mississippi River through the restaurant’s kitchen toward the custom-built tile and walnut bar. By the time the river crested here on Thursday, co-owner Matthew Osborn had barely had time to nap while overseeing pipes, pumps and generators and ferrying in supplies by boat.

“I went to get a tetanus shot and fell asleep in the chair,” said Osborn, perched on an elevated bench next to two pairs of chest waders that were hanging upside-down to drain.

For years, Davenport was the only major city on the upper Mississippi to resist permanent flood protection, opting instead for an environmentally sound approach of “embracing” the natural flow of the river with parks, wetlands and flood-friendly buildings.

That strategy had been strikingly successful until this week, when the city’s system of removable barricades failed to withstand the river’s record-breaking rise, fueled by prolonged rain, snow melt and saturated ground.

The river crested on Thursday at a record 22.64 feet, beating the previous record set in 1993, according to the National Weather Service. Water inundated several downtown blocks and about 30 residents had to be rescued by boat.

City leaders fear the threat has not passed, as the forecast calls for more rain on Sunday and Monday. But it’s the long-term threat — from bigger and more frequent floods, spurred by extreme weather and riverfront development — that is making residents lose faith in the temporary barricades.

“I used to be neutral,” said Mike Osborn, Matthew’s father, who owns two other restaurants in the area and describes the Half Nelson as a $1.4 million investment. “Now I’m in favor of a flood wall.”

Rick Harris, owner of the neighboring Bootleg Hill taproom, was more outspoken as his sons and employees swept water through holes drilled in the new floor.

“It’s a fool’s errand,” he said of the temporary barriers. “The city doesn’t take responsibility.”

All agree that the challenges ahead are immense and universal. Davenport’s conundrum is America’s — not only along mighty waterways but on suburban creeks that burst in sudden fury through new developments.

Iowa’s latest flood comes as towns on the other side of the state are still recovering from levee breaches along the Missouri River, which plunged large swaths of the Midwest underwater in March, causing more than $1.6 billion in damage in Iowa. On April 11, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) declared a state of emergency in Scott County, where Davenport is located — one of 61 Iowa counties suffering from soaked ground and epic floods.

Less than a month later, she toured the flooded downtown of this eastern Iowa city of 103,000 in a golf cart with Mayor Frank Klipsch on Friday. They got out to wade into the street near the Half Nelson to take a closer look at flooded cars and chat briefly with business owners.

“I can’t control the weather, ” Reynolds said. “But we are going to come back stronger than ever, and we are open for business.”

She later tweeted that she and Davenport officials “are committed to a recovery plan that works for both the short and long term.”

Yet, he said the city remains committed to the path Davenport set itself on decades ago, when it spurned a plan to build levees and decided to “make peace” with its river, creating a scenic nine-mile riverfront in the process.

“We have a beautiful riverfront and want it to keep it that way,” the mayor said Thursday. “If we put up a flood wall it will push the water into Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri and make their problems worse.”

Davenport’s idiosyncratic approach to flood control dates back more than half a century, when city leaders investigated the possibility of building a permanent flood wall following a flooding disaster in 1965. Residents resisted the idea, and there was little appetite among the city council’s fiscal conservatives for such an expensive infrastructure project, said Teri Goodman, assistant city manager of the upriver town of Dubuque, whose father helped develop the plan.

Instead, the town built flood-friendly buildings and created parks and marshes in low-lying areas so seasonal floodwater would have a place to go. They set up removable aluminum flood walls around its historic ballpark to keep it dry.

Mike Clarke, a former Davenport public works director who is now an official in St. Pete Beach, Fla., said that the city’s custody of its waterfront has been “visionary.”

“The idea is you have to work with nature and leave nature to do its thing, and not stand in her way,” Clarke said. “Davenport’s done a fantastic job of doing that. Don’t get in an argument with nature. In an argument with man and nature, nature wins 100 percent of the time.”

But he faulted the city for not doing enough to prepare for this particular flood. The river was held back by only one row of temporary barriers, but Clarke thinks the city should have stacked them at least two deep.

“They didn’t position themselves for the flood-fighting protection to the level that was necessary,” he said.

Kathy Wine, executive director of the nonprofit environmental organization River Action, sees long-term regional benefits to keeping the city connected with the Mississippi, while protecting key infrastructure like the water treatment plant.

Wine, who had just finished finding a dry space for the contents of her flooded office, remains firm in the resolve she made public in the mid 1980s when she set up a giant plywood barrier in a riverfront park to show citizens what they would lose if they built a wall.

Since then, Wine said, she has found an ally in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and encouraged the city in innovative projects like the Figge Art Museum, which has an elevated first floor allowing water to flow through below, and in buying out houses in flood plains.

She speaks with greatest pride about transforming a brownfield into a 310-acre wetland, all of which is now deeply underwater.

“It’s doing its job. I shudder to think where we’d be without it,” she said.

But she also knows the floods will reopen the debate about Davenport’s strategy.

“Are we going to be able to keep a majority agreeing this is the way to go?” Wine asked.

Tim Baldwin, co-owner of the Front Street Brewery, is in no hurry to build a permanent wall. He saw the dramatic gush of water cross the HESCO barrier on Tuesday, and he thinks the brewery is a total loss.

Instead of joining the calls for a wall, he may commemorate the 2019 flood with a new beer, perhaps named “Barrier Breach.”

It will add to the many ways this city defines itself by its connection to the river.

At the Current hotel’s rooftop bar on Thursday, people tried to pick out familiar landmarks in the maelstrom below: One man pointed out a hot-dog stand where the heights of previous floods had been carefully marked. Now, only its square roof is visible above the churning waters.</s>The Mississippi River has been at major flood stage for 41 days and counting, and this week a temporary wall failed and send water rushing into several blocks of downtown Davenport, Iowa.

In that same area — the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois — the river crested at a new record height. The National Weather Service says a new record appears to have been set at Rock Island, Ill.

The previous area record was set during the Great Flood of 1993 – and as NPR's Rebecca Hersher has reported, that flood caused some $15 billion in damage.

Davenport Mayor Frank Klipsch says the city had placed temporary barriers to protect against rising water, and a small section of those barriers eventually breached on Tuesday after holding for weeks.

"We evacuated about 30 to 40 residents in that area who lived in some condo areas there," he tells NPR's Here & Now. "We deal with [flooding] every year, but this was an unexpected breach and a lot of water got into that area."

The Upper Mississippi was inundated with massive amounts of rain earlier this week, exacerbating the already-high river level. "The state of Iowa has received more precipitation in the last 12 months than any recorded period in 124 years of data," Bob Gallagher, the mayor of the upriver town of Bettendorf, told reporters Friday. "When you get as much rain as we have this year there's just no way to avoid this situation."

Some Davenport businesses are having a hard time, even if they aren't flooded, reports Benjamin Payne of member station WVIK.

"It's slowed things down. The detours have made it more difficult to get downtown," Tiffany Cannon, who has kept her bakery open, tells Payne. "So I've had customers call me and say, 'We have trucks, we have sandbags. Tell me what you need.' "

According to WVIK, residents and businesses in the flooded area had received warnings about the possibility that the temporary wall could fail, "but still had little time, only about one hour, to protect their buildings and evacuate."

The local major league team's stadium is surrounded by water, Payne adds, and the team is now referring to it as "baseball island."

Meanwhile, communities downriver are bracing for the high waters to arrive, and farming communities along the Mississippi are at risk.

John Roach, the city administrator of La Grange, Mo., tells reporters that the town is already experiencing its third-highest level of historic flooding.

"The post office has moved out, the Head Start day care has moved out, our mechanic's garage – they've moved out," Roach says. "We've got water up and down Main Street, the whole length of town. It's impacting just about every aspect that you can imagine. ... We're in pretty bad shape."

In March, the National Weather Service predicted that the potential for flooding this spring was "above to well above normal," due to a large snowpack high in the Mississippi River's basin and saturated soil.

"Snowmelt alone will cause rivers to rise near or above flood stage," NWS said. Lower-than-usual temperatures in January and February, and higher snowfall, contributed to the large snowpack.

And as NPR's Hersher reported, the intense rain that exacerbated this flooding has a link to climate change. "Such intense rain has gotten more frequent as the climate changes, in part because warmer air can hold more moisture," she said. "That means Midwestern communities can expect more years like this one."</s>ST. LOUIS (AP) — The fast-rising Mississippi River on Thursday neared levels unseen since a historic 1993 flood, threatening levees and forcing people living near the bulging Big Muddy to move to higher ground.

Parts of downtown Davenport, Iowa, remained underwater after the river tore through a temporary barrier. Davenport has no permanent levee or floodwall. The river was within inches of the 1993 all-time high, and was expected to top it by Friday.

Davenport wasn’t the only community along the Mississippi experiencing a flashback to 1993, the benchmark for catastrophic flooding in much of the Midwest. Thousands of acres of farmland were already swamped, hundreds of roads shut down and two Mississippi River bridges — one at Quincy, Illinois, and one at Louisiana, Missouri — were forced to close.

Sandbagging — an almost-annual ritual in many river towns — was underway, even in places with flood protection. A levee holds back the river at downtown Hannibal, Missouri, but each day brings a higher crest prediction. Volunteers are adding sandbags to the levee just in case.

Sandbagging isn’t an option at West Alton, Missouri, because the levee is so long, so the 500 or so residents were under a voluntary evacuation. The river is expected to crest Saturday half a foot higher than the levee at the town 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of St. Louis can hold.

West Alton Emergency Management Director Gary Machens and friends were busy moving farm equipment to higher ground. He was taking the whole thing in stride.

“We’ve been through this before,” Machens said. “It’s part of living in a flood plain.”

The latest round of flooding was spurred by torrents of rain, and river flooding wasn’t the only concern.

Parts of the Ozarks region of Missouri received up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain Wednesday night and Thursday morning, prompting flash flooding that forced hasty evacuations in some areas.

Related: PETA puts up billboard in south KC linking recent flooding with animal cruelty

The body of Robbie Turner, 59, of Ava, Missouri, was found Wednesday. Authorities believe he was camping alone near Ava and got caught in waters from a flooded creek.

Heavy rain in Michigan swamped homes and closed a stretch of a freeway near Detroit, where sandbags were stacked to curb flooding near canals off the Detroit River. More heavy rain through Friday morning raised concerns about additional flash flooding.</s>Davenport abruptly joined the ranks of Iowa regions ravaged by muddy floodwaters this spring when the Mississippi River rushed into the downtown of the state's third-largest city Tuesday afternoon.

Floodwaters breached the Davenport's temporary HESCO barrier at River Drive and Pershing Avenue , flooding a two- to three-block area along River Drive and Second Street and forcing a rapid evacuation of area businesses and residents.

Davenport typically sees flooding every year on streets and in open space along the Mississippi River that's designed for flood control. But this event — with the river now at its third-highest recorded level — is more reminiscent of the historic 1993 flood, when the river displaced hundreds of businesses and residents and caused millions of dollars in damage.

Concern about Mississippi flooding, driven by snowmelt and heavy rain, has been high for weeks, but the danger spiked again this week after easing somewhat earlier in April.

The Mississippi River is expected to reach a near-record high of 22.4 feet by Thursday morning, though additional forecasted rainfall could affect those levels, according to the National Weather Service. Its previous records of 22.63 feet and 22.48 feet were reached in 1993 and 1965, respectively.</s>OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The Mississippi River has crested at many of the hardest-hit towns, but with more heavy rain expected over the next several days, the latest round of spring flooding may be far from finished.

The river was starting to decline at Davenport, Iowa, after eclipsing the 1993 record, but downtown remained underwater. It will likely be days before it dries out.

The Mississippi crested a few feet shy of 1993 levels at several other places in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Crests further to the south in towns like Cape Girardeau, Missouri, aren't expected until the middle of next week.

Other rivers in the Midwest also are seeing significant flooding. The floods are blamed on four deaths, three in Missouri and one in Indiana.

An aerial photo of Davenport, Iowa, shows the Figge Art Museum and the SkyBridge surrounded by Mississippi River flood waters, Friday, May 3, 2019. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds visited Davenport Friday. Several blocks of downtown Davenport were flooded this week when a flood barrier succumbed to the onslaught of water. (Kevin E. Schmidt/Quad City Times via AP)

Dan Macheca (right) and Mitch Wieldt get their paddling in as they row along Marshall Road in Meramec River flood water, passing the Kirkwood Athletic Association baseball and softball fields near Greentree Park on Friday, May 3, 2019. The river sits at moderate flood stage but will rise more than four more feet before cresting right at major flood stage early Sunday, an estimated 25.1 feet. The men are training for a 280-mile rafting trip through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)</s>OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The Mississippi River has crested at many of the hardest-hit towns, but with more heavy rain expected over the next several days, the latest round of spring flooding may be far from finished.

The river was starting to decline at Davenport, Iowa, after eclipsing the 1993 record, but downtown remained underwater. It will likely be days before it dries out.

The Mississippi crested a few feet shy of 1993 levels at several other places in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Crests further to the south in towns like Cape Girardeau, Missouri, aren't expected until the middle of next week.

Other rivers in the Midwest also are seeing significant flooding. The floods are blamed on four deaths, three in Missouri and one in Indiana.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Flooding along the Mississippi river could persist through the end of the month and even into June as relentless rains continue to saturate the Midwest, forecasters say.

“We have points in Iowa and Illinois that have been in flood stage for over 30 days, which hasn’t occurred since we started keeping records — and some of them go back 150 years,” said Patrick Burke a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

At least four people have died in the flooding, which has closed hundreds of roads, stopped vessel traffic along parts of the Mississippi River and inundated multiple towns, including major flooding in Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island, Illinois.

The problem is that heavy snows over the winter melted, drenching the ground and filling the rivers with runoff. Then there’s usually a lull during which the soils can dry out before the spring rains begin.

“There hasn’t really been a chance for the soils to dry out, they’re still saturated from the snow melt and the rains,” said Corey Loveland, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s River Forecast Center in Chanhassen, Minnesota.

The Mississippi River crested at higher levels than it ever had in the past. That was at 22.7 feet in Davenport, Iowa, on Thursday, a record that hadn’t been matched since records began to be kept in 1862, said Loveland. That is almost eight feet above flood stage

In Rock Island, Illinois, the Mississippi set a record level of 22.7 feet, breaking the record set on July 9, 1993, during the Great Flood of 1993.

More rain is coming, Burke said.

“It’s going to start picking up. We are monitoring a pretty good-sized storm system that’s going to come along between Tuesday and Thursday. Where the bull’s eye hits is going to impact where there’s flooding,” Burke said.

Currently, the National Weather Service forecasts the heaviest swath of rain, as much as three inches, around Kansas City. However, one to two inches of rain could fall as far north as southern Minnesota, he said.

“We can expect to see additional rises even if the rivers start to fall earlier in the week,” Burke said.

It won’t take much rain to affect the rivers because the soils remain so saturated, Loveland said. “If you get even less than an inch of rain it goes into the river.”

Even if things dry out, river flows will continue to be high through May and into June, Loveland said. But it could also persist for another month beyond.

“The wildcard is really the rain in the forecast. If it remains cool and wet, we could have high flows through the end of June. It just really depends on what the spring rains bring,” he said.

The ongoing flooding takes a toll because many of the temporary structures put up to hold back the waters aren’t designed to last for months on end.

“The longer you have the river at these high levels, the more these structures are tested,” Loveland said.

To the west, the Missouri River is also a concern, said meteorologist Sarah Atkins with the National Weather Service’s Kansas City office.

“We’ll start to see multiple rounds of showers and thunderstorms starting Sunday night pretty much through Thursday over a lot of Missouri, a good chunk of Kansas, into Nebraska, Iowa and much of Illinois as well,” she said.

The Missouri River has mostly experienced minor flooding thus far and is expected to stay at around those levels. However with the potential for between two and four more inches of rain hitting the saturated ground, she cautioned residents to be careful.

“If there are barricades, turn around, don’ go through. If you see a flooded roadway, turn around. It’s simply not worth it,” she said.
Flooding from Michigan to the south damages homes and sends the Mississippi River to a 157-year high in Davenport, Iowa.