April Showers Bring More Flooding

Portageville -- Heavy rainfall overnight and into Monday flooded streets and forced some area schools to close.

Portageville, Risco R-2, and New Madrid County R-1, are among school districts that closed Monday due flooding. Although Portageville School District was closed, the St. Eustachius Catholic Schools met.

"We have a lot of streets flooded," a dispatcher with the New Madrid County Sheriff's Department said. "When they get in their cars, we've had to go help them because their cars have stalled."

State Route U near Lilbourn was closed to allow Lilbourn City Street and Fire Department to pump water off of the Sixth street, and Weeks Subdivision areas. Their efforts began around 2 AM until about 10 AM. That area is the lowest part of Lilbourn and always gets its share of water with any heavy waterfall. At least seven inches of rain fell throughout the county.

In Portageville, City Street workers began setting up their pumping efforts on north McCrate Avenue. They began pumping water near West Twelfth Street and across McCrate into a larger drainage ditch around 3 AM Monday and finished up around 9:30 AM.

The northwestern corner of Portageville has always had a difficult time with flooding and getting water pumped out of that area.

For this reason is why the City of Portageville ask Vince Berry to seek a grant for flood control. With his efforts, the City has retained a grant which Bootheel Regional Planning and Zoning Commission is now administrating.

See photo gallery for more images.

Engineers are seeking the best solution as to how to begin.

Early this morning the fire department and volunteers began making sandbags at the city shed.

The dispatcher estimated the department has helped three or so motorists whose vehicles impacted by the the high water levels on the streets.

"We know that Highway 61 and Interstate 55 to Sikeston is clear, but we've had over 7 inches of rain as of 5 a.m. today," the dispatcher said.

Early this morning the fire department began making sandbags at the county shed, the dispatcher said.

In addition to the flooding, the severe thunder storms included strong winds, knocking down some power poles and electric lines as well as large limbs and trees. Most of the tree limb damage was mainly in and area from Eighth street to Twelfth street.

As of Monday, the real-time weather station at Fisher Delta Research Center showed at 2:08 Monday morning, the peak wind gust 30.1 MPH, and yesterday at 2:04 PM, the wind gust was at 32.9 MPH.