Southern Illinois Flooding

Image via Wikipedia

Many readers might not know where I live in Southern Illinois is experiencing the worst flooding since 1937. Countless roads and towns are almost entirely under water. Harrisburg has even closed its flood gate, which has never happened before that I know of.  Being that the southern region is part of the Mississippi Delta-- which I'm sure most people don't realize just how far south Illinois stretches-- flooding is always an issue.  Like Tennessee's epic floods last year, deep south Illinois is just barely making the news.

Today, however, CNN did mention the Army Corp decided to blow the levee at Cairo.  This is to help alleviate the flooding which will soon amass the town but will result in flooding hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in Missouri.

What we have, and this gets overlooked so much, are the two largest rivers in North America coming together right at the southern tip of Illinois, in Cairo.  When both the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers flood, that spells doom for Egypt (nee: Southern Illinois).  Though right now the rain has stopped the next few days will be critical for the region.  Luckily my home is on a hill and my town is 30 miles northeast of Cairo.  The numerous contributories, creeks and other small rivers, are backed up because of The Ohio and are flooding throughout, however.  There's just no place for the water to go.  Not to give a boring geography lesson, but things here are edgy.

Here are some pics:

confluence of Mississippi and Ohio taken before 10 extra inches of rain fell

All pictures are courtesy of the Chicago Tribune