When someone asks me where I'm from, I typically reply, "Life begins in Texas and everything before don't count!" The truth of the matter is, I grew up in Northwest Iowa and I'm planning a trip up to visit my family (At least the ones I haven't been able to convince to move to Texas!) in a week or so. The last time I spoke with my father he mentioned the flooding along the Missouri River, so I did a bit of poking around on the net. While I haven't seen much of this on the news, I expect we will be seeing it soon!

The reservoirs along the Missouri up in the Dakotas and Montana are filled to the brim with melting snows from the winter coupled with heavy rains this spring, and now the Army Corps of Engineers is releasing water downstream. In and of itself, that's not really news, the big story is how much water is being released. The spillways are open to the tune of 150,000 cubic feet of water a second! This is the largest release of water in the history of man trying to control the Mighty Missouri River, and it's expected to remain flowing at this level until mid to late August!

Even though the predicted and controlled crest hasn't hit yet, levees are already failing along the river in Western Iowa. Here's a video from a news crew from KETV in Omaha. They chartered a small plane and followed the river as it flows along Interstate 29 from Omaha, Nebraska to Sioux City, Iowa and on Northward.

Low lying farmland is already under water, hundreds of people have been evacuated and told not to

Missouri_River_Flood-Fort Calhoun, NE
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expect to get back to their homes until late August, even entire towns are in danger. I've got a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot more about this story in the next few days and weeks.

Dave D.

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