Flood — Lincoln, Missouri

2008-06-04 to 2008-06-30 · near Dameron, Lincoln, Missouri

Event narrative

Lincoln County was the area most affected by the Mississippi River flood of 2008. At Winfield, the river crested at 37.08 feet on 6/27/2008. This is the second highest crest ever recorded. All of the land east of Highway 79 was flooded. At the height of the flood, Highway 79 also went underwater near Old Monroe, Winfield, Foley, and Elsberry. Almost all of Foley went underwater. The southeast part of Winfield, about 100 homes, flooded when the Pin Oak levee failed. In Old Monroe, the waste water treatment plant was flooded by water from the Cuivre River, which was back water from the flooded Mississippi. According to damage assessments made by local emergency management officials, 814 homes were affected. 742 were destroyed, 36 suffered major damage, and 36 were affected. Damage to public infrastructure was estimated at $1,600,000.

Wider weather episode

An extraordinary flood took place on the Mississippi River in June, resulting from two major rainfall events in Wisconsin and Iowa. The Wisconsin flooding resulted from two separate events, totaling more than 10 inches of rain over most of the southern third of the state. This resulted in record flooding for more than half of the forecast points across southeastern Wisconsin. In Iowa, two separate rain events generated record flooding at a dozen forecast points along the Cedar, Iowa, Wapsipinicon, and Mississippi Rivers. As the floodwaters moved south, the Mississippi River produced near-record flooding from Canton, MO to Clarksville, MO with major flooding also reported at Grafton, IL and Chester, IL. The high backwater on adjacent tributaries resulted in significant flooding along the North River at Palmyra, MO, the Cuivre River at Old Monroe, MO, the Illinois River at LaGrange, Meredosia, Valley City, and Hardin, IL, and the Meramec River at Arnold, MO. The Missouri River also experienced flooding at all points in the service area, with moderate flood crests reported at Jefferson City and Hermann, MO. Many roads across the flooded areas had to be closed for a couple of weeks. Several bridges across the Mississippi River were also affected. The older bridge across the Mississippi at Quincy, IL had to be closed as the flood water covered Highway 24 on the Missouri side. The Highway 54 bridge at Louisiana was closed due to flooding on the Illinois side.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.2495, -90.8514)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 115690. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.