Flood in St. Charles County, Missouri

The Mississippi River at Grafton, IL (just across the river from St. Charles County) crested at 30.80 feet on 6/29/2008. This is the fourth highest crest ever recorded. At Alton, IL (also just across the river from St. Charles County) the river crested at 33.08 feet. This is the seventh highest crest ever recorded. The majority of the land flooded is used for agriculture, however several communities in the flood plain suffered damages. Among those are Portage des Sioux, Karmill Wood, Lake Shore, Sherwood Harbor, Alta Villa, and unincorporated areas north of St Peters, MO where an agricultural levee failed. Damage assessments form the State Emergency Management Agency showed 426 homes affected. 257 were listed as destroyed, 66 had major damage, 73 minor, and 30 as affected. Damage to local infrastructure was listed by emergency management officials at $1,670,000. Area wildlife was also affected by the flooding. At one point, local police had to stop traffic on Highway 370 to allow herds of deer to cross the road. The St. Charles Farm Service Agency estimated agricultural losses to be $10.8 million.

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.