Damage from historic Midwest flooding will take weeks for cleanup

The flooded area of west St. Louis County, Mo., including the Aberdeen Golf Club near Eureka, is seen from the overlook in Bluff View Park on Friday.

Rescuers were still searching for four people missing in Missouri and IL and one man in Oklahoma on Saturday, even as waters begin to recede in St. Louis, where some of the worst flooding took place after more than 10 inches of rain fell over a three-day period along the Mississippi River.

Gov. Jay Nixon tonight announced President Barack Obama has approved the Governor's request for a federal emergency declaration to speed debris removal and relieve the strain of response and recovery costs in the St. Louis region.

Basically, riverside regions in all states along the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio Rivers down to the Gulf of Mexico are at risk of flooding.

"Some communities have actually been hit harder than the '93 flood", Rauner said Saturday, referring to the costly 1993 flood that saw parts of many communities along the MS under water for months. Mitchell Elementary kindergarten teacher Amanda Wilson teaches kids at the Hope Lutheran Church shelter how to play the Go Fish card game in Pontoon Beach, Ill., on Friday, Jan. 1, 2016.

The floods claimed the lives of 31 people in Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Nixon said he'll ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to facilitate the collection and disposal of both debris left behind by flood water and household debris, including construction materials, carpeting, furniture, appliances, etc.

One of them, Delia Ann Stacey, 18, was last heard of on Monday, when she sent a text message to her family saying simply "Help", the Herrin Police Department said in a statement on Facebook. "We have seen pretty much the worst of it", he said.

By Sunday morning, the river had dropped about a foot. Two wastewater treatment plants were so damaged by the floodwaters that raw sewage spewed into the river.

Nine people have died in the Illinois flooding and a dozen counties have been declared disaster areas there, said Patti Thompson, spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from towns in eastern Missouri, including Pacific and Eureka, as homes took on water.

Amtrak service between Kansas City and St. Louis will get back to normal Sunday in the wake of flood-related disruptions that began on the line Wednesday.

William Reynolds said he moved at least $50,000 worth of inventory from his Valley Park store to the second story of his nearby home when the area was evacuated.

Retired Eureka homeowner Tracy Wolf, 58, spent the last three days trying to keep water away from his house with sandbags and out of his basement with vacuums.

In southeastern Missouri, the MS crested overnight on Friday but not before damaging about two-dozen homes in Cape Girardeau, a community of almost 40,000 residents that is mostly protected by a flood wall. And this, he said, "is just a tiny fraction of the trail of destruction".

Significant flooding was expected into mid-January along the Mississippi River at points downstream, from Tennessee to Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo- Governor Jay Nixon has requested a federal emergency declaration.

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