KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is sending more staff to levees and dams in its district to monitor flood levels.
“We're in flood condition really from Sioux City, Iowa to St. Louis,” said Jud Kneuvean, emergency management chief in Kansas City. “All our major tributaries — the Grand River, Osage River, Kansas River — are all full, and the Missouri River is varying from minor flood stage to major flood stage.”
Out of 18 reservoirs in the Kansas City district, two are 100 percent full: Perry Lake and Long Branch Lake. The rest are almost at full capacity.
“There’s a lot of water out there, and specifically on the Kansas River basin we’ve been holding water back since mid-March, since the high water season started, to try and reduce impacts downstream in the Missouri River,” said Col. Doug Guttormsen, commander of the Kansas City District.
But the Corps of Engineers can't hold water any longer, even though more rain is in the forecast.
Officials started releasing thousands of gallons of water out of Perry Lake and could release even more if it continues raining. They could start releasing water from Tuttle Creek this week.
“We've increased surveillance on each dam as they get more water in them," Guttormsen said. "So we have engineers and lake staff out at each of our projects who are making sure dams are performing as designed."
The above map shows the levees that run along the river in the Kansas City district and their status. The purple dots are levees that have been overtopped, breached or both.
For those living along the river, the risk is a matter of inches.
“They start being loaded at the tow and the water increases to the top, so at any time that levee system could fail for one reason or another, but we expect them to perform to the top," Kneuvean said. "Then once the water goes over the top, then all bets are off."
Officials become concerned when there’s less than five feet between the top of the levy and the surface of the water, which is called freeboard.
“Levees don't eliminate risk, they only reduce it, so it's important for folks who live and work behind that to understand they're always at risk from these levees,” Kneuvean said.
The USACE’s focus is in Brunswick, Missouri, where officials have deployed 440,000 sandbags, nine pumps, three automatic sandbagging machines, one gravity fill machine and 2,700 feet of HESCO barrier.
