CNN.com - Mighty Mississippi floods move south


A woman carries items out of her flooded home on French Island near LaCrosse, Wisconsin

DUBUQUE, Iowa (CNN) -- The surging Mississippi River has crested in most areas of Minnesota, but the melting snow- and rain-bloated waters were moving downstream Wednesday, expected to reach record or near-record levels.

Nine counties in Wisconsin and 16 in Minnesota have declared states of emergency as floods forced hundreds from their homes.

With the river rising steadily in Iowa, Gov. Tom Vilsack issued a proclamation declaring a disaster area in the state's 10 counties bordering the river.

More than 400 miles of the river have been closed to traffic -- from Muscatine, Iowa, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rail service is also disrupted: Amtrak and Burlington Northern Santa Fe have stopped the trains running between Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Forecasters predict that continuing rains would push the river crest just shy of the 1993 record of 22-and-a-half feet in Davenport, Iowa, downstream from Dubuque, where weary and wet residents prepared for a high water level that could exceed the 1965 record of 23.6 feet.

"It all depends on where the rain falls, but it's enough to bump these forecasts up a little higher," meteorologist Tom Philip told the Quad City Times in Davenport.


Workers transport sandbags to fight the rising Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wisconsin

River slow to subside

And how long the river will stay high is anyone's guess. Bill Hainstock, lockmaster at Dubuque's Lock and Dam No. 11, told the Dubuque Telegraph Herald that the river could reopen on April 30, "but that's real tentative."

The river is expected to keep rising through the weekend, reaching its top levels early next week. And residents below Iowa are also readying for the worst, with volunteers busy sandbagging and shoring up dikes.

In Wisconsin, the river is expected to crest on Wednesday, slightly lower than what was originally predicted -- a small consolation to an area where the waters are approaching four-and-a-half feet above flood stage.

"Something like this, it might take two weeks just to get down below the flood stage," Randy Eddy Jr. told The Associated Press from his father's home on French Island, Wisconsin.

Relief in Minnesota

But in most parts of Minnesota, the river had reached its top level and started the slow return to its banks. The river in southern Minnesota was expected to crest by the end of the week.

"We are very close," Kris Eide, assistant director of the state's Division of Emergency Management, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "The worst is behind us."

The worst was damaging: In St. Paul, the river topped 23 feet for the first time since the 1960s, covering four city parks and a downtown airport for small planes. Officials expected the airport would not reopen until May or June.

Sewer and water services were cut off in some areas, roads were closed, and basements filled with water. But officials said it could have been even worse.

"We're beaten and battered, but not broken," said Stephen Popovich, mayor of the St. Croix community of St. Mary's Point, just north of Afton, where 40 homes have watery basements.