Midwest Flooding: 27 levees could overflow if sandbags fail

Jun 17, 2008
By ALLEN G. BREED

OAKVILLE, Iowa (AP) - As southeastern Iowa and other parts of the Midwest prepared for the Mississippi River's wrath, the rest of Iowa began the slow move from protection to cleanup.

The federal government predicts that 27 levees could potentially overflow along the river if the weather forecast is on the mark and a massive sandbagging effort fails to raise the level of the levees, according to a map obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

Officials are placing millions of sandbags on top of the levees in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri to prevent overflowing. There is no way to predict whether these levees will break, said Ron Fournier, a spokesman with the Army Corps of Engineers in Iowa. the rest image