After Weeks Of Flooding, It Will Be Months Before Multiple Key NE, IA Highways Can Reopen

[hatrack]

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Ia. — Iowa and Nebraska transportation leaders say workers are hustling to open roads hard-hit from flooding, but some key highways could take months to reopen.

"Flooding is not over," said Mark Lowe, Iowa's transportation director. "Parts of the levee system has been damaged or compromised," providing "very low levels of protection." The agency is looking at using temporary flood barriers to protect roads from additional flooding, he said.

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Major flooding along the Missouri River in southwest Iowa last month left behind crumbling and debris-covered roadways. Some could take months to reopen, the DOT said Thursday. (Photo: Special to the Register - Iowa Department of Transportation)

Damaged levees have left the Interstate 29 corridor dramatically more susceptible to flooding. Running along the Missouri River from Sioux City to Kansas City, the interstate was protected from 50- to 100-year flood conditions prior to the damage.

Now, a 10-year flood could leave large portions of I-29 under water. A roughly nine-mile stretch has no more than five-year flood protection. "The question is, what level of protection do we bring that back to? Will it be the same level or higher?" Lowe said. Governors from Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri are working with the U.S. Corps of Engineers on the issue, he said.

EDIT

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2019/04/11/iowa-nebraska-flooding-closed-roads-dot-road-conditions-council-bluffs-omaha-interstate-29-traffic/3435668002/

[OnlinePoker]

1. And, yet, there's barely a mention of the coming food price shocks to the U.S. consumer

Infrastructure destroyed. Many tons of stored grains, corn, and livestock destroyed. Farm equipment destroyed. Planting season delayed or not going to happen at all because the seed has been destroyed and the farmland is still saturated. This should be headlining the MSM news but I have heard very little about it.

[Canoe52]

2. That was my first thought, all that excess grain stored on the ground,

the grain we didn’t sell to China because of the orange asshole, is destroyed.