Flooding shuts down major interstate near St. Louis

ST. LOUIS (AP) – Officials closed a major interstate highway south of St. Louis on Thursday morning amid historic flooding that has already left at least 20 people dead.
Interstate 55 near the town of Arnold was entirely closed early Thursday due to floodwaters from the Meramec River. The Missouri Department of Transportation authorities had already rerouted traffic Wednesday night to allow for sandbagging and pumping.
Other connections between St. Louis and adjacent counties already are closed, including I-44 over the Meramec. The closures forced traffic onto other nearby roads, creating gridlock.
The flooding also prompted evacuations in Missouri and Illinois on Wednesday. As swollen rivers and streams pushed to heights not seen in nearly a quarter-century, officials helped residents get to higher ground amid fears that already dire conditions could worsen as floodwaters began spilling over federal levees protecting communities and farmland.
In Eureka, southwest of St. Louis, firefighters and their boats have been in high demand since Tuesday, accounting for roughly four dozen rescues of people in their homes, businesses or vehicles. Television news footage showed at least one home there drifting in the swollen river Wednesday, when firefighters rescued by boat a man and a dog as floodwaters lapped at the eaves of the house roof on which they’d been trapped for a night.
“Our crews are getting dispatched to another rescue now,” Scott Barthelmass, a Eureka Fire Protection District spokesman, said mid-afternoon Wednesday as the swollen Meramec River there was cresting. “I think you’re seeing people who are desperate or impatient, putting themselves in predicaments.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Wednesday that nine levees had been topped by water. Most of those earthen barriers were meant to protect farmland rather than populated areas and another was along now-deserted, manmade Chouteau Island near St. Louis on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.