Cape Girardeau Residents Have Flooding Flashbacks

In Missouri, people are keeping a close eye on the rising waters of the Mississippi River.

After all, more than 20 years ago, one small town along the river was devastated by the waters that virtually wiped it from existence.

With the Mississippi rising Cape Girardeau's great tool is working.

A flood wall - 95 percent of the city is protected by it. But the remaining 5 percent outside the flood wall are vulnerable. That's several hundred people.

Kim Conway is one of them.

“I never ever thought I would see it in our front yard,” she said. “I have never seen the street covered like this.”

Conway lives in the Red Star neighborhood of Cape Girardeau. Her home is now surrounded by sandbags.

Her city councilman Joe Uzoaru surveyed the damage, where some structures and vehicles are nearly submerged.

Voluntary evacuations are underway, but many people are reluctant to leave. The area was devastated by the so-called great flood of 1993.

“I don't think anyone expected this would happen again so soon,” Uzoaru said.

Following the 1993 flood, more than three quarters of people in flood prone areas of Cape took a government buyout and left their home.

Scott Meyer is the city manager.

“What lessons were learned from the 1993 flood and what things were improved? We learned that our pumping system was very old and needed to be upgraded and we did that,” Meyer said.

“We learned that we had a waste water treatment plant that was in a flood plain. We moved it to higher ground… We made our system hardened and we know what's going to happen at each flood stage foot by foot."