[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6358-6359]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ILLINOIS FLOODING

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we have heard some terrible stories about 
severe weather and the damage it is causing across the United States. 
My heart goes out to the people of Tuscaloosa, AL, and all the 
communities in the South that were ravaged by tornadoes of record force 
and velocity.
  In the Midwest, our problems are more subtle but also devastating in 
terms of the impact of floodwaters. It is nothing new in our part of 
the world. We have the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers at 
the southern tip of our State, further north on the Mississippi, the 
Illinois River and the Missouri River. Whenever there is heavy rainfall 
in one area or more, it ends up raising the levels of those rivers to 
perilous heights, which can inundate communities.
  I can't tell my colleagues how proud I am of the people who come 
forward in the midst of this type of challenge every single year. Thank 
goodness it seems as though there is never a lack of volunteers. People 
are always willing to step up, starting with the National Guard. They 
always do the best job possible, and I thank them over and over for 
what they do. Then, local law enforcement works overtime--the 
firefighters, the police, and all the rest. Then there is the extra 
work that is going on in hospitals and clinics and nurses and doctors 
working overtime.
  In my part of the world too, State and Federal employees have pitched 
in at every level, starting with the Army Corps of Engineers, the 
Department of Natural Resources of the State of Illinois, the Illinois 
Emergency Management Agency, and the Federal Emergency Management 
Agency. It is an amazing outpouring of support.
  Last Friday, I boarded a plane in Chicago and flew down to Marion, 
IL, and took a helicopter into Cairo. Cairo, of course, is at the 
southern tip of our State, as I mentioned earlier, at the confluence of 
the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. I saw there some things going on 
in the town of Cairo, IL, which were truly frightening and disturbing.
  This is a town which in its heyday was one of the major port cities 
in Middle America. Cairo, as the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers came 
together and then coursed on down to the Gulf of Mexico, was a major 
city with major economic activity. Over the years, as river traffic 
changed and the economy changed, Cairo changed too. Now it has a 
population of a little less than 3,000 people. Many of them are very 
poor. They have an African-American mayor, Mayor Childs. I believe he 
is their first, if not their second, African-American mayor. They have 
had issues of racial strife over the last 50 years. They struggle to 
keep businesses in place. Their schools are always challenged, and now, 
on top of that, comes a flood.
  If you went along the Ohio River leading up to Cairo, you would see 
an amazing levee. It is the kind of wall of protection, concrete wall 
of protection, which every river community would love to have--on the 
Mississippi side, not so much. But the interesting thing I found when I 
went down there is even that side of the river, the Ohio River, with 
this huge concrete levee, has serious problems. It turns out that the 
water table is so high in Cairo, IL, that the pressure of the rising 
Ohio River is forcing the water into what are known as sand boils. So 
out of nowhere, in the midst of a lot or a street, up pops a geyser of 
river water. You think, what is going on here? It is 10, 15, 20-50 feet 
away from the levee. That is because the entire ground is so saturated 
and the river is working its way underneath, eating up the 
underlayment.
  I walked along there with a National Guardsman who was taking 
pictures of the scene. We went to one street that had been closed with 
two major openings where water was bubbling, and as the National 
Guardsman was taking my photograph, the street collapsed under him and 
he fell 2 or 3 feet down because all of this water has eaten out all of 
the substrata under this street. That is why this has become so serious 
that the mayor, Mayor Childs, started with the voluntary evacuation and 
then last Saturday night said: Let's everybody leave this town. We 
don't know what is going to happen next. That is the reality not only 
of Cairo but of several other communities.
  The 2,800 people of Cairo, IL, were evacuated Saturday when the Ohio 
River reached its highest level since 1937. It rose above the 15\1/2\-
foot level this weekend and is expected to go higher. Five other 
Illinois communities are now under a voluntary evacuation order. The 
people of Old Shawneetown, Junction, Brookport, and Golconda are being 
asked to clear out for their own safety.
  The biggest threat of major damage is still at Cairo. I was in Cairo 
just a few days ago, and I can tell you the water levels there were 
continuing to rise.
  I show you a picture of a home in Cairo, IL. The water level is 
already so high that the home is uninhabitable. I saw many homes like 
this, but I also saw some superhuman efforts which are hard to even 
describe, where people decided, even with a home that close to the 
river, they were going to build a wall of sandbags around their home 
and save it. It sounds impossible, but they are doing it. The sandbags 
are up to 5 feet high, holding back the water which, if they were not 
there, would have inundated the home. The pumps are pumping water out 
from the home into the surrounding areas, and people are up night and 
day, 24 hours a day, in rowboats, going back and forth trying to 
preserve the one thing on Earth that means so much to them--their home. 
That is the kind of battle that is taking place in homes all around 
Alexander County and Cairo. The sustained high water level has put an 
unprecedented amount of pressure on the levees.
  As I mentioned earlier, these giant sand boils are forming, and they 
are working all night to try to contain them. Local volunteers and 
National Guardsmen are doing all they can, but the Ohio River is 
expected to stay at or above flood stage for the foreseeable future, 
and the levee may not withstand that pressure. If Cairo's levee bursts, 
the Army Corps estimates the town will be inundated with as much as 15 
feet of water.
  The entire State of Illinois is operating under a state of emergency; 
320 National Guardsmen are on hand to help evacuate people and monitor 
water levels. The State has issued and helped fill more than 1 million 
sandbags, working with the Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, and 
local responders to put in generators and supplies where they are 
needed.
  My thoughts are with the people and families affected by the 
floodwaters in southern Illinois, especially those who had to leave 
their homes. I am grateful for all the people, military and civilian 
alike, who are working around the clock to control the Ohio River.
  General Walsh is in charge of the Army Corps of Engineers' operations 
in this area. I talked to him several times over the weekend. He has a 
very, very difficult decision to make. I have seen it made in the past. 
It is never easy. The decision he has to make is, if a city is 
threatened, like Cairo, IL, he has to determine whether it is the right 
thing to do to open a levee to relieve the water pressure of the rivers

[[Page 6359]]

by flooding adjoining farmland. So people who are now perhaps only 
minor victims of flooding would see their farmlands inundated. That is 
in Missouri, and they do not like the idea. Who would? They resisted it 
in court, and at two levels now the court has said it is an Army Corps 
of Engineers' decision.
  I spoke to General Walsh all through the weekend, and he walked me 
through this decision. What I said to him I will repeat on the floor. I 
said: This is a difficult, hard decision you have to make. You will get 
no pressure from me. I believe that Cairo, IL, is right now teetering 
on the edge and could be inundated with floodwater and 2,800 people 
could lose their homes. That is my side of the equation, along with 
these other communities. But I know you have to make the calculation on 
rainfall, the level of the rivers, and trying to make some calculation 
about critical infrastructure in both instances. And I said: Just use 
your best engineering and scientific judgment. I will back you up, 
whatever you decide.
  Well, he has put in place the explosives to blow the levee downriver 
on the Missouri side to relieve the pressure not only in Illinois but 
in Kentucky and I think parts of Tennessee as well. I think that may be 
a decision to be made within the next few minutes. Whatever his 
decision, whatever the Army Corps decides, I will stand by it because I 
know it is a good-faith effort to do the right thing. And this I will 
say: If they end up flooding some farmland in Missouri, I will stand by 
my colleagues in that State, as well as all others in the Midwest, to 
make sure that those people are made whole, that they have some 
recovery through our government for losses in farm profits and the 
like. It is the least we can do. If they end up saving a city, then the 
cost to the government will be dramatically less than it might 
otherwise have been. It is a hard, hard decision. Having seen it 
firsthand, my sympathy goes to the Army Corps of Engineers and all the 
professionals who are fighting this battle every single day.

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