Levee Breach Saves Illinois Town

In a bid to save the small town of Cairo, Illinois, a levee was breached at the convergence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers late Monday night, and as of Tuesday the situation has definitely improved, with local Ohio River levels dropping a foot since the breach. Roughly 550,000 cubic feet of water was intentionally blasted across 130,000 acres of farmland in Missouri, flooding into about 90 homes near Cairo, where residents were forced to evacuate on Sunday. The breach may have prevented mass devastation in Cairo, but the river may nevertheless rise again in a few days, according to Maj. Gen. Michael J. Walsh, who commands the Mississippi Valley division of the Army Corps of Engineers.