Highway 177 north of Cape Girardeau isn't the only area road that gets flooded. Although Wappapello Lake in Wayne County is a long way from the Mississippi River, several of the roads that give lake users access to the Corps of Engineers facility frequently flood whenever water is held in the reservoir to control downstream flooding.

The Corps of Engineers has made a study, thanks to some federal funding, of ways to alleviate the situation. The result: a proposal to spend up to $30 million raising the affected roads.

Motorists who use Highway 177, a key access to Cape Girardeau from the north, may be interested in the effort to avoid highway flooding at the lake. Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, helped get the funding for that study. Maybe there is funding available to study the Highway 177 flooding too.