ILLINOIS FLOODING PERSISTS; SEEP WATER POSES HIGHWAY PROBLEMS

The "Flood of 1993" is subsiding, but the seep water isn't.

The Illinois Department of Transportation won one battle with seep water Friday but is still fighting another along a stretch of highway between East Cape Girardeau and Gale. A Thursday night storm dumped more than four inches of new water in the area.

Maneuvering through long lines of traffic, department trucks hauled in rock from stone quarries near Anna and Cape Girardeau throughout the day Friday to raise Route 146 to a level that permitted traffic from the Mississippi River bridge to travel to the Routes 146/3 intersection.

"We want to keep this road open," said Karl L. Bartelsmeyer, a district engineer at the highway department office at Carbondale. "Without the Route 146 access, Missouri and Illinois traffic is cut off."

Meanwhile, traffic has been closed along Route 3 between the 146-3 intersection and Gale.

"The rain and winds resulted in a rise of about six inches in the seep water which was already covering the highway near Gale," said Bartelsmeyer. "This section of road is not likely to be open before next week. We're concentrating all our efforts in keeping Route 146 open."

Rains had no immediate effect on the river stages at Cape Girardeau, which dropped from 36.1 feet Thursday to 35.4 feet Saturday. But, the Mississippi started rising today and is expected to crest at 37 feet Wednesday.

Water covered Route 146 at an area at East Cape, just west of the Purple Crackle club, and another area in the vicinity of the old burned-out Colony club Friday morning.

"We ran a lot of truck loads of gravel to those two areas," said Bartelsmeyer. At times, the slow-moving traffic was back across the bridge into Cape Girardeau. Traffic is moving slowly but steadily along 146 now.

Bartelsmeyer said local traffic going south was being detoured through the Grape Vine Trail to Olive Branch.

Meanwhile, other traffic is being detoured to Route 127.

"We're detouring traffic at the Ware intersection, about 12 miles north of McClure, across 146 to Jonesboro, where it can connect with 127 south," said Bartelsmeyer. Northbound traffic, which would normally travel Route 3 through Olive Branch and McClure, is being detoured north up Route 127 to Jonesboro, across 146 to catch Route 3 at Ware.

"My guess at this time is that Route 3 leading to Gale won't be open before next week," said Bartelsmeyer.

Seep water has been a problem in the East Cape Girardeau-Clear Creek Levee District since early flooding started in June. Water already covered parts of both lanes just north of the levee at Gale, and the highway department had raised the road between there and the Route 146 intersection.

In addition, two 30-inch diesel-powered, hydraulic pumps are working along the levee near Gale to pump out some of the seep water that has accumulated along the highway.

Bartelsmeyer said the state had hoped the pumps would keep the seep water off the highway near the levee. "But, the water kept coming up and the big rain Thursday night did us in."

He said two smaller, 24-inch pumps are also pumping seep water over the Clear Creek levee into Clear Creek, just north of the Grapevine Trail.

Some gravel roads are still closed in the area around Gale, McClure and Reynoldsville.

But, the Illinois State Police had some good news Friday.

"The Mississippi River Bridge at Chester has been reopened," said a spokesman from the DuQuoin State Patrol office. "And, motorists now have a straight shot up Route 3 to Chester."

The Chester bridge closed in late July when the approach on the Missouri side became flooded. The bridge was closed until Friday.

Chester had also shut off from the south, when waters from the rising Mississippi flooded Route 3 at Cora, Ill.