Flood unease builds south along the Mississippi

Flood worries that prompted the U.S. government to blast open a Missouri levee to ease pressure on some towns are rippling down the Mississippi River, prompting more evacuations and unease as the Army Corps of Engineers weighs whether to purposely inundate more land with water. The breach of southeastern Missouri's Birds Point levee was heralded by some Illinois towns along the Ohio River as a needed relief from record flooding, and the man who ordered that action says he may do the same with other Mississippi River spillways as flood prospects mount. Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh said he understood the frustration at the corps' decision to sacrifice the levee Monday and send a wall of water over 130,000 acres of farmland the state of Missouri tried suing to save. "But this was one of the relief valves for the system," he added. "We were forced to use that valve Source : news.yahoo.com