While the vacationing President Barack Obama enjoyed a Hawaiian luau and ate snow cones, flooding continued to devastate communities surrounding St. Louis. And authorities had begun closing down roads connecting St. Louis with nearby towns and adjacent Jefferson County.
State officials closed a major interstate highway south of St. Louis this morning amid historic flooding that has already left at least 20 people dead. And flood waters were beginning to spill over levees meant to protect the region.
Obama reportedly called Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon from Hawaii to offer his condolences.
Interstate 55 near the town of Arnold was entirely closed early Thursday due to floodwaters from the Meramec River. The Missouri Department of Transportation authorities had already rerouted traffic Wednesday night to allow for sandbagging and pumping.
Other connections between St. Louis and adjacent counties already are closed, including I-44 over the Meramec.
The flooding also prompted evacuations in Missouri and Illinois on Wednesday. As swollen rivers and streams pushed to heights not seen in nearly a quarter-century, officials helped residents get to higher ground amid fears that already dire conditions could worsen as floodwaters began spilling over federal levees protecting communities and farmland.
In Eureka, southwest of St. Louis, firefighters and their boats have been in high demand since Tuesday, accounting for roughly four dozen rescues of people in their homes, businesses or vehicles. Television news footage showed at least one home there drifting in the swollen river Wednesday, when firefighters rescued by boat a man and a dog as floodwaters lapped at the eaves of the house roof on which they’d been trapped for a night.
“Our crews are getting dispatched to another rescue now,” Scott Barthelmass, a Eureka Fire Protection District spokesman, said mid-afternoon Wednesday as the swollen Meramec River there was cresting. “I think you’re seeing people who are desperate or impatient, putting themselves in predicaments.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Wednesday that nine levees had been topped by water. Most of those earthen barriers were meant to protect farmland rather than populated areas and another was along now-deserted, manmade Chouteau Island near St. Louis on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.
Nearly a dozen other levees considered at risk for “possible significant distress,” were holding, but people were moving out just in case. Michael Pennise, mayor of the St. Louis suburb of Valley Park, ordered mandatory evacuations for 350 to 400 homes and dozens of businesses in the section of town near the fast-rising Meramec River.
At least 20 deaths over several days in Missouri and Illinois were blamed on flooding, mostly involving vehicles that drove onto swamped roadways, and at least two people were still missing Wednesday.
And search teams went out for a third day in hopes of finding a country music singer from Arkansas who disappeared while duck hunting in a flooded area in northern Oklahoma. The floodwaters there also destroyed a leftover film set used in the 2003 remake of “Where the Red Fern Grows.”
A 24-mile stretch of Interstate 44 was closed Wednesday at Valley Park southwest of St. Louis due to Meramec River flooding
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has activated the National Guard to assist with security in evacuated areas and to help keep road closure sites clear.
Valley Park City Attorney Tim Engelmeyer called the governor’s office to send troops to help in the evacuated area of the about 7,000-person town. He was also watching computer projections of the crest — expected to be about 3 feet higher than the record of 40 feet on Thursday — knowing that an unexpected upgrade could be enough to send water over the levee.
“We’re so close,” he said. “We’re talking about a potential 6-inch difference.”
Pennise said the corps is confident the levee, built in 2007, is safe, but ordered evacuations as a precaution.
In the southwestern Missouri tourist destination of Branson, residents of about 150 duplexes and homes had to evacuate Wednesday due to flooding from a manmade lake. But the shopping district along the lake was still open, Fire Chief Ted Martin said, adding, “it has been packed with people, and I don’t know where all of them have come from.”
Three-day rainfall totals of 9 to 11 inches were records in some parts of an area that stretched from southwest to east-central Missouri, said Mark Fuchs, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in St. Louis. Rainfall totals of that magnitude occur only every 100 to 300 years, according to rainfall frequency data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
On Thursday, the Mississippi River, which runs beside the Gateway Arch and downtown St. Louis, is expected to reach nearly 13 feet above flood stage there. That would be the second-worst flood on record, behind only the devastating 1993 flood. A flood wall protects the city.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
They are only Americans. Probably working class taxpayers. They don’t get help or attention from our political leaders. Just the wealthy, politically connected, illegal aliens and refugees from hater cultures get help from our political leaders. The working class get to pay for it though.
But their taxes are good enough to pay welfare to Obama’s “people”, so that whenever they get a wild hair up their ass they have the strength to go out and loot and burn, right?
Dat be dah way it posed ta be to makes mony.
I agree, Gary, I so agree!!!!
@ Mainstreet,I think you are exactly right! Deficit spending out of control! Obama and his Entourage spend millions
of TAX PAYER dollars on VACATION of GOLF and SUNSHINE while the every day AMERICAN continues to live
within their means! All of this just makes Obama and all of his supporters look like the rest of America does not matter!
It was great when Bush did it,
No, Rose, it was NOT great if Bush did anything wrong (and he did plenty). Haven’t you ever heard, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”? You need to stop shilling for Hillary here–no one is listening. No one here can stand her.
MM I know when I grow up I saw men carry themselves as men. God was the teaching, before blatant homosexuality . It is wrong. Do not subject our children to this. The minions of Hell are like cockroaches they swarm.
Obama said that if He was elected President he would not take any
vacations. Now He has spent over 70 million dollars on vacations so far
according to Judicial Watch.
Your right, and the latest bill for our Muslim rat’s vacations is 80M.
Isn’t It ironic the crap that Bush took from atrina & now our wonderful President is vacationing while people are suffering. He doesn’t; care!
I do not see why you are once again trying to blame Obama for the work of the good Lord. What is he suppose to do say stop flooding and it will. It is the Governers job to make sure that the people in their state are taking care of, that is part of their JOB!!!! Obama deserves a vacation just like you did. Stop being a hater…..
You Dope! Use your Brain if u have one??
You Dope! Use your Brain if u have one??
@ Renee,I,like most American citizens,pay out of my own pocket for my vacations! How about you?
Exactly. Why doesn’t he spent part of that almost half $1 million he spending on his vacation to help some people
Obama has been on vacation since he took office. At the taxpayers expense, I might add. And you would probably vote for the moron again if given a chance. Some people don’t know when they are swimming in Obama carp.
AT last some one with a brain between the ears. Is he Moses and supposed to stop the rain from falling
Obama should cut his vacation short and fly back and stand beside all the people that are trying to save their homes and their lives. That is not only the job of the governor but it should also be the job of the president of the this country. He looks like a fool playing golf on our dime while so many people are losing everything. He can vacation on his own dime after he is out of office.
If you are going to say something so stupid and irrelevant like you said. you better shut your blabber MOUTH and go to #$#$#$# you are nothing else but a scum that came out of its hide-out. GET IN IT RIGHT AWAY YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU VERY SOON>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He only cares about himself. He has only ever cared about himself.
I must say on this evening Sir, to many people have had their Head up their ass too long..
Would like to know where the H–. Is our Government? Why aren’t they impeaching Obama? Does America have to reach a disaster point before our Government will wake up and do something, when it could be to late! We’ve had enough of Obama, Don’t you think?
Yes , Every one Has
YES , GET HIM OUT ONCE AND FOR ALL , END HIS MADNESS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Agree
Agree
Agreed
If we keep electing these pathetic MORONS we will all be on permanent vacation as our politician sell US out again and again and again…
Should have a long time ago. He hates America and we will pay for what he has done to our country.
They will be remembered come election day.
What IS happening here is what happens in Venezuela, Cuba and many others. People realize the disaster that they did too late. Obama has been by far the worst president that we ever had. But us AMERICANS NOT ONLY ELECTED HIM THE FIRST TIME, BUT WE WENT AN RE-ELECTED HIM THE SECOND TIME. THANK GOD THERE IS NOT A THIRD TIME, WHO KNOWS WHAT IT WOULD HAVE HAPPENNED MAYBE HE WILL BE RE-ELECTED AGAIN. IT IS AMAZING HOW PEOPLE ARE SO DUMB………………………..
DID YOU THINK GOD MIGHT BE PISSED OFF”? HIS LAW IS LAW, NO FALSE PROPHETS, 10 COMMANDMENTS HAVE BEEN BROKEN, PAIN WILL BE THE REWARD. LOST LIVES LOST JOBS, DEMONS RISING. PERVERSION AIM AT YOUR KID’S. THE PARENT NEEDS TO LEARN LOVE PAITENCE, AND FORSAKING ALL OTHERS. BE THE LEADERS GET YOUR ANSWERS FROM YOUR HEART. GET YOUR ANSWERS FROM “GOD” HAPPY NEW YEAR
2 Chronicles 7:14 says it ALL…””New International Version (NIV)
14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Amen!
It is planned kind of strange after Viet Nam we changed from OD GREEN ON OUR TRUCKS, BIRDS, TO SAND BROWN. THIS HAS BEEN COMING A LONG TIME.
Our Country has been besieged with weather forces that have totally disrupted lives, homes, jobs – many being left homeless or dead. Tragic way to start a new year, but do you honestly think that President Obama and large entourage should leave their vacation site to check on the wild weather conditions throughout the country? I think not under the circumstances!
Gore was right about warming the plant and what would happen.
He is right on.
We sell Coal to China, they pollute the. Ozone and we sit here in the U S and bitch about it. duh !
Gore made a lot of money spouting his lies. Read ” Dark Winter” for the truth. Climate change has nothing to do with us. It’s all cyclical.
Right you are Cimmie. A U.N. bureaucrat admitted (a couple of years ago now) that “Climate Change” was dreamed up and promoted for the purpose of extracting money out of the rich Western nations and giving it to the poor, developing nations (with some of the loot being pilfered by the U.N. elites, of course). It is a SCAM just as the “Oil for Food” program was (run through the crooks at the top of the U.N.) IF the planet is warming, it is NOT from anything we are doing. An independent physician and scientist who investigated ice core examinations that were conducted to ascertain whether atmospheric CO2 was a danger. He went before the U.S. Senate not very long ago and testified that the whole “consensus of climate scientists” of the IPCC was a total hoax and told how they pulled off the hoax. He called the battle against atmospheric CO2 the “Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Day”. The IPCC (which is the international organization driving the whole AGW scam) was a brainchild of billionaire, Maurice Strong, who was also part of the “Oil for Food” program. He was so crooked, that, had he not spent the last years of his life in China, would surely have been arrested for high-level racketeering. The Neo-Libs latched on to “anthropogenic global warming” (AGW) as one more way to push their all powerful one-world system on us. Here is the article on the scientist who testified against the whole notion of “Climate Change” in front of the U.S. Senate: http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/
And here’s another writer who writes about the “Phantom Menace of Global Warming”: http://thefederalist.com/2015/12/21/top-2015-story-no-5-the-phantom-menace-of-global-warming/
Judith, The way I..and Most Of us feel..It would Be A Big Boost If Obama DID cut short His ( YET Another ) Vacation . With all the Trauma This Country is going thru ( I`m Just Mentioning THE Tornadoes..THE Flooding.. And, yes.. Everything This entails…) What is more important for a president to do than to make his presence Known ? >>But TO BE IN THIS Country. At least His Presence would >>( Might ? ) Offer Some Consolation That THEY Do have HIS “”EAR ??” No, To be Blunt. He does NOT Need to BE Anywhere But Right Here.. At least Giving SOME appearance that HE IS “”Aware.’ Like it, or NOT..He is Supposed to ACT like a Caring Leader Not Another “Nera Who Fiddled while Rome Burned.”Right ?
You are spot on.
are you an ISIS follower? only being one of them, you could think that way. no feelings, no mercy. I really fee sorry for you. You probably do not sleep at night. You cant’ it would be impossible. Be ready when your turn comes.
Well isn’t that just so special and sweet! Obama offered his condolences! What about offering aid and Federal assistance? Obama could care less abut Americans suffering. All he is concerned with is having a great vacation and pleasing himself. When he returns is focus will be Climate Change, importing more Muslims and allowing Illegals in this nation without any consequences and funneling more money in Federal Grants to American Mosques. Oh, you didn’t know that he has given multi-millions to American Muslim Mosques that are closely associate with the Muslim Brotherhood? Check it out and also understand that is Half-Brother is the head of finances for the Muslim Brotherhood.
It is obvious this president’s agenda is to destroy this great country and he wants to finish his dirty job before the end of his presidency.
One more year for him to finish the Dream of his Father to transform the United States of America.
Saul Alinsky.
Exactly what I’ve been saying for the last 7+ years.
It is obvious this president’s agenda is to destroy this great country and he wants to finish his dirty job before the end of his presidency.
One more year for him to finish the Dream of his Father to transform the United States of America.
Saul Alinsky.
If he offered any aid he would have to cut his vacation short because he would have to give his vacation money back so it could help those poor people who are suffering and need assistance. And that is something he would never do. He hates America and will only help illegals and refugees
I BELIEVE IT 100% , ENOUGH OF THIS MF GET HIM OUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Agree
All he would do is have a photo shoot like he did with Christie, make empty promises and then go to a fund raiser or go golfing with his cabana boy boehner or his donor and fellow crook soros.
When I see how many liberals are still protecting this president it makes me sick.
Don’t they see how bad he is…How narcissist, self centered , cold heart he is.
Really sickening.
Agree
President Obama is likely to show up in Missouri on his way back to D.C. He will say a lot of things with the intention of doing nothing. The Obama faithful will come away feeling their president cares and the rest of us will see it as the B.S.fest it is.
Mr. Obama can’t run for a third term so he has nothing to gain politically by cutting his vacation short.
How high is the water Momma? Six feet highe and rising,
Absolutely
He should be tried for high crimes and misdemeanors.
7 years of this crap and some dimwits still can’t see the lite. GOD HELP US AND BLESS TRUMP
Absolutely
Congress is afraid of a race war if they impeach him.
A race war is the only reason he has not been impeached yet, sorry to say, its not a joke.
Obama is a racist president who does not care about the white areas.
Agree!
He is racist, muslim, , communist and @#@#$, those are his titles. he hates the United Sates. He was not born here, he was born in KEnia and Congress and everybody knows. and have kept it a government secret. Because they are afraid that all the negros will come out and kill every white person on this country. He has made the people of the USA to be racist, he instigated racism in every American, white or black. It is awful what he has done to this country, but you know, he soon will pay for it because the Lord gives every person what they deserve and believe he is not being killed by white people is being killed by GOD and pretty soon. He has a very serious illness that he is not aware of it. Pretty soon you will find out. He is going to be another Chavez, gone in no time. just look out for it. pretty soon.
What about Hillary. She is also evil and another Chavez in a suit pants.
Gee, what a surprise, he has been on vacation since he took office. The worst excuse for a president ever!
Presidents have gone to areas of destruction to survey the damage, talk to the
folks and tell them he will help them. This jerk in Hawaii is living off the hog and cares
not one iota about what is happening here. The fires, tornadoes, and now all the flooding leaving
many dead and thousands without homes and no response or appearance by the slob who
has photo ops eating ice cream shaved ice cones and wearing girly clothes to play golf in.
How disrespectful is that? How can this sub- human still be in office with so much lying, murdering,
etc. and just been a complete disgrace to other leaders.? Beats me!
Agree
Wearing girly cloths? no surprise, that is known to be another of his attributes. My dear friend this man has not compassion not even for himself. Remember, he is a muslim and these race does not even care for their own mother. Never mind some poor people that are going to a disaster like Missouri.
Only looking at his cold eyes, anyone who have psychological skills would see how he is heartless and full of hate.
Wearing girly cloths? no surprise, that is known to be another of his attributes. My dear friend this man has not compassion not even for himself. Remember, he is a muslim and these race does not even care for their own mother. Never mind some poor people that are going to a disaster like Missouri.
Obama can’t do much even if he thinks he is God. He can’t hold back the flood waters..
As for Obama’s presidency, he should be charged with treason. Why? He gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Releasing prisoners from Gitmo and making a deal with Iran. You have to think like Obama might. The Gitmo prisoners haven’t killed anyone since they have been our guests. As for the treaty, the signers were honest and truthful about there wanting to kill Americans.
Now what more could you ask for, rehabilitated prisoners and honest and truthful leaders?
I have a bridge down state that I will sell cheap, anyone interested?
What I don’t understand is how the President can use tax dollars to go on a personal or family vacation…shouldn’t that be something he pays out of his own pocket or with the pay he is receiving. ALL agencies, companies and institutions have policies that they are required to follow, not to mention, by-laws for those in leadership or holding specific positions. Accountability, responsibility and consequences are ALL part of the process.
AGREE!
What’s the matter with you folks? A news report says he’s monitoring the situation as we speak. Isn’t that enough?
No, it darn well isn’t enough. Our ‘commander in chief’ vacationing while Americans die? Typical of Obama!
Does anybody wonder why he is still playing Golf? We all should know how by now, how much Obama really cares for the citizens of this country.
Just report Muslims are suffering in the floods we will have every thing that Muslim lover can throw to help out!
no michael Brown in St. Louis now so WTH? With a turd in the WH and NOT a leader, this is the way he acts. Being president is far from his mind. Be glad when we finally get another leader. Bush is looking mighty good right now! GW Bush, jeb can go to Mexico for all I care and STAY there!
I can only say one thing. Obama is not going to last too much on this world. They are fixing his final destination trip pretty soon. So do not worry about, it might happen sooner than we think. After all he deserves a nice trip to @#@#$. and by the way is going to be done by empowered forces that no one can stop……..
Are you sure Carmen? Evils are hard to get rid of…
he is the best President the crypto terrorist mafia of the Irish could have ever bought, he does not care about the USA or the Americans, like the Kennedies…!!!!
Obama is un American at heart either born here or not
BOY, DID HE EVER “MILK” THE PRESIDENCY!!!!!! GOLF & VACATIONS & THE AMERICAN TAX SLAVES PAID FOR IT!!!!!
~
Any ‘condolences’ by the President are just useless rhetoric – talk designed to make him look sympathetic.
The country is in peril and he stays on ‘vacation.’
What vacation?
He doesn’t work hard.
People do everything for him.
He doesn’t vacuum his carpets.
He has chefs to prepare his food, and etc.
What hard word gives him a ‘need’ to take a vacation.
Just go up to Camp David and relax if he must.
I wonder how many times he has used Camp David where we keep it going with our tax money and a staff there all the time to keep it clean and ready for whenever any president might use it.
I wish I could say one time good about him in 7 years of his office – but I can’t.
This president is so pathetic indeed. How could anyone still support him after these disastrous 7 years.
Unbelievable.