Army Breaks Levee to Prevent Flooding Downstate

A barge and workers are seen in a steady rain along the Birds Point levee as preparations to intentionally breach the levee continue Monday, May 2, 2011, in Mississippi County, Mo. Army Corps of Engineers' Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh has given the order to blow a two-mile hole into the Birds Point levee in southeast Missouri, which would flood 130,000 acres of farmland in Missouri's Mississippi County but protect nearby Cairo, Ill. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Cue the Led Zeppelin. The Army Corps of Engineers blew up a Missouri levee last night that resulted in flooding miles of evacuated Missouri farmland but helped ward off flooding in downstate Cairo. The record rain we received last month has been particularly persistent downstate, swelling rivers and testing levees. Cairo is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and it's expected that blowing a two-mile wide hole in the Birds Point Levee in Mississippi County, MO will reduce river levels in Cairo by four feet.

Army Corps of Engineers triggered the explosion with C4, igniting 265 tons of liquid explosives inside the levee wall. The explosion sent water rolling over 130,000 acres of evacuated farmland in Mississippi County, where engineers will use smaller explosives to breach lower sections of the levee, creating a floodway to divert the water back into the river.