Severe storms, possible tornado lash Illinois

OKAWVILLE, Ill. (AP) -- Cleanup efforts were under way Wednesday in southern Illinois after a storm pounded the region with large hail and as much of six inches of rain, and spawned an apparent tornado that overturned a tractor trailer and leveled farm outbuildings.

Okawville Police Chief Steve Millikin said a tornado that he videotaped Tuesday night on his dashboard camera clipped the northern edge of his 1,400-resident Washington County village, narrowly missing the community's downtown.

"We got lucky, to be flat honest with you," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "Had it come a half mile to the south, it would have come right through town, and we would have had a mess."

Millikin said the trucker in the semi rig that was blown over on Interstate 64 was slightly injured. He also said the storm leveled a house being built and damaged roofs and farm structures.

Eyewitness reports and video appear to confirm that a tornado caused that damage, although the intensity, path and length of that twister were expected to be determined Wednesday, said meteorologist Ben Miller of the National Weather Service in St. Louis.

"We're pretty sure it's a tornado," Miller said.

Portions of southern Illinois got pelted by hail at times as big as pingpong balls, with 4 to 6 inches of rain dumped by the storm since Tuesday night causing flash flooding.

Miller said the storms were expected to hound the region perhaps into the weekend.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Severe storms, possible tornado lash Illinois

OKAWVILLE, Ill. (AP) -- Cleanup efforts were under way Wednesday in southern Illinois after a storm pounded the region with large hail and as much of six inches of rain, and spawned an apparent tornado that overturned a tractor trailer and leveled farm outbuildings.

Okawville Police Chief Steve Millikin said a tornado that he videotaped Tuesday night on his dashboard camera clipped the northern edge of his 1,400-resident Washington County village, narrowly missing the community's downtown.

"We got lucky, to be flat honest with you," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "Had it come a half mile to the south, it would have come right through town, and we would have had a mess."

Millikin said the trucker in the semi rig that was blown over on Interstate 64 was slightly injured. He also said the storm leveled a house being built and damaged roofs and farm structures.

Eyewitness reports and video appear to confirm that a tornado caused that damage, although the intensity, path and length of that twister were expected to be determined Wednesday, said meteorologist Ben Miller of the National Weather Service in St. Louis.

"We're pretty sure it's a tornado," Miller said.

Portions of southern Illinois got pelted by hail at times as big as pingpong balls, with 4 to 6 inches of rain dumped by the storm since Tuesday night causing flash flooding.

Miller said the storms were expected to hound the region perhaps into the weekend.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Future of levee blown to save Illinois town unclear, Corps says (Reuters)

SIKESTON, Mo (Reuters) – The federal government has not decided whether it will rebuild the Mississippi River levee intentionally destroyed last month to relieve flooding in Cairo, Illinois and other towns, an official said on Thursday.

Jim Pogue, a spokesman for the Memphis District of the Army Corps of Engineers, told Reuters a final decision on the future of the Birds Point-New Madrid levee near here would not come "for months."

Pogue said the Corps was studying the performance of the whole system of levees and floodways along the Mississippi after this spring's record flooding and any decision on Birds Point-New Madrid would be made as part of that larger study.

He said it has been a "challenge" to find money to replace levees along the river and the Corps had been working with Congress to identify possible revenue sources.

The levee at Birds Point-New Madrid was deliberately destroyed by the Corps on May 2, flooding over 100,000 acres of prime farmland in Missouri. Some farmers sued the Corps over the decision to blow the embankment, which lowered the water level on the Mississippi by allowing water to rush into a spillway that had not been used since 1937.

A snowy winter and rainy spring have caused record flooding on the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri Rivers this year.

To cope with Mississippi water levels that approached or beat records set in 1927, the Corps also opened up the Morganza and Bonnet Carre spillways last month. It was the first time that all three floodways were opened in the same year.

(By Barton Lorimor; Writing by James B. Kelleher and Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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