Glenallen levee breach, no plans to fix it yet
GLENALLEN, Mo. (KBSI) – A large pile of creek rock now lays spread out against the earth where homes were damaged due to floodwaters.
“We’ve only got weeks. We don’t have months or years on this,” said Leonard Foster, whose family has resided in Glenallen before he was born. He says that he knew immediately what had happened to the small levee.
“It was swift. It was dirty,” he said. “We knew that the levee had breached. Somewhere it was blown out, and within 10 minutes we had about three feet of water.”
A levee consists of a pile of heavy rock with a steel plate and wall protruding into and above the pile.
The levee that held Glimlet Creek was a pile of creek rock without the steel plating.
“In 1982 this area flooded,” said Foster. “That was the first severe flood that I can remember in this area.”
Foster says the Army Corps of Engineer and the National Guard at that time moved Gimlet Creek from its original route, to converge with Little Crooked Creek.
“Gimlet Creek originally was back behind ya, (pointing in the opposite direction) and it came in farther down, and joined up to Little Crooked,” said Foster. “The group that did that the government group that did it then, they relocated it to where it’s at now. This is the Gimlet Creek that blew out.”
Now the town is looking for a way to get the levee fixed as fast as possible.
Foster says, “There’s no levee district, the township we would always try to take care of it ourselves. Up until the last couple decades, cause everybody’s afraid of getting in trouble.”
The 2nd District Commissioner, Chad Hulvey says there is a lot to be done about the levee and the urgency in getting it fixed, properly, “It was just more than what the banks can hold, and as you can see it was no longer able to hold anymore, and if we don’t get it fixed soon, very soon, it will now make a new path towards the housing. Between Jason Smith and you know the Governor, and there’s others that I’m hoping that will come up and help us as well.”
The private landowners where the levee resides are more than happy to have the levee fixed.
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