For MU students like junior Kyle West from Poplar Bluff, Mo., home evacuations, flooded streets and residents unable to leave their homes have become the norm.
Freshman Brittany Jones from Murphysboro, Ill. said excessive rain has taken a toll on her hometown as well, with roads blocked and many residents stuck inside their homes. Towns to the south have also been evacuating people.
A last-minute decision to go home to the Chicago area for the Easter holiday turned into severe weather chaos for freshman Taylor Joyce once an F4 tornado tore through the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport area.
Although weeks of severe weather, especially excessive rain, has taken its toll across the South and Midwest, Poplar Bluff has been hit particularly hard with extensive flooding. According to the MU Admissions Office, 59 students from the Poplar Bluff area are enrolled at MU.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon led a roundtable discussion on Tuesday specifically about Poplar Bluff’s flooding issues. The area is protected by a levee on the Black River which breached in multiple places, causing the need for evacuations from some areas, according to the governor’s website.
“The town’s been in a state of disbelief,” West said in an email. “They’ve experienced over 20 inches of rain, golf ball-sized hail and a tornado over the past seven days.”
West said he thinks residents are handling the severe weather well.
“They’ve really come together as a community and helped each other,” he said.
Efforts to aid residents of the parts of Missouri hit hardest by flooding include the establishment of a shelter for those who have to be evacuated from their homes. The National Guard is also on hand in Poplar Bluff.
Jones said her hometown of Murphysboro, Ill. has flooded to 6 feet above its normal level in some areas and parks. The town comes in contact with the Big Muddy River, which stems off of the Mississippi, causing the flooding.
Jones said she has seen the river flood before but that it has not been this bad since 1997.
“The firefighters and police have been sandbagging, trying to save churches,” she said. “I know to the south of us, they’re evacuating towns and homes.”
The river there is expected to rise three feet higher, Jones said.
A lot of the rain that instigated the flooding stemmed from a string of super cell thunderstorms that ripped through eastern Missouri last weekend.
Joyce was trying to fly home to Chicago when the storm hit Lambert International Airport. Right as she was about to board, the power shut off.
“The systems crashed,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going on or anything.”
Joyce said some people used their phones to help them see and they were told to get away from windows. Many children had been moved to the bathrooms. People were later moved to the baggage claim area.
“When we went outside, it was just like glass everywhere, and the doors were ripped off,” Joyce said.
West said the flooding in the Poplar Bluff area resulted from rain over the past six or seven days, some of which came with the tornadic storms that went through St. Louis last weekend.
“The flooding was due to the 15 to 20 inches of rain the town has gotten over the past six or seven days,” he said.
Jones said any of the towns near their area that are completely under water are being evacuated.
“It just keeps getting worse and worse,” she said.