Mississippi River

Unusual June flooding forced locks to close Friday on the upper Mississippi River, shutting down shipping on a 215-mile stretch of river and stranding 56 towboats and their barges. Utilities that rely on barges for coal said they had stockpiles and should not be hurt, but grain shippers were stuck. The shutdown is expected to expand northward an additional 230 miles today and could last two weeks or more, officials said.

The Coast Guard ordered all boat and barge traffic from a 403-mile stretch of the Mississippi River on Monday, saying fast-rising water and treacherous currents made the waterway unsafe. The river was closed from Minneapolis south to Muscatine, Iowa, and the National Weather Service predicted flooding could approach or exceed 1993 levels. The river was expected to crest at 20 to 22 feet next week at Davenport, Iowa, where the record was 22.6 feet in 1993. The forecast prompted Iowa Gov.

For thousands of farmers and their neighbors in the Mississippi River Valley, this summer's floods have been a reminder of how much their lives depend upon the good graces of nature. That message has come through for many of us not on the scene, and so has another message: Our Midwestern geography isn't so good. Thus, for the past few weeks, Californians and others with travel plans in the Midwest have been scrambling for reassurances about destinations. Sometimes we ask sensible questions.

Day by day, almost hour by hour, Deidre Johnson can look out her office window and watch the mighty, muddy Mississippi River slosh over its bank and slurp up first the curb, then the street, then the first few broad steps leading to the Gateway Arch. "It's like the river is taking over," said Johnson, who sells riverboat cruises. "That's what it looks like. Like the river is swallowing everything up." Well, not quite everything. At least, not yet.

People sandbagged, held their breath and prayed Thursday as the Mississippi River passed this old French town at high flood. Its levees were leaking, and one official said it was like the eighth inning in a no-hitter. "No one wants to say we are dry," said the official, David Angerer, a city administrator, "and then the next day the levee breaks." At 6 p.m. local time, the Mississippi crested at 49.43 feet against the levees, which are 50 feet high--51 feet in places.

Craftsmen are putting the finishing touches on a dream that spans generations: a restored Mormon mecca on the Mississippi. Completion of a log cabin and post office, due this month, will cap the extraordinary rebirth of the city--known in its heyday as Nauvoo the Beautiful--that was the center of the Mormon world for seven years.

A sunken boat and the search for its five crew members stopped major traffic on the Mississippi River on Sunday, stranding dozens of large ships and more than 2,000 cruise passengers. The 178-foot offshore supply boat Lee III sank after colliding with a container vessel on a foggy Saturday morning in the Southwest Pass, the only channel up the Mississippi River deep enough for large oceangoing vessels.

To be poor is bad enough. To be forced to choke on industry's fumes while doing without is just too much, say residents fighting the creation of another chemical plant in their neighborhood. With a sigh, 66-year-old carpenter LeRoy Alfred says it's no coincidence that the poor along the lower Mississippi River are also black. Their forefathers were the slaves who built the planters' mansions. Their descendants became sharecroppers who were slaves to the company store, he said.

Residents who three times rejected flood-control measures watched the Mississippi River lap through their streets and rise higher than its predicted crest Saturday. "It's depressing," said Scott Cortez as he took a break from piling sandbags around his home. "You wonder what's going to happen." Downstream, residents of small towns evacuated or battled to strengthen levees against the pressure of the rushing water.

Volunteers, municipal crews and National Guard troops in St. Louis and towns along the Mississippi River worked furiously Wednesday to fortify levees as authorities warned that more rain and probable flooding were on the way. "We have a very, very critical situation here," said Julian Boyd, director of public safety in St. Louis. "We have crews working around the clock on deteriorating levees."