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More Rain On The Way - Nutwood Levee Seeping And Soft But Still Intact
There have been volunteers sandbagging the Nutwood levee for many days. The levee is at risk in some areas once the river rises to 37.5 feet. The sandbags have given the levee another couple feet, but the levee is saturated with water and showing some leaks.
Doug Downey of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency in Fairview Heights for Region 8, admitted that the Nutwood Levee is extremely saturated. “There is a lot of hydraulic pressure on the levee,” he said. “We are sandbagging some low places above 38 feet and close to 40 feet. We lasered all the low spots and tagged them. We shouldn’t go over 38 feet.” Downing said his hope is that eventually the levee would be improved, especially after the latest flood dilemma.
The problems if the Nutwood Levee broke would be vast, from not only the agricultural land, but highway movement in and out of the are. “Many in Calhoun and the surrounding counties drive a longer way to work today,” he said. “The roads here are equally important.”
Stan Wright, of the Illinois Department of Corrections, supervised inmates from the Vandalia Correctional Center on site, helping with sandbags. “We have been filling sandbags, loading boats and stacking the sandbags,” he said. “This gives them a sense of accomplishment. The Illinois Department of Corrections is good about community service responsibilities for prisoners.”
Rick Zipprich, who lives across from the road leading to the sandbagging operation, operated a pickup truck to take sandbags to the proper place. The flood waters have special meaning to Zipprich, who lived in the floodplain that flooded when the Nutwood Levee failed in 1993. “I was not living far from where we are filling sandbags right now by the levee,” he said. “We farm 1,500 acres in the bottoms and I am really concerned about the cropping and the road. I grew up in Calhoun and Michael and feel compassion for those in Calhoun and don’t want to see them lose their road; a lot of people commute.”
Cody Beck, now of Brighton, and originally from Grafton, was in Grafton during the 1993 flood. He was assisting with the sandbagging this week at the Nutwood Levee site. “I just wanted to lend a hand,” he said. “I didn’t have nothing else better to do. You have to take care of people who take care of you. I lived in Grafton when ’93 happened. I was probably four or five then. That is why I am out here helping. I am going to pick up sandbags and move them in my boat where they need to be.”
Tarrance Banks, inmate Vandalia Correctional Center, “They asked if anybody wanted to help these nice people out here and I just volunteered. This is totally different than a normal day and two hours away from confinement. We cut grass outside a lot of the surrounding areas of Vandalia, but normally don’t do anything like this. I appreciate it and enjoy it and glad I can help. I am originally from Chicago and I am a long way from home.”
If the Nutwood levee remains intact, it will be not only be because of Mother Nature, but the hard labor of correctional inmates, students from Calhoun and Jersey high schools and a boundless amount of adult volunteers from across the region.