The 2019 Mississippi River flood fight is going to slog deep into the summer and maybe much longer.
While communities north of St. Louis are beginning the expensive path to recovery after record-breaking winter and spring precipitation and runoff, people below the Missouri River are shoveling mud from their houses and praying for a dry spell.
The Lower Mississippi Valley remains in a flood crisis as high water continues to swamp streets, homes, businesses, sewage and water treatment plants, and farm fields, including across some of the poorest counties in the United States.
"As a Mississippi River mayor, I can say this event has been a long, hard fight for us, and we likely have many more months," Greenville, Miss., Mayor Errick Simmons said yesterday on a conference call with fellow river city mayors and reporters.
"Our flooding has been over 100 days. We have an increasingly severe homelessness situation. ... Hopes have been completely destroyed," he said.