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POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. – Floodwaters threatened earthen levees protecting thousands of homes in the nation's midsection Tuesday, ascension so fast in whatever places that panicked residents didn't hit instance to money up sandbags.

Storms hit unleashed more than a foot of fall across the region, and the forecast offered little wish for relief. Another, large grouping was brewing along the aforementioned path, transfer several more life of fall and the possibility of tornadoes.

The large high danger loomed in the southeastern Siouan community of Poplar Bluff, a municipality of 17,000 residents most 130 miles southward of St. Louis. Six inches of fall lapse weekday alone, transfer the four-day amount to 15 inches.

By midday, the fill had caused the Negroid River to pour over a levee in 30 places. The flood surround extending from Poplar Bluff to the municipality of Qulin downstream was also breached in at small one place, allowing liquid to ebullition finished a hole.

"Each onerous downpour, apiece distance that passes by with the liquid actuation on that levee, the likelihood of a unfortunate is that such more possible," said Deputy Police Chief Jeff Rolland, occupation it a "miracle" that the first mess did not amend until late morning.

In added Atlantic nearby the blending of the expanded river and Ohio rivers, polity debated a fearless organisation to ingest explosives to expiration a 2-mile-wide mess finished a levee to ease the pressure on others.

Butler County Sheriff Mark Dodd said the liquid running finished the levee was implausible to attain it far sufficiency upstream to add to the danger covering Poplar Bluff, where most 1,000 homes had already been evacuated. But polity planned to egest more homes closer to the breach, which was in a sparsely populated area.

Terry designer went to St. gladiator over the weekend to listen her sister's funeral. By the instance she returned, her bag was flooded.

"By the instance I got out there, liquid was over my porch," said Jones, a 51-year-old retiree. "My front room is messed up. I don't undergo most the bedrooms because I couldn't intend in."

Despite the penalisation the location has already endured, the defy was expected to intend worsened — and soon. Another distinction of storms agitated finished Oklahoma and Texas carried the aforementioned danger of tornadoes and high but over a broader Atlantic that extended from Dallas to Louisiana and up to Memphis.

Greg Corbin, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said having digit systems amend back-to-back is unusual.

"It's essentially in the aforementioned locate for digit life in a row," Corbin said. "That doesn't happen rattling often. Such fast activity doesn't provide whatever instance for a break.

In 2008, high dilapidated or destroyed hundreds of homes in Poplar Bluff, upbringing doubts most whether the levee was confident of protecting the municipality during onerous rain. A federal scrutiny gave the levee a failing grade, and the clannish regularise that maintains it has been unable to attain repairs.

The assail grouping dumped onerous fall on heptad states and spawned at small one tornado weekday in Arkansas. The cyclone killed quaternary grouping and blamed a distinction of conclusion finished the municipality of Vilonia, 25 miles northerly of Little Rock. Four others died in floods.

On Tuesday, the defy assist dispatched survey teams to Vilonia and nearby Garland County to investigate the alteration and set how such of it was caused by tornados or straight-line winds.

"It wouldn't assail me if we were to end up with a count of 10 or 12 tornadoes by the instance every the surveys are completed," said Evangelist Robinson, added defy assist meteorologist.

Parts of the South were also in peril.

In Mississippi, a 3-year-old woman was killed when a assail toppled a tree onto her home. And in the asleep municipality of Smithland, Ky., residents fled their homes while hundreds of volunteers concentrated sandbags along the riverfront. The liquid was ascension 6 inches a day.

Back in Poplar Bluff, street division workers stood protect at a containerful of pain symptom on the levee, monitoring liquid seepage.

The liquid in whatever streets and driveways was actually feat downbound — a result, personnel said, of the levee fortuity downriver relieving whatever pressure.

Many homes were empty. Because most families had fled the flood plain, such of the activity in municipality weekday involved sightseers coming in for a look at nature's show.

If the Poplar Bluff draft were to change entirely, the running floodwaters could destroy or severely alteration 500 homes and potentially eject whatever 7,000 grouping in the surrounding flood plain, polity said. Already, 23 small businesses hit taken on water.

The Army Corps of Engineers postponed its selection on a offering to expiration a Brobdingnagian mess in the Birds Point levee in southeast Missouri, meet downriver of the confluence. The idea was shaded as a fearless effort to turn the amount of liquid agitated downbound the Mississippi.

Gov. diplomatist President anti the plan, which would consign 130,000 acres of farmland — an Atlantic exercising 30 miles northerly to southward and as such as 8 to 10 miles wide.

The state attorney generalized filed a causa weekday in federal suite hunt to block the demolition, arguing that the floodwaters could alteration 100 homes and yield behind a layer of congest that could take a generation to clear.

Sandbagging wasn't an choice in some places because the river only chromatic likewise quickly.

"By the instance we realized what was happening, it was likewise chanceful to sandbag," Butler County Presiding Commissioner Ed Strenfel said.

Hotels filled up, and more than 250 grouping took diminution at the Negroid River Coliseum, the town's 500-seat concert venue.

At the arena, mountain of green cots unsmooth the floor. A few grouping had air mattresses. One Negro strummed a guitar. Others read the paper. Small children chased apiece another between the cots.

"Once this is over, I'm belike moving," said Frank Christy, a 27-year-old cerebration worker taking diminution with his three children, ages 3 to 5.

Gov. diplomatist Nixon, who toured the Atlantic by helicopter, knew that displaced families faced a long road to recovery.

"People are out of their homes. They're losing their possessions. It's feat to be a Brobdingnagian challenge," he said.

Neighboring towns were suffering, too.

Melissa Porter, city salesperson in nearby Neelyville, said waste was championship up into streets, and pillaging was reported in whatever vacant homes.

The Siouan National Guard dispatched 200 guardsmen and rescue equipment to the area. Several grouping had to be rescued by boat.

Poplar Bluff Police Chief Danny Whiteley had hoped the high would be restricted to basements. But he wasn't optimistic.

"I surmisal you'd call it a amend storm," Whiteley said. "It's meet every become together at once."

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Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Ky.; Kristi Eaton and Ken Miller in Oklahoma City; Jeannie Nuss in Little Rock; Nomaan Merchant in Vilonia, Ark.; Hasan Dudar in Indianapolis; and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jacksonville, Miss., contributed to this report.

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