Flood of 93

[woodenshoemanHoosierfan 6,699]

25 yrs ago I spent almost 2 months on the river with the Illinois Guard. We first went to the Sny Island levee and other levees in and around Pike County and Quincy area. There we spent 12 to 20 hrs a day sandbagging boils, raising levees and anything else that needed to be done. The day after we were relieved by another Unit after 2+ weeks, I woke up and found out the Sny had breached. This made a lot of us mad and we volunteered to go back. I was sent to Prairie Du Rocher next. Most of my job there was to be in charge of 2 squads tasked to keep anyone out of the flooded areas except land owners. When the levee broke near Valmeyer, we were tasked to help the volunteers to try to keep the levee protecting Prairie Du Rocher from failing. It did succeed only because the Corps of Engineers blew a hole in the levee near Ft. De Chartres because the river bottoms had more water than the levee holding back the river. After the hole blown, the water ran back into the river. The water from the Valmeter break did reach the levee but did not breach it.

 

When the water finally receded enough to drive the bluff road, I came across a house about a mile from the river on the east side of the road. I took a picture of a toy riding horse half out the 2nd story window. This was indicative of how high and how much water there was.

 

 

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[woodenshoemanHoosierfan 6,699]

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