00:49 Severe Storms, Tornadoes, River Flooding Hit Several States Scatter severe thunderstorms stretching from Texas to Ohio Valley brought tornadoes and flooding across several states. The storms overturned trucks, damaged homes and forced many to seek high ground.

At a Glance At least seven people are dead as a result of storms and flooding since Monday.

The Mississippi River ticked above levels reached in 1993 in Davenport, Iowa, the highest level there in 157 years.

The city's downtown area remained under water Friday, days after a temporary levee gave way.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency Thursday for Wayne County

At least 3,000 homes have been damaged in Wayne County from flooding.

Deadly flooding from heavy rains and snow melt continued to plague areas from Michigan to the South on Saturday.

The Mississippi River ticked above levels reached in the historic 1993 flood in Davenport, Iowa, making it the highest level there in 157 years. The city's downtown remained under water Friday, days after a temporary levee gave way and flooded the city that does not have a permanent levee or floodwall, the Associated Press reports.

Jon Erdman, weather.com senior meteorologist, noted that the Mississippi River at Rock Island, Illinois, across the river from Davenport, first rose above flood stage on March 15 as water from melting snow in upstream tributaries flowed into the Mississippi River.

"Rounds of additional rain in Iowa and Illinois and a melt of snow cover from some April storms pushed the river higher since late April," Erdman added.

On Friday, the U.S. Coast Guard closed a five-mile stretch of the Mississippi River near St. Louis to boat and barge traffic, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

“The Mississippi is closed to all vessel traffic due to extremely high water levels and fast-moving currents," U.S. Coast Guard public affairs officer Brandon Giles told the newspaper.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency Thursday for Wayne County after this week's heavy rains left widespread flooding, the AP reports.

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said an estimated 3,000 homes in the county, including homes in Detroit, have been damaged by the flooding that also forced authorities to close a stretch of the Southfield Freeway in both directions.

(MORE: Next: Severe Thunderstorms, Isolated Tornadoes)

In other areas throughout the Midwest and the South, flooding has made roads impassable and forced the closure of two Mississippi River bridges in Quincy, Illinois, and Louisiana, Missouri.

All along the Mississippi River, communities continue to sandbag in an attempt to stave off floodwaters.

Grafton Mayor Rick Eberlin told reporters roads were closing around the town that is 40 miles north of St. Louis and has no flood walls or levees. He noted that waters were beginning to encroach the town hall, the AP reported.

"We are at our wits end," Eberlin said. "We are totally unprotected."

About 40 miles northwest of St. Louis, the towns of Winfield and Foley saw flash flooding after a levee overtopped, according to emergency personnel.

In Hannibal, Missouri, the Mississippi is expected to crest Friday afternoon at the third-highest level on records , the Hannibal Courier-Post reports. The city, which issued a state of emergency declaration Wednesday morning, plans to raise the height of flood gates and the levee will be raised as a precaution.

The town of West Alton, Missouri, home to about 500 residents, is under a voluntary evacuation order.

"We've been through this before," West Alton Emergency Management Director Gary Machens told the Associated Press. "It's part of living in a floodplain."

At least seven deaths are attributed to this week's flooding and severe weather.

The body of Martha Patricia Torres-Regalado, 44, was found in a drainage ditch Friday after her car became stranded in high water. A second woman traveling with Torres-Regalado left the vehicle to seek help but returned to find Torres-Regalado gone from the vehicle. Her body was found several blocks away in the drainage ditch, the AP reports.

Police recovered the body of 23-year-old kayak paddler Alex Ekern from a flooded Missouri creek Thursday after he and another paddler went missing.

The victim was one of three paddlers who ran into trouble on Wednesday when their kayaks went over a low-water bridge and became caught in a hydraulic, which churns up the water like a washing-machine and is difficult to escape. Authorities continue to search for the second victim, while a third paddler managed to escape the hydraulic, the AP reports.

A 2-year-old boy was killed Thursday when his mother drove past a "high water" sign in Wabash County, Indiana, and into a flooded road.

Earlier in the week, a man was killed in Missouri he was swept away by flash flooding and three others died in Oklahoma.

Storms Continue

A multi-day rash of storms hitting parts of Texas through the Ohio Valley continued on Friday.

Damage was reported to several industrial buildings by a possible tornado early Friday in Fayette County, Texas.

The storms spawned numerous tornadoes, and dumped heavy rain this week, overturning trucks, damaging homes and forcing many to seek higher ground. Four tornadoes that touched down in central Arkansas Thursday were confirmed Friday by the National Weather Service, including an EF1 twister.

Scattered severe thunderstorms will continue to flare up from Texas into parts of the mid-Atlantic through Friday, producing damaging wind gusts, large hail and potentially a few tornadoes. Heavy rainfall from these storms could also trigger flash flooding. </s> Davenport abruptly joined the ranks of Iowa regions ravaged by muddy floodwaters this spring when the Mississippi River rushed into the downtown of the state's third-largest city Tuesday afternoon.

Floodwaters breached the Davenport's temporary HESCO barrier at River Drive and Pershing Avenue , flooding a two- to three-block area along River Drive and Second Street and forcing a rapid evacuation of area businesses and residents.

Davenport typically sees flooding every year on streets and in open space along the Mississippi River that's designed for flood control. But this event — with the river now at its third-highest recorded level — is more reminiscent of the historic 1993 flood, when the river displaced hundreds of businesses and residents and caused millions of dollars in damage.

Concern about Mississippi flooding, driven by snowmelt and heavy rain, has been high for weeks, but the danger spiked again this week after easing somewhat earlier in April.

The Mississippi River is expected to reach a near-record high of 22.4 feet by Thursday morning, though additional forecasted rainfall could affect those levels, according to the National Weather Service. Its previous records of 22.63 feet and 22.48 feet were reached in 1993 and 1965, respectively. </s> Fog covered the flooded city of Davenport, Iowa, on May 3, as Mississippi River levels continued to rise and flood the Quad City area. The Mississippi River flood crest all-time record in Quad Cities region of Iowa, previously set in 1993, was surpassed as water levels reached 22.64 feet on May 2, and continued to rise, according to the National Weather Service. The flood crest surpassed 24 feet in Illinois City on May 3, according to the NWS. Credit: Joe Soliz via Storyful </s> ST. LOUIS — The fast-rising Mississippi River on Thursday neared levels unseen since the historic 1993 flood — and topped it in at least one place — as the bulging Big Muddy threatened levees and forced a Missouri town’s residents to head for higher ground.

The National Weather Service website on Thursday afternoon showed the river level at 22.64 feet at the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois, just above the 22.63-foot mark reached on July 9, 1993.

Davenport is one of the Quad Cities, and its downtown remained underwater after the river tore through a temporary barrier earlier in the week. Davenport has no permanent levee or floodwall.

Davenport wasn’t the only community along the Mississippi experiencing a flashback to 1993, the benchmark for catastrophic flooding in much of the Midwest. Thousands of acres of farmland were already swamped, hundreds of roads shut down and two Mississippi River bridges — one at Quincy, Illinois, and one at Louisiana, Missouri — were forced to close.

Sandbagging — an almost-annual ritual in many river towns — was underway, even in places with flood protection. A levee holds back the river at downtown Hannibal, Missouri, but each day brings a higher crest prediction. Volunteers are adding sandbags to the levee just in case.

Sandbagging isn’t an option at West Alton, Missouri, because the levee is so long, so the 500 or so residents were under a voluntary evacuation. The river is expected to crest Saturday half a foot higher than the levee at the town 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of St. Louis can hold.

West Alton Emergency Management Director Gary Machens and friends were busy moving farm equipment to higher ground. He was taking the whole thing in stride.

“We’ve been through this before,” Machens said. “It’s part of living in a flood plain.”

The latest round of flooding was spurred by torrents of rain, and river flooding wasn’t the only concern.

Parts of the Ozarks region of Missouri received up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain Wednesday night and Thursday morning, prompting flash flooding that forced hasty evacuations in some areas.

The body of Robbie Turner, 59, of Ava, Missouri, was found Wednesday. Authorities believe he was camping alone near Ava and got caught in waters from a flooded creek.

In northern Indiana, authorities say a 2-year-old boy was killed on Thursday when his mother drove past a “high water” sign in Wabash County and into a flooded road. The vehicle was swept by the current and completely submerged. The mother escaped but was unable to rescue the child, whose body was later found inside the vehicle.

Heavy rain in Michigan swamped homes and closed a stretch of a freeway near Detroit, where sandbags were stacked to curb flooding near canals off the Detroit River. More heavy rain through Friday morning raised concerns about additional flash flooding. </s> The Mississippi River has been at major flood stage for 41 days and counting, and this week a temporary wall failed, sending water rushing into several blocks of downtown Davenport, Iowa.

In that same area — the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois — the river crested at a new record height. The National Weather Service says a new record appears to have been set at Rock Island, Ill.

The previous area record was set during the Great Flood of 1993 — and as NPR's Rebecca Hersher has reported, that flood caused some $15 billion in damage.

Davenport Mayor Frank Klipsch says the city had placed temporary barriers to protect against rising water, and a small section of those barriers eventually was breached on Tuesday after holding for weeks.

"We evacuated about 30 to 40 residents in that area who lived in some condo areas there," he tells NPR's Here & Now. "We deal with [flooding] every year, but this was an unexpected breach and a lot of water got into that area."

The upper Mississippi was inundated with massive amounts of rain earlier this week, exacerbating the already high river level. "The state of Iowa has received more precipitation in the last 12 months than any recorded period in 124 years of data," Bob Gallagher, the mayor of the upriver town of Bettendorf, told reporters Friday. "When you get as much rain as we have this year there's just no way to avoid this situation."

Some Davenport businesses are having a hard time, even if they aren't flooded, reports Benjamin Payne of member station WVIK. "It's slowed things down. The detours have made it more difficult to get downtown," Tiffany Cannon, who has kept her bakery open, tells Payne. "So I've had customers call me and say, 'We have trucks; we have sandbags. Tell me what you need.' "

According to WVIK, residents and businesses in the flooded area had received warnings about the possibility that the temporary wall could fail, "but still had little time, only about one hour, to protect their buildings and evacuate."

The local minor league team's stadium is surrounded by water, Payne adds, and the team is now referring to it as "baseball island."

Meanwhile, communities downriver are bracing for the high waters to arrive, and farming communities along the Mississippi are at risk.

John Roach, the city administrator of La Grange, Mo., tells reporters that the town is already experiencing its third-highest level of historic flooding.

"The post office has moved out; the Head Start day care has moved out; our mechanic's garage — they've moved out," Roach says. "We've got water up and down Main Street, the whole length of town. It's impacting just about every aspect that you can imagine. ... We're in pretty bad shape."

In March, the National Weather Service predicted that the potential for flooding this spring was "above to well above normal," owing to a large snowpack high in the Mississippi River's basin and saturated soil.

"Snowmelt alone will cause rivers to rise near or above flood stage," NWS said. Lower-than-usual temperatures in January and February, and higher snowfall, contributed to the large snowpack.

And as NPR's Hersher reported, the intense rain that exacerbated this flooding has a link to climate change. "Such intense rain has gotten more frequent as the climate changes, in part because warmer air can hold more moisture," she said. "That means Midwestern communities can expect more years like this one." </s> The Mississippi River has been at major flood stage for 41 days and counting, and this week a temporary wall failed and send water rushing into several blocks of downtown Davenport, Iowa.

In that same area — the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois — the river crested at a new record height. The National Weather Service says a new record appears to have been set at Rock Island, Ill.

The previous area record was set during the Great Flood of 1993 – and as NPR's Rebecca Hersher has reported, that flood caused some $15 billion in damage.

Davenport Mayor Frank Klipsch says the city had placed temporary barriers to protect against rising water, and a small section of those barriers eventually breached on Tuesday after holding for weeks.

"We evacuated about 30 to 40 residents in that area who lived in some condo areas there," he tells NPR's Here & Now. "We deal with [flooding] every year, but this was an unexpected breach and a lot of water got into that area."

The Upper Mississippi was inundated with massive amounts of rain earlier this week, exacerbating the already-high river level. "The state of Iowa has received more precipitation in the last 12 months than any recorded period in 124 years of data," Bob Gallagher, the mayor of the upriver town of Bettendorf, told reporters Friday. "When you get as much rain as we have this year there's just no way to avoid this situation."

Some Davenport businesses are having a hard time, even if they aren't flooded, reports Benjamin Payne of member station WVIK.

"It's slowed things down. The detours have made it more difficult to get downtown," Tiffany Cannon, who has kept her bakery open, tells Payne. "So I've had customers call me and say, 'We have trucks, we have sandbags. Tell me what you need.' "

According to WVIK, residents and businesses in the flooded area had received warnings about the possibility that the temporary wall could fail, "but still had little time, only about one hour, to protect their buildings and evacuate."

The local major league team's stadium is surrounded by water, Payne adds, and the team is now referring to it as "baseball island."

Meanwhile, communities downriver are bracing for the high waters to arrive, and farming communities along the Mississippi are at risk.

John Roach, the city administrator of La Grange, Mo., tells reporters that the town is already experiencing its third-highest level of historic flooding.

"The post office has moved out, the Head Start day care has moved out, our mechanic's garage – they've moved out," Roach says. "We've got water up and down Main Street, the whole length of town. It's impacting just about every aspect that you can imagine. ... We're in pretty bad shape."

In March, the National Weather Service predicted that the potential for flooding this spring was "above to well above normal," due to a large snowpack high in the Mississippi River's basin and saturated soil.

"Snowmelt alone will cause rivers to rise near or above flood stage," NWS said. Lower-than-usual temperatures in January and February, and higher snowfall, contributed to the large snowpack.

And as NPR's Hersher reported, the intense rain that exacerbated this flooding has a link to climate change. "Such intense rain has gotten more frequent as the climate changes, in part because warmer air can hold more moisture," she said. "That means Midwestern communities can expect more years like this one." </s> The fast-rising Mississippi River on Thursday neared levels unseen since the historic 1993 flood — and topped it in at least one place — as the bulging Big Muddy threatened levees and forced a Missouri town's residents to head for higher ground.

The National Weather Service website on Thursday afternoon showed the river level at 22.64 feet at the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois, just above the 22.63-foot mark reached on July 9, 1993.

Davenport is one of the Quad Cities, and its downtown remained underwater after the river tore through a temporary barrier earlier in the week. Davenport has no permanent levee or floodwall.

Davenport wasn't the only community along the Mississippi experiencing a flashback to 1993, the benchmark for catastrophic flooding in much of the Midwest. Thousands of acres of farmland were already swamped, hundreds of roads shut down and two Mississippi River bridges — one at Quincy, Illinois, and one at Louisiana, Missouri — were forced to close.

Sandbagging — an almost-annual ritual in many river towns — was underway, even in places with flood protection. A levee holds back the river at downtown Hannibal, Missouri, but each day brings a higher crest prediction. Volunteers are adding sandbags to the levee just in case.

Sandbagging isn't an option at West Alton, Missouri, because the levee is so long, so the 500 or so residents were under a voluntary evacuation. The river is expected to crest Saturday half a foot higher than the levee at the town 20 miles north of St. Louis can hold.

West Alton Emergency Management Director Gary Machens and friends were busy moving farm equipment to higher ground. He was taking the whole thing in stride.

"We've been through this before," Machens said. "It's part of living in a flood plain."

The latest round of flooding was spurred by torrents of rain, and river flooding wasn't the only concern.

Parts of the Ozarks region of Missouri received up to 6 inches of rain Wednesday night and Thursday morning, prompting flash flooding that forced hasty evacuations in some areas.

The body of Robbie Turner, 59, of Ava, Missouri, was found Wednesday. Authorities believe he was camping alone near Ava and got caught in waters from a flooded creek.

In northern Indiana, authorities say a 2-year-old boy was killed on Thursday when his mother drove past a "high water" sign in Wabash County and into a flooded road. The vehicle was swept by the current and completely submerged. The mother escaped but was unable to rescue the child, whose body was later found inside the vehicle.

Heavy rain in Michigan swamped homes and closed a stretch of a freeway near Detroit, where sandbags were stacked to curb flooding near canals off the Detroit River. More heavy rain through Friday morning raised concerns about additional flash flooding.

AP reporters Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri; Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; and David Runk in Detroit contributed to this report. </s> (Des Moines Register) During the historic flooding in July 1993, the Mississippi River near Davenport rose to its highest level ever: 22.63 feet.

That record is no more.

The river hit 22.64 feet shortly before noon Thursday, the National Weather Service reported, and the water continues to rise.

The river is expected to reach 22.7 feet by Friday, the weather service said. Even with a dry weekend, it’s not projected to fall below 22 feet until late Sunday. </s> ST. LOUIS (AP) — The fast-rising Mississippi River on Thursday neared levels unseen since a historic 1993 flood, threatening levees and forcing people living near the bulging Big Muddy to move to higher ground.

Parts of downtown Davenport, Iowa, remained underwater after the river tore through a temporary barrier. Davenport has no permanent levee or floodwall. The river was within inches of the 1993 all-time high, and was expected to top it by Friday.

Davenport wasn’t the only community along the Mississippi experiencing a flashback to 1993, the benchmark for catastrophic flooding in much of the Midwest. Thousands of acres of farmland were already swamped, hundreds of roads shut down and two Mississippi River bridges — one at Quincy, Illinois, and one at Louisiana, Missouri — were forced to close.

Sandbagging — an almost-annual ritual in many river towns — was underway, even in places with flood protection. A levee holds back the river at downtown Hannibal, Missouri, but each day brings a higher crest prediction. Volunteers are adding sandbags to the levee just in case.

Sandbagging isn’t an option at West Alton, Missouri, because the levee is so long, so the 500 or so residents were under a voluntary evacuation. The river is expected to crest Saturday half a foot higher than the levee at the town 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of St. Louis can hold.

West Alton Emergency Management Director Gary Machens and friends were busy moving farm equipment to higher ground. He was taking the whole thing in stride.

“We’ve been through this before,” Machens said. “It’s part of living in a flood plain.”

The latest round of flooding was spurred by torrents of rain, and river flooding wasn’t the only concern.

Parts of the Ozarks region of Missouri received up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain Wednesday night and Thursday morning, prompting flash flooding that forced hasty evacuations in some areas.

Related: PETA puts up billboard in south KC linking recent flooding with animal cruelty

The body of Robbie Turner, 59, of Ava, Missouri, was found Wednesday. Authorities believe he was camping alone near Ava and got caught in waters from a flooded creek.

Heavy rain in Michigan swamped homes and closed a stretch of a freeway near Detroit, where sandbags were stacked to curb flooding near canals off the Detroit River. More heavy rain through Friday morning raised concerns about additional flash flooding.
Flooding from Michigan to the south damages homes and sends the Mississippi River to a 157-year high in Davenport, Iowa.