Wednesday, May 2, 2012 REGION
NATION
SPORTS
Tax licenses
Day of protest
2-1 victory
This year, 20 Cape Girardeau County businesses have lost sales tax licenses for failing to turn in tax payments. Page 3A
Hundreds of activists across the U.S. joined the worldwide May Day protests Tuesday. Page 5A
St. Vincent’s girls’ soccer team is now 18-2 with Tuesday’s 2-1 win over Notre Dame. Page 1B
Man and wildlife were forced to higher ground.
Pinhook, shattered and scattered, is gone.
Some hope to escape via buyout.
The flood’s scars remain.
Ill. panel: Area prison should not be closed
7-3 VOTE: The final decision on Tamms belongs to Gov. Pat Quinn BY MELISSA MILLER
SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN TAMMS, Ill. — A state commission recommended Tuesday that the Tamms Correctional Center not be closed to save the state money. The Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability voted 7-3 to recommend to Gov. Pat Quinn that the center, which employs about 300 people, remain open.
LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com
Debra Tarver stands inside her flood-ravaged Pinhook home April 23. Tarver lived all but 10 years of her life in Pinhook. Mud cakes the carpet and crunches with each step. Her grandson took his first steps along the hallway from her kitchen.
On this day, May 2 Cape river level: 46.2 feet Cape flood stage: 32 feet Cairo river level: 61.05 feet Cairo flood stage: 40 feet Rainfall: 1.44 inches The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers exploded a large section of the Birds Point levee just after 10 p.m. The corps hoped the move would divert up to 4 feet of water off the river at Cairo, Ill. By midnight, the river stage at Cairo had dropped from the record crest of 61.72 feet at10 p.m. to 61.13 feet. Heavy downpours overnight, with some areas receiving 5 inches of rain, caused the Black River to rise sharply near Poplar Bluff, Mo., where a week earlier a flash flood caused the emergency evacuation of 1,000 people.
‘The floodway will never be the same. But we survived.’ BY SCOTT MOYERS
Photo gallery
SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN Randy Sutton had heard that the three-star general with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had officially made the decision. He had seen the Missouri National Guard trucks roll through, ordering everyone from their homes. And now, the Mississippi County farmer was along a dark rainy roadway with everyone else awaiting the blast. The charges were set. After a lifetime of living in the floodway, it was not a hypothetical anymore. They were going to do it. Still, when the explosions flashed through the night sky, Sutton says he was struck by how honestly surprised he was. “They really did it,” he
See photo galleries, view an interactive timeline and read coverage of the flood at semissourian.com/ flood2011. remembers thinking. “I can’t believe this. They turned the water loose on us. Here we go.” The decision to activate the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway, which began a year ago today, was made by Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, who cited record-setting rains that were continuing to pummel the region. The Cairo, Ill., river gauge was at 61 feet and rising. Communities in several states were fighting to keep the waters at bay. Corps crews detonated the charges along the
earthen levee shortly after 10 p.m., intentionally flooding the 130,000-acre floodway. Walsh and other experts said the activation would offer relief to several beleaguered communities in Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky. Sutton, who had watched the waters wash over land that he had farmed all of his life, said it has been a nerve-racking year since. In the days after, a pilot flew Sutton over the floodway. He saw the place where he had driven a tractor since he was old enough to walk had been replaced by a huge lake, with rooftops jetting out. He recalls that it looked unreal to him. Later, when it took a boat to get to his 2,200acre farm, Sutton recalls
Sen. Blunt critical of pace at Birds Point BY JIM SALTER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ST. LOUIS — A year after the intentional breach of the Birds Point levee in Southeast Missouri, Sen. Roy Blunt is criticizing the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers for its rebuilding pace. The Missouri Republican on Tuesday sent a letter to Maj. Gen. Meredith W.B. Temple, acting commander of the corps, urging fast restoration of the levee to its original height of 62.5 feet. Blunt called full restoration vital
for farmers and landowners whose properties are protected by the levee. The corps has temporarily rebuilt the levee to 55 feet and hopes to get it back to 62.5 feet by the end of the See BLUNT, Page 8A
The Southeast Missourian has closed its front doors as work on the Broadway corridor project moves into the 300 block. The Southeast Missourian and Concord Publishing will have customer service representatives set up in the rear of the building at 301 Broadway to accommodate customers until the block reopens to traffic. Several spaces in the parking lot behind the building will be reserved for customers. For more information, call 335-6611.
17 become citizens in courthouse ceremony SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN Seventeen brand-new U.S. citizens weren’t born but made in Cape Girardeau on Tuesday, and for many, it was only after years of patient waiting. A naturalization ceremony at the Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. U.S. Courthouse drew a full house of family, friends and community members to see the immigrants from 11 countries
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sworn in by Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson was the guest speaker. Following an introduction by Limbaugh, Emerson said she believed the day’s ceremony was not really for acknowledging the applicants’ completion of their citizenship requirements but instead for celebrating a beginning. “I hope you can look at
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Southeast Missourian webmaster James Baughn highlights local outdoor attractions on his Pavement Ends blog. Read the latest on One Horse Gap at semissourian.com/blogs.
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Closed in front
BY ERIN RAGAN See BREACH, Page 8A
Although its recommendations are not legally binding, no governor has ever closed a state facility over the commission’s recommendations, said Illinois Sen. Gary Forby. “I think they made the right decision. Now we’ve just got to convince the governor this is the right way to go. Tamms needs to stay open,” Forby said. Tamms Correctional Center, in Alexander County, has both minimum- and maximum-security units housing 375 inmates. State leaders had proposed closing the prison, along with several other Department of Corrections
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Volume 108 • Issue 181
H:87 L: 65 Mostly sunny, humid