KANSAS CITY, March 22 — Frigid Missouri River floodwaters that left ruins, death and drowned livestock across the US Midwest’s farmland were expected to crest in northwestern Missouri today and threaten more towns and cities.

Police issued voluntary evacuation orders for 200 to 300 homes in the small, riverfront city of St Joseph, Missouri, where early today North America’s longest river was at 9.58 metres, about 15cm below its record level.

“For the next few hours, we still expect the river to rise,” said St Joseph police Sergeant Casey Guyer, adding that some roadways were underwater. “Hopefully, in the next 24 hours the waterline starts to recede a little.”

Officials said they expect levees to contain debris-laden river water as floodwaters head toward Kansas City, Missouri, about 88km south of St Joseph, then other population centres in Kansas and Missouri downstream.

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If the temperature rises just a few degrees, melting more ice and snow, that could quickly push the estimated river crest higher, said David Roth of the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. The river could top levees or breach weak spots, he said.

Daytime temperatures in the Midwest are already about -12.2°C above normal, Roth said, and will hit as high as 16°C in parts of the region today, including St Joseph and Kansas City.

Evacuation sirens rang yesterday night in Elwood, Kansas, a community of 1,200 people across the river from St Joseph. Early today, the river there was at 9.5m, just shy of flowing over the top of Elwood’s levee system, according to forecasters.

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Missouri River flooding was triggered by last week’s so-called “bomb cyclone” storm, which has already inflicted damage estimated at nearly US$1.5 billion (RM6.1 billion) in Nebraska, killed at least four people in Nebraska and Iowa, and left a man missing below Nebraska’s collapsed Spencer Dam.

“This is shaping up to be a potentially unprecedented flood season, with more than 200 million people at risk,” Ed Clark, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said in the agency’s spring outlook.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson declared a state of emergency for his state on Wednesday as high water forced evacuations of several small farm communities.

The declaration allows state resources and assistance to be provided directly to counties and municipalities in need.

President Donald Trump yesterday approved a disaster declaration for Nebraska, making federal funding available in nine counties there that had borne the brunt of last week’s floods.

The threat of extensive flooding lingers over the wider region and could grow dire in coming weeks with additional rainfall and melting snow runoff, NOAA said yesterday. — Reuters