Xinhua English
May 02, 2011
Text and photo by Ted Regencia
CAIRO, Ill. — “We’re like a bowl set in a big tub of water. Water is all around us,” former Cairo Mayor James Wilson told Xinhua, as he described the situation in Cairo, which has so far been spared of the flooding while towns all around it are submerged in water.
Wilson warned the threat of a water breach that could sink the entire city remains a reality even as the total floodwater level subsided following the decision of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to blast the Birds Point-New Madrid Levee.
As it is now, Cairo is about 16 feet below the flood level and the only thing that prevented it from being completely underwater are the levees.
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