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August 20, 2008 5:24:29 PM CDT

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Levees Crumbling, Midwest Struggles to Stem Tide

Posted Jun 12, 08 8:45 AM CDT in US 

(Newser) – The worst flooding in 15 years has exposed some serious vulnerabilities in the Midwest's aging infrastructure, the Chicago Tribune reports. Levees, bridges, and dams, some a century old, are barely coping with severe storms—while some are collapsing completely. Dikes and levees broke in several states last week after torrential rains, destroying homes and flooding farmland.

Severe storms and flooding are now happening much more often than they did when much of the country's infrastructure was designed. There are fears that decades of underinvestment could soon mean catastrophe. "We as a nation have ignored our infrastructure for the past 50 years," a flood plain manager warned. "We haven't gone back to maintain the old roads and bridges. We just keep building new ones."

Source Chicago Tribune

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In this June 10, 2008 file photo, a farm is surrounded by floodwater from the White River as it overran its banks and levees near Elnora, Ind.   (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Nearly a half a mile of sand bags were placed along the Cedar River in preparation for the rising river near downtown Cedar Falls, Iowa, Tuesday, June 10, 2008.   (AP Photo/David K Purdy)
Mark Hastings turned 46, Tuesday June 10, 2008 , and spent his birthday sandbagging the levee on the north end of Elnora, Ind., were he lives.   (AP Photo/ Daniel R. Patmore)
Andy Shimek strengthens a sandbag levee by repositioning sandbags near the Cedar Falls Waste Treatment plant next to the Cedar River near downtown Cedar Falls, Iowa, Wednesday, June 11, 2008.   (AP Photo/David K Purdy)
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Iowa  • flood  • Illinois  • Wisconsin  • flooding  • Indiana  • Midwest  • severe weather  • bridge  • levees  • infrastructure


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