Illinois residents raise a ruckus over rail bridge

Mike Stuckey Senior news editor • Profile • E-mail

EAST HANNIBAL, Ill. - In a move that local officials say threatens hundreds of homes and tens of thousands of acres of crops, the Norfolk Southern Railroad has refused to raise a bridge that residents fear could create a giant logjam on the Mississippi River and send floodwaters pouring over a fragile levee.

The townspeople in this Illinois farm community across the river from the Missouri town made famous by Mark Twain say the railroad quietly reneged on a promise to keep the bridge up during this week’s expected record river crest and then removed electric motors so it cannot be lifted until the water recedes. Adding to their sense of betrayal is the knowledge that the bridge’s lift span was rebuilt 15 years ago with federal tax dollars.

A spokesman for Norfolk Southern said the railroad made no such promise and that the U.S. Coast Guard “did not object” to its plans.

The anxiety gripping this community is being felt for hundreds of miles along the Upper Mississippi this week. At least three levees have failed elsewhere along the river as the river rises toward record levels.

“It’s just not right,” said a frustrated and angry Russ Koeller, a commissioner with the Sny Island Levee Drainage District, as he led a reporter out onto the bridge Tuesday afternoon. “The railroad agreed to cooperate to minimize risk” by raising the bridge, “and they reneged. I haven’t used the word ‘lied,’ but they reneged and that’s not right.”

Bridge may act as debris catcher
Standing a few feet above the roiling muddy water as the pungent smell of creosote wafted off the sun-baked railroad ties, it was easy to understand Koeller’s fear.

Carissa Ray / msnbc.com Russ Koeller says the Norfolk Southern Railroad "reneged" on an agreement to raise the lift bridge to allow flood debris to flow downriver unimpeded. The railroad denies there was a promise.

When the water goes up another four feet to its predicted crest of 31.8 feet late this week, it will slam against the superstructure of the bridge — a series of cantilevered spans that run about 1,000 feet from here to Hannibal on the Missouri side. That will effectively create a dam that will catch logs, propane tanks, wrecked boats and any other debris that comes downriver, which could push the water higher behind the blockage.

The slightest rise in the river’s level could mean the difference between the levee riding it out or failing, said Koeller, 62. 

Rudy Husband, the railroad’s spokesman on Northeast and Midwest affairs, denied that the company had promised to leave the lift section of the span up, allowing a clearer path for water and debris.

He said company engineers decided the bridge is “more stable in the down position than the up position,” so “last Friday, after consulting with both the Coast Guard and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, we put that bridge in the closed (down) position and locked it.”

Interactive map Rampaging rivers Rivers in many parts of the upper Midwest have overrun their banks in recent weeks. Click to see latest developments as well as current and historical flooding data.

Husband said that keeping a lift bridge in place “is fairly standard procedure” in the event of flooding, and he said that a member of the Army Corps of Engineers told the railroad that the bridge’s position would likely have no effect on water levels.

He later acknowledged, however, that the railroad had not talked to anyone at the corps about closing the bridge until Monday, after it had been done and when it was too late to reverse the decision.

Husband also said that the Coast Guard “knew what we were doing. They didn’t object.”

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