Morgan County was the first in the Lake of the Ozarks region to discuss thousands of dollars in flood damage with state and federal emergency management officials.
Morgan County Emergency Management Director Rick Bias met Friday with representatives of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to review the estimated $380,000 in damages to public infrastructure, roads and bridges throughout the county.
"We are still meeting, collecting data and getting more specific on estimates of damage," Bias said. "SEMA and FEMA are meeting with all locations (across the state) seeing if they have met their threshold (maximum allotment to receive disaster declaration funds for repairs)."
With Morgan County's threshold set at $73,000, Bias said rough estimates tally $380,000 for everything damaged following more than 10 inches of rain that hasfallen since mid-June. This includes reports from the Gravois Mills and Barnett special road districts, city of Versailles, sewer districts, the wastewater plant, county road and bridge department and the county itself.
Bias said all the county's roads are open even though some are not crossable for some cars. He also stressed even though everything is fixed for now, if more rain is forecasted, some roads, particularly low water crossings, could become impassable again.
"If you approach a low water bridge and you can't see the bottom, you are smart to turn around and not chance it," he said. "Even as the water continues to come down, the ground is saturated. Every time it rains, it will take some of that ground away."
Other Lake of the Ozarks area counties
Miller County will meet with SEMA and FEMA officials Friday to discuss disaster declaration and estimates of flood damage in the county.
Most of the county's flood damage was to roads and low water crossings, said Miller County Emergency Management Director Barlow Biggers.
"I'd say about half of the county roads -about 275 roads - saw damage," Biggers said. "We have estimated the damage at roughly $100,000."
Miller County's threshold for damage repair is about $85,000.
"All the roads are open and passable. However, we had damage to these roads, repaired them to make them passable, and then another rain washed them out again, causing us to make more repairs," Biggers said.
In Camden County, which was hit hardest with roughly nine inches of rain during July 1 storms, the Camden County Road and Bridge Department staff is still calculating damages. Camden County Emergency Management Director Ron Gentry said they are still waiting to see if their estimates will meet or exceed their $156,647.12 threshold to possibly received state and/or federal disaster declaration financial assistance.
The damage
After the first round of storms July 1, the Lake region was hit with between 4 to 6 inches of rain. This high accumulation of rain flooded main creeks, streams and rivers, also making some 100 Camden County roads impassable following the first storm, said Lee Schuman, Camden County Road and Bridge Department administrator and county engineer.
Following that initial rainfall, four higher-traffic county roads closed for more than 24 hours, including Doherty Road in the Climax Springs and Edwards area, Flippin Road in Climax Springs, Westwood Road in Camdenton and Carroll Cave Road near Richland.
Other Camden County roads such as Business Park Road and Willow Creek Road suffered immediate impassability, but were reopened on July 1 after water receded. Camdenton also saw a few city roads close and reopen during the flooding, with the last street, Dawson Road, reopening late on July 2.
Gentry said they received some calls reporting damages to homes, particularly one home in the Greenview area that estimated about $50,000 in damages.
Bias said some residents reported damage to shoreline areas and homes, including one Rocky Mount woman whose earth-contact home collapsed due to the dirt giving way to the house's structure because of the saturated ground.
On Wednesday night, Truman Dam in Warsaw and Bagnell Dam at Lake Ozark both closed their flood gates due to flooding of the Missouri River. However, at noon Friday, Truman Dam re-opened its flood gates, and Bagnell Dam will re-open all 12 flood gates at 2 p.m. today. According to Ameren Missouri, Bagnell Dam will open the flood gates at a total of 50,000 cubic feet per second, or 10 percent, which will cause the Osage River to rise 8 feet.
The gates will remain at this flow through the weekend, keeping the level of Lake of the Ozarks between 659 to 660 feet above sea level, near or at full pool - provided the area does not receive any additional heavy precipitation.