CLARKSVILLE, MISSOURI--As soggy Midwest states to the north began sending their storm runoff south, threatening towns for hundreds of miles along the Mississippi, the AmericCorps team showed up to help Clarksville make its stand.

They quickly saw that they could best assist the town, with its unpaid mayor and council and tiny city staff, by coordinating volunteer and liaison efforts at City Hall.

“I think they are awesome,” said Clarksville Alderman Mike Russell, also the town’s emergency services manager. “I can literally tell you that if it was not for them running the City Hall end, we would be much worse off.” If parts of the town successfully fend off the record floodwaters expected by the weekend, it will be largely because of Rooney, Henning and their colleagues, he added.

Disaster is their specialty

Created by President Clinton in 1993, AmeriCorps is a national service program that puts its members to work on a variety of domestic issues, from literacy to the environment. Henning and Rooney are with a St. Louis-based unit that specializes in disaster response. They arrived in Clarksville fresh from helping clean up after a tornado in southwest Missouri.

Just two towns in Missouri, Canton is the other, were lucky enough to garner AmeriCorps assistance in this round of Mississippi River flooding, underscoring the fact that AmeriCorps remains small. With just 75,000 spots a year, it is not easy to join. Likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama has called for the program to be more than tripled. His Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, also advocates its expansion.

Levee breach

Authorities in western Illinois say about 7,500 acres in land are in jeopardy after a levee break on the surging Mississippi River near Gulfport Tuesday.

The break was south of Gulfport, which is across the river from Burlington, Iowa. It forced the closure of the Great River Bridge that connects Burlington and Gulfport via U.S. Highway 34.

Several people have been rescued from the rising waters, including one motorist who was pulled out by helicopter after becoming stranded on top of his car. (Sources: MSNBC & WGEM TV)

Story Date: June 18, 2008