By Karen Dillon
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - Floodwaters that devastated swaths of Nebraska and Iowa rolled downstream across America's longest river at Thursday, swamping more Midwestern farmland during waterfront communities at Missouri and Kansas hurried to shore up strained levees.
Flooding of the Missouri river triggered by endure week's so-called "bomb cyclone" hurricane has already inflicted wreck estimated at nearly $1.5 billion at Nebraska, killed at least four nation at Nebraska and Iowa and left a man missing below Nebraska's collapsed Spencer Dam.
Missouri Governor Mike Parson declared a status of emergency although his status during tall water forced evacuations of few several farm communities. Larger towns from St. Joseph to Kansas city braced although extra flooding forecast along the weekend.
"The rising floodwaters are affecting more Missouri communities and farms, closing more roads and threatening levees, water treatment plants and other keen infrastructure," Parson said at a statement.
The declaration allows status property and aid to exist provided direct to counties and municipalities at need, said Mike O'Connell, spokesman although the Missouri Public Safety Department.
Authorities talk continued flooding at the days ahead is unlikely to attain the widespread, catastrophic scale seen at Nebraska and Iowa - during excess run dissipates across the length of the river and water breaches or flows at the tops of levees.
But the danger of extensive flooding lingers at the wider district along can and could become dire at coming weeks with extra rainfall and melting snow runoff, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials said at Thursday.
"This is shaping up to exist a potentially unprecedented flood season, with more than 200 million nation at risk," Ed Clark, director of NOAA's National Water middle at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said at Thursday at the agency's fountain outlook.
Scientists said at Thursday that climate change played a hand at the deadly floods, nevertheless a Trump administration officer said more learn was needed ago making that link.
LEVEE BREACHES
Floodwaters eat already swamped large stretches of Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa, drowning livestock and damaging corn dirt across the Missouri. A status of emergency has been declared at full or parts of the three Midwestern farm states.
The river's next chief flood crest is forecast to strike St. Joseph, Missouri, early Friday morning and a appointment afterward at Kansas City, Missouri, 55 miles (90 km) to the south.
With no more rain forecast until next weekend, authorities outlook flood levels will abate. Still, the inundation has strained the system of dams and levees built and operated by the U.S. army Corps of Engineers at the region.
More than 40 levee breaches eat been confirmed at the agency's Omaha district, encompassing the hardest-hit parts of Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, officials told a news briefing.
Nine more instances of levee breaches and spillovers eat occurred farther downstream at Missouri and Kansas, including one finish St. Joseph that was endure topped at 1993, said Jud Kneuvean, the Corps' emergency management leader at Kansas City.
The disaster's epicenter had shifted by Thursday to northwestern Missouri, where nearly 40,000 acres of farm dirt at Holt County only was below water and a population of almost 500 was at risk, Kneuvean said.
The Holt County farming city of Craig, building to almost 250 people, was evacuated. hence during robust were some 200 residents of Lewis and Clark Village at neighboring Buchanan County after a finish levee failed, officials said.
In jungle City, downstream from Craig at Holt County, residents young and old hurried to fill sandbags to bolster their local levee, hoping to stave off disaster.
"This is our endure queue of defense," South Holt County Assistant liberate leader Bill Killin told district media.
TRUMP APPROVES FEDERAL FUNDING
U.S. principal Donald Trump at Thursday approved a disaster declaration although Nebraska, making federal funding available at nine counties there that bore the brunt of endure week's floods.
More than 2,400 homes and businesses at Nebraska eat been destroyed or damaged, with 200 miles (320 km) of roads unusable and 11 bridges wiped out, according to authorities.
Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts estimated the floods caused at least $439 million at wreck to public infrastructure and other assets, and $85 million to personal property. He location agricultural flood wreck although the status at nearly $1 billion.
Mark Hamilton, 59, a retired military officer, has lived at a mobile building at Arlington, Nebraska, although the endure 23 years besides was forced to escape when it flooded. He said he lost his house, motorcycle and instruct at a sum allowance of almost $150,000.
"We've had floods nine, 10 years ago, besides it was nothing similar this," Hamilton said. "That entire trailer park needs to exist removed now; nobody can alive there."
(Additional reporting by rich McKay at Atlanta, Brendan O'Brien at Milwaukee and Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb at Los Angeles; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Cynthia Osterman)
