County won't get money for damage caused by blowing levee

Julian F. Pearson, materials testing manager for Shultz and Summers Engineering of Poplar Bluff, pictured left, finishes a nuclear density test on earthwork filling in the north breech in the frontline levee made during the May 2011 activation of the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway. Also pictured is Bobby R. Carlyle Jr., construction inspector for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
(Photo by Scott Welton, Staff)

CHARLESTON -- Mississippi County will not receive money from the Army for damage caused by the activation of the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in May 2011.

County Clerk Junior DeLay presented a letter from the U.S. Army's Tort Claims Division dated July 17 to county commissioners during their regular weekly meeting Thursday.

Lt. Col. David O. Anglin, acting chief for the Army's Tort Claims Division, advises the letter "constitutes the final administrative action" on the county's $75 million claim for flood damage to county public property "resulting from the alleged negligence of U.S. Corps of Engineers personnel by activating the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway on May 2, 2011, after record flooding occurred in the lower Mississippi River Valley."

For the complete article and more stories from the Standard Democrat, click here to log on to the electronic edition.