It wasn't just the courts that stopped the St. John's Bayou-New Madrid Floodway Project. The more than 2-inches of rainfall this week put a stop to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers efforts to reverse the work completed earlier on the project near New Madrid. Work began in 2006 on the floodway project which was designed to reduce flooding in Southeast Missouri by closing a gap in the Mississippi River levee. The project was halted and the area ordered to be returned to its former state by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Heavy equipment is now being used to take down the diversion channel and coffer dams which had been completed.