mitigate the damage downstream. that alleviated waters in the small town of cairo but there are other issues to deal with. jon: if your farmland is under water you re not happy with it. mike tobin is live in metropolis, illinois. reporter: this is a pretty typical scene you can find anywhere at the river s edge where kentucky, illinois and missouri meet up. the good news is that the flood waters in these areas seem to have stabilized since the army corps of engineers made that somewhat radical move of blasting the big holes in the levy to create a floodway. and that was the latest blast, about noon yesterday. they are planning one more blast today. one we re waiting on is for the explosives to arrive. what these blasts do is relieve the pressure, where
in dams with all of the rain that we ve seen in the last couple of weeks. this is going to affect people here for another week or so before the waters begin to recede somewhat, and then downstream and through memphis and mississippi and eventually louisiana, for the next couple of weeks. suzanne? thank you, rob. i want to go to jacqui jeras. you have dramatic pictures of before and after this flood, right? yeah. this is satellite imagery that we got in from nasa here. and this is what the floodway area where rob is looked like on satellite picture a week ago. so this is last week. now watch as i advance this. look at how that whole area right there just flooded. that s 130,000 acres that they ve been talking about that have been inundated with that water. i also want to show you the river gauge here at this area. this will show you at cairo where it was when it reached its peak 61.72 feet, and there you can see that dramatic drop once they did explode that levee in that area. you
these towns in illinois. now, missouri has got a big problem with that because then it floods about 130,000 acres in their state. mike tobin is live in met roll lis, illinois. good morning. met rop lis, illinois. reporter: i was here last week and the waters were 8 feet below harrah s doors and now they have about 8 inches to go until they get inside the hotel that they thought they built high enough to prevent it from ever being touched by the floods. the casino is dry because it s a river boat that stays on top. all of the entranceways are flooded, however, it does look like the water necessary met rop lis have stabilized, that is after the army corps of engineers went ahead with its plan to blast the levees and create a floodway. the latest blast happening yesterday at about noon. what they do ultimately by creating the floodways is relieve the water pressure
birmingham and it s sponsored by our affiliate, wvtm, and the united way. the decision to blow up a levee along the mississippi river has eased the flooding crisis around cairo, illinois, water levels have started to drop now. but now tens of thousands of acres of missouri farmland are under water. and a lot of farmers very upset. cnn s rob marciano is in mississippi county, missouri. reporter: day two of the exploding levee extravaganza, extreme measures taken for really an extreme flood owe vent. we haven t seen this level on the river here in mississippi and along the ohio since 1937. and yesterday they blew up a second levee. take a look at this video, extraordinary stuff, during the daytime. soil and earth blown above the tree tops. that is at the opposite end of this floodway so that some of the water can begin to drain. this is farmland. this is now not so good farmland, least for this year, and that has a lot of farmers
1920s, and was actually used once in 1937 successfully. the upper opening in the levee is two miles wide, and that s what we did last night. and that is allowing water to flow into the 130,000-acre floodway designed for this purpose. we re in the process now of completing the preparations to open up two additional openings in the levee at the south end of the floodway, each a mile wide. we expect to detonate those two later today. but the project is working. about was intended, in the first hour, the river levels dropped about a half foot, and as of 6:00 this morning it was down a little bit more than a foot. the people of cairo are happy about this but the people of missouri are not. 130,000 acres is fertile farmland that if you flood that