and earlier cnn talked with the missouri department of transportation about how the floodwaters are affecting the roads there. we re dealing with rising rivers all across the state of missouri. we currently have over 225 roads that are closed in the state and our worst situation is the interstate 44 is closed in the middle of the state, near rala, missouri, and we are expecting a spot on 44 to close in the st. louis before morning, and those two closures on interstate 44 are making it not only difficult to get around missouri but also very difficult for travellers to try to get through our state and travel in the midwest. the ability to get, say, from illinois to oklahoma, and so we re having a tough time dealing with truck traffic and through travellers trying to get through the state of missouri.
so linda, what s preparations are you making, as well as other emergency crews? what preparations are under way. can you do much, though, when it comes to this level of flooding? that s the problem with flooding. and in this situation, it s not going to be short term. we are done dealing with flash floods and now we re dealing with rivers, including the missouri and the mgs ms river that are rising. and will keep interstate 44 closed for several more days. so of what we re trying to do is get the word out to the nationwide trucking industry to use interstate 70 through missouri. what s the best advice for anybody in missouri right now. best advice, they need to check and see what roads are closed. we have that available at
yesterday, i sense it this morning, are you getting the response you feel you need given the temperatures, given the level of the threat right now? we ve had to throw a lot of resources at it. we ll continue to work to enhance those local levels. down in the mississippi, we were in perryville that has a 30 mile levee. we have a wide range we re giting all the way from the boot hill through st. louis and west. we ve already got highway 44 closed, which takes about 100,000 vehicles a day, and a major trucking route is closed. there s a lot of area. that s one of the reasons i called up the national guard. 100,000 people travel that
magnitude of the flooding, we re at the intersection of interstate 44 and route 141. you can see how close it is getting. behind those street lights, you could see interstate 44, roughly 24 miles of that interstate are now closed. you can imagine the travel nightmare that is creating. both of these major highways closed. as far as the eye can see. to my left, the water has been inching closer and closer to the entrance of that gas station there h. we saw workers rapidly build that wall of sand bags. now the owners, sitting back and hoping for the best. there were firefighters here moments ago, checking on the status of that propane tank to the left. if you guys can see that silver propane tank in the water, firefighters are here, trying to determine the status of it to make sure it is fastened to the ground. we re not sure if still is. as you can imagine they re trying to make sure that does not float away in the water for
ten-mile stretch of i-44 every day. is there one area or one thing you re most concerned about this morning, governor? two things really. first of all, don t drive into moving water. the 12 deaths we have had are when folks drove into moving water and perished. we are going to make sure people are safe in that area, you have pacific, eureka, valley park. these are highly populated areas setting up shelters at places like francis howell senior high school, places like that. the bottom line is, if they do have to leave their homes, we ll make sure they re kept safe. we have security coming in to make sure the only people coming in and out are people who live there and people who are there to fight the flood. you know what happened in 1993. it was devastating this