watching television, listening to the television, listening to the aert erleralerts. some having issues with communication in the area, in st. louis. we have people on the ground. we will speak to officials in just a few minutes to get the latest on that developing situation there. we do have jennifer grey right now. she s there for us. she s in valley park, missouri. she s got the latest on the timing and the forecast. what can you tell us? we re talking about record-breaking water here, flooding, levees throughout the region are being monitored as these rivers are rising quickly, jennifer. you re exactly right, christine. we are going to see record-breaking flooding here in valley park. in fact, the river is supposed to crest about three feet above the record level. if you can see behind me, this is where 141 and interstate 44 meet. this is a main thoroughfare. you can see how high the water is. i m not sure if you can see the overpass of the interstate over there. the water is
midnight tonight. sometime between midnight and 6:00 a.m. that s a good three feet above the record. flood stage is 16 feet, and we are now at 40. so you can imagine. look behind me. look at all of this water. this is actually highway 141. it runs perpendicular to interstate 44, which a huge section of that has been completely closed off. all of these signs are under water. and this is not standing water. it is actually rushing through here. we ve seen barricades. we ve seen all sorts of things just being pulled with the current. and then a lot of it just sucked completely under water, never seeing it again. there is a huge problem here around this area. we ve talked to a couple of the residents. one lady in particular who evacuated earlier today, listen to what she had to say. i mean, my house is on a hill, but our street, once i got out, it was just already flooded. and i was just, like, i have to get out because i have actually
up in some areas and, of course, we re inundated with a lot of water. yes. russell, obviously that the true. it s a little bit of delay, folks. we ask for your patients. we ve seen a lot of roads and highways and freeways have been closed through that area. as you mentioned, some of the water has receded through some of those areas. talk about the closures and are folks heeding the call to stay off the roadways? yes. people are staying off the roadways. interstate 44 is now closed. that s a huge concern for the whole area. that s our connection to st. louis, obviously. the most direct connection. and it is closed this morning. we re showing you a map right now, in fact we can pull it up one more time, the dates that the mississippi river is expected to crest. you can see literally over the
interstate. it is rushing by. this is not just standing water. there s actually fight a bit of current here. that s why we talk about how flooding can be so deadly. it is extremely dangerous. they have been doing evacuations. this is going to rival the 1993 floods, in fact, some areas south of st. louis will actually be worse than that. we re also going to see a lot of these stations south of st. louis break records. so they have been doing evacuations. of course, you have all of these different rivers that are feeding into the mississippi river. this is a very different scenario from the 1993 floods that happened in the summertime. it was after a lot of rain plus the snow melt. and so this is happening in december where we ve just had more rain than we can handle. st. louis has actually broken a record for rainfall this year. and the south has seen an incredible amount of rain. it s not only the st. louis area that s going to have problems
missouri, and a major interstate was closed eastbound and westbound traffic, and they are expecting it to happen again. out to the meramec and interstate 44, and 144 goes underneath, but it is flooded and expected the go more. and the meramec will go to fenton and arnold, and so again, this is where st. louis meets, and if you have seen the city flag, it has the three rivers, and that is the problem. some cases, not as bad as 1993, but in some cases along the m a meramec, it is going to be worst flooding we have seen. and now, we will look at things are looking to get worse in the coming hours. and tom sater stay tuned so we