8/10/93
By: Bev Darr
Courier-Post Staff Writer

Although the 1.7 inches of rain Hannibal received in the last 24 hours brought flood waters back over the Illinois roads near Hannibal, the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge is expected to remain open.

The bridge was just reopened Wednesday after being closed since July 2, and Illinois officials plan to keep it open.

Today their highway department crews are raising the part of U.S. 36 that has water over it. This is east of the bridge over Sny Creek and the railroad.

Roger Wright, District 6 project engineer with the Illinois Department of Transportation, said traffic will be one way while a layer of rock is added, one lane at a time.

"We don't know how high the water is going to come," Wright said, explaining that this morning the water covered an area between 300 and 500 feet long, and "it may grow as the water increases."

"We urge all motorists to use extreme caution when going through that area, because of the water and the construction equipment."

"The water was right at the shoulder's edge and is now going across it. We are doing the best we can put up barricades, so the bridge can remain open."

The Quincy bridges were expected to reopen by the first of October, but the current rain may delay their reopening, according to Dick Jones, District 3 engineer with the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department.

Repair work is continuing on U.S. 54, where water is being pumped out of the railroad underpass at the rate of 60,000 gallons a minute today. A levee was built around this area before the water could be removed. "The levee is holding for the most part, but we have a little seepage," Jones said.

"There is no road from the underpass to the old Ayerco station, and we still have some places with water. Also, the water is coming up this morning."

He had earlier reported a Quincy bridge might reopen by the first of October, but said today "this was before the rain."

Quincy manufacturing plants found various ways to help their Missouri employees cope with the flood, such as Harris Corp. at 30th and Wismann Lane. Kenneth Okamoto, director of human resources at Harris, said 59 of the plant's 460 employees live in Missouri. They were offered a four-day work week and also given a $20 daily allowance. "We hope it made life a little easier for those folks," he said.

Most of them stayed in Quincy during the week and commuted weekends, he said, although about six flew to Quincy daily and a few arrived by boat.

Today nearly all are coming to work by crossing the Hannibal bridge, he said, and "we just hope it stays open.

"We did not have any layoffs. The flood had very little impact on us," Wright said. "Our people are very good about showing up for work. We had a group of employees who pulled together and rented two houses. And we had one employee who donated an empty house for people to stay in."

Harris primarily makes transmitters for radio and television stations, he said. It also has a small plant in Palmyra that builds antennas. This plant has about eight employees, including three from Illinois.

Two of them switched to working in Quincy during the flood, while one stayed with the Palmyra plant.