Falling river still presents travel concerns in Glasgow
Travel is still a concern for Glasgow residents, Mayor Fred Foley said Wednesday.
Foley said the town has two main exits for people to leave: Highway 5 and Highway 240. Highway 5 opened up on Monday after being closed for about 10 days.
“It takes me an hour and 15 minutes to drive a 20-minute drive,” Tammy Littrell said.
The Missouri River crested at the Howard County town early this week and is dropping slowly. It remained in major flood stage Wednesday but was expected to continue receding.
Littrell works at the Carquest Auto Parts store in town. She lives on the other side of the Glasgow bridge on Highway 240, which reamains closed due to flooding.
But she said it has gotten better since the first day the flood happened.
“I came down in a boat,” Littrell said. “Then from there it’s been and hour and a half or an hour and 45 minutes.”
She credited the drop in drive time to the opening of Highway240 spur in Rocheport.
Despite the long drive, she said it’s still better than the drive she had to take into town in 1993.
“You make the best of what it is,” she said. “It is hard, time consuming. I’m a little bit more tired than I used to be, but Dave takes care of me.”
David McKenzie is Littrell’s boss, the owner of the Glasgow Carquest store. McKenzie helps pay for Littrell’s gas.
But he is also paying for extra gas to deliver parts to his customers.
“The flooding has caused all sorts of issues trying to do business with folks on the other side of the river,” McKenzie said. “You either have to drive around or take a boat.”
Because of this, McKenzie said he expects to make less money than he normally would.
Despite the problems businesses in town may face, the mayor said as a whole, the town is alright. The flooding has not affected any buildings or homes in town. The city also has standby water stored in case something goes wrong.
Army Corps of Engineers officials said Wednesday that the slowly falling river levels can be attributed to factors including releases from upstream reservoirs and water that has gotten behind overtopped and breached levees returning to the river channel.
