Missouri River closed from St. Charles to Kansas City due to dangerous conditions
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The U.S. Coast Guard has closed the Missouri River between St. Charles and Kansas City due to dangerous conditions.
According to a notice from the Coast Guard, the river from mile marker 27 to mile marker 366 is closed due to “high water and threat of any boat wake to damage sandbag placement or levee overtopping.”
“The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, there’s potential for excessive debris in that water and the vessels are harder to maneuver due to the current," Lt. Eric Kiehlmeier told ABC 17 News. "I know it’s Fourth of July weekend and everyone wants to go boating but it would be hard for everyone to respond to potential search and rescue cases. We even have commercial vessels ceasing operations at this time because they can’t transit safely.”
The closure has forced some Mid-Missourians to cancel their July 4th events. Richard King, the owner of Cooper’s Landing in Boone County, says that the holiday weekend is one of the best times a year for business. However, due to flooding, he was forced to cancel a series of events over the weekend that featured food trucks and live music.
“We had a full weekend of music," King said. "We had a full weekend of food trucks and Fourth of July campers. It's a great weekend for being outdoors and we just had to bag, the whole thing, because you couldn't get there."
Not only has flooding caused dangerous conditions on the river, it also closed the only two roads leading to Cooper's Landing.
“That’s part of the deal being along the river so I understand that and I'm not sitting around crying about that," King said. "But, you know, it was disappointing, like one of the bands the band was supposed to play was so excited to be there. And I had to deliver the news that there's no way it's going to happen. I just said ‘You know there’s just no way you can get there.'"
King added that while it was unfortunate, he understands the decision. In 2019, the first year he took over the business, flood waters swept away one of his dumpsters and several picnic tables. He says he has since learned from that experience.
“We all had to go down there and get our crew and we had people volunteer friends come down and we had to move everything to drier ground,” King said.
After checking river gauges and seeing some heavy rain roll through Mid-Missouri earlier in the week King reached out to the bands and food trucks warning them that the weekend event may have to be canceled. On Thursday, he officially decided to cancel.
Alexandra Roper is a regular at Cooper's Landing and says she was looking forward to showing it off to her cousin who had driven from St. Louis for the weekend.
“It’s one of my places that I love to go to kind of get away from all of the loud noise and everything," Roper said. "It’s a peaceful place for me. It’s serene and it’s where I can just go and listen to the water and enjoy the time and space. My cousin who was in from out of town is a very similar person in that we love connecting with nature and this is one of my favorite spots to do that."
Unfortunately, the two were forced to make other plans.
“I was really looking forward to the Fourth of July celebration because it’s one of the places that’s far and away enough from out of town and you're out of city limits so you can enjoy everything,” Roper explained. “I was really upset when the flood waters came and I was just mostly concerned for Cooper’s itself and making sure they're okay.”
Roper wasn’t alone in her concern. King says that after announcing the decision to cancel, he received an outpouring of support from the community. The Coast Guard and Army Corps are predicting the river will reopen Sunday at the earliest.
