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Floodwaters Test Sandbag Fortifications, Close Dam Road

Janet Saidi/KBIA

The Mississippi River is testing sandbag fortifications as high water levels make their way downstream.

In St. Louis, the river isn't expected to crest until Friday, but river levels already are the second highest on record. The city itself is well protected by a flood wall, but sandbagging was underway in suburban Bellefontaine Neighbors. And residents of one apartment complex near the suburb of Affton were evacuated because of related flooding along the River Des Peres.

Along the Missouri River, dozens of levees have been overtopped or breached. That's caused water to rise in the cemetery in the small town of Hardin, where more than 1,000 bodies washed away in the massive 1993 flooding.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also says water levels are at record levels in Truman Lake, and the roadway across the dam has been closed.

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