Washington Post

Latest Texas Drought Outlook: Grim With a Few Drops of Hope

The Texas drought – already the Lone Star State’s worst one-year drought on record – is now expected to last through at least next summer, and perhaps far longer than that, according to the latest climate projections released by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and recent testimony by the Texas state climatologist. READ MORE

Missouri Farm Bureau

If You Breach It, You Fix It

President Obama spent time in the Midwest recently conducting a tour of rural America.  We appreciate his interest in our part of the world, and would urge him to come back and continue his tour along the Missouri River, where historic flooding has displaced hundreds of rural residents and covered hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. READ MORE

KFYR-TV News

ND, Mo. Senators Team Up to Study Flooding

A congressional working group tasked with addressing flooding up and down the entire Missouri River appears to be taking shape. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. says he and Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., came up with the idea to get all of the senators from states the river runs through on board. READ MORE

Columbia Daily Tribune

McCaskill Calls Inquiries Seeking Property Along Missouri River Insensitive

The Army Corps of Engineers showed “the sensitivity of a two-by-four” when it sent letters asking property owners along the flooding Missouri River whether they wanted to sell their land, according to U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill. READ MORE

Kansas City Star

Brownback Says Flooding Should Prompt Review of Corps

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is questioning whether flood control is a high enough priority for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as it oversees the Missouri River system. READ MORE

Kansas City Star

Battle Against Missouri River Flooding Shifts East

Flood-fighting efforts continued Wednesday in Carroll County, Mo., between Kansas City and Columbia, as the battle against the Missouri River advanced downstream. READ MORE

NASA

Landsat 5 Captures Missouri River Flooding Near Omaha

Landsat 5 captured an image of flooding occurring along the Iowa/Nebraska border on June 30, 2011. Flooding is still occurring on July 6, and Flood Warnings are still in effect from the National Weather Service. READ MORE

WHO-TV

Damage Check: State Organizations and Representatives Perform a Damage Assessment of Iowa Farmland by Missouri River Flooding

Representatives of Iowa Homeland Security, FEMA and the Small Business Administration took a tour of two western Iowa counties on Wednesday to assess how much damage private home owners and farmers may have due to the on going flood of the Missouri River. READ MORE

Wall Street Journal

After the Flood, Farmers Try to Dig In

Only a few farmers have planted crops a month after flooding prompted the Army Corps of Engineers to blow a two-mile hole in a levee that protected them from the Mississippi River for decades... READ MORE

National Public Radio

Finding a Disaster's Economic Silver Lining

From Montana to Missouri, thousands of people have had to evacuate their homes and businesses to escape the flood waters of the Missouri River. Over the weekend, the Army Corps of Engineers closed nearly 200 miles of the river to boating traffic... READ MORE

Reuters

Communities Along the Rising Missouri River Prepare for Flooding

Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota is expected by mid-June to begin releasing up to 150,000 cubic feet of water per second, more than double the previous record in 1997, thanks to heavy rains and snow melt up north... READ MORE

AFBF

2011 Drought Worries Farmers and Ranchers

Floods, with dramatic images of rising water and submerged property, make for better television than cracked, bone-dry soil that is the result of devastating drought. But for farmers and ranchers, both are equally calamitous... READ MORE

AFBF

Seeing Beyond the Devastation

Seeing the raw video footage and photos of the unbelievable devastation from flooding in the South and Midwest has been heart wrenching. Our prayers go out to all of the people who have had their lives and livelihoods uprooted and washed away... READ MORE

AFBF

Devastating Floods Temper Spring Optimism

Nothing enlivens a farmer’s spirit of optimism and hope for the harvest to come than spring planting. After winter months spent in planning and looking at market signals to determine what to plant, the miracle truly begins when the farmer puts seed to soil in the spring and prays for cooperative weather... READ MORE

 

State Resources

Arkansas

Arkansas Farm Bureau Update (June) video – More than 1 million acres underwater.  Damage estimated at more than $500 million.  That total is expected to climb as damage to equipment, infrastructure, homes, other buildings is assessed. READ MORE

Louisiana

• State of Louisiana Emergency Services
  
  
• Louisiana Farm Bureau

Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain said an estimated 15,256 acres of crops in the spillway and basin and another 2,853 in the fore bay area between the spillway gates and Mississippi River would be lost with the opening of the Morganza Spillway. READ MORE

Mississippi

Army Corps of Engineers estimates approximately 185,000 acres of row crops were flooded in the Mississippi Delta during late May, according to Mississippi State University report: READ MORE

Mississippi State University says oysters are not expected to survive flooding. READ MORE

CNN article references estimate of 600,000 flooded farmland acres, according to Andy Prosser of the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce. READ MORE

Missouri

As the surge of high water on the Missouri River continued inexorably on its way toward St. Louis, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators – including Sens. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. – formed a working group to address river and flood issues. READ MORE

According to the Missouri Farm Bureau, massive flooding along the river will likely cause millions of dollars in losses to the state's agricultural sector, adding to the $85 million dollars in farm revenue lost earlier this season when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers destroyed the Birds Point Levee along the Mississippi River inundating 570,000 acres in Southeast Missouri. READ MORE

Historic levels of snow melt and rainfall resulted in the flooding of nearly 600,000 acres of prime Missouri farmland, 130,000 of which is attributed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers intentional breach of the levee at Bird’s Point, according to Missouri Farm Bureau news release. READ MORE

North Dakota

Preliminary estimates show heavy snow, flooding and excessive rain are keeping 6.3 million acres – more than one-quarter the state’s cropland – from being planted, the North Dakota USDA Farm Service Agency reports. READ MORE

NDFB President Eric Aasmundstad shares plans to move because of flooding on Devils Lake. READ MORE

Tennessee

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is asking for a secretarial designation of natural disaster in 15 counties as a result of April and May's severe storms and historic flooding. Farmers in affected counties are reporting 30 percent to 60 percent crop losses, primarily corn and wheat, but also hay, pastures, specialty crops and nursery stock. READ MORE

General/National

• Cargill estimates 2.5 million acres of corn lost to flooding. READ MORE
  
  
• Army Corps of Engineers releasing more water from dams in North and South Dakota, causing levees to breach. Homes, farmland in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska etc. flooded. READ MORE
  
  
• Additional reports on the Missouri River flooding. READ MORE
  
  
• Vilsack estimates 400,000-500,000 acres of farmland flooded in Nebraska and Iowa. READ MORE
  
  
• Associated Press article: John Michael Riley, an agricultural economist at Mississippi State University, estimates that the flood has destroyed up to $1.5 billion of corn, wheat and other crops. Livestock pastures and fish farms have also been hurt, he said. READ MORE
  
  
• Illinois Farm Bureau’s FarmWeek says corn will be most affected by flooding-related shipping delays, according to Darrel Good, University of Illinois Extension economist. READ MORE
  
  
• Illinois Farm Bureau’s FarmWeek quotes analytical firm that says the flooding’s impact on ag will be less than predicted by AFBF, others.  "The floods have likely prevented 200,000 acres of corn plantings and will likely reduce the combined area of rice and soybeans by no more than 300,000 acres," Lanworth said. READ MORE
  
  
• The public relations firm Osborn and Barr is making a documentary about the Birds Point (Mo.) levee breach. READ MORE