Iowa Red Cross workers ready to help with flooding in Missouri, Illinois

Red Cross workers across Iowa are on stand-by and some have already been called to action to help flood victims in neighboring states of Missouri and Illinois. Gary Shivers is emergency services director for the agency’s Quad City chapter, which dispatched one staff member to Springfield, Illinois, over the weekend.Forecasters expect the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area may be 15 feet over flood stage today following several days of heavy rain last week. The flooding is blamed in nine deaths in Missouri and Illinois. Shivers says the Red Cross is offering its typical flood services.Mobile feeding stations are being set up for people who are sandbagging to protect levees, homes and businesses. Clean water is being offered to residents as often flooding rivers contaminate wells. The Red Cross will also offer “clean up kits” to help people get their lives back to normal once the waters recede. Shivers says it’s hard to say how many people have been hit by this round of flooding.There’s flooding reported in more than half of Missouri’s 114 counties and the governor has declared a statewide emergency. Illinois has requested a federal disaster area declaration for the entire state, though Shivers says the worst flooding is in the state’s southern nine counties.