Tagged: FEMA

The people who oversee 64 miles of aging Mississippi River levees in southwestern Illinois have signed off on a $151 million plan to upgrade the barriers perhaps by 2014.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the Southwestern Illinois Flood Prevention District Council adopted the proposal Wednesday involving levees in Madison, St. Clair and Monroe counties.

Officials expect the upgrades to be funded largely by a quarter-cent sales tax.

Updated 5:07 p.m. to reflect that the cleanup work begins Wednesday.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says the federal government has agreed to pay a greater-than-usual share of the cleanup costs from a deadly tornado that struck Joplin.

He says the federal government will cover 90 percent of the expedited debris removal from areas that received extensive damage.

Updated at 5:16 p.m. with gallery of aerial photographs from msnbc.com.

Updated at 4:29 p.m. with information on multi-vortex designation from the National Weather Service.

The New York Times brings us this update this afternoon on the continuing situation in Joplin:

About 1,500 people are unaccounted for in this battered city, a Fire Department official said Tuesday, as rescue workers took advantage of a few hours of sunny weather to continue searching for survivors in buildings leveled by the country’s deadliest tornado in more than 60 years.

As of 1 p.m. today, The Missouri State Emergency Management Association, or SEMA, lists the death toll at 117 people, and that number could climb.