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• Property buyouts, enhanced levees and flood walls will limit any damage, but several roads, thousands of acres of farmland and a few homes and businesses would be impacted and small levees could be overtopped.
• Emergency management operators say they've begun to brace for the worst.
• "I'll go into a full-scale flood fight," said John Hark, emergency management coordinator in Hannibal, Mo., the scenic hometown of Mark Twain.
• The historic downtown area, including Twain's boyhood home, is protected by an earthen flood wall, and buyouts have removed flood-prone homes outside the wall's perimeter. But Hark said the excessive rain could create a sudden rise that would cause Bear Creek, a Mississippi River tributary, to back up, closing roads and threatening some homes.
• About 30 miles to the south, Louisiana, Mo., has no flood wall. The downtown is far enough from the river that it is in no danger, but a flood reaching 8 to 10 feet above flood stage would push muddy river water over Highway 79 -- the main north-south highway through town -- and damage a few homes and businesses, City Administrator Bob Jenne said.
• "We do have sand and all the bags already stockpiled in the event we need them," Jenne said. "Right now, it's wait and see."
• Potentially worsening the flooding in the not-too-distant future is another strong snowstorm in the northern Plains, snow that will eventually melt and trickle into rivers. The newest system could drop as much as 15 inches of snow in western South Dakota by Thursday, forcing schools to close and making travel dangerous. It follows a weekend storm that dumped a single-day record 17.3 inches of snow on Bismarck, N.D.
• The National Weather Service on Wednesday told Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn., residents to prepare for flooding along the Red River. It would be the fourth major flood in five years for an area that has about 200,000 people.
• The weather service said there's a 40 percent chance the north-flowing river would top the 2009 record of 40.84 feet, or nearly 23 feet above the point when the river spills its banks. That would likely mean sandbagging for more than 200 homeowners in Fargo and about 40 homeowners in Moorhead.
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