Worst over for Mississippi flooding

EAST ST. LOUIS, Illinois (Reuters) - The swollenMississippi River's crest rolled downstream on Saturday,sparing St. Louis from major flooding but leaving billions ofdollars in damage to crops, houses and infrastructure furthernorth.

Emergency workers anxiously watched the skies, fearing thatmore rain could swell river levels again and complicaterecovery efforts from the worst Midwest flooding in 15 years.

With the worst of the flooding apparently over, communitiesalong the Mississippi's flood plain were tallying their lossesand waiting for water to recede.

"Right now things are looking good. The crisis part ispassed and that's heartening. We're breathing a sigh ofrelief," said Farm Bureau official Blake Roderick, executivedirector for Pike and Scott counties in Illinois.

Just isolated showers and thunderstorms were forecast forportions of southern Wisconsin on Saturday, according to theNational Weather Service.

River levels peaked in St. Louis at 37.27 feet (11.3metres) late on Friday, lower than earlier forecast and belowthe record of 49.58 feet (15.1 meters) set in 1993.

More than two dozen levee breaks up-river earlier in theweek took pressure off downstream areas.

No additional levee breaks were reported on Saturday, andsandbagging operations in some communities were halted.

"St. Louis has crested. Everything is holding north ofhere," said John Daves, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers in St. Louis.

Some 130 miles (209 km) downstream, the nation's mostimportant river is expected to crest at Cape Girardeau,Missouri, on Monday at 41.5 feet (12.6 metres), well below the1993 peak of 48.5 feet (14.8 meters).

HIGHER WORLD FOOD PRICES

The Midwest flooding and storms blamed for 24 deaths sincelate May have caused damage in the billions of dollars in thisprime part of the U.S. grain belt and are expected to push U.S.and world food prices higher.

The violent rush submerged small towns and vast stretchesof prime corn and soybean acreage. Barge traffic remains haltedon a 200-mile (322 km) stretch of the mid-Mississippi River,costing barge carriers millions of dollars a day.

"At times like these you don't know whether to cry orlaugh. But here in the Midwest we tend to favour the latter,"said Charlotte Hoerr, who with her husband Brent farms nearPalmyra, Missouri.

Up to 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of recentlyplanted crops may have been lost at the heart of the world'stop grain and food exporter. In Iowa alone, crop losses havebeen estimated at $3 billion (1.5 billion pounds).

Prices for corn, cattle and hogs all set records this week,and a world economy already slammed by inflation from soaringenergy prices braced for another blow.

The economically depressed Illinois city of East St. Louis,located across the river from the Missouri city, appeared tohave been spared a potential disaster as its outdated leveeswere holding. But some concern lingered about water seepingunderneath levees from "sand boils," or leaks bubbling up fromwater pressure.

Ed Hecker, chief of the office of homeland security for theU.S. Army Corp of Engineers, said there was "some minorunder-seepage" on both sides of the river at that point butadded, "It really is not seen as a risk to the system."

President George W. Bush toured some of the devastation inIowa on Thursday, and the White House said relief would be madeavailable from $4 billion in the government's disaster fund.

Bridges and highways have been swamped, factories shutdown, water and power utilities damaged, and the earnings ofrailroads, farmers and myriad other businesses disrupted.

Flood relief was rapidly becoming a political issue in aU.S. election year. Republican presidential candidate JohnMcCain toured Iowa on Thursday, separately from Bush, whileDemocratic candidate Barack Obama helped stack sandbags earlierin the week in Quincy in his home state of Illinois.

"I've seen firsthand the growing magnitude of this floodingdisaster, and unfortunately the end is not yet in sight,"Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said on Friday, saying he hadasked Bush for faster aid for 20 flooded Illinois counties.

(Writing by Ros Krasny and Peter Bohan; additionalreporting by Nick Carey; editing by Vicki Allen)