(Adds latest flooding forecast, comment from emergency managers)
By Humeyra Pamuk
VALLEY, Neb., March 20 (Reuters) - A string of small Missouri towns prepared for the next deluge along the raging Missouri River on Wednesday after flooding wreaked nearly $1.5 billion in damage in Nebraska, killing at least four people and leaving another man missing.
High water unleashed by last week's late-winter storm and melting snow has already inundated a large swath of Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa along the Missouri River, North America's longest river. States of emergency have been declared in all or parts of the three Midwestern farm states.
The Missouri River's next major flood crest was forecast to hit St. Joseph, Missouri, at 6 a.m. on Friday and Kansas City, Missouri, 55 miles (88 km) to the south, about 24 hours later, said Mike Glasch of the Omaha District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Homeowners and businesses across Leavenworth County, Missouri, where 81,000 people were under a flood warning on Wednesday, were placing sandbags around property as they have watched the river rise over the last few days, Kim Buchanan, the county’s deputy director of emergency management, told Reuters.
"We have moderate flooding at this time," she said, noting that the forecast shows the river cresting seven feet above flood stage on Thursday or Friday. "Anybody with river interest has already instigated their flood plans and have taken their defensive actions.”
FOUR DEAD
The floods killed four people in Nebraska and Iowa since last week, and officials warned the damage toll would rise as receding waters revealed more devastated roadways, bridges and homes.
A fifth man has been missing since the collapse of the Spencer Dam along the Niobrara River last. He was identified by the Omaha World-Herald newspaper as Kenny Angel.
Authorities said they had rescued nearly 300 people in Nebraska alone.
A levee break prompted the evacuation of the small community of Craig, Missouri. Real estate agent Jamie Barnes said everyone in town had time to get out before it was flooded, and water was now flowing south through farmland toward communities such as Forest City, Forbes and St Joseph.
"There's just water as far as the eye can see, from bluff to bluff. In some places its five miles, in some 15," Barnes said by phone.
Several other communities in that area of northwest Missouri have also been evacuated, the Army Corps of Engineers said at a briefing.
"Much of the levee system remains compromised, and as of noon Wednesday there are more than 30 total breaches across the system," in the three states experiencing flooding, Lieutenant Colonel James Startzell, deputy commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Omaha District told the briefing.