The swollen Mississippi River was pushing downstream at 10 times the speed of Niagara Falls Saturday, threatening homes in rural southern Missouri and Illinois, NBC News reported.
Two more levees succumbed Friday, bringing the number of levee failures along its course to at least 11. In Arnold, Missouri, an estimated 150 homes were underwater.
The flood, fueled by more than 10 inches of rain over a three-day period that began last weekend, is blamed for 22 deaths. Searchers were still looking for five missing people — two teenagers in Illinois, two men in Missouri and a country music singer in Oklahoma.
The surge in water from the flooding was expected to hit cities further south, such as Memphis, Tennessee, during next week.
