Chester Bridge to close
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The Missouri Department of Transportation will close the Chester Bridge after all.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">After initially stating Monday that it had no plans to close the bridge, the revised crest of the Mississippi River at Chester ultimately forced MoDOT's hand and the bridge is anticipated to close at noon Thursday.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">"Due to increased Mississippi River levels and current crest level predictions, MoDOT has determined it necessary to close the bridge to prevent additional flooding in Perry County," a post on MoDOT Southeast District's Facebook page said. "Travelers need to make plans to find alternate routes to travel from Missouri to Illinois."</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Crest predictions from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were revised upward on Tuesday to 45 feet on Saturday morning, up from 43.5 feet on Monday.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">"As far as when the floodgates go in, we're looking at 44 feet," said Brian Okenfuss, spokesman for MoDOT, in a phone interview with the Herald Tribune on Monday afternoon. "We have a semi-permanent concrete structure on the east side and we'll wrap that in plastic to keep water off the low side of the road."</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Rain, some heavy, was forecast to return to the area late Tuesday night and last until Friday morning. The National Weather Service advised that localized flooding was possible with the newest round of precipitation.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">"A new storm system will bring an additional 2 to 4 inches of rain to the region," the NWS said in a statement. "This rain will impact areas which experienced 4 to 8 inches of rain this past weekend and are already experiencing flooding.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">"The combination of this new rainfall falling on the existing saturated soils will result in enhanced runoff. This runoff should result in widespread areal flooding and may also cause rapid onset flash flooding."</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Numerous secondary roads are already closed in Randolph and Jackson counties due to flooding. The floodgates at Cora on the Randolph/Jackson County line - as well as the Marys River Bridge on State Route 3 south of Chester - were closed on Monday.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">"It's only going to get worse before things get better," a MoDOT spokesperson tweeted to the Herald Tribune.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">This will be the third time in its 75-year history that the Chester Bridge will be closed due to flooding. The bridge was closed for the New Year's Flood a year and a half ago and was closed for 68 days during the Flood of 1993, the worst the region has seen thus far.</span>