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Sandbagging efforts have reached as far downstream as Wooldridge.

The community of four dozen people located just south of I-70 in Cooper County was swamped by the great flood of 1993.

Now, a new generation of local officials have committed to doing what it takes to keep that from happening again.

The backwaters of the Missouri River sit quietly, like an assault force just waiting for the order to invade. The levee surrounding Woolridge will repel the attack to a river depth of 32 feet.

“The river is currently sitting between 27 and 28 feet. The defense strategy is to add another 16 inches to the top of the levee with sandbags.

“Once the water gets up to the railroad tracks, it goes through the ballast, the rock up around the levee,” Wooldridge Resident Jeff Vollrath said. “So we can only bring it up that far. That’s as high as we can go before the water does get in the town.”

Cooper County said the National Guard is helping sandbag.

“We’re having the National Guard come down to finish out a couple thousand sandbags along the top so we can make at least level with the railroad,” Cooper County Emergency Management director Tom White said.

A unit of about two dozen citizen soldiers from Independence rolled into town around 10 a.m.

The crew has been on flood detail for a couple of weeks, working their way down river from Holt County.

They use what they call engineering assets – a bobcat with a special attachment that scoops up the sand and funnels it into tubes, which feed the material into the individual bags.

The community plans to continue building the levee with a more permanent fortification in the fall.