NEW MADRID, Mo. (AP) - Nearly two years after the Army Corps of Engineers intentionally breached a southeast Missouri levee at the height of Mississippi River flooding, two of the three crevasses have been restored to the levee’s original height.

The Southeast Missourian reports that work on the upper and center crevasses at Birds Point levee have been completed except for turf installation. The lower opening has been partly restored but should be finished by March.

The corps used explosives at the three points on the levee in May 2011 as floodwaters threatened nearby Cairo, Ill. The action lowered the river level enough to save Cairo, but flooded 130,000 acres of mostly farmland in southeast Missouri.

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