Barriers used to stop insurgents' bullets in Iraq (web|news) will be used to hold back water from a leaky levee along the
swollen Black River.

Trucks dumped load after load of rocks over a flooded road Friday near Pocahontas, trying to build a path above the water for workers to install HESCO bastion walls. Workers can use heavy equipment like back hoes to fill the wire-mesh container's plastic lining in minutes - as opposed to the hours it takes to build a sandbag wall.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it brought 1,000 feet of the bastions to Pocahontas to hold back a cut in the levee along the Black River. The corps has another 500 feet of the bastions in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, nearly 50 miles northeast of Pocahontas along the Black River.

The National Weather Service (web|news) issued a flood warning for Lawrence and Randolph counties through Saturday morning as clouds took over the sky across the state. Forecasters called for a 50% chance of thunderstorms Friday and the possibility of more rains heading into the weekend.

Steve Bays, a hydrologist for the weather service, says the system could bring as much as 2 inches of rain to the state. As long as the rain didn't come all at once, he says the showers shouldn't cause rivers to rise any higher.

Estimates put the White River to crest at Clarendon by Sunday at 33.5 feet.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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