It is unclear at this time whether those levees have contributed to flooding in the St. Louis area. The corps’ St. Louis District is conducting a similar investigation into local levee heights, set to be completed by March 2018.

Some residents in flooded communities on the Meramec are wondering whether there are enough flood control systems in place.

“There was a serious pursuit of damming this river up, some time ago,” said Fenton resident, John Huff, referencing a failed bid in the 1970s and ’80s to situate a dam near Meramec State Park in Sullivan. “This levee system isn’t working.”

Though some say it may have helped with flood control, dams come with their own complicated web of costs and benefits. Criss, for one, says it would have been the wrong approach, especially given the number of caves in that location.

“The whole area is Swiss cheese,” Criss said. “You cannot build a dam on that kind of rock.”

Plus, he points to severe floods in northwest Missouri in 2011 as a powerful illustration that dammed watersheds aren’t immune to flooding.