BRANSON, Mo. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the six lakes it manages in the White River Basin have done their job during recent flooding.

P.J. Spaul of the Corps’ Little Rock, Ark., office says flows on the Black River near the southeast Missouri community of Poplar Bluff would have been four times greater without Clearwater Lake near Piedmont.

Without Table Rock Lake in the Branson area, the crest on the White River would have been an estimated 20 feet higher. He says that would have inundated hundreds more homes and business.

Spaul says that without the Bull Shoals and Norfork Lakes in Arkansas, most of the levees downstream would have been overtopped, and Arkansas communities such as Jacksonport and Newport would have flooded.