Louisiana residents evacuate as spillway fills lowlands - CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/16/flooding/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn


Unleashed by its U.S. Army minders, the Mississippi River poured across Louisiana lowlands Monday on its way to inundate thousands of homes and businesses as the Corps of Engineers fights to spare Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
"Hope you appreciate this Baton Rouge. You're welcome," read one sign posted outside a home in the path of the floodwater.
St. Martin Parish President Guy Cormier said about three-quarters of his constituents' homes are expected to suffer water damage after the weekend opening of the Morganza Spillway by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The controlled release of water from the swollen Mississippi has lowered projected flood levels for cities downstream -- but the lowered crests are little consolation to those living along the Atchafalaya River basin, where the water is being diverted.
"It just tears my heart up to know that these people's lives are fixing to change," Cormier said.
And Krotz Springs, about 20 miles down the Atchafalaya, Mayor Carroll Snyder told CNN that workers are scrambling to put together a temporary levee to protect about 240 homes on the south side of town.
Gallery: Floodwaters on the rise

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Running from the spillway flood

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Mississippi Flooding: Worst Is Yet to Come

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/11/mississippi-takes-aim-poverty-stricken-parts-delta

RENA LARA, Mississippi -- Floodwaters from the bloated Mississippi River and its tributaries spilled across farm fields, cut off churches, washed over roads and forced people from their homes Wednesday in the Mississippi Delta, a poverty-stricken region.

People used boats to navigate flooded streets as the crest rolled slowly downstream, bringing misery to poor, low-lying communities. Hundreds have left their homes in the Delta in the past several days as the water rose toward some of the highest levels on record.

The flood crest is expected to push all the way through the Delta by late next week.

Officials in the town, which has no local newspaper or TV stations, tried to reassure residents that they are doing what they can to shore up the levee and that they will warn people if they need to leave.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour urged people to get out if they think there is even a chance their homes will flood. He said there is no reason to believe a levee on the Yazoo River would fail, but if it did, 107 feet (32 meters) of water would flow over small towns.

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Flood Threat Along the Mississippi River

As the Mississippi River swells, areas along the river, stretching from Illinois to Louisiana, face severe flooding. Emergency workers try to protect small towns, farms and urban areas.

May 9: People gather to look at opened bays on the Bonnet Carre Spillway in Norco, La. The spillway, which the Army Corps of Engineers built about 30 miles upriver from New Orleans in response to the great flood of 1927, last opened during the spring 2008.

"More than anything else, save your life and don't put at risk other people who might have to come in and save your lives," he said.

Late Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed a disaster declaration for 14 counties in Mississippi because of the flooding. Housing and home repairs will be covered and low-interest loans to cover uninsured damage will be available.

The Mississippi Delta, with a population of about 465,000, is a leaf-shaped expanse of rich soil between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers, extending about 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Memphis, Tennessee to Vicksburg, Missachusetts. Along the way are towns whose names are familiar to Civil War buffs, aficionados of the blues, and scholars of the civil rights era: Clarksdale, Greenwood, Greenville and Yazoo City.

While some farms in the cotton-, rice- and corn-growing Delta are prosperous, there is also grinding poverty. Nine of the 11 counties that touch the Mississippi River in Mississippi have poverty rates at least double the national average of 13.5 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The governor said the state is asking local officials to get in touch with people who might have no electricity and phones and thus no way to get word of the flooding.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/11/mississippi-takes-aim-poverty-stricken-parts-delta/#ixzz1MGIev8TN

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Levees watched, locals warned in Memphis - Weather - msnbc.com

Image via Wikipediahttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42953666/ns/weather/?GT1=43001

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Now expecting the Mississippi River to crest in Memphis late Monday, hours sooner than previously predicted, officials were going door-to-door in unprotected neighborhoods as well as monitoring levees protecting most of the city.

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To the south, authorities in Louisiana stepped up their preparations by opening floodgates at a spillway northwest of New Orleans to take pressure off levees in populated areas. Inmates were also scheduled to be moved from a prison near Baton Rouge.
In Memphis, the homes in most danger of flooding are in areas not protected by levees or floodwalls, including near Nonconnah Creek and the Wolf and Loosahatchie rivers, said Col. Vernie Reichling, the Army Corps of Engineers commander for the Memphis district.
About 150 Corps workers were walking along levees and monitoring the performance of pump stations along what Reichling called the "wicked" Mississippi. "There should be no concern for any levees to fail," he said in a downtown park on a bluff overlooking the river.

For Cedric Blue, the flooding in his south Memphis neighborhood near the overflowing Nonconnah Creek is a source of frustration and anger.
Blue, 39, has watched as the water engulfed three homes on his street, including that of an older woman who had to be rescued in a boat because she had refused to leave. Blue fears the rising water will ruin his house and his belongings while washing away a lifetime of memories that were created there.
Sunday afternoon, a garbage can floated in the high water near his house. Some feet away, the water had reached more than halfway up a yellow "No Outlet" street sign.
He became emotional talking about how he has about 7 feet of water in his backyard and less than a foot inside the house, which his mother owns. They were in the middle of a remodeling project when the flood hit.
Blue said he wants the city, county or the federal government to give him a hotel voucher so he does not have to go to a shelter.
"I just want a new life and relocation," Blue said. "I would like the elected officials to come down here to see this with their own eyes and see what we're going through."
Mayor AC Wharton said that despite the tightened timeframe, he's confident that precautions such as door-to-door warnings have prepared the city.

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"We don't have as much time, but fortunately we're ready for it," Wharton told CBS television Monday.
Wharton said disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, which flooded parts of New Orleans and other areas in 2005, have shown that you can't simply get the word out by issuing warnings on TV.

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