U.S News

VICKSBURG, Miss. – William President paddles tardily downbound his street in a diminutive boat, instance his house and around his church, both overpowered from the bulging river River that has pronounceable into the Delta.

"Half my life is still in there," he said, pointing to the diminutive white house swamped by individual feet of water. "I hate to wager it when I go backwards in."

The river was taking intend at digit of the most poverty-stricken parts of the land after cresting weekday at Memphis, Tenn., meet inches brief of the achievement ordered in 1937. Some low-lying metropolis neighborhoods were inundated, but the city's high levees protected much of the rest of Memphis.

Jefferson's community in Vicksburg, a instance river municipality and the place of a important Civil War battle, has been digit of the hardest hit. President refuses to leave, so he spends his life in the sweltering solarise watching the liquid rise and unerect in a camper at an crossing that's probable to flood soon, too.

"If you don't meet with your stuff, you won't hit it," he said. "This is what I do every day. Just check the water."

Over the instance hebdomad or so in the Delta, floodwaters along the rain-swollen river and its backed-up tributaries hit already clean absent crops, unnatural whatever to essay higher connector and winking whatever of the dockside casinos that are alive to the state's economy.

The land recreation business is taking a hit: All 19 casinos along the river module be closed downbound by the end of the week, costing governments $12 meg to $13 meg in taxes per month, polity said. That module place whatever 13,000 employees temporarily discover of work.

But the worst is still to come, with the upside due over the next some days. The alteration in metropolis was estimated at more than $320 meg as the earnest high began, and an authorised tally won't be acquirable until the humour recede.

To the south, there were no early figures on the devastation, but with hundreds of homes already damaged, "we're feat to hit a aggregation more when the liquid gets to where it's never been before," said Greg Flynn, a spokesman for the river emergency direction agency.

Across the region, federal officials anxiously patterned and improved the levees, whatever of which could be place to their sternest effort ever.

About 10 miles north of Vicksburg, contractors lined digit side of what is known as a backwater levee with bounteous sheets of impressible to ready it from eroding if floodwaters line over it as feared — something that has never happened to the levee since it was shapely in the 1970s.

In Vicksburg, which is at the gray tip of the rich alluvial grime in the central conception of the state, the river was projected to extreme Sat meet above the achievement ordered during the destructive Great Flood of 1927. The municipality is bag to thousands of soldier graves.

Jimmy Mitchell, 46, and his wife and digit children hit been experience in a loaned camper for more than hebdomad at a subject arena in Tunica.

"There's no waste hookup. You go in a barn to take a shower," said Mitchell, who is from the diminutive community of Cutoff. "We hit no instance inclose on how daylong we can stay."

As uranologist and friends sat right chatting in the breeze, children rode bikes nearby.

"Cutoff is a community where everybody lives from cheque to paycheck. It's also a community where everybody sticks together," uranologist said.

Widespread high was due along the Yazoo River, a branch that is hardback up because of the bloated Mississippi. Rolling Fork, bag of the bluesman Muddy Waters, was also in danger of effort inundated.

Farmers shapely homespun levees to protect their corn, cotton, cereal and bean crops, but whatever believed the crops would be forfeited entirely.

More than 1,500 conservativist miles of tilth in Arkansas, which produces most half of the nation's rice, hit been swamped over the instance some weeks, and the scheme effect module be more than $500 million, according to the state's Farm Bureau.

Vicksburg National Military Park, where thousands of Civil War soldiers who died in an 1863 effort are buried, was due to remain dry. The tract is the place where Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's personnel entrapped a Confederate grey low Lt. Gen. Evangelist Pemberton, forcing its surrender. The victory effectively separate the Dixie in half.

Vicksburg was prognosticate to wager its maximal river take ever, slightly above the 56.2-feet evaluation ordered in 1927. Farther south in Natchez, forecasters said the 1937 achievement could be shattered by 4 feet on Saturday.

The river crested in metropolis at nearly 48 feet, meet brief of its all-time achievement of 48.7.

Some homes had impure floodwaters near their first-floor ceilings, patch others were completely submerged. Snakes and another creatures slithered in the dishonor water, and officials warned of bacteria. Nearly 500 grouping in metropolis were in shelters.

President Barack Obama declared Memphis' Shelby County and close counties disaster areas, making them eligible for federal aid.

The expiration of the upside was of lowercase succor for many.

"It doesn't matter. We've already forfeited everything," said Rocio Rodriguez, 24, who has been at a shelter for 12 life with her economise and digit young children since their trailer tract flooded.

On the downtown metropolis riverfront, grouping came discover to gawk at the river. High-water marks were circumpolar on concrete posts, indicating that the take was dropping slowly.

"It could hit been a aggregation worse. Levees could hit broke," said metropolis doc Janice Harbin, 32. "I'm rattling fortuitous to defence discover here and wager it — and not be a individual of the flood."

Downstream in Louisiana, jail inmates filled sandbags for residents to ingest to protect their concept in St. Martin Parish.

"Everybody is meet scared. They don't undergo what to do," said Deputy Sheriff Ginny Higgins, who was overseeing a gathering of prisoners.

Sharonda Buck, an unemployed 18-year-old mother, lives in a house with 12 relatives in Vicksburg. The liquid has been creeping into their field and the power consort said energy module be revilement soured weekday morning. They spent weekday walking the gauge tracks through their neighborhood, kids throwing rocks in overpowered yards.

"I rattling don't undergo what we're feat to do. We're trying to encounter somewhere to stay, that's all I know," she said.

___

Mohr reported from Vicksburg, Miss. Associated Press writers Alan Sayre in New Orleans; Randall Dickerson in Nashville, Tenn., and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tenn., contributed to this report. AP recording journalist Jason Bronis contributed from Memphis.

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