Mississippi River Surging, Nearby Residents Worried

Memphis residents have begun an exodus from their low-lying homes as the dangerously surging Mississippi River threatened to crest just shy of a 48.7-foot record. Areas of Memphis on down through the Mississippi Delta into rich Louisiana farms are threatened.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the vital Morganza spillway, northwest of Baton Rouge, could be opened as early as Thursday although a decision has not yet been made. If it is opened, it could stay open for weeks.

A separate spillway northwest of New Orleans was to be opened Monday, helping ease the pressure on levees there, and inmates were set to be evacuated the same day from the low-lying state prison in Angola.

Meanwhile, there was relief in communities farther upriver after water levels began to recede after days of anxious waiting — and testing of the levee defenses. Heavy winter storms and snowmelt are blamed for the flooding.

In the small town of Hickman, Ky., officials and volunteers spent nearly two weeks piling sandbags on top of each other to shore up the 17-mile levee, preparing for a slow-moving disaster of historic proportion. About 75 residents were told to flee town. But by Saturday, the levee had held, and officials boasted that only a few houses appeared to be damaged and no one had been injured or killed.

"We have held back the Mississippi River and that's a feat," said one emergency management director, Hugh Caldwell. "We didn't beat it, but it didn't beat us."