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."

Record Flooding Along Mississippi

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Midwesterners are witnessing a slow-motion disaster that could break flood records dating to the 1920s, thousands of people from Illinois to Louisiana have already been forced from their homes, and anxiety is rising along with the mighty river, even though it could be a week or two before some of the most severe flooding hits.

"I've never seen it this bad," said 78-year-old Joe Harrison, who has lived in the same house in Hickman, KY since he was 11 months old.

Floodwaters turned his house into an island — dry but surrounded by water. He has been using a boat to get to his car, parked on dry ground along a highway that runs by his house.

Forecasters and emergency officials said some of the high-water records set during the great floods of 1927 and 1937 could fall. On Wednesday, for example, the Mississippi eclipsed the 46-foot mark set in 1937 in Caruthersville, Mo., and the water was still rising, with a crest of 49.5 feet forecast for Sunday.

Tom Salem, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Memphis, said flooding is extreme this year in part because of drenching rain over the past two weeks. In some areas, Wednesday was the first day without rain since April 25.

"It's been a massive amount of rain for a long period of time. And we're still getting snowmelt from Montana," Salem said.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday declared parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky disasters, making the states eligible for federal help with relief efforts. It does not cover individual assistance.