Delta awaiting river’s crest

LITTLE ROCK — As some towns in Arkansas and Tennessee tried Wednesday to emerge from weeks of worry and water, others in the Delta were still fending off floodwaters.

The bloated Mississippi River crested in Memphisbut had yet to hit its high point Wednesday afternoon in Arkansas City, and Vicksburg, Miss., before hurtling south to Louisiana.

The river broke records in some places but was not expected to do the same when it crested in Helena-West Helena late Wednesday.

Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers drove along a dirt road atop the levee there Wednesday, checking for seepage and breaks. Their trucks kicked up dusty plumes in the humid air, coating leveewatchers with fine grit.

“These levees are doing a hell of a good job,” said Joe St. Columbia, a member of the Mississippi River Parkway Commission and a Helena-West Helena alderman.

“I see no problems with the levee,” he said. “It’s doing what it’s supposed to do.”

Prairie and Monroe counties, which were hit hard when the Mississippi’s tributaries escaped their banks, are seeing water recede.

A stretch of Interstate 40 in those counties finally reopened Wednesday, after water forced state officials to close the interstate for the first time.

But there’s rain in the forecast again, said Matthew Clay, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock. As much as an inch is expected to fall across the state today.

“Any additional rainfall is definitely not good, but the rainfall we’re expecting shouldn’t have a major impact on the rivers,” Clay said.

Also Wednesday, officials from the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said in a news release that more than $4 million in assistance is on its way to Arkansans in the 16 counties declared federal disaster areas.

THE LEVEES

The Mississippi River crest rolled through Osceola at just more than 47 feet Monday, according to the weather service.

On Wednesday, the river sat at 46.8 feet, and officials expected it to continue to fall, Mississippi County Emergency Manager Joseph Richmond said.

Flood stage is 28 feet.

“We’re all just thankful that our levees have held,” Richmond said. “They held up well.”

About 30 homes were flooded in and around Osceola, along with several businesses, he said.

“It will be several weeks before we can check to see just how bad the damage is to those structures,” Richmond said. “Right now, we are just hoping this water goes down as fast as possible.”

Farther south in Helena-West Helena, an eastern Arkansas Delta town known mainly for its blues music, officials and residents were singing praises for the earthen levee system protecting them from the rising Mississippi River.

The river, already spread across 3 miles, was expected to crest at 56.5 feet Wednesday evening and remain at that level in the Phillips County town through this afternoon. Flood stage in Helena-West Helena is 44 feet.

A stream of visito rs climbed the concrete steps to a gazebo atop the levee on the southern end of downtown to look at the river Wednesday morning.

“It’s incredible,” said Anthony Fleischmann of Helena-West Helena. “I’ve never seen so much water in all my life.”

Water lapped the edges about 10 feet from the top of the levee that runs between the river and the eastern edge of the town. Several large snakes, including some water moccasins, serpentined through the water seeking higher ground.

PREPARING, PLANNING

The city installed three pumps downtown in case of flooding but doesn’t expect to need them, said Allen Martin, chief of staff for Helena-West Helena Mayor Arnell Willis.

Officials also have several school buses ready to move residents from the low-lying downtown to Central High School atop the bluff in what used to be West Helena in case a levee breaks.

“The Corps are checking the levees constantly,” said Tommy Cole, a member of the Helena-West Helena Police Commission. “They’re monitoring the gauges and looking for any problems. The levees are solid.”

Officials placed wooden timbers in the floodgate behind the Delta Cultural Center on Cherry Street, sealed it with plastic sheeting and made a 4-foot-high wall of sandbags as a precaution against the rising water. It was the first time workers have closed the gate since it was built in 1937.

St. Columbia said plans call for installing swinging gates on the wall.

“We’ll have to do that once the water goes down, though,” he said.

At noon Wednesday, water neared the top of the gate, but was still at least a foot from encroaching it.

“I think our levee system here is one of the best in the country,” St. Columbia said. “It’s stood its test.”

However, water seeped under the Walker Levee north of downtown Tuesday, causing some fear and anxiety. Officials on Wednesday closed Walker Road, which runs atop the small levee, but Martin said the seepage was not an indication of a weakening.

Instead, he said, runoff water from the bluffs was backing up in a drainage pipe beneath the levee because it couldn’t drain into the Mississippi River.

Still, fears weren’t allayed.

“I’m really nervous,” said Kathleen Jones, who has lived on Cherry Street in the shadow of the Mississippi River levee for 13 years. “I’ve never seen it like this. The water came up so high, so fast.

“Then it started bubbling underneath the [Walker] levee,” she said.

Downtown, Andre and Louise Rollefson of Little Rock traveled from their home to Helena-West Helena to visit friends and gaze at the river.

“We’re overwhelmed. It’s amazing,” Louise Rollefson said.

She watched as a large, uprooted tree floated downstream.

Ruby Spain and her friend,Betty Hawkins, drove from Marianna to snap pictures of the water.

“I wanted to see what it looked like,” Spain said. “I’m glad I don’t have to go in there.”

She said her parents told her about the 1937 flood that set the high mark for the river in Helena-West Helena at60.21 feet.

“I didn’t know that I’d live to see a flood like that one,” she said.

GOING HOME

In neighboring Monroe County, little has changed since the White River sent floodwaters rushing into as many as 750 homes south ofClarendon, Monroe County Judge Larry Taylor said Wednesday.

Taylor believes it will be about three weeks before all the damage can be assessed.

The White River at Clarendon hit 37.53 feet before cresting Tuesday, officials there said. On Wednesday, the river sat at 37.40 feet and falling. Flood stage is 26 feet.

Areas most affected by flooding include the communities of East Lake, Maddox Bay, Green Lake and Indian Bay, along with thousands of acres of farmland. The communities are not protected by a levee.

In Prairie County, things are beginning to dry out after the White River flooded as many as 200 homes earlier this week, emergency manager Sandra Patterson said.

“Water is starting to come out of some of the houses, and some of our roads are opening back up,” Patterson said Wednesday.

“There are still some houses on the east side of Des Arc with water in them, but we have allowed Biscoe residents east of the levee to go back home.”

Arkansas 11 between Hazen and Des Arc has also reopened, Patterson said.

The White River crested May 7 at Des Arc at 39.43 feet, according to the Corps of Engineers. That’s more than 15 feet above flood stage. The river sat at 35.7 feet and falling Wednesday.

On the southern end of the Mississippi River in Arkansas, residents in Desha and Chicot counties are still awaiting the crest, said Tommy Jackson, spokesman for the state Emergency Management Department.

It’s expected to roll through Arkansas City on Sunday at 53.5 feet, according to the weather service. The river was at 51.8 feet there Wednesday, nearly 15 feet above flood stage.

About 70 Arkansas National Guard troops arrived in the area before sunrise Wednesday. They planned to patrol the levee and, if necessary, rescue people trapped by floodwaters.

“We’re going to be watching for sand boils and any breaches in the levee system in the area,” said Maj. David Gibbons, the area coordinator for the Guard. “We’re also ramping up for any rescue or evacuation operations, if needed.”

Officials were still monitoring at least one minor sand boil in Chicot County near Lake Village. The effect is caused by a difference in pressure on two sides of a levee during a flood and can cause a levee breach.

“Conditions in these areas are still fine,” Jackson said. “Folks there are still watching and waiting.”

‘WATCHING THE WATER’

Across the Mississippi River, the Isle of Capri casino in Lula, Miss., was surrounded by water.

In the casino’s parking lot, the tips of stop signs poked above swirling water. Sandbags were stacked around the casino and other buildings. Security guards blocked the entrance, and quickly ushered away those taking photographs.

Similar flooding led President Barack Obama to declare federal disaster areas in 14 Mississippi counties Wednesday.

In Rena Lara, Miss., an unincorporated area of about 500 where dump trucks have been hauling gravel from dawn to dusk to shore up a levee, residents were uneasy Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.

“It’s getting scary,” Rita Harris, 43, a homemaker who lives near the levee, told the AP. “They won’t let you go up there to look at the water.”

In Vicksburg, William Jefferson was paddling slowly down his street in a small boat. The river is not expected to crest until May 19.

“Half my life is still in there,” he said, pointing to the small white house swamped by several feet of water. “I hate to see it when I go back in.”

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour urged holdouts to head for higher ground.

“The biggest danger is that they choose not to evacuate assuming there’ll be someone to rescue them,” Barbour said, noting that emergency teams could be endangered as well.

Over the past week or so, floodwaters along the rain-fattened river and its backedup tributaries have washed away crops and forced many to seek higher ground.

“We’re going to have a lot more when the water gets to where it’s never been before,” Greg Flynn, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, told the AP.

Jimmy Mitchell, 46, and his wife and two children have been living in a loaned camper for more than week at a civic arena in Tunica.

“There’s no sewage hookup. You go in a barn to take a shower,” said Mitchell, who is from the small community of Cutoff. “We have no time frame on how long we can stay.”

Downstream in Louisiana, inmates filled sandbags to protect property in Cajun swamp communities that could be flooded if engineers open the Morganza Spillway to protect the more densely populated Baton Rouge area.

Meanwhile, the Corps of Engineers opened additional gates on the Bonnet Carre Spillway to divert more of the Mississippi River’s fresh water into Lake Pontchartrain.

Almost one-third of the structure’s 350 gates about 30 miles northwest of New Orleans had been opened, sending water rushing 5 miles into the lake. The first gates were opened Monday.

Information for this article was contributed by Shelia Byrd, Holbrook Mohr and Mary Foster of The Associated Press.