Flooding In Memphis

Photo credit:  AP

The Mississippi River continues a slow climb towards near record flood stages in the middle of the country as the combination of excessive recent rains and excessive winter snowfall that's melted drain their way through the middle of the country.   After having to blow up a levee near Cairo, Illinois, to save the town from record flooding along the Ohio River last week, flood waters inch their way downstream along the Mississippi towards their final destination in the Gulf of Mexico.   Memphis is the current "hot zone" in the battle against nature as flood waters climb higher and approach the rising waters, with the Army Corps of Engineers watching levees along the river to ensure they hold against what the worst flooding along the river in 75 years.

Assuming the levees hold in Memphis, a number of properties (about 3,000) in an area of over a million people would have been submerged or at risk of being submerged by the flood waters.   The levee system was designed after flooding ravaged the city in 1927.   The Mississippi, which is normally a half mile wide as it flows through Memphis, is currently about three miles wide thanks to the record surge of water downstream.    The river, which is expected to crest on Tuesday, will be slow in its recession and river levels could remain quite high for another ten days in the Memphis area.

Farther downstream, river levels may hit records at Vicksburg, Mississippi and Natchez, Mississippi later on this month.   The most critical test, according to hydrologists and meteorologists, will be with the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana in late May.   This floodgate system was designed to prevent the Mississippi River from diverting to a shorter course along the Atchafalaya River, thereby bypassing Baton Rouge and New Orleans and altering the landscape of Louisiana.