Levee blast saves town, flood focus now on Memphis

[WestVirginiaRebel]

MSNBC:

WYATT, Mo. — Blowing up a two-mile stretch of levee appears to have saved one town from flooding, but rising waters along the Mississippi and its tributaries were flooding other areas and forcing new evacuations, including parts of suburban Memphis, Tenn.

Memphis could see a near-record crest of 48 feet on May 10, just inches lower than the record of 48.7 feet in 1937. Water from the Wolf and Loosahatchie rivers has already seeped into parts of the suburbs, and some mobile home parks were inundated.

Flooding fears prompted Shelby County, which includes Memphis, to declare an emergency for 920,000 residents. Authorities blocked some suburban streets, and about 220 people were staying in shelters.

The downtown area of Tiptonville, a town of 3,000 located 120 miles northeast of Memphis, was under water Tuesday.

The Mississippi is expected to rise to its highest levels since the 1920s in some parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.

"We're making a lot of unfortunate history here in Mississippi in April and May," said Jeff Rent, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. "We had the historic tornadoes, and now this could be a historic event."
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This could reportedly be the worst flooding since the Great Flood of 1927, and there are a lot more people living along the Mississippi in some places than there were then.