MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Reuters) – Memphis area residents were warned on Saturday that the Mississippi River was gradually starting to "wrap its arms" around the city and rise to record levels.
"It's a pretty day here, and people get a false sense of security," said Steve Shular, public affairs officer for the Shelby County Office of Preparedness. "The mighty Mississippi is starting to wrap its arms around us here in Memphis."
County officials were going house-to-house in areas threatened by flooding from both the Mississippi and its tributaries. Nearly 3,000 properties are expected to be threatened. Shular said residents are being told that if they have been flooded before, they will be again.
Rising water flooded 25 mobile homes in the Rosewood Trailer Park in north Memphis on Saturday morning. The residents had been evacuated.
Most of downtown Memphis is on a bluff above the river, so landmarks like the Peabody Hotel are not considered at risk. Graceland Mansion, the home of rock legend Elvis Presley, was dry and not affected by the floods.
At historic Sun Studio, where Presley and country singer Johnny Cash got their starts, tour guide Jake Fly said people north and south of the city are "really feeling it."
"We're all hoping this river is going to crest soon, man," said Fly. "Man, it's something to see."
The National Weather Service forecast that the river will crest Wednesday in Memphis at 48 feet, just under the 1937 record. The weather service also expects records crests in Mississippi at Vicksburg on May 20 and Natchez on May 22.
In Memphis, sightseers gathered near the riverfront to take pictures of the flooding.
"Most of the tourists weren't trying to visit the clubs on Beale Street, but they were trying to touch the water," said Joseph Braslow, 20, son of one of the owners of A. Schwab Dry Goods on Beale Street, a 134-year-old department store.
The river is cresting now at New Madrid, Missouri, upstream, and has begun to crest at Tiptonville, Tenn., said Marlene Mickelson, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Memphis.
Shular said a major concern is flooding along the tributaries of the Mississippi. These smaller streams and rivers usually flow into the larger river, but are "hitting a brick wall" and backing up. After next week's crest in Memphis, thunderstorms are expected, which could result in flash flooding, Shular said.
Further north on the river at Caruthersville, Missouri, the U.S. Coast Guard said it closed commercial barge traffic briefly Friday as the river rose to near the top of a floodwall. Traffic later was reopened and is not expected to close anywhere on the river Saturday, according to Petty Officer 2nd Class Bill Colclough, spokesman for the Guard.
In Arkansas, a portion of Interstate 40, a major national road artery for trucking, remained closed on Saturday due to flood waters.
In the state of Mississippi, more than 2,000 residents will have to evacuate as the river continues to rise, according to Katherine Gunby, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
A snowy winter spawned near-record crests on the Upper Mississippi this year that reached southern Illinois at about the same time as heavy rain swelled the Ohio River.
The resulting flows have threatened to overwhelm the intricate flood levee system, prompting the U.S. government to open a Missouri floodway for the first time since 1937 to relieve pressure. U.S. officials are expected to activate three floodways this year for the first time in history.
The U.S. government blew a two-mile hole in the Birds Point levee last Monday, flooding up to 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland to save some Illinois and Kentucky towns.
The U.S. plans to open the Bonnet Carre Spillway 28 miles north of New Orleans on Monday to relieve pressure on the city by diverting some of the flow to Lake Pontchartrain. It also could open the Morganza Spillway farther north by Thursday.
This year's flooding is set to eclipse numerous crest records set mainly in 1927 and 1937. The Great Flood of 1927 swelled the Lower Mississippi to 80 miles wide in some parts, caused up to 1,000 deaths by some estimates and drove more than 600,000 people from their homes.
Since 1927, levees have been raised and constructed with different methods, dozens of reservoirs have been added across the basin and floodways have been added for use on rare occasions to relieve pressure.
(Writing by Mary Wisniewski; additional reporting by Tim Ghianni in Nashville and Leigh Coleman in Mississippi; Editing by Greg McCune)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110507/us_nm/us_flooding