CBS News: Officials in a small town are trying to assure its 500 residents they are doing what they can to shore up the levee to protect them from the swollen Mississippi River. ..The uneasiness is being felt all along the poverty-stricken Delta as oozing floodwaters from the Mississippi River and its tributaries spilled across farm fields, cut off churches, washed over roads and forced people from their homes Wednesday.Some used boats to navigate flooded streets as the crest rolled slowly downstream, bringing misery to low-lying communities. About 600 homes have been flooded in the Delta in the past several days as the water rose toward some of the highest levels on record.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour urged people to get out if they think there is even a chance their homes will flood. He said there is no reason to believe a levee on the Yazoo River would fail, but if it did, 107 feet of water would flow over small towns. "More than anything else, save your life and don't put at risk other people who might have to come in and save your lives," he said.
CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports that there are about 300 homes in tiny Tunica Cutoff, an hour south of Memphis, and they have all been flooded, CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports.
Other swamped communities may rebuild, but Tunica Cutoff may not. New housing codes mandate raising new homes above the 100-year flood plain. Most victims in Tunica had no flood insurance, and couldn't afford raising their homes. So here's their worry: Tunica Cutoff could be gone for good, flooded into history…
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Frontispiece - beginning of crevasse breaching levee at Mounds Landing, Mississippi. From: "The Floods of 1927 in the Mississippi Basin", Frankenfeld, H.C., 1927 Monthly Weather Review Supplement No. 29
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