Mississippi River inches toward its peak in Memphis, sparing the music city’s landmarks

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – The Mississippi River rose toward the highest level ever in Memphis, flooding pockets of low-lying neighbourhoods and forcing more than 1,000 people from their homes, though the water was not threatening the music heartland’s most recognizable landmarks.

As residents waited for the river to reach its peak as early as Monday night — several inches short of the record mark set in 1937 — those downstream in Mississippi and Louisiana evacuated prisoners and diverted water from the river in an attempt to stave off catastrophic flooding that has a long history of hitting the area.

In Memphis, emergency officials were confident the levees would hold, but warned the river was still dangerous and unpredictable. However, there were no plans for more evacuations, and areas like Beale Street, the famous thoroughfare known for blues music, and Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland, were safe.

“I want to say this: Graceland is safe. And we would charge hell with a water pistol to keep it that way and I’d be willing to lead the charge,” said Bob Nations Jr., director of the Shelby County Emergency Management Agency.

Authorities spent the weekend knocking on doors to tell a couple hundred more people that they should abandon their homes before they are swamped by waters. And officials said they had stepped up patrols in evacuated areas to prevent looting.

“We face a serious event, yes we do. We’re not diminishing that,” Nations said. “We’re gonna live through this for another few weeks and it’s gonna be a nasty one and there are gonna be some dangerous environments to deal with.”

On the horizon, rain was forecast for later, that could bring the danger of flash flooding.

Forecasters said it looks like the river was starting to level out and could crest as soon as Monday night, at or near 48 feet (14.6 metres), just shy of the 48.7-foot (14.8-meter) mark set in 1937. Forecasters had previously predicted the crest would come as late as Wednesday.

“I’m so glad it’s not going higher. And that’s what I can see from all the gauges,” said Gene Rench, a hydrologist with National Weather Service.

Memphis residents have been abandoning low-lying homes for days as the dangerously surging river. The swollen river has already swamped houses in Memphis.

Aurelio Flores, 36, his pregnant wife and their three children have been living at a shelter for 11 days. His mobile home had about four feet of water when he last visited the trailer park Wednesday

“I imagine that my trailer, if it’s not covered, it’s close,” said Flores, an out-of-work construction worker. “If I think about it too much, and get angry about it, it will mean the end of me.”

But while some evacuated, others came as spectators. At Beale Street, the famous thoroughfare known for blues music, dozens gawked and snapped photos Sunday as water pooled at the end of the road. Traffic was heavy downtown on a day the streets would normally be quiet.

The river is “probably the biggest tourist attraction in Memphis,” said Scott Umstead, who made the half-hour drive from Collierville with his wife and their three children.

Col. Vernie Reichling, Army Corps of Engineers commander for the Memphis district, said the homes in most danger of flooding are in areas not protected by levees or floodwalls, including near Nonconnah Creek and the Wolf and Loosahatchie rivers.

About 150 Corps workers were walking along levees and monitoring performance of pump stations

“There should be no concern for any levees to fail,” he said in a downtown park on a bluff overlooking the river.

For Cedric Blue, the flooding in his south Memphis neighbourhood near the overflowing Nonconnah Creek is a source of frustration and anger. Blue, 39, has watched as the water engulfed three homes on his street, including that of an older woman who had to be rescued in a boat because she had refused to leave. Blue fears the rising water will ruin his house and his belongings while washing away a lifetime of memories that were created there.

“I just want a new life and relocation,” Blue said. “I would like the elected officials to come down here to see this with their own eyes and see what we’re going through.”

The river already reached record levels in some areas upstream, thanks to heavy rains and snowmelt. It spared Kentucky and northwest Tennessee any catastrophic flooding and no deaths have been reported there, but some low lying towns and farmland along the banks of the river have been inundated.

There’s so much water in the Mississippi that the tributaries that feed into it are also backed up, creating some of the worst flood problems so far.

And there’s tension farther south in the Mississippi Delta and Louisiana, where the river could create a slow-developing disaster.

Authorities in Louisiana stepped up their preparations by opening floodgates at a spillway northwest of New Orleans to take pressure off levees in populated areas. Inmates were also being moved from a prison near Baton Rouge.

Downriver in Louisiana, the Army Corps of Engineers began opening the first floodgates at the Bonnet Carre spillway about 30 miles (50 kilometres) northwest of New Orleans. Workers pulled restraining devices off 28 of the spillway’s 350 gates, and the corps said it will monitor river levels before deciding to open more.

Officials also began moving prisoners from the Angola state penitentiary, north of Baton Rouge.

Engineers say it is unlikely any major metropolitan areas will be inundated as the water pushes downstream over the next week or two. Nonetheless, officials are cautious.

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Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman contributed to this report from Norco, Louisiana.

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