Western Mississippi preps for expected flooding

YAZOO CITY, Miss. — Mississippi residents are preparing for expected flooding from the Mississippi River and some of its tributaries as a swell of high water pushes past Memphis, Tenn., and southward along the state's western border.

People in many low-lying areas in Mississippi have already evacuated their homes. Floating casinos along the Mississippi River have closed. Farmers and merchants in the Delta say they hope their livelihoods will survive.

John Hines has owned a store in rural Yazoo County for about 25 years, winning over locals with sweet tea, double cheeseburgers and friendly conversation. The 73-year-old had recently decided to sell the place. Now comes the threat of flooding.

"We expect the water to get this high," he said Monday, holding his hand about 5 feet above the floor.

His store is an extension of him. His trophy deer hang on the walls. An aerial photo of his deer camp hangs in the office, next to a picture of him and two grandkids after a good day's hunting.

Gov. Haley Barbour, who lives just up the road, stops by from time to time, Hines said.

"We finally decided to sell this store, but it ain't going to be worth diddly squat if it gets flooded," Hines said. "We'd have to get it back up and running again before we could sell it."

He just doesn't know if it's worth the time and energy to rebuild Hines Grocery at this point in his life. But he's not ready to abandon the place and a nearby house yet, either.

"I'm going to try and hang out. But the problem is it's going to cut me off from the highway and roads," he said. "I'll have to get around on a boat."

His reason for staying? "Those people that come in boats to steal stuff don't leave much tracks, do they?".

Go west on Mississippi 3 and run into Satartia. That's where 77-year-old Ross Nesbit has been removing the furniture from his home and giving people rides in a boat on the flooded Yazoo River. He stopped the boat under a bridge Monday evening.

"Usually, we'd be floating down the river. See how we're just sitting here? The river is starting to back up," he said.

Widespread flooding is expected along the Yazoo River, a tributary of the much larger Mississippi. When the Mississippi is full, the Yazoo backs up and floods these fertile farmlands.

"These houses are not underwater yet, but they will be," Nesbit said. "It's never come across that road," he said, referring the street that runs between his house and the river. "They say this time it's going to. I believe them."

The flatlands of the Mississippi Delta stretch about 200 miles from Vicksburg up to Memphis. People who can afford to are building protective levees around homes and businesses. Others are just taking what they can and getting out.

The G.W. Henderson Sr. Recreation Center in Tunica County, just south of Memphis, is serving as an American Red Cross disaster shelter. On Monday, Lawrence Belk, 72, sat outside the shelter and talked about having to quickly leave his home in the Cutoff community near the Mississippi River in Tunica County.

Belk said he has been living at the center for nearly two weeks. Law enforcement has not allowed him to go back home. He's worried about receiving some type of disaster assistance.

"Most of us left out of there dead broke," Belk said. "Just because we have $70,000 and $80,000 homes underwater doesn't mean we have money."

Joey Richardson, 50, is unemployed but works as a neighborhood mechanic in the Cutoff community. He's also living in the shelter in Tunica County.

Richardson on Monday read a letter he received from FEMA, saying he didn't qualify for assistance because at the time he applied, the county had not been considered a disaster area. That declaration has since been made, and he said he is reapplying. He said he didn't have much time to get out but he was able to get what he could.

"I got most of my stuff — refrigerator, washing machine and clothes," Richardson said. "I got my trailer out, but by the time I got it out, it was torn all to pieces."

Many of the people at the shelter are from the Cutoff community. Richardson and Belk said about 1,500 people lived in that community, which they say is now underwater.

Officials said parts of the south Delta, north of Yazoo City, could start going under water by this weekend.

In the Carter community, Scott Haynes, 46, estimates he'll spend more than $80,000 on contractors to build levees around his house and grain silos, which hold 200,000 bushels of rice that he can't get out before the water comes.

Heavy equipment has been mowing down his wheat fields to get to the dirt that is being used to build the levees.

"That wheat is going to be gone, anyway," Haynes said. "We don't know if we're doing the right thing or not, but we can't not do it."

Haynes said at least 9,000 acres of his 10,000-acre farm are expected to flood.