Minot residents told to evacuate ahead of expected flooding

(CNN) -- Residents in Minot, North Dakota, have until Wednesday evening to leave their homes after authorities ordered the evacuation of some 12,000 people from the area because of expected record flooding.

Minot, located in the north-central part of the state, is the fourth-largest city in North Dakota.

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The swollen Souris River flows straight through the city and is expected to overwhelm area levees, said Cecily Fong, spokeswoman for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services.

"It's really historic proportions of water," Fong said late Tuesday night.

The evacuation order covers a third of the community's population, Fong said. Residents have until 6 p.m. Wednesday to leave.

"The river is rising faster than expectations, so they (city officials) are kind of scrambling to shore up levees and do what they can," Fong said.

The National Weather Service has forecast record flooding and urged anyone living in the affected areas to prepare immediately for oncoming floodwaters. Heavy area rains and dam releases are causing the river to swell at Minot.

"The current best estimate for when water will overtop the lowest dikes in the Minot area is sometime on Thursday afternoon. However, a Wednesday night or early Thursday timeframe cannot be ruled out as the dikes become more stressed due to rising water," the weather service said.

The river at Minot, which currently stands at close to 1,555 feet above sea level, is forecast to rise to 1,559 feet on Friday or Saturday -- which would be a new record. The river hit 1,558 feet above sea level in 1881.

The Souris River looks like a "U." It swoops in and out of North Dakota from Canada.

CNN's Richard Benson contributed to this report.

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Record flooding lingers in Mississippi

Vicksburg, Mississippi (CNN) -- The overflowing Mississippi River dealt anguish to its namesake state Thursday, reaching a historic height at Vicksburg, sending backwater up the Yazoo River, which has swallowed a home owned by the governor, and claiming the life of a 69-year-old man.

As the flood's trail of destruction worked its way south, Vicksburg saw the river crest at the expected peak of 57.1 feet early Thursday, hours ahead of the original forecast.

The National Weather Service predicts the crest will hold through at least Saturday morning. "Residents who live along the river need to keep an eye out and be vigilant," said Marty Pope, a senior hydrologist with the weather service's Jackson, Mississippi, office. "We're not going to fall to the kind of levels we got to during the large 2008 flood until early June, and won't fall below flood stage until mid-to-late June."

The river began cresting ahead of schedule Wednesday night, probably because an old levee system in Greenville, Mississippi, was breached last Friday and spread the flood's flow, Pope said.

The Mississippi is more than 14 feet above flood stage at Vicksburg and more than a foot over the record set in the city in 1927.

A Vicksburg resident, Walter Cook, died after being pulled from floodwater in Warren County, Mississippi, the county coroner said Thursday. It is the first reported death linked to the flooding in the state.

Emergency workers with the fire department pulled him from the water at 9:35 a.m. Tuesday and took him to River Regional Medical Center, where Cook was put on life support, Coroner Doug Huskey said. He died early Thursday.

Officials do not know how Cook ended up in the floodwater, the coroner said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was keeping a watchful eye on the Yazoo Backwater Levee, which residents near Vicksburg were counting on for protection. It is designed to keep water from backing into parts of the Yazoo River delta.

The backwater levee was being "armored" by a heavy plastic coating to prevent it from washing out, said Charlie Tindall, attorney for the Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners.

But the Yazoo River backwaters were already claiming territory and property. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was among residents who watched rising waters swallow their houses and lands Wednesday.

Barbour's spokeswoman confirmed that a house owned by the governor in his native Yazoo County was flooded. The house is on a lake in central Mississippi near the backwater-flooded Yazoo River.

A slide was detected on the mainline Mississippi levee at Albemarle Lake, the Corps of Engineers said Thursday. A slide occurs when the integrity of a levee is undermined because dirt and sand are being eroded, said Corps spokeswoman Eileen Williamson.

The slide was detected Wednesday and work began immediately to repair it. "It will take about a full week to repair," she said.

Farther south, where the Mississippi River has not yet crested, residents were working to clear out their homes and find ways to get by.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has asked for federal assistance in grappling with flooding resulting from the Morganza Spillway, where 17 bays have been opened in hopes of sparing New Orleans further downstream.

"As water from the Morganza Spillway is released into the Atchafalaya Basin, the impact to our rural communities and the industries upon which they rely will be dramatic and long-lasting," Jindal wrote the U.S. Department of Interior on Wednesday, his office announced Thursday. "I am requesting your immediate consideration of available assistance and recovery programs for our recreational and commercial fishing, hunting, and eco-tourism industries."

Mandatory evacuations will be in effect Saturday -- beginning at midnight Friday -- in Butte La Rose, Happy Town and the Sherburne Wildlife Management Area, the St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office said.

By 8 a.m. Saturday, "the area will be secured and no one will be allowed to enter," the parish said in a news release.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate praised the efforts under way along the Mississippi. "Fortunately, the system is working as designed between the Army Corps of Engineers and the design structures and where they are having to open the spillways, they've been able to take pressure off the mainline levee," he said at an event in Maryland.

Officials said spillway gates are likely to be open for weeks, and it will be weeks before the river falls below flood stage, allowing those who have evacuated to return.

The flood is the most significant to hit the lower Mississippi River valley since at least 1937. It has affected nine states so far: Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Although recovery is a while off for areas that have already seen the worst of the floods, Tunica, Mississippi saw another step forward Thursday, with the return of a key economic driver for the region. The Tunica Roadhouse Casino announced it would reopen Thursday afternoon, the second to return to business in two days.

CNN's Ed Payne contributed to this report.

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Memphis braces for the worst flooding

New Orleans (CNN) -- Waging war on a flood of historic proportions that has already affected thousands of people in eight midwestern and southern states, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flooded a spillway Monday north of New Orleans in an effort to calm the rising Mississippi River.

A crowd gathered near the entrance to the Bonnet Carre spillway to watch cranes slide open the gates to the flood control system, which was built beginning in 1929 after a devastating flood two years before.

Upstream in Memphis, Tennessee, residents and authorities anxiously waited for the Mississippi to crest at a near-record 14 feet above flood stage.

And in between, their counterparts in Mississippi and Louisiana continued to prepare for the flooding under the protection of a system of levees and flood gates that Corps' officials said were holding up well considering the unprecedented pressure they are enduring.

"This water that we're seeing coming by is moving 2 million cubic feet per second," said Corps of Engineers Col. Vernie Reichling of the situation on Sunday outside Memphis. "To use an analogy, in one second that water would fill up a football field 44 feet deep."

That means there's no time to relax, said Col. Ed Fleming, commander of the Corps' New Orleans District.

"There is no doubt that we are stressing the system," he said. "These are historic flows."

In Memphis, where the Mississippi had covered the lowest parts of the city's historic Beale Street, about 400 people had evacuated from their at-risk homes while some 1,300 remained in low-lying areas, Mayor A.C. Wharton Jr. said Friday.

"It's sort of tortuous, we've been waiting so long. It's hard keeping peoples' attention. It's warning fatigue, if you will," Wharton said. "But we're ready for it."

The river is the highest it's been since 1937, when it crested at 48.7 feet -- 14.7 feet above flood stage -- in Memphis. That flood killed 500 people and inundated 20 million acres of land, Reichling said.

"It's a very powerful river. It looks like it's running very slowly, but it has a very strong current," said Bob Nations, director of preparedness in Shelby County, Tennessee, which includes Memphis. "We still don't know (exactly what) the river might do.

Flooding was still causing problems in Missouri and southern Illinois, even though the crest has moved south.

In Murphysboro, Illinois, CNN iReporter Robert Icenogle said a swollen creek is inundating a church and band shell, while threatening to wash out telephone poles.

"We cannot get to the parks, which is under water or to other towns," he said. "Most of the roads are closed, plus the water sewage plant is getting sandbagged."

"(If)The sewage plant shuts down, we wont have tap water to bath in or drink," he added.

The Corps intentionally breached a levee in Missouri as part of its effort to reduce the pressure on levees, flooding 130,000 acres of agricultural land over the objection of state officials and some farmers.

"I'm very sad. I look at that and I don't have a home," Marilynn Nally said, pointing to her flooded family farm. "I feel like we're having to suffer for somebody else."

About 25 miles away in Metropolis, Illinois, Eloise Burton mourned the loss of her home.

"It's sad to think about all these years, we've lost everything," she told CNN affiliate WPSD Sunday.

In Memphis, the Corps' 150 inspectors haven't found any sign of trouble beyond expected "under-seepage" of water in some levees and some water dribbling over levees near the White River, according to Reichling.

And while one person has been arrested for allegedly trying to steal from an evacuated residence, Nations said that good cooperation with citizens and good teamwork among various government agencies has made for few headaches.

Much of the flooding in Memphis has come from tributaries unable to dump their water into the Mississippi.

Nicholas Pegues, an East Memphis resident who lives near the Wolf River, said he's seen extensive flooding and homes left uninhabitable by the waters as he's traveled through the region.

"It's affecting daily life tremendously," said Pegues, a Shelby County elections' division employee who submitted photos of the flooding to CNN iReport. "It is pretty severe downtown ... I know a lot of ... people have lost their homes."

The flooding also hit sections of southwest Memphis, along the nonconnah Creek.

"It's just bad," James Black told CNN affiliate WREG. "Like I say, it's an act of God. What can you do in an act of God?"

Wharton, the city's mayor, said the flooding had not yet caused major disruptions in the city, and he did not expect it to, even though National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Borghoff said it is possible the river won't fall below flood stage until June around Memphis.

Pegues said the flood fight has actually had an upside.

"The mood is disappointing, but people are helping each other," Pegues said. "They're putting sandbags in, the churches are opening up their doors, and (people) are opening up their homes to the elderly."

The Corps' decision to open the Bonnet Carre spillway was part of its overall plan to reduce pressure on the levee system and reduce river levels to reduce the threat to low-lying New Orleans and other southern Louisiana communities.

But the Corps was also considering opening a second spillway that would flood populated areas and could put Morgan City, Louisiana at risk.

The spillway opened on Monday can accommodate about 1.87 million gallons of water per second, diverting water from the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico by way of Lake Pontchartrain.

Even with opening the spillway, the Corps predicted widespread flooding along the system designed to keep the high waters outside the New Orleans.

Despite a forecast of record or near-record crests all along the Mississippi, Corps officials say they expect nothing like the widespread and devastating flooding that occurred along the river in 1927 and again in 1937, Reichling said.

Since those floods, massive public works programs have erected a system of levees and other structures designed to hold back the river more effectively. While untested, they were designed to meet the pressures similar to the 1937 flood, Reichling said.

"In 1937, these levees were nowhere near the height they are today," he said. "Our levees are considerably higher, they're very strong, our flood walls are very good."

The flooding in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys is largely the byproduct of torrential rains throughout the region. Over one two-week stretch, there was about 600% more precipitation than usual, Reichling said.

The weather now appears to be working in the flood fighters' favor.

Only minimal rain is expected over the coming days, with daytime temperatures forecast to be in the upper 80s and 90s through Thursday, at which point the water levels should begin to creep back down.

But the Corps isn't going to back down anytime soon in watching over its powerful and sometimes unruly charge.

"It's a historic time we're in all along the Mississippi River," Fleming said.

CNN's Greg Botelho, Marlena Baldacci, Phil Gast and Ben Smith contributed to this report.

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Record flooding still in forecast after levee breach

Farmer says the sight of his submerged farm makes you "sick to your stomach"Operations seems to be working so far, official saysLevees are breached at Birds Point and New Madrid, MissouriRecord or near-record flooding is still forecast in at least eight statesRead more about this story from CNN affiliate KPLR. Are you in the area? Share your photos and videos with CNN, but be safe.

(CNN) -- The intentional breach of a levee on the Mississippi River is helping to ease unprecedented flood pressure on other areas, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.

The Ohio River level had dropped about 1.7 feet at Cairo, Illinois, since Monday afternoon, before the blast, but that is expected to level off Wednesday.

The breach, created when engineers detonated explosives late Monday night at Birds Point, Missouri, is sending 396,000 cubic feet of water per second onto 200 square miles of fertile Missouri farmland.

The water is coursing across a floodway that Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon described as "literally the most productive part of our continent."

Two states grapple with rising floodwaters

Farmer Bryan Feezor said the sight makes you "sick to your stomach" as he surveyed his submerged fields.

"Farming is all I ever have done ... and it's under water," he told CNN affiliate KPLR. "I really don't know (what I'm going to do)."

A second levee blast was conducted Tuesday afternoon at New Madrid, Missouri, and a third is planned Wednesday near Hickman, Kentucky. The second and third blasts, downstream of Birds Point, will allow floodwater to return to the Mississippi River.

While the plan appeared to be working -- the level of the Ohio River fell where it joins the Mississippi -- record crests and relentless pressure from millions of gallons of water still threatened communities throughout the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys.

Vicksburg, Mississippi, could see water levels rise 4 feet by Sunday. Authorities told residents of Caruthersville, Missouri, that sandbags may not be enough to control the water.

Corina Jolley, of Sikeston, Missouri, said she grew up in Dorena, Missouri, which she said was being inundated by the breach on the Mississippi River.

A tombstone rests above the remains of her father and uncle, but "I'm sure we'll never see it again," said Jolley, who said residents of the rich farmland will be out of luck, as opposed to those in Cairo, for whom the risk has been lessened by the breaches.

"Whoever thought it would be this bad?" she said.

The situation was especially perilous for a 93-year-old woman who was caught in the swollen waters of the Black River near Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where two members of the Missouri National Guard rescued her from a partially submerged car.

"We weren't there to be heroes," said Sgt. Tim Bridges. "We were just doing our jobs." Bridges, along with Spc. Junior Bombard, waded through the rushing, muddy waters to ferry the woman to safety.

This "is the reason why I signed up for the Guard," said Spc. Junior Bombard.

The town of Cairo remained under a mandatory evacuation despite the intentional breach, while six other communities were under voluntary evacuation notices, said Patti Thompson, spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

"We're definitely not out of the woods yet," she said. "The levees are all very saturated right now and they're going to continue to have a lot of pressure on them for several days."

Even with the levee breach, the National Weather Service continues to predict record or near-record flooding in parts of southern Illinois, southwest Indiana, western Kentucky and Tennessee, southeastern Missouri, northeastern Arkansas, and parts of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, commander of the Corps' Mississippi River Valley Division, made the decision to order the breach. He warned that without punching a hole in the levee, massive flooding would threaten to inundate communities throughout the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys.

"There's a tremendous amount of pressure on the system," he told reporters Tuesday evening. "The project operated as designed."

It was a controversial decision. Missouri officials took the Corps to court over the plan, questioning the agency's authority to intentionally breach the levee. The state argued the floodwater would deposit silt on the estimated 130,000 acres, and years, along with millions of dollars, would be required to fix the damage.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case on Sunday, clearing the way for Walsh to blow the levee.

Some Missouri residents were angered by the decision, saying it would destroy their communities and provide questionable benefit. But others felt the decision was for the best.

"Yeah, we lost ... acres of farm land here in Missouri," said Sikeston, Missouri, resident Patricia Mobely, who recently fled the drought and firestorms of Texas for what she thought would be a more peaceful life in the Midwest. "But how much more would we have lost if we hadn't done it?"

"The sacrifice that these people are making is for the greater good," Jim Pogue with the Army Corps of Engineers told KPLR. "Their sacrifices are going to benefit hundreds of thousands of people all through this region. It's not just Cairo. It's people all through this part of the country."

Walsh called the decision to inundate the farmland and about 100 homes "heart-wrenching."

"I've been involved with flooding for 10 years and it takes a long time to recover from something like this," he said.

CNN's Phil Gast contributed to this report.

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More flooding forecast along Red River North

Red River expected to crest on North Dakota-Minnesota border By the CNN Wire Staff STORY HIGHLIGHTSSeasonal flooding has hit communities in upper MidwestThree people have died in Minnesota (CNN) -- Rain forecast for Sunday could add to flooding woes along the Red River in Minnesota and North Dakota, where recreational boating was barred in several counties.

The river, which forms the border between the two states, is expected to crest at near 40 feet in Fargo, North Dakota, early Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. The temporary levee there is about 44 feet.

The river is expected to run high for the next several days.

The region usually has seasonal flooding after warm weather and rain melt snow in early spring.

Officials in Moorhead, Minnesota, across the border from Fargo, also were coping with the flooding, a repeat from 2010 and 2009. The Red River crested at nearly 41 feet in 2009.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar talked Saturday about improved levees and preparations.

Still, she said, three people have died in Minnesota because of the flooding.

"This is a ferocious river," Klobuchar said. "We have to continue to be careful."

Other Minnesota officials talked about the need for more flood mitigation.

The U.S. Coast Guard banned recreational boat traffic in several North Dakota counties.

In Cass County, north of Fargo, residents placed sandbags along flooded streams and roads and used all-terrain vehicles to reach their homes.

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