Obama to meet with flood victims

Butte La Rose, Louisiana (CNN) -- Unleashed by its U.S. Army minders, the Mississippi River continued pouring across Louisiana lowlands Monday on its way to inundate thousands of homes and businesses as the Corps of Engineers fights to spare Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

"Hope you appreciate this Baton Rouge. You're welcome," read one sign posted outside a home in the path of the flooding.

The waters were rising early Monday in St. Martin Parish, one of the areas that will be affected by the opening of the Morganza Spillway by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, parish council President Guy Cormier said.

"It just tears my heart up to know that these peoples' lives are fixing to change," he said.

The flooding has affected eight states, from Missouri south to Louisiana and Mississippi.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to travel to Memphis, Tennessee, Monday to meet with families displaced by the flooding, as well as state and local officials, emergency responders and volunteers.

As many as 22 cities and communities where river levels are monitored by the U.S. government, remain flooded, some of them weeks after both the Mississippi and Ohio rivers climbed out of their banks.

Six days after the Mississippi River crested in Memphis, the waterway remains 11 feet above flood stage, according to the National Weather Service.

The swollen knot in the river is currently passing through Louisiana.

Residents of towns along the river on Sunday packed up their valuables and made last-ditch efforts to place sandbags and makeshift levees outside their homes, trying to protect themselves and their homes from rising waters.

"I have never experienced anything like this in my life," said Brett Ansley, 24, as he was hitching up his trailer home in Krotz Springs, Louisiana, to move it to higher ground. "It's crazy. It's unreal."

The Ansleys and their neighbors have been forced to flee their homes because of a government decision to divert water from the Mississippi River into south central Louisiana to spare the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans from severe flooding.

To do so, Corps of Engineers is opening the floodgates at the Morganza Spillway for the first time in almost 40 years. As of midnight Monday, the Corps had opened nine gates, two on Saturday and seven on Sunday, according to agency spokesman Ricky Boyett.

The plan is to let out water from as many as one-fourth of the spillway's 125 bays. So far, the controlled release of water from the swollen Mississippi River has lowered the projected flood levels for five communities and cities where the Corps maintains monitoring gauges. That includes Baton Rouge and New Orleans, which is 115 miles southeast of the spillway.

But will affect nearly 4,000 people who live along the river, as it sends water toward homes and farmland in the Atchafalaya Basin, according to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

"We wasn't too happy when they opened the Morganza," Leona Patton told CNN affiliate WGNO. "But we didn't have no choice. We had to do what they said. Put it in God's hands."

"I just hope everything goes all right," Patton said, holding back tears.

Nearby, her husband, Dwayne Patton stacked piles of sandbags against the side of their Gibson, Louisiana, home. Leona Patton said they've only had the house for two years.

Officials say the spillway's gates will likely be open for weeks, and it will be weeks before the river falls safely below flood stage and those who have evacuated can safely return.

Upriver in Shelby County, Tennessee, Dean Hallowood and some of his neighbors are getting around by boat, according to CNN affiliate WMC. Some Shelby County roads remained closed Sunday even though they're no longer under water, WMC reported Sunday.

"Be careful because there's a bunch of big cracks in the road right now," Hallowood said. "They're going to have to come out and repair potholes and everything else."

Shelby County Roads and Bridges Manager Terry Waits told WMC that flood damage to area roads could be a big problem after they dry out.

"When the water leaves the roads, you're still going to see the barricades up because we've still got to inspect the roads," said Waits. "We've got to inspect all of the drainage structures, the bridges."

Across the South and lower Midwest, floodwaters have already covered about 3 million acres of farmland, eroding for many farmers what could have been a profitable year for corn, wheat, rice and cotton, officials said.

Authorities in Louisiana's St. Landry Parish issued a mandatory evacuation that affected about 2,000 people -- including about 750 people living in 240 homes in Krotz Springs. Residents in other areas were under a voluntary evacuation, with authorities encouraging but not ordering them to leave.

Don Menard, the parish's president, said Sunday afternoon that water levels in Krotz Springs appear lower than expected -- though he said he thought they'd rise considerably after midnight, and especially if and when more floodgates are opened.

"It's the fear of the unknown," Menard said, noting estimates that the water could rise 10 to 15 feet in spots. "These are predictions, no one knows for sure what will happen."

CNN iReporter Faisal Abou-Shahla posted a video of flooded homes in St. Francisville, Louisiana, about 30 miles north of Baton Rouge. He said he shot the video on Saturday, after the first gate was opened on the spillway. Abou-Shahla said he lives in Baton Rouge and was visiting his fiancee's parents in St. Francisville.

Some city residents "were waiting until the last second to leave," he said Sunday, while others used whatever they could to try to minimize damage to their homes for when the high waters roll in.

"There were a few seemingly futile attempts to put sandbags up," said Abou-Shahla.

While the floodwaters rose in St. Francisville, they were leveling off in Baton Rouge, just inches shy of 45 feet, according to the National Weather Service. The weather service on Sunday predicted the Mississippi River will crest at 45 feet in the Louisiana capital on Tuesday. That is 2.5 feet lower and six days earlier than the weather service had forecast prior to the opening of the Morganza spillway.

Authorities previously opened gates on the Bonnet Carre Spillway, located upstream from Morganza. The opening of the Morganza floodgates on Sunday drew gawkers seeking to witness the rush of white-capped water through the spillway.

Among them was CNN iReporter Chad Digirolamo, 31, who drove over the spillway to have a look.

"There was a lot of traffic, a lot of people riding over to take pictures," Digirolamo said.

In New Orleans, the river on Monday was already cresting at 17 feet, one week earlier and more than two feet lower than previously projected by the National Weather Service. It is also four feet lower than the historic level recorded in New Orleans in 1922.

The weather service said the river was also cresting Sunday in Reserve, Louisiana, because of the spillway operations. At Reserve, the river was cresting at 28.2 feet, above the historic 1929 flood level of 26 feet.

Already on Sunday, waters in Vicksburg, Mississippi, had reached record levels of 56.2 feet , the Weather Service reported. This is well above the 43-foot flood stage, but still short of the forecast crest of 57.5 feet on Thursday. Levels in Natchez, further south, were two feet higher than the record set in 1937 on Sunday, but just under three feet shy of the 63-foot crest expected Saturday.

CNN's Ed Lavandera, Martin Savidge, Justin Lear, Jacqui Jeras, Ashley Hayes and Ben Smith contributed to this report.

CNN

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