New Orleans (CNN) -- Waging war against flooding of historic proportions that has already affected thousands of people in eight Midwestern and Southern states, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened 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 workers using cranes slide open the gates to the flood control system, which was built beginning in 1929 after a devastating flood two years before. The spillway, like another that could be opened next week, is designed to divert floodwater away from New Orleans and slow the raging river to protect the low-lying city.
While the river's highest levels may still be days away, a decision to open the second flood control structure -- the Morganza Spillway -- may not be, Gov. Bobby Jindal said. People with property that would flood if the spillway is opened should not dally, Jindal warned.
"My advice to our people is not to wait, to get prepared now," Jindal said.
Time magazine photos: Floodwaters rise along Mississippi
Upstream in Memphis, Tennessee, residents and authorities had prepared all they could Monday as they anxiously waited for the Mississippi to crest Tuesday morning at a near-record 14 feet above flood stage.
"It's sort of torturous, we've been waiting so long. It's hard keeping peoples' attention. It's warning fatigue, if you will," Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton Jr. said. "But we're ready for it."
Water levels on the Mississippi
The river is the highest it's been at Memphis since 1937, when it crested at 48.7 feet -- 14.7 feet above flood stage. That flood killed 500 people and inundated 20 million acres of land, said Col. Vernie Reichling, the Corps' Memphis District commander.
The river Monday covered the lowest parts of the city's historic Beale Street and had forced about 400 people from their homes, Wharton said. Another 1,300 remained in low-lying areas, he said.
While Corps' officials said it appeared levees protecting the area were holding up well, with only minor amounts of water seeping in from beneath or lapping over from above, local officials were taking no chances.
"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."
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Nicholas Pegues, an East Memphis resident who lives near the Wolf River, said he's seen extensive flooding and homes left uninhabitable by the water 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."
iReport: Flooding in downtown Memphis
The flooding also hit sections of southwest Memphis, along the Nonconnah Creek.
"It's just bad," James Black told CNN affiliate WREG-TV in Memphis. "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 at Memphis until June.
Memphis businesses prepare for flooding
That's the problem in Missouri and southern Illinois, where flooding continues even though the Mississippi and Ohio river crests have 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 park, which is underwater, 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 won't have tap water to bathe in or drink," he added.
Final levee breach completed in plan to stem flooding
Last week, the Corps intentionally breached a levee in Missouri as part of its effort to reduce the pressure on other 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-TV in Paducah, Kentucky, on Sunday.
As the floodwaters worked their way south, the operator of the nuclear plant in Port Gibson, Mississippi, expressed concerns that rising water could cut off an access road to the facility.
However, there was no plan to shut down the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station and no immediate cause for concern, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Agency said Monday.
In Louisiana, where the river's crest is not expected to begin arriving until next week, Jindal added bears to the list of things residents need to think about. He said flooding could force some of the state's ursine residents from their homes and into populated areas.
So far, 21 parishes have issued emergency declarations ahead of expected flooding, Jindal said.
He said 400 National Guard troops would be active by the end of the day Monday helping prepare for the flood.
The Corps' decision to open the Bonnet Carre spillway was part of its overall plan to reduce pressure on the levee system and lower river levels to lessen the threat to low-lying New Orleans and other southern Louisiana communities.
The spillway opened on Monday diverts water from the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico by way of Lake Pontchartrain.
But the Corps was also considering opening the Morganza Spillway, a move that would flood populated areas and could put Morgan City, Louisiana, and other communities at risk. Fleming said he had formally requested authority to open the spillway, and Jindal said that approval could come as soon as Monday afternoon.
Jindal said the Louisiana National Guard had asked for at least three days, but preferably five days, to evacuate those areas before the Corps opens the gates.
Even with opening the spillways, forecasters have predicted widespread flooding along the system designed to keep the high waters outside the New Orleans.
But even with a forecast for record or near-record crests into next week and weeks of high water to follow, Corps officials say they expect nothing like the widespread and devastating flooding that occurred along the southernmost stretch of the Mississippi River in 1927.
That flood began near Memphis in the fall of 1926 and did not end until the following August, according to a National Weather Service report on the disaster. It devastated the levee system and flooded 165 million acres of land, sweeping 600,000 people from their homes. It came at a cost of 246 lives and the equivalent of nearly $624 million in 2011 dollars.
As a result of that flood, the report says, Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1928. That prompted a massive public works programs to build a system of levees and other structures designed to hold back the river more effectively.
The latest 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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