Southern US States Braced For Floods As Mississippi Nears Record Crest

It Africa that saw this kind of flooding in 2014 now other continents are experiencing same. Climate change issues should be given utmost attention this year.
Residents of southern states along the Mississippi river are braced for the flooding that has swamped communities in Illinois and Missouri over the last week, causing thousands of evacuations and killing at least 29 people.
Officials in Louisiana are checking levels daily, and Exxon Mobil has decided to shut its 340,571 barrel-per-day refined products terminal in Memphis, Tennessee, as floodwaters threatened to inundate the facility just south of the city’s downtown.

“All that water’s coming south and we have to be ready for it,” Louisiana lieutenant governor-elect Billy Nungesser told CNN. “It’s a serious concern. It’s early in the season. We usually don’t see this until much later.”

Workers in Tennessee were preparing for the Mississippi in Memphis to reach flood stage over the weekend.

“We’re moving things up high and we’ve got our generators out and got some extra water,” said Dotty Kirkendoll, a clerk at Riverside Park Marina on McKellar Lake, which feeds off the Mississippi.
Flooding in the US midwest typically occurs in the spring as snowmelt swells rivers. Freezing weather in the region has added to the challenges as the waters have slowly started to recede from the St Louis area.

Most of the deaths from the rare winter floods have been caused by people driving into flooded areas after days of downpours. Two teenagers remain missing in southern Illinois after their truck was recovered late on Thursday night.

Twelve Illinois counties have been declared disaster areas, and governor Bruce Rauner on Friday ordered Illinois National Guard troops into flooded areas in the southern part of the state to mitigate flood damage and help with evacuation efforts.

Residents use a boat to get around Riverbend mobile home park near High Ridge, Missouri. Photograph: Sid Hastings/EPA

The Mississippi is expected to crest at Thebes, in southern Illinois, at 47.5 feet (14 metres) on Sunday, more than 1-1/2 feet above the 1995 record, the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast.

Flood warnings were also in effect on Friday for parts of Texas, Oklahoma, the Carolinas, Alabama and Kentucky, the NWS said, while major flooding was occurring on the Arkansas river and its tributaries in that state.

Dozens have died in US storms, which also brought unusual winter tornadoes and were part of a wild worldwide weather system over the Christmas holiday period that also saw severe flooding in Britain.