Flood river taking aim at Mississippi Delta

RENA LARA, Miss. (AP) — Crews worked to shore up levees along the swelling Mississippi River today as floodwaters threatened to swamp even more of the fertile Mississippi Delta.

The crest rolled south after hitting the high mark Tuesday in Memphis, Tenn., just inches short of the record set in 1937.

Some low-lying neighborhoods were inundated, but high levees protected much of the rest of the city. Landmarks such as Graceland stayed dry.

In Rena Lara, Miss., an unincorporated town of about 500 where dump trucks have been hauling gravel from dawn to dusk to shore up the levee, people were uneasy today. They have no local newspaper or TV stations, so they have been relying on social networking sites and word of mouth for information.

Public officials are trying to assure them that they expect the levee to hold and will give them plenty of notice if they need to leave.

“It’s getting scary,” said Rena Harris, 43, a homemaker who lives in the shadow of the levee. “They won’t let you go up there to look at the water.”

Downstream in Louisiana, inmates filled sandbags to protect property in Cajun swamp communities that could be flooded if engineers open a spillway to protect the more densely populated Baton Rouge area. Fear was high among residents there.