Mississippi floods force evacuations near Memphis

John Branston Reuters 05/05/2011 18:00

The rising Mississippi river lapped over downtown Memphis streets on Thursday as a massive wall of water threatened to unleash near record flooding all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Water lapped over Riverside Drive and onto Beale Street in Memphis, and threatened some homes on Mud Island, a community of about 5,000 residents with a river theme park. The island connects to downtown Memphis by a bridge and causeway.

Emergency officials in Millington near Memphis were "going door-to-door, asking people to leave," according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

Large amounts of rain and melt from the winter snow has caused a chain reaction of flooding from Canada and the Dakotas through Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee. It is expected to soon hit Mississippi and Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

"The flood is rolling down, it is breaking records as it moves down and it is one of those wait-and-see type of things as to how massive it is going to be when it's all said and done," said Charles Camillo, historian for the Mississippi River Commission and the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project.

In Arkansas, westbound traffic on a section of one of the nation's major trucking arteries, Interstate 40, was closed for a second day due to flooding.

The White River was expected to crest at its highest ever level of 40 feet at Des Arc, Arkansas on Thursday night, breaking a 1949 record.