Flood crisis along the Mississippi reaches historical dimensions in Louisiana

Krotz Springs, Louisiana — Residents of towns along the swollen Mississippi 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.” These efforts occurred as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened two additional gates Sunday morning on the Morganza spillway, located about 115 miles northwest of New Orleans. This is after opening the first two bays the previous day. Water from the inflated Mississippi River gushed through a floodgate Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades and headed toward thousands of homes and farmland in the Cajun countryside, threatening to slowly submerge the land under water up to 25 feet deep. Fleming said the decision to open the spillway, along with similar decisions made in recent weeks as the floodwaters moved southward, was done to address a historic excess of water in the Mississippi River and its tributaries. While the spillways will divert water away from Louisiana cities, low-lying central parts of the state will be flooded. 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 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. -CNN