Swollen rivers force evacuations, closures

MEMPHIS, May 6 (UPI) -- The Mississippi and Ohio rivers overflowed Friday, inundating farmland, roads and homes, causing evacuations from Arkansas to Tennessee.

Authorities in the Memphis began distributing voluntary evacuation notices to more than 1,000 households threatened by the rising waters, and the U.S. Coast Guard halted commercial barge traffic on a 5-mile segment of the Mississippi near Caruthersville, Mo., The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal reported.

The Mississippi reached 46.1 feet at the Memphis gauge and is expected to crest at 48 feet Wednesday, just a few inches short of the 1937 record, the newspaper said.

Water overcame at least one levee in east-central Arkansas, forcing city officials of Cotton Plant, Gregory and McClelland to order mandatory evacuations, CNN reported.

Officials closed more than 20 miles of Interstate 40 in eastern Arkansas, state emergency management officials said.

In Louisiana, the Mississippi River had risen to dangerous levels in several areas, with 14 parishes under a state of emergency, said Gov. Bobby Jindal, who asked President Obama to make a disaster declaration for the state because of "predicted and imminent record flooding."

Emergency management officials were wary of allowing evacuees to return to Cairo, Ill., situated at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deliberately breached a levee on the Mississippi to ease water pressure, CNN said.

"We don't want to get into a situation where people go back to their homes and then we have to make emergency rescues if something changes," said Patti Thompson, Illinois Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman.

Elsewhere, record flooding was reported along the 490-square-mile Lake Champlain in Vermont, New York and the Canadian province of Quebec, AccuWeather.com reported. The combination of melting snow and heavy rains pushed the lake to record levels.

Heavy rainfall came after much of the snow over the Adirondacks and Green Mountains melted into streams and rivers, causing them to rise. Meteorologists said between 1 and 3 inches of rain fell in the area during the middle of this week.