VICKSBURG — The threat of a swollen Mississippi River was subsiding for some Wednesday, but Vicksburg residents were still feeling the effects of the rare winter flood, even though the river will crest about 4 feet lower than once predicted.
The potential for worse damage has receded, thanks in part to cold water and sand that allows more water to flow downriver at a lower height than during a warmer, more typical spring flood.
The physics of the winter flood were little consolation to Eugene Ross and two neighbors watching their inundated neighborhood from a camper parked at the edge of the water in the Ford subdivision, north of downtown Vicksburg.
Though his home is unlikely to flood, the 63-year-old Ross and others left their flood-prone neighborhood after water made access difficult and Entergy Corp. cut electricity for safety reasons.
“We’ve never had it this time of year,” said Ross, who evacuated two weeks ago. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen it because it was cold.”
Mayor George Flaggs said 26 households remain displaced in the northern portion of the city, which isn’t protected from the Yazoo River by a levee.
Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said more people were displaced from an area on the unprotected side of the Mississippi River levee in the county’s northern portion. There, a flooded state highway to Eagle Lake means long detours for hundreds of residents.
Pace said deputies are patrolling flooded areas in boats but repeated floods and federal buyouts of low-lying properties have cut the number of residents at risk.
“When I first started as a deputy, this was a very crowded subdivision,” Pace said, navigating a boat through 5 feet of water in an area with fewer than 20 homes. “Just flood after flood has emptied it out.”
Old Man River’s swift and rapid waters also continue to make navigation tricky for towboats pushing grain, coal and other commodities. After barges hit a railroad bridge at Vicksburg and a highway bridge at Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, on Tuesday, more barges hit the same Vicksburg bridge just after noon Wednesday.
Bridge Superintendent Herman Smith said the towboat Inez Andreas, pushing 25 barges, drifted sideways as it turned out of the bend north of Vicksburg, with a barge clipping a pier of the bridge. One grain barge sank just downriver, and another one broke loose before being rounded up later. The tug was operated by American River Transportation Co., a unit of commodities giant Archer Daniels Midland Co.
The U.S. Coast Guard reopened an 11-mile stretch of the river later Wednesday, after multiple towboats had tied up within sight of the bridge at midafternoon. The bridge reopened to trains on the Kansas City Southern Railway after an inspection found no damage.
Smith said the river is deceptively powerful, even at a lower flood stage. He said that water rippling around the bridge piers is roaring like water going over a dam’s spillway.
“The current is moving really fast,” Smith said.
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