The Mississippi River crested just shy of a record high in the city of Memphis Tuesday, dpa quoted the National Weather Service as saying. The river reached 14.6 metres Tuesday morning, just below a record set in 1937, before beginning to fall slightly, the National Weather Service said. The waters were supposed to remain nearly that high for several days before slowly receding, but concern was mounting for areas downstream as massive amounts of water pushed their way toward the Gulf of Mexico. Authorities said levees in Memphis were safe. There was no reason not to have confidence in the levees, Colonel Vernie Reichling of the Army Corps of Engineers said in the face of rising local fears. A problem facing the engineers is that the waters are expected to recede only slowly, placing pressure on the levees over a period of weeks. According to the National Weather Service, the Mississippi last reached these levels in 1937, when the crest peaked at 14.84 metres. That flood claimed the lives of 500 people and inundated more than 80,000 square kilometres. Low-lying areas of the city were under a brown muck as abandoned personal objects piled against the walls of homes. In some places, water covered the windows of buildings' ground floors and cars were swamped. A further 900 homes were evacuated Monday, and hundreds of residents were in emergency shelters. Rescue services and the army were deployed around the clock to secure the levees and help residents make their way to emergency shelters. A few kilometres further south, farmers worried about the impact on their livelihoods as water threatened to turn recently planted crops in the fertile region to soup. President Barack Obama declared an emergency in parts of the eight states affected along the river's 3,800 kilometres. To the north of New Orleans, flood gates were opened to ease the situation, allowing water to flow into Lake Pontchartrain and on into the Gulf of Mexico. Conservationists expressed fears the river water could damage the lake, which is home to large numbers of fish. Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion in Memphis is unaffected, as it lies on high ground.
