Page 135 - Disaster Declaration News Today

Well, tonight the mighty mississippi river is bearing down on memphis, tennessee. the river is at near-record levels, bloated by heavy spring rains, winters melted snow. low-lying parts of the city have already been flooded. look at those images. hundreds of people have been forced out of their homes. driving difficult at flooded intersections like that. a short time ago the river actually crested near memphis at 14 feet above flood stage. thats the highest its been near the city in more than 70...

Now face damaged and waterlogged property. today president obama signed a disaster declaration for tennessee. that will direct federal aid to the state, which was -- which had been obviously plagued by severe weather including tornadoes since early april. david mattingly joins us now from memphis tonight. david, the river has peaked. how bad is it getting there? >> reporter: well, anderson, were talking about a phenomenal amount of water. even though we didnt reach a high water mark historically...

Some of the flood waters are as deep as 15 feet deep. when you travel through 330 homes in all, we are told by local officials tonight, 25, 25 of those 330 families have flood insurance. those families are cranky tonight. theyve been out of their homes for days and are not allowed to go back. they are not allowed to go into that neighborhood because the sewage is turned off, the power is turned off. they are grumpy because they are awaiting a disaster declaration from the federal government. fam...

And no one knows what its ultimately going do. even so, plenty of homeowners now face damaged and waterlogged property. today president obama signed a disaster declaration for tennessee. that will direct federal aid to the state, which was -- which had been obviously plagued by severe weather including tornadoes since early april. david mattingly joins us now from memphis tonight. david, the river has peaked. how bad is it getting there? >> reporter: well, anderson, were talking about a phenomen...

Crested near memphis at 14 feet above flood stage. u.s. army a corps of engineers say levees protecting the city are holding up so far. and memphis officials say while they have done all they can, mississippi is a powerful river. no one knows what its ultimately going to do. even so, plenty of homeowners now face damaged and waterlogged property. today president obama signed a disaster declaration for tennessee. that will direct federal aid to the state, which was -- which had been obviously pla...

Enforcement arrests someone and has reasonable suspicion that person is here illegally they must check with ice. they dont have a choice, theyre required to do that. the court has ruled that that interferes with the federal government because they set their own priorities as to whether they want to devote the resources to answer those phone calls, which is not really a big burden, but the fact is that congress passed a law that requires ice to respond to those inquiries so were consistent with f...

Deficit reduction plan from the so-called gang of six, a bipartisan group of six senators. were still not sure what that is going to look like. so the question is this, should raising taxes be more of a priority than cutting spending? go to cnn.com/caffertyfile and post a comment on my blog. >> good question. an important question. jack, thank you very much. desperate efforts under way meanwhile near new orleans this hour to ward off the swelling mississippi river. flooding of historic proport...

>> today, the president signed a disaster declaration for georgia and mississippi. the move will get federal disaster aid quickly to tornado damaged areas in both states. hes already signed a disaster order for alabama. look at this, the map showing how the tornadoes slammed across the southern states, clustered right there to create this pattern of destruction. the markers there, we know add least one ef-5 touched down in smithville, mississippi. much of that town was destroyed. meteorologist a...

The shooting of the protestors that brought him down. >> thanking opponent for quick response for making a disaster declaration in 16 counties. it frees up federal aid for places hardest hit by deadly storms. >> scrambling to bring food and water to tornado survivors in the south as they try to dig out from all that destruction. president obama touring the damage with fema. they have officials on the ground to coordinate relief efforts. now more details. or state and local agencies getting a gre...

Said he had not seen anything quite like that. it will take quite some time for the people of alabama and others across the south who have been pummeled by a series of tornadoes to recover, but president obama offered help. >> i want to make a commitment to the communities here that we are going to do everything we can to help these communities rebuild. we cant bring those who have been lost back. they are alongside god at this point. we can help maybe a little bit with the families dealing with...