the ship there of the coast guard against the pier it s tied up. normally it would be tied up where the white circles are out there. because the water is so high, they can t tie it up there because it would buck in this way towards the coastline. so instead they ve tied it up over there. now the guys say when they were working here the other day, putting out the sandbags, over here, you can t see the fence. you can see the back end of the fence over here. if you come to the left, the fence is underwater as the water gets deeper. they saw something swimming over here between the basketball court and the pier. they called in fish and wildlife. they pulled out of the water. ultimately caught a 1 010 2 al gator. you see them here along the levies. you ll see cow, deer and governor jindal told me even black bears coming to the high ground along the levy system
show you its powerful punch in many forms. right here the pace of change is slow yet certain. last night we showed you the spillway from above a helicopter ride. the gates open toded to the gates open toded t divert wr away from mississippi. now the water is rising slowly as you see it. you see the rails that go up behind my shoulder. nose are normally dry. that s the edge of the river. it s rising more slowly than the engineers originally predicted. the folks were told by the mississippi crests near here next tuesday many of the homes could be underwater. dwayne moved here four months ago for the peace and quiet. he likes the birds and the schools. a lot of broken hearts right now. a lot of broken hearts. but in the back of our mind we all knew that it would happen. we just didn t know when. so we just, like i said, we just deal with it. that s all we can do. tonight there s a bit of a mixed message from political leaders. on one hand they re pleased with flood control a
apartment buildings. they re all dry, even though this area of town is considerably below the current level on the mississippi. however, with the river expected to crest in this area, possibly sometime tomorrow, authorities anticipate that the water level will be about this high for the next 8-10 days. so the risk is that the levy system becomes saturated so, they re going to have crews going up and down the levy at the ready, with sandbags, in case they find any slight breaches, so they can repair them right away. they re also getting farmers to move cattle off the lfties so they don t cause any additional damage. alisyn, back to you. alisyn: makes wence. thank you for showing all of that. sure. bill: just before an incredible launch, captain mark kelly, the commander, now rocketing into space on board endeavor, at about
greenville have been coming to the levy, looking at the river which is at the highest level it s been since the great flood of 1927. during that flood, the levy system was breached, causing severe flooding throughout much of the city of greenville. officials believe it s going to be different this time around. right now we re walking up one of the levees that protects this city from the flood waters of the mississippi river. it s been strengthened over the years, and local officials believe that it is going to continue to hold. as you can see, it s doing a good job now, because on the opposite side of this levy from the river, you can see it s business as usual, the streets are dry, people going about their business, even though this area is below the current level of the mississippi river which is expected to crest somewhere in the neighborhood of 64 or 44 1/2 feet sometime tomorrow. jon, back to you. jon: good to be on the dry side of that levy. that s an understatement.
a giant lake behind me. that lake is growing by the second. it is moving south. several different small towns as many as 25,000 people could be affected or flooded by this water. it was a deliberate decision a tough one for officials deciding to flood out the lower planes here praptsz submerge some towns entirely before they protect the larger population centers in baton rouge and new orleans. they will be under a great deal of stress from the rise in the river to let this water lose and choose to flood the low lying small towns but one resident of those towns were busy evacuating seem to understand. it will be engineers told me today a time of tremendous stress in the levy system and tremendous stress for the people who live along it as well.