MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Reuters) – Memphis area residents were warned on Saturday that the Mississippi River was gradually starting to "wrap its arms" around the city and rise to record levels as flooding moves south.
"It's a pretty day here, and people get a false sense of security," said Steve Shular, public affairs officer for the Shelby County Office of Preparedness. "The mighty Mississippi is starting to wrap its arms around us here in Memphis."
Nearly 3,000 properties are expected to be threatened. Rising water flooded 25 mobile homes in north Memphis Saturday morning. There were 367 people in shelters in Shelby County Saturday.
"Our community is facing what could be a large-scale disaster," said Shelby County Mayor Mark H. Luttrell, Jr., in a statement.
Water has covered Riverside Drive and is creeping up Beale Street, although below the level of businesses and residences. Most of downtown Memphis is on a bluff, so landmarks like historic Sun Studio, where music legends Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash got their starts, were not seeing flooding. Tour guide Jake Fly said people north and south of the city are "really feeling it."
"We're all hoping this river is going to crest soon, man," said Fly. "Man, it's something to see."
The National Weather Service forecast that the river will crest Wednesday in Memphis at 48 feet, just under the 1937 record. No significant rain is forecast for the next few days in the area. The weather service expects record crests in Mississippi at Vicksburg on May 20 and Natchez on May 22.
No deaths or injuries have been reported in the Memphis flooding, but the spectacle has drawn sightseers -- an activity being discouraged by emergency officials.
"Most of the tourists weren't trying to visit the clubs on Beale Street, but they were trying to touch the water," said Joseph Braslow, 20, son of one of the owners of A. Schwab Dry Goods on Beale Street.
Further north in Missouri, the river was cresting Saturday afternoon at Caruthersville, said Ryan Husted, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Memphis. New Madrid, Missouri and Tiptonville, Tenn. crested at 48.35 Saturday and levels are falling.
The U.S. Coast Guard closed a portion of the Ohio River Saturday. The Coast Guard closed the Mississippi at Caruthersville briefly Friday.
Shular said a major concern is flooding along the tributaries of the Mississippi. These smaller streams and rivers usually flow into the larger river, but are "hitting a brick wall" and backing up.
In Arkansas, a portion of Interstate 40, a major national road artery for trucking, remained closed on Saturday due to flood waters.
In the state of Mississippi, over 2,000 residents will have to evacuate as the river continues to rise, according to Jeff Rent, director for external affairs for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
"It will be much higher" than 2,000, Rent said. "There just does not seem to be an end to these emergencies lately."
A snowy winter spawned near-record crests on the Upper Mississippi this year that reached southern Illinois at about the same time as heavy rain swelled the Ohio River.
The resulting flows have threatened to overwhelm the intricate flood levee system, prompting the U.S. government to open a Missouri floodway for the first time since 1937 to relieve pressure. U.S. officials are expected to activate three floodways this year for the first time in history.
The U.S. government blew a hole in the Birds Point levee last Monday, flooding Missouri farmland to save some Illinois and Kentucky towns.
The U.S. plans to open the Bonnet Carre Spillway 28 miles north of New Orleans on Monday to relieve pressure on the city by diverting some of the flow to Lake Pontchartrain. It also could open the Morganza Spillway farther north by Thursday.
This year's flooding is set to eclipse numerous crest records set mainly in 1927 and 1937. The Great Flood of 1927 swelled the Lower Mississippi to 80 miles wide in some parts, caused up to 1,000 deaths by some estimates and drove more than 600,000 people from their homes.
Since 1927, levees have been raised and constructed with different methods, dozens of reservoirs have been added across the basin and floodways have been added.
(Writing by Mary Wisniewski; additional reporting by Tim Ghianni in Nashville and Leigh Coleman in Mississippi; Editing by Greg McCune)