floodwaters are pouring into the basin where the river has been diverted to save major cities. they are being sacrificed for new orleans and baton rouge. rick leventhal is live where people are trying to save their homes. rick, it s a race against time. it is, steve. the water from that spillway slowly making its way down here, 100 miles north of us. they have 17 gates open, 100,000 cubic feet of water every second headed this way and that s why the louisiana national guard and the army transportation has set up this area behind us here. they re going to start building more sandbags here and spreading them out in the next hour or so. we can show you video from yesterday where we rode around on some of the temporary levees and sandbag walls that they have assembled around this community, 5 to 8 miles worth of new temporary flood walls that they hope will protect the 2,000 residents here in this industrial heart of st. mary
parish. another area of concern is an island that s just across the river from morgan city can only be reached by ferry. that s where officials are working to build up a road that s been acting as a levee for flood control and been getting swamped because of a barge that was sank to keep the water from rushing back up into this area. the road construction continues. the building of the walls and levees continue. steve, they re saying that they expect the water to rise another 3 feet in this area that would bring it up to the flood walls that had been built but not over those walls. that could happen sometime next week and, of course, they re keeping a very close eye on things here. absolutely. they know it s coming. they just don t know exactly when and how deep. rick leventhal live, thank you very much. so head over now to brian who has a special guest. yeah, treasury secretary tim geitner says he wants a done and clean debt ceiling vote. listen. i don t want to have to say
very, very far away from mexico, randi. rafael romo. what an incredible x-ray. thanks for bringing that. greenville, mississippi, baton rouge, louisiana, i wish i could say the worst of the flooding is over, but at least the water isn t getting any higher. the swollen mississippi river is cresting as we speak in both of those cities far above flood stage and it will crest over the weekend and in cities in between. not getting higher isn t the same as going down. it will take many, many weeks. that s many weeks of continues stress and strain on levees and flood walls. but those aren t the only source of protection. pumps can mean the different between disaster and mere dampness. so why doesn t south mississippi have any? cnn s rob marciano tried to find out. we have about 300,000 acres under water today in the yazoo backwater area. if we had a pump in place, we would still have about 200,000
at the same time, crews have worked to put up flood walls to minimize the damage. today, barges are moving again down the mississippi after the coast guard closed a 15-mile stretch in natchez for much of the day yesterday. the ships have to travel the slowest possible speed otherwise the officials fear their wakes could add pressure to the levees and the levees don t need pressure. they are supposed to hold back the river and the pressure could change that. and now a look across the river in louisiana, just across from us, where the water is taking over there, as well, but officials are hoping and they believe it could spare the $33 million convention center that is just across the mississippi. inmates from the local jail have spent days rebuilding the temporary barriers to protect the property. the local sheriff from across the river told me today that without the hundreds and hundreds of men and women who were kept behind bars, a lot of
the top of the wall in downtown vicksburg and look down look down, the water level is 6 feet below that. between that massive wall structure and the pumping stations, local officials are optimistic that that giant wall is going to be able to hold the flood waters out of the low lying areas of downtown vicksburg. fortunately, much of the downtown area, and for that matter, much of the city is on high ground. if you come back to our live shot, i ll show you, down there, you can see the mississippi behind me and over here, i am about 100 feet above the water level, and so all of these beautiful homes over here are in no danger of being flooded. but the effort as far as those flood walls, as far as those pumps, as far as the levellies, both those that have been established for years, and those that are make-shift levees like that one surrounding that warehouse there, all of those efforts are to protect homes and businesses in these very low lying areas of vicksburg. martha, back to you.