out front tonight live from abu dab be. we re standing tonight about 50 miles from iran where u.s. official today called an escalating conflict with america, quote, urge the. an interesting word. iran claims it shot down an american drone that looks a lot like the one on krur screen. it s an rq-170 sentinel. that s a drone that is so secretive that its image can only be found on a few websites. it has the most sophisticated american spy technology there is. it was used in the killing of osama bin laden. if this really happened, that means that technology is in the hands of iran which could mean other unfriendly countries. leon panetta this weekend called iran an international pariah. the situation is escalating rapidly, and we re hearing headlines left, right and center in the united air rack emirates. the clock ticking on iran getting a nuclear weapon. so far recently we had israel threatening to bomb iran nuclear facilities, iranians last week attacking the british embassie
residential areas. right now all eyes are on the yazoo river. the confluence of the yazoo and the mississippi is not too far behind us. and it s backing up and they re afraid of that back water flooding. if and when there will be evacuated. suzanne? i know that area really relies heavily on the casinos for the jobs as well as government revenue. how are the other local businesses doing as well? are they impacted by these floods? reporter: they re actually not. the downtown area of vicksburg is on a little bit of higher ground, so we re not seeing a lot of shops closed. actually, there are some tourists coming to see the mississippi rising. so the hotels and restaurants are still open. so far, so good. they may close down highway 61 in and out of vicksburg sometime this weekend, so that will impact businesses here. holly firfer, thank you so much. in depth, troubled waters.
tell us about vicksburg residents. how are they coping with the rising river there, holly? reporter: well, suzanne, the residents here in vicksburg are on edge. as you can imagine. i m standing in yet another flooded parking lot. this is the parking lot of the diamond jack casino. it s completely closed. right here, we re about five feet above flood stage already and they re expecting this water not to crest until next thursday. as you can imagine, people are on guard and they re watching very closely. the people over here, this is a barge company, they ve barricaded themselves in with sandbags, a wall, and they ve got about five pumps that are still pumping water out. it is seeping through. and behind me on the other side, i don t know if you can see this, there is the top of what looks like a railing that s about four feet tall. and then you can see treetops beyond that. that s still supposed to be dry land. the shore isn t till beyond that spot. people are just kind of waiting and
as best they can. want to show you this barge company here. they started two weeks ago with all of the sandbags and built a visqueen plafrtstic wall. they re trying to get the water out as fast as it s going in. the big barge, that s normally not there. they brought it there a couple of days ago to keep the wake and waves from jumping the barrier with the water. about a thousand people in the state of mississippi have been evacuated sorry, 1,000 homes evacuated and they re saying thousands of people could be evacuated by the time the water crests. luckily, however, most of the businesses in downtown vicksburg are on higher ground. so they won t be affected. the river s where all people are watching now, 350 homes in the low-lying area and hoping there wouldn t be back flooding there. holly firfer in vicksburg.
snaking its way into the deep south. thoughts of residents in arkansas, mississippi, louisiana, are in the direct path of the slow moving flood. you can see it there. they are bracing for what could destroy homes and communities. along the path, vicksburg, mississippi, where holly firfer is. you saw on the map that we just had up, the mississippi river expected to crest where you are one week from today. are folks prepared? reporter: yeah, they re prepared but i don t know how prepared you can for this amount of water. standing in a parking lot, completely flooded. it s the parking lot of the diamond jack casino, which i closed. that casino is covered up past the first floor and there s another casino closed two more, they re watching closely. everybody is making all kinds of preparations. let me give you an idea. this already, we are already at five feet over flood stage here. and it is expected to crest not till next thursday. as you can imagine, all efforts are trying to keep the