14 minutes past the hour. we re still focusing on the devastating flooding. hundreds of homes now completely under water in mississippi. the disaster is one they knew was coming. now it s here. 14 counties have now been declared disaster area, major disaster areas in the state of mississippi alone. the swollen river continues to roar south all the way to the last place that needs the water, new orleans. in louisiana right now, it s not a matter of if there will be a flood, it s a matter of where to put that flood. officials right now are debating on whether to open the floodgates on the morganza spill way. this spillway is holding back a 20-foot-high wall of water that could wash out 3 million acres of land. rob marciano is in the town of tunica. one of the greatest images earlier this week was this huge bladder of river water.
the mississippi river is now swallowing more and more homes, businesses, crops, communities as it s surging south towards new orleans. 14 mississippi counties have been declared major disaster areas. you re looking at the hard-hit city of tunica. our meteorologist rob marciano is there. rob, give us the situation on the ground. what are you seeing? reporter: we ve moved away from the river today to get a little of the human story. you mentioned the counties in mississippi that are declared a disaster. on the other side of the river in arkansas, it s a little bit more of farm land, but thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars being affected by the flood on that side. there are a number of what we call cutoffs throughout river where the army kocorps of engineers straighten the river to make it shorter for ships to go through. in some of those cutoffs, they re very susceptible to flooding. those are the pictures you ve been seeing. west of tunica where hundreds of