JACKSON, Miss. — The Mississippi River flood of 2011 might seem like a thing of the past for people who fled rising waters that never came, yet the final toll is shrouded in murky water for thousands of people devastated as the flood made its way from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico.
Thousands of acres of crops, timber and catfish farms are still flooded, mostly by tributaries that backed up because the Mississippi River was so high. Hundreds of people are displaced from flooded homes. Some people had nothing to go home to.
In the Mississippi Delta, Tim Saxton is praying for the levees to hold — not the levees on the Mississippi River, but the ones on his 500-acre catfish farm. Saxton is not sure how bad Five Mile Fisheries was damaged because it is still underwater. So he waits and wonders.
“It’s going to be tough on a 60-year-old man to start over, but I’m sure going to try,” Saxton said.
He is not the only one starting over. The mobile home park in Memphis, Tenn., where Leandro Lugo lived with his pregnant wife and two young children is abandoned, like “something out of a movie.” Many of the mobile homes were flooded to their roofs. Red stickers mark the ones that are unlivable.
Lugo and his family were among the first to arrive at the Hope Presbyterian Church shelter. Most of the 177 people who stayed there have left for rented apartments or hotel rooms paid for by the federal government. And after more than a month, Lugo and his family left too.
The bed of Lugo’s white pickup was filled with donated items such as baby diapers, chairs and a bed for his kids.
“We were a little frustrated at one time, but we realized that we couldn’t control what God has in store for us,” said Lugo, 37, a construction worker. “We have to keep moving forward.”
Some were more fortunate.
Hundreds of people living along Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River heeded mandatory evacuation orders when the Army Corps of Engineers opened the Morganza floodway north of Baton Rouge. The corps had warned Butte LaRose residents that diverting the Mississippi River’s floodwaters into the Atchafalaya basin could inundate the town.
Weeks later, that dire forecast hasn’t come to fruition. The water has damaged a few homes but spared the vast majority. The evacuation order has been lifted.
“I said I wanted to give Mother Nature a run for her money,” said construction company owner Maxim Doucet. “We won this time, but we don’t know if we’ll win the next time.”
Flood toll
450,000 Acres of cropland that were flooded in Mississippi, causing more than $250 million in damage
5,600 People who have applied for government assistance in Mississippi and Tennessee
