Record Water for a Mississippi River City

Source: The New York Times

VICKSBURG, Miss. — Late Sunday morning, as the Mississippi River was rushing faster and higher past this town than it has in 183 years of record-keeping, Dontaye Buck was sitting perfectly still.

He was staring at a calm puddle of water in which his house sat. A man standing beside Mr. Buck’s mailbox was casting a fishing line into a neighbor’s yard.

“It never came this far,” said Mr. Buck, a 21-year-old college student. “The farthest it ever came was the backyard of that house back there.”

The city of Vicksburg sits safely on lofty bluffs, except where it does not. The Kings neighborhood, where Mr. Buck lives in the north part of town, is one of the places where it does not.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/us/16flood.html