"If the levees hold ..."

If we heard that phrase once, we heard it all day long as my sister, brother-in-law and I headed to the Mississippi Delta on Saturday to "see the flooding."

I know it sounds morbid, but we spent 20 years or so of our respective lives in the region where the flood forecast ranges from high and dry to up to four or five feet deep ... If the levees hold.



Good Hope Baptist Church



At Good Hope Baptist Church, in the Wolf Lake Community located between Yazoo City and Louise, former Louise schoolmates Roy Lee Cleveland and Randy Hill had just finished loading the central air units in the bed of a pickup to protect them from damage, but the outlook wasn't so good for the building, where water was expected to rise as much as halfway up the front doors.



"We're at 105 feet (above sea level) and the (Army) Corps (of Engineers) says we should expect it to go to 109, which would be about here," Randy said, making a slash type mark at his waist before adding the caveat, "if the levees hold."



Harold Horton

Power will be cut off in the area over the next few days and just up the road, familiy members, like Harold Horton and Hilma Horton Nibben were at the home where they grew up, gathering furniture and family mementoes and loading them to take them to safety.

"I'll take them home and keep 'em in the trailer, then bring it all back after the water goes down," Harold, who maintains an active email network of former Louise students, said. "How high do you think it will get?" my sister, who was a year behind Harold in school, asked.

"Well, we're at 105 feet," he said. "The Corps says it could go to between 107 and 109. At 107, the water's here ... holding a tape measure against a tree. We hope it's 107 because the house would safe ... but at 109, the water would be here and the house ruined because the floors are hardwood. We're hoping we'll be okay ... if the levees hold.

There it was again ... those four words on which the lives and hopes and dreams of so many now hang ... if the levees hold.

We followed the backroads into Louise, along the way passing many other families with trailers backed up to the doors and others heading toward the main highway.

It was, in a way, surreal. My sister and I grew up on Highway 14, west of Louise, and went to school with many of the folks now scrambling to save their belongings and the collections of a lifetime, such as Harold and Hilma of everything left behind when their father died at age 99 not too many months ago.

In Louise, we stopped and talked with Hoover Lee, former longtime mayor of the community and a lifetime resident.

"My daddy was here in '27," he said, referring to the great flood of 1927. "They walked over and stayed in a boxcar until they could get an engine to take them to Yazoo City. Mrs. Mecklin's house (Old Dr. Mecklin) still has the marks on it where they kept up with the water then, but they say we're safe ... that it won't flood here ... if the levees hold."

Between Louise and Greenville, my brother-in-law's hometown and where my sister and I claim, there was little to be seen other than barren fields or a beautiful, early stand of corn. Fields that once produced bale after bale of cotton now hold the promise of golden corn silks and ears full of kernels ... if the levees hold.

After an hour or two in Greenville, we headed south ... winding up in the Issaquena County seat of Mayersville. Driving past the community center, it looked as if most in the area had gathered for what had to be a meeting to discuss what was coming. We wound up on top of the levee, visiting with four other "gawkers" -- one from Little Rock, another from Florida and two from Jackson -- "My brother lives here," Little Rock said. "I brought them (referring to his three companions) to see it." He shared that locals had been advised to leave, but laughed and said his brother "would probably sleep through it."

Of all the places we went, only Mayersville was looking into the eye of a flooding certainty ... more even than the area around Wolf Lake. There's no "if" factor in play there ... because the levees south of town get a bit smaller and the water always rises ... and in this year when all the experts say record levels will be reached, there's but one thought that dominates ... what if the levees don't hold?