This May 12 image provided by NASA shows the outlines of heavily flooded agricultural fields on the Missouri side of the Mississippi river. The center point for this frame is just north of Caruthersville, Mo. and west of Ridgely, Tenn. North is towards the lower right corner of the image.
Mississippi River floodwaters continue to creep up the Old Train Depot in downtown Vicksburg, Miss., on May 14. The waters from the Mississippi River and its tributaries are not expected to crest in Vicksburg until Thursday.
Elise Clair plays with blades of grass atop a sandbag levee in Pierre Part, Louisiana on May 15. A day after Army engineers opened a key spillway to relieve flooding along the Mississippi River, residents of small Louisiana towns braced on Sunday for a surge of water that could leave thousands of homes and farms under as much as 20 feet of water. Scores of US heartland rivers from the Dakotas to Ohio have flooded following a snowy winter and heavy spring rains, feeding near-record crests on the lower Mississippi River.
National Guardsmen Keith Sykes (l.) and Shawn Cholera prepare a levee on May 15 off of Lake Palourde Road in Amelia, La. Sykes and Cholera, together with the 205th engineering battalion, out of Bogalusa, La. have been in the area since May 11 preparing for the impending flooding.
A man watches as water diverted from the Mississippi River spills through a bay in the Morganza Spillway in Morganza, La., on May 14. A steel, 10-ton floodgate was slowly raised Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades, unleashing a torrent of water from the Mississippi River, away from heavily populated areas downstream.
Hurricane-downed trees start to float out of the woods along the Atchafalaya River after the opening of the Morganza spillway on May 15. The Morganza spillway's opening diverted water from heavily populated New Orleans and Baton Rouge — along with chemical plants and oil refineries along the Mississippi's lower reaches — easing pressure on the levees there in the hope of avoiding potentially catastrophic floods.
Billy Hanchett (c.) and his girlfriend Renee Ledoux pose in their bare living room in Krotz Springs, La.,on May 15, 2011, after emptying their house in advance of forecasted flooding brought on by the opening of the Morganza Spillway north of town. Hanchett and Ledoux plan to stay in a trailer parked outside of their home for as long as possible. If high flood waters force local officials to close access to the town, which is protected by a ring levee, they plan to pull their trailer inside the ring and wait for the water to recede.
A member of the Louisiana National Guard stands guard as water is diverted from the Mississippi River through a bay in the Morganza Spillway in Morganza, La. Opening the spillway diverts water away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi.
Water diverted from the Mississippi River spills through a bay in the Morganza Spillway in Morganza, La.
Workers use cranes to remove some of the Bonnet Carre Spillway's wooden barriers, which serve as a dam against the high water, in Norco, La., on May 9 in anticipation of rising floodwater. The spillway, which the Army Corps of Engineers built about 30 miles upriver from New Orleans in response to the great flood of 1927, last opened during the spring of 2008. Gerald Herbert/AP
People gather to look at opened bays on the Bonnet Carre Spillway in Norco, La., on May 9, which the Army Corps of Engineers partially opened to alleviate pressure on Mississippi River levees. The spillway diverts water from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain. Patrick Semansky/AP
Temporary structures are constructed at Angola State Penitentiary in West Feliciana Parish, La., on May 9. A convoy of buses and vans transferred inmates with medical problems from Angola, which is bordered on three sides by the Mississippi River, while other inmates were moved to buildings on higher ground to prepare for possible flooding. Patrick Semansky/AP
Two pickup trucks are surrounded by flood water outside a garage in Memphis, Tenn., on May 8. Memphis residents were being told to flee their homes for higher ground as the mighty Mississippi River edged toward the city, threatening to bring more flooding to parts of an area already soaked. Jeff Roberson/AP
Cedric Briggs takes a photo with his phone in the Box Town neighborhood in Memphis, Tenn., on May 8, as flood waters continue to rise along the Mississippi River. Wade Payne/AP
Col. Vernie Reichling, commander of the US Corps of Engineers, Memphis District, speaks during a news conference in front of the rising Mississippi River in Memphis, Tenn., on May 8. Wade Payne/AP
The Mississippi River swells near the top of a levee near Tiptonville, Tenn., in the northwestern corner of the state, as seen from a Tennessee National Guard helicopter on May 3. Erik Schelzig/AP
Cairo Police Chief Gary Hankins surveys fallen floodwaters along route 51 leading out of his southern Illinois city near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers on May 3. Cairo's flood defenses were threatened dramatically before the Army Corps of Engineers intentionally breached a Missouri levee just downriver the previous night, easing some of the floodwaters in Cairo, Ill. Jim Suhr/AP
Part of the 130,000 acres of farmland flooded by an intentional break in the Birds Point levee is seen on May 3, in Mississippi County, Mo. Army Corps of Engineers' blew a two-mile hole into the levee in southeast Missouri to take pressure off the rising Mississippi and Ohio rivers and try to protect nearby Cairo, Ill. Jeff Roberson/AP
Army Corps of Engineers' Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh (r.) steps to a microphone to answer questions alongside Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (l.) during a news conference near the Birds Point levee on May 1, in Mississippi County, Mo. Jeff Roberson/AP
Buildings are seen surrounded by floodwater on May 3, in Mississippi County, Mo. Jeff Roberson/AP
John Rose (l.) and Brady Brown walk next to a sandbag levee on Locust Street in Elizabethtown, Ill. on May 3. The demolition of the levee sent water pouring onto thousands of acres of farmland on May 3, easing the Mississippi River floodwaters threatening the tiny Illinois town of Cairo. The demolition project did nothing to ease the risk of more trouble downstream, where the mighty river is expected to rise to its highest levels since the 1920s in some parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Stephen Rickerl/The Southern Illinoisan/AP
Townspeople in Elizabethtown, Ill. build a wall of sandbags to hold back the rising water on May 3. Stephen Rickerl/The Southern Illinoisan/AP
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon points at floodwaters as he flies near the Birds Point levee in a Missouri National Guard helicopter on May 3, over Mississippi County, Mo. After the levee was intentionally breached by the Army Corps of Engineers on May 2 Nixon said state leaders would do everything 'within our power to make sure the levee is rebuilt and those fields, the most fertile fields in the heartland, are put back in production.' Jeff Roberson/AP
With Green River floodwater over his calves, Daniel Davis stands in the kitchen with personal belongings on sawhorses on May 3, in Livermore, Ky. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said, on this same day, that a decision to breach a levee along the Mississippi River in Missouri is helping to take the pressure off floodwalls in his state. Beshear visited a flood evacuation shelter in Paducah, meeting with residents displaced from their homes near where the Ohio and Tennessee rivers meet.
C.L. Jones paddles his way back to shore on May 3, in Calhoun, Ky. John Dunham/Messenger-Inquirer/AP
Daniel Davis walks across the porch while his father, Winfred Davis, holds the boat in place on May 3, in Livermore, Ky.
A car drives along a levee separating the surging Mississippi River, bottom, and flooding agricultural fields and irrigation equipment near Tiptonville, Tenn., on May 3. Erik Schelzig/AP
Flooding is seen in downtown Tiptonville, Tenn., on May 3. The Mississippi River is expected to rise to its highest levels since the 1920s in some parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Erik Schelzig/AP
While the German economy is being held up as the model for ailing Europe to follow, some Germans say that the benefits of the boom aren't reaching them.
When President Obama stood in Berlin today and said that budget balancing must not trump the priority of improving lives, some saw a dig at German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has led the call for austerity across Europe.
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